The story so far: I was raised as a conservative Christian in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS).

What did being raised in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) look like for me?

Found: Community. Lots of community! So. Much. Community. 

My parents took me and my younger sister to church every week. The only time we didn't have to go was if we were sick or if we were on vacation (meaning, traveling but not visiting family). I went to church and Sunday School for probably 50 Sundays a year every year from birth until I left for college. Plus there were church dinners to attend, Vacation Bible School every summer, and Christmas program rehearsals every winter. I saw the same people over and over again and grew up with a bunch of other kids. My dad's sister and her husband and kids went to our same church, so I was very close to those cousins. And our families were friends with lots of other families in the church who had kids about our age, which meant weekend get-togethers, camping trips, and sometimes joint summer vacations.

My parents spent a lot of time volunteering with the church, too: my dad was the Treasurer for many years (he took a break for a while but he's now back again), and my mom was (and continues to be) heavily involved in the church's women's group, the Lutheran Women's Missionary League (LWML). 

I almost always got anxious before church social events, but once I was there (and seeing kids I knew), I generally had a fine time. During all those services and events, I watched people pray for each other, make each other food, visit each other, celebrate with each other, mourn with each other, and just generally take care of each other, while professing their shared beliefs and the importance of those beliefs being shared. 

Shared beliefs are of fundamental importance to LCMS members. LCMS members will pray with other Christians, but they will not take communion with anyone who is not also a member of the LCMS. Any week there was going to be communion during a church service, you'd see a little note in the church bulletin saying that if you were new, Welcome! and also Please don't go up to take communion unless you've talked with the Pastor first (who would assess whether you were already LCMS or not).

I also knew, although I probably couldn't have articulated it at the time, that you could stay in community as long as you 1) believed the same things that everyone else in the community said that they believed, and 2) acted in a way that the community felt was consistent with those shared beliefs. 

And most of the time, that was fine! But it did make for some interesting interactions with who I was as a person. For one thing, I pretty much always knew that I was queer. I can even tell you the exact moment when I realized it:

When I was a preteen, I remember sitting in my bedroom, having just finished a "Women of the Bible"-themed middle grade book. I was a pretty lonely kid, and I remember feeling comforted knowing that some day, God would bring me a husband, the perfect person for me to marry. 

…And then a tiny voice in my head said, "But if it was a woman, that would be okay, too."

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I quickly bundled up that budding bisexual bubble and buried it because I knew that feeling was immoral, sinful, and wrong; and that it wasn't good for me to keep thinking about it. 

Problem solved! Sure, it wasn't a great situation, but I was able to do the mental gymnastics needed 1) not to worry about it and 2) to remain in community with my family and our church.

Next time, we'll look at what my more ordinary, day-to-day experience of being raised in the LCMS was like. 

Thanks again for listening and for joining me on my journey!