Here I am.

It’s 7 o’clock on a Thursday evening, and I am sitting in the same coffee shop I arrived at for lunch. I have been tirelessly tracking down churches that might host me for one month of next year. To be precise, I am looking for 11 churches, of 11 denominations, in 11 cities, from New York to Texas, and Birmingham to Seattle. I have five of them set in stone, and now it is just a matter of filling in the gaps. This is what my next year holds in store, and as I sit in the dim lighting of this Sumatra-infused room, authoring what feels like the hundredth letter to a prospective church, I fight to fend off the cold sweat of uncertainty. How did I get here? Well, it all started in July of 2010:

There I was.

Trudging through campus in the overbearing yet somehow comforting cover of heat and humidity that has marked my past three summers in Nashville, when I realized exactly how frightening the blank chasm of the post-graduation unknown is. Especially when you decide to take a gap year. I knew I wanted to attend divinity school and enter some sort of ministry, but I was going to take a year first to… do what exactly? “Find myself?” No, that seems too self-serving. “See the world?” Maybe, but what does that even mean? The truth is, I had no idea what was going to happen in 10 short months, and it scared the crap out of me.

All of my roommates were well on their way to bright and successful futures, whether it be employment, self-employment, law school, or a masters degree. As my mom would keenly observe, it sure seemed like my friends were “getting their lives figured out” awfully well. Yes, and I was so proud of them. Bursting with pride, really. The kind of warm fuzzy feelings I imagine Olympic runners have for Usain Bolt as he passes them in the last 10 meters.

No, I really was happy for them. At the time, I was actually content with my own decision to put off divinity school for a year. After all, wouldn’t it be so satisfying to watch my friends suffer under the weight of law school applications and job interviews while I leisurely completed my studies? As it turns out, this attitude only works until the spring, when the proverbial tables turn and you struggle to plan the gap year while they soak in the last rays of youthful freedom from responsibility. Jealousy and petty comparisons do not help the situation. As my friend Gavin Degraw says, “It all is relative…depending on the life we lead, if we lead it.” But see, that’s the thing…it was time to start leading my life.

And therein lies the whole idea behind this blog. I wish I could say I was struck with a Pauline bolt of divine inspiration or that a bearded itinerant preacher rubbed mud on my eyes and upon washing it off, I could see the path laid before me. In reality, I just figured that if I wanted to enter a life in ministry, I needed to go see what was out there first.

But there is another element to this story. I want to know what a “church” really is. Most of us by now agree that you don’t need a steeple to be called a church, but where are the boundaries? In a recent blog post, Donald Miller posits that “God can see the church, but we can only feel around in the dark and recognize it when we see a common Jesus in a neighbors heart.” For that matter, what sets different churches apart? Why does an American searching for truth in a world of harshly competing values ultimately choose to one group? I’m a curious fellow, and these are the quandaries that peak my interest.

Eleven churches. Eleven denominations. Eleven cities. One month each. Pretty simple, really. I will go and stay at a given church, and I will (1) serve that congregation in whatever capacity they need. In the process, I hope to (2) gain hands-on experience in ministry. Also, I would have to try pretty hard to not (3) greatly expand my perspective.

Serve. Learn. Grow. Beat that, Liz Gilbert.

This “pilot” post is simply meant to establish what I am doing and explain where I am coming from. In the next two months, I plan to dive into the questions that will propel next year’s Church Trek (just kidding, but wouldn’t it be fun if William Shatner did the voice-over to the blog?).

Do denominations matter?

What is “American Christianity”?

How do different churches perceive God’s will, and how do they work to serve that end?

What divides us as Christians, as citizens, and as humans?

What unites us?

One more thing: I want to make this a conversation. What do denominations mean to you? If you are not religious, what do you think about Christians and other religious folk splitting up based on doctrine? What do you think is stupid about my plan? What ideas do you have? I’m not eloquent enough to spout things out and have it be worth anything; I am here to learn what everyone else thinks, otherwise this year is worth a whole lot of nothing!

I eagerly await our discussion.