Nathan Tan: “Keep Laughing on Porches” (Grad Sunday)

When I first came to college, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to attend church at all. Experiencing the COVID pandemic in my junior and senior years of high school had taken me away from regular worship. Before that, I had spent much of my life deeply rooted in the Presbyterian Church. At Forest Park Presbyterian, I was there every Sunday, often multiple days a week. But as I got older, especially as fewer people my age stuck around, attending became less consistent. Honestly, it felt freeing to sleep in, watch more football, and use that time to hang out with friends or catch up on work.

As I prepared to head to college, I wondered: Am I going to have enough time to find new friends, dive into schoolwork, relax, laugh, share joy, and still find space for worship? And even if I do, will I find a church that matches the progressive values I held dear? I had perceived the Christianity of Forest Park Presbyterian Church to be an uncommon doctrine. Services had a rare blend of traditional worship practices and a strong commitment to the progressive social gospel. But most of the Christians I encountered outside my church community, whether in person or online, were much more conservative, sometimes even aggressively so. Would there be a place for someone like me?

Pres House turned out to be even more inclusive, encouraging, and loving than I could have imagined. It didn’t just accommodate my questions and critiques of what church is and could be; it celebrated them. From the very beginning, Pres House felt alive in a way I had never experienced before. It was full of young people, and even one of our pastors, Nii Addo, was in his twenties.

Two of those young people were my older twin siblings, Ben and Elizabeth. They had already found a home at Pres House, serving on Council and getting deeply involved in the life of the community, and they integrated me into it almost before I had unpacked. Before I even attended a class or my first Sunday service, they introduced me to my soon-to-be lifelong friend, Olivia, whom we all affectionately call Tito. I can still picture sitting on her porch with my siblings that warm August night, each laugh watering the seeds of friendship and belonging.

Ben and Elizabeth also played on the music team; Ben played the viola, and Elizabeth played the violin. Before I even arrived on campus, they had already told Natalie, our music director at the time, that their cello-playing younger brother was coming to town. By my second Sunday at Pres House, I was recruited to play alongside them. Not long after, I told Natalie I wanted to sing during service. Pres House nurtured that too, giving me space to grow as a vocalist, an incredibly valuable practice that had only begun for me two years before university.

I am grateful for each one of the incredible people who have spent time in community with me here at Pres House. The countless conversations, whether about history and politics, or sports, music, and all reaches of media, or purpose, existence, life, and, of course, Christianity, have shaped me more than I can say.

Beyond the friendships and the music, what has stayed with me most is how Pres House reshaped my faith. Week after week, sermons here centered on the radical, inclusive teachings of Jesus–not fear, not damnation. There was less emphasis on a punishing God and more on understanding Jesus’s life and ministry as deeply human and deeply transformative. Pres House opened the door for me to encounter Liberation Theology – powerful ideas from thinkers like Gustavo Gutiérrez, who showed how the Gospel can be a force for justice, liberation, and societal change. Through them, and our community here, I came to see that Christianity does not have to be a retreat from the world’s problems. It can be a tool for challenging systems of oppression and building a more compassionate, equitable society. It can align with my progressive values while still rooting me deeply in faith.

As I leave Pres House, I encourage you, my peers, to continue to make this space what it is. Continue to show up with open minds and open hearts. Keep asking the hard questions. Keep laughing on porches late at night. Keep playing music and building friendships, and finding new ways to make faith matter for you. Continue investing in and building this community where grace, justice, and love are lived out every day.

Nathan Tan (he/him) graduates in May 2025 with a B.A. in history and a B.S. in education studies.