It’s really hard to believe, but in September 1998, the same timeframe in which the New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” was released, I started a new chapter in my life that was totally unfamiliar to me in more ways than just one.

Not only was I starting high school, but I was attending a public school for the first time. Every year prior to ’98, I was either homeschooled or attended Kelso Christian Academy (which has now been reduced to a daycare facility). High school was a BIG DEAL for me, and I couldn’t wait to undertake this massive quest into the real world.

Being homeschooled meant that the Brewer Compound became Brewer Integrated School District #42, and Jason and I were the only students. It was interesting because Mom taught us everything except math — and when Dad came home from work in St. Helens he would always teach us. Which meant school in the evening, too.

Our sports programs consisted of intramural badminton, football against the kids in the neighborhood and the occasional wrestling match when an argument ensued. Brewer ISD was hopping.

We didn’t have many friends locally, so we had to rely on our home church, the LaCamas Valley COGOP (now it’s New Horizons Church) for that. It was the largest COGOP church in the state at around 100 attendees, and it was pretty vibrant for its size. The youth group was hopping, and in fact in ’98 Rainier Camina took over the youth ministry for Don Blumenthal…both men were great friends and have been mentors of mine through the years. Frank Smith was pastoring the church then, and still is now — and we were renting a building on the east end of Fourth Plain Boulevard in eastern Vancouver, Washington.

We had to travel forty-five miles one way every time we wanted to go to church, so that took its toll — but we enjoyed it there, and even through all the turnover it was still awesome. We attended there from I believe 1990-2000 (Mom or Dad, correct me if I’m wrong), then we attended the Kelso COGOP, a church much closer to home that was struggling hardcore yet had a pastor and wife that went above and beyond their call of duty to keep the church afloat.

Through all this, I was doing pretty well in school. I had started to pick up some friends, was doing okay in my classes even though my brain was smarter than what I let on, and all the while was attending a church that was a bit small yet in the back of my mind I found enjoyable for some reason. My transition into the “real world” went as well as Michael Phelps cutting through the pool in the Olympics.

Fast forward ten years and here I sit at my desk at the Springfield News-Leader on a break from my job, videography. In the ten years since I first attended high school I graduated, joined the Air Force, deployed to Iraq, came home, finished up my time in the Air Force, went back to Oregon for a brief time and now here I am in Springfield, Missouri.

The reason I mentioned church in the middle of all this, is sorta a piggyback to my post about leaving James River Assembly. Growing up, my church, as far away and as small as it was, was the lifeblood of my social and spiritual being.

LaCamas Valley, and to a smaller extent, Kelso COGOP, only topped out at attendances of 100 and 40 people, respectively, but that’s where they shone for me. There was a real sense of community that you flat-out could not get in a larger church — everyone knew each other and with that, everyone rejoiced and cried with one another, prayed and bore each other’s burdens. I absolutely needed what each church offered at those specific points in my life, and if I had attended an overwhelmingly large church I believe I would have regressed instead of developing as I did.

In terms of social development with Christian believers, I am in the same boat now as I was while I was homeschooled, albeit for a different reason. I’m still developing and could use a lot of Christian support, which doesn’t really come easily in a large church. I admit it’s a barrier that I am too weak to break, but then again I really don’t even want to try — it’s not my personality or who I am spiritually to go all out for a huge church in which I can’t feel a sense of community or freedom of the Spirit in my life.

So ten years after my first huge leap in terms of social development, I guess I’m waiting for another huge jump, only this time I want to leap backwards in a sense to a smaller church environment. Where I will find that, God only knows at this point, but I sense I won’t have to search for long.