Melissa McClellan

Some of my earliest and fondest memories are of being in the church nursery with my Grandmother singing `Jesus Loves Me. I couldn’t have been more than four years old, and I was very confident in the fact that Jesus did indeed love me, and every one else, because after all like the song says “Jesus loves me this I know; for the Bible tells me so”, and Grandma ‘Lisbeth said so too. Every one around me at that point in time said so. I loved Jesus and I loved Lindsey Bridge Baptist Church, it was full of little people just like me, and as little people we were loved and lavished with the affection reserved just for the very young. They loved us even when Shannon Summerlin stuck his head in a mud puddle while looking for Easter eggs, dressed in his best pale yellow shorts and white seersucker blazer. (these are the sort of things that stick in your mind)
As we progressed from nursery to a real Sunday School class things got a bit confusing, it turned out that Jesus’ love was conditional and we were being prepared to go out and help (MAKE) other kids understand that. It was around this time that my mother remarried and we started attending the local Presbyterian church where my Step-Father was a deacon. It was huge, and the Sunday school rooms smelled funny and there was no playground or children’s church, which meant that we had to sit very quietly and not fidget. I was not impressed. The one positive was that I often had the privilege of attending the council meetings with my new Dad. He would give me a coloring book and sit me on the window sill of one of the huge stained glass windows. (always under the Good Shepherd) I am still convinced to this day that God loves stained glass as much as I do. I don’t remember getting anything out of the Presbyterian church except for baptism and a love for stained glass. The building was big, cold and people looked at you funny when you sneezed in church.
Thanks largely to my Grandmother and frequent visits back to Lindsey Bridge Baptist church I begin to have more of a fear of God than a true love for God. Then Mom and StepDad did the unthinkable … they joined the Mormon church. I had up to this point never heard anything positive about the LDS church…EVER; they were evil and were all certainly destined for a very special place in Hell. This was a point which according to the LDS missionary couple who came to our house twice a week, was simply not true. In fact they said, it was every one else that was bound for Hell because only they had they whole truth about God. All the other churches in the world only had a piece of the truth while they had the whole pie. (There was even a pie chart to drive this point home) Although they had to be some of the nicest people in town, I personally became uncomfortable with the concept of `Jesus…The Western’.
I was probably about twelve years old when I first read some of the LDS literature… the “Big Books”… not the simple, but well illustrated stuff that they hand out to new and potential converts. I got my bible and my Book of Mormon out side by side and compared the two. This was probably my first serious theological undertaking. I was fascinated and shocked at the same time. Even as a pre-teen I could see the obvious plagiarisms. I then went to the bookcase in the living room and retrieved another LDS book called ‘The Pearl of Great Price`. It was not an easy read, however, I quickly came to the part about how to earn God-head status (for men only of course) and ruling your own planet. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. I believe in the end I laughed, only then I realized that if the LDS are teaching one thing and as truth and the bible says something VERY different, might other people be doing the same thing? I spent much of the next few years reading anything I could get and asking a whole lot of questions that no one wanted to answer. I came to the unfortunate conclusion that there was not much of God left in the religion of South-Alabama.
I read about Gilgamesh as a freshman in high school and was amazed how much it sounded like the ‘absolutely literal and true story of Noah’s flood’. I realized that the bible was obviously not meant to be a history book, nor was it meant to be a science book. I began to have my own personal Q and A sessions a few times a week with the local Methodist youth leader. He was a very patient guy. I was confirmed a United Methodist at about 15 years old. No other religious body had taken any of my questions seriously. It seemed to them that there were three things wrong with me asking questions … 1) I was Just A KID …2) I was a GIRL kid… and most importantly..3) My faith was obviously weak or I wouldn’t be asking questions in the first place. They couldn’t be farther from the truth, my faith was very strong, simple but strong. I held on to the things that I really felt had to be true. God created us all and therefore would not sit around and devise a myriad of ways to condemn us all to hell. God loves us all, regardless. Even the Methodist church had a bit of a problem with the last one. They denied me my hard-won seat on the regional youth council and a trip to the convention after I said I didn’t have a problem with a gay person being a clergy member. That was in 1990, they still haven’t caught up with me on that one. But I was happy to be a Methodist with a brain that I was allowed to use.
I got married after high school in 1990. We spent years as a military family attending various churches, usually working with the children’s groups.
In 1999 we moved to Northern PA and were invited to be in the local Episcopal church choir. (that was the big evangelism tool) We truly felt we had found a spiritual home, one where we could think, and even speak those thoughts out loud because it was ok to have varying opinions in the same worshipping body.
We became very active Episcopalians, and sought ordination in order to answer our perceived calling.
My husband and I were later ordained in an independent Anglican church, but after a time began to feel that God was calling us onward, to re-vision what it truly means to be followers of Christ. We began to feel that there were and are things we can do and people we can reach outside the traditional denominational boundaries that the established Church can’t. It is a large, if well meaning, machine. There is much still to be accomplished if we are to truly have a church truly that welcomes all. That vision, that call has become the Progressive Christian Alliance.
Rev. Melissa McClellan