The Walk of Shame

In our new church, they don't make it easy to become a member. It isn't that you need to just sign a piece of paper or have a confidential meeting and discuss how to become a member. It is publicly through the entire congregation.  One hand, it scares me to absolute death, that we have to do things in front of others, but on the other hand, it is amazing because I do agree that being a Christian should not be easy.  Every week that we've gone, we leave the service with a new action item on how we can improve and become better Christians.  We have several reasons why this Church doesn't seem like a place we should join mainly because it is in a city we are trying to move away from and remains over an hour for me to work.  But all of those wrong reasons beckons for all the right reasons to overcome our excuses and join because we are called to do so.  Fate truly brought me to this Church and I know that God has everything to do with all the signs and real reasons why we are here today.  This church has every quality that I've been looking for in a church and I have no good reason why we shouldn't join.  I wanted to make sure Tony was on board, but honestly, I never imagined he would be as excited, if not more, than me.  For being a catholic boy, I really thought he would have a lot to battle.  Quite contrary to my thoughts, every time we attend, that inner light shines brighter that this is what he unconsciously has been searching for but didn't even know it.  All the things he felt were what it meant to believe in God were all confirmed in a month long period and some go against all that he ever knew before.  They had a membership class that we decided to take which lasted four weeks.  I am telling you that the first day really taught me so much about God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost and so much about what it means to be a Christian.  For the four weeks we attended, we were enlightened and our dialogue when we left was on a deeper level when it came to us contemplating membership with this church.  One saying stuck out in our minds 'what are we waiting for' and honestly, we could not answer that question. The reasons that we had about moving, just didn't seem that important suddenly.  At the end of the class, the Associate Pastor told us that if we were ready to become members, we had to walk in front of everyone during service and give them a testimony on what we wanted.   Tony and I were saying to each other 'OMG! We have to do what?!?'  To me, it felt like the walk of shame, and really it sort of feels that way too - an outward sign that we believe we are sinners and are ready to be saved...could we do it?  Would we do it?  And that very next week, we decided as a couple that we'd do it.  But, then we heard that the normal Pastor would not be there and a guest pastor, from another church, would be speaking, so we said 'we'll wait'.  When we were in service that next week, the Pastor was there, he just wasn't doing the main sermon and we were a bit confused. I was thinking 'I didn't prepare'...'what would we say'...'I was going to try really hard not to cry'...'one of the old executives from my past employer was there who is really intimidating - he knew me back in my party days' and then at end of the sermon, a gigantic cross came before us and they invited everyone to come down and kneel and pray.  Many of our friends did, my old colleague, did and Tony and I looked at each other and said 'should we' and I said 'yes.' I was already bawling.  Then we got up there and we were on the wrong side of the church. We needed to be on the other side to give our testimony to the Pastor...and so we beelined it to the other side and did our walk of 'shame', but I was proud and I was ready and I knew it was the right time.  We talked to a decision counselor and we took that next step.