I was not born into the United Methodist Church. I was a “cradle roll” Southern Baptist. My decision to attend United Methodist related Millsaps College came down to the timeliness of their Financial Aid offer. I had been formed to believe that Southern Baptists were the “First Class” Christians. We baptized the “right way” (Believers Baptism by immersion). Attendance at the “Lord’s Supper” was limited to those “First Class” Christians. The Millsaps Campus Ministry was planning an Advent Communion service in the college chapel in December 1977, my freshman year. I approached Lee Reiff, Chair of the Religion Department and United Methodist clergy, if I would be welcome at the Communion table. His response planted a seed that is still growing forty-six years later: “We consider it God’s Table, not ours.”

I was a seminary student when I learned the Wesleyan term “Prevenient Grace,” but Dr. Reiff’s response had “seated” that notion in me six years earlier. God’s grace surrounds us and upholds us well before we respond to it. Over the forty-three years I’ve been United Methodist, we’ve squabbled about who is “in” and who is “out,” but the bedrock conviction is that drawing lines to keep people “out” is just not who we are. I will remain United Methodist because I learned I was “in” because of who God is, not who I am or what I do.