I came to Anglicanism the way one develops a palate—by paying attention. At twenty-five I found myself unable to see Christ in the faith tradition I belonged to. Spiritual practice was dictated by trends, charisma, and aesthetics. Words like ‘relevant’ and ‘organic’ were repeated ad nauseum as espresso bars and special lighting were installed. Stained glass was covered over with butcher paper, sermons were topical, and Holy Communion was tacked on as an afterthought. Sundays had become a performance of a tidy God who appeared too much like us, prone to partisanship and favoritism and abuse. So I left.

It wasn’t a crisis of faith that led me out the door; it wasn’t a desire to find the ‘ideal’ church—there is no such thing. It was that I felt I had to lose church to keep my faith. I knew Christ loved His Church and that I was supposed to love it too, but I wanted nothing to do with it.

Around this time I’d gotten it into my head that the only way to find my place in God’s world was to travel it. That’s how I found myself alone and jetlagged at Christ Church in Dublin. I’d wanted to admire its architecture and explore the crypt, but the priest invited me to stay for midday prayer. Though I fumbled through the prayers and missed cues, there was a sense of communion with the saints who came before, as though their prayers lived inside the pages and that mine had melted in with theirs. Liturgy presented God as Someone to know instead of an idea to be sold. I spent the next year visiting monasteries and holy sites and cathedrals across western Europe, attending services. I’d return to America with a hunger for liturgy but no table to share it. 

Years passed, and in that time I traveled, enrolled in graduate school, and eloped with my husband, Travis. When we met, he was equally devoted to Jesus but just as ambivalent toward the Church. Neither of us ever imagined returning to communal worship–what we knew of the Church was so unlike Christ that there seemed little point in attending. Yet as God knitted us together in marriage, He snuck in a thread that would soon lead us back. 

It took almost two years of being together for us to heal enough to even discuss returning. But God was gentle with us, patient in a way only Someone outside of time could be. We followed His promptings through the doors of many churches, only to be reminded of why we left in the first place. After a particularly disheartening day, my husband asked whether I thought the churches I’d loved so much in my travels existed in the US. I was doubtful, but decided there was no harm in a Google search. To my surprise several options popped up, the first being Christ Our Hope. The next Sunday we attended service, and though we were cautious, we kept returning until we couldn’t imagine not attending.

It took returning to God’s Church to love it, to forgive and risk the damage we inflict upon one another as imperfect saints. It took trusting God more than our pain to sit again at His beloved’s table. 

About the Author: Stefanie (S.K.) Munday,  is a writer and high school English teacher who currently attends Christ Our Hope Anglican Church in Olympia, WA with her husband, Travis.