My personal statement about faith and Church

Many timesin past 32 years somebody has asked me who I am. Most of the time such questionswas connected to my social work. And many times I was pushed to give answerlike “I am Polish, men, Christian, left side liberal, gay”. Such answers aregood if you try to put yourself in social accepted shapes. But also answerslike this closing you into boxes. I prefer simple, opening answers. One of thebest gave me as example Rev. Peter C. Gomes [1]  from Harvard University. When heattended on Gay Christian Network ConferenceL;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;mso-bidi-font-style:italic">[2] in Anaheim CA he said: “If you askme who I am, don't expect me to say that I am black, American, well educated,single, pastor and gay. Because it will be good, but not good enough answer. Ifyou ask me who I am, you will receive one answer. I am child of God, like you.It is enough and good answer for all describing you questions.” After thisconference I took this words into myself and “I am child of God, like you”becomes my answer for “Who You are?” questions.

Mostinformation about my life and social believes you can find in book “RainbowHumming Bird on the Butt” - autobiography written for the request of L.A.G.C.and published by LGBT Press in 2007 (ISBN: 978-8392419105)[3]. This book contains mostlyinformation about my life as gay activist and politician. It is enough to saythat in Poland I was one of the first public known gay people. From 1998 to2005 I played one of the major roles in Polish LGBT movement. It's stops in2005 after critical health problem, when almost one year I spent in hospitaland recovery from Hepatitis Virus type B. From that moment I resigned fromactive role in LGBT movement and concentrated in spiritual patch of life.

The mostimportant question of believes is where your faith is coming from. For most ofthe people I know believes are based on family roots and social traditions. Forexample in Poland, where about 98% of population declares themselves as RomanCatholics, only 40% declares attendance on Sunday's Service in regular basis.It is not the worst thing. Much more bad is if you ask them about core valuesof their faith. Only 35% of Polish Catholics know really what their religion isabout. Such things like Trinity, transubstantiation or even Resurrection formany of them are abstracts! For me the most painful point was when I was childand serve in RCC as altar boy. That time pushed me for long time outsidechurch. What for crucial for me as a child? That I saw how my church isworshiping gold not Christ! Money and gifts was more important for clergy thenpeople and congregation. For young altar boy who felt the calling from God itwas disaster. The last nail to the cross comes when I was 16 and found myselfas gay. Hate speech, condemnation, blackmail from catholic clergy pushed meaway from my mother's congregation. Until 2000 I declared myself as agnostic.But God has enormous sense of humor, and for Him nothing is impossible. This isprobably reason why in 2000 I met Rev. Ernest Ivanovs from Latvia. Gay like me,ex – Catholic like me, and called by God like me. It took him long time to pushme into point when I was ready to say again: “I am Christian”. In 2003, whenRev. Ernest decided to come to Poland for a mission of Free Reformed Church Iwas ready to attend rite of Confirmation. In front of God, with people aswitness I declared my faith in God. Again, by words of Apostolic Creed Iconfirmed my believes. But, opposite to former declarations made in Catholic Church,this one comes not only from “Because my priest told me so...” but from“Because I found it deeply in the Scripture and myself”. Few years later Iwrote sermon “Three pillars of the Temple”L;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;mso-bidi-font-style:italic">[4] where I describe what I understandunder Apostolic Creed. Core of this sermon was idea that Christians candescribe themselves by three pillars: One Dogma, One Promise and OneCommandment.

Dogma comesfrom Gospel and says that Jesus from Nazareth was Son of God (John 5:17-19),who comes to earth as a men without a sin (Matthew 1:18- 25), was crucifiedunder Roman's law and died on the cross (John 11:30), and after 3 days rosefrom the grave winning over the sin and death (John 20: 1-18).

Promisesays that everybody who believes in Christ will be saved by the grace of God(Romans 3:19-31)

Commandmentwas given us by Jesus Christ, who said: “And one ofthe scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving thathe had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel;The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thyheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength:this [is] the first commandment. And the second [is] like, [namely] this, Thoushalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greaterthan these.” (Mark12:28-31)[5]

Whobelieves in these three pillars will find his life as Christian. And this iswhat I believe in.

It isalways good to look deep into Scripture when we try to find what church is orshould be. One of the best examples about scriptural definition of the church Ireceived from Rev. Evelyn SchaveL;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;mso-bidi-font-style:italic">[6] on the same GCN Conference in 2009. She said that we should deeply lookinto story about people of Isaac mentioned in GenesisL;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;mso-bidi-font-style:italic">[7]. In that story we can find threesigns: water, wells and people. Let’s put this into our times. Water is symbolof Jesus Christ – according to His words “the waterthat I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlastinglife” (John 4:14).Wells are symbol of churches and congregations, because there we are “drinkingChrist”, by His Gospel, bread and wine. People mentioned in this story aredivided for the owners of wells and Isaac's followers. We are followers of theChrist and we are looking for His water. But not every well's owner welcomes uswith joy. Some of them condemn us by who we are, some demand us to change. Theysay “This is our water and our rules”. But they forget that water doesn’t belongto them. It's God's gift to all of us. So what we can do? We can fight againstwell's owners. But it will not be Christian way. We can go away and staythirsty. But it will not be Christian way either. Rev. Schave said to me: “Goand find your well, where you will be welcomed. If you will not find any, digyour own. Become well-digger.”

I waslooking for a church in Poland who will welcome not only me, but everyone whois “different” but I didn't found any. This is why with all my people I becomewell-digger for a Christ's water.

But notonly book of Genesis gives us description of church we are looking.

When weread New Testament we can find many passages describing us role ofcongregation. Like John 3:17-18 or 1 Corinth 12:28. For me the most importantone is Mathew 18:20: “For where two or three are gatheredtogether in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” In this passage our Lord gave us the most important lesson what weshould understand as a church. For Him church is congregation of those who aregathering together in His name. He did not say: “I will be with those who arewhite, heterosexual, male, sinless etc.” He did not use any valuation terms. Byreading Gospel of Mathew we can be sure that everyone is welcomed to beChristian. Talking about being sinless, there is many papers describing nonjudging role of our religion. In Romans 4 we can find passages proving that wecan be saved by our faith not by rules of Old Testament. And we all rememberstory about Jesus and harlot from John 8. A few others are similar to that.

NewTestament is good example for everybody who is looking for explanation howchurch should looks like. For me church is not a building but congregationdisciples of the Christ. Because this is how I understand our role in Christianlife – to be disciple of our Lord.

WhenI come to understanding sacraments in Christian Church I see two of themcreated by Jesus Christ.

Firstis Baptism, as a visual sign of our salvation and declaration of belongs toChrist.

Secondis Eucharist, as a visual memorial of Last Supper. By celebrating Eucharist weare sharing Body and Blood of Christ proving that we are His disciples.Eucharist for me is not only this, but also sign that we are congregation. Weare parts of Christ's Body.

Thirdsacrament is Ordination. From the beginning for me it was church rite based oncongregational tradition. But later I understood what Sacrament in deeptheological meaning is. Sacramental in church is what we as congregationdescribing as important, sacral and sanctioned by Scripture. In that meaning,basing on passages in Apostolic 2 ordination for a clergy person is sacramentalbecause it fulfills all points mentioned above.

In myopinion church order should be based on two core principles. When we talk aboutmodern church we should look at from perspective of Scripture and local law.Most of the countries have their own regulations about congregations of faithand sometimes one order will not fit to other culture or legal system. Thankfully if we go back to the basis – to the Scripture – all core values of building andmanaging congregation of believers will fit to almost every legal systems.  This is why for me base is Apostle’s letters.  There I found almost everything I need tomanage my congregation.

It maylooks strange that person from Poland, with Catholic’s roots, who areprogressive Calvinist’s minister are willing to start process of affiliationand membership with Free Methodist’s denomination. It may looks strange, butnot for me. Every year in Warsaw we have ecumenical week of services andmeetings. And at every day the same song is presented. This song is known as“We were one”. We sing in this song: “We were one, let’s take our hands. Wewere one with one heart. Let it happen. Let it come. Mystery of Salvation andUnity in Christ” Every time I hear this song I look at faces of singing people.Some of them believe that we are one Church of Christ. But for most of them weare “one but divided”.  When I readDoctrines of Christian United Church I realized that in fact there is nothingwhat I cannot agree with. More than that, I didn’t found anything what will benot included in our Doctrine. So I’ve asked myself: “If we are so similar, whywe are not one?”

I thinkthat the biggest problem for all Christians is not truly theologicaldifferences but deeply hidden human scares. But I am sure that we are all Children of God and His Disciples. Andbasing on that I look at CUC as church where I want belongs to.

All aboveis not all what I can say about my faith. It is excerpt from paper I want writein following year. I understand that we need more witness of God’sunconditional Love to all of us. I hope I am one of them.

Amen

Rev. SzymonNiemiec

ElderPastor of Free Reformed Church of Poland