09.12.04

another church blog expose

Posted in faith at 1:17 pm by

This tradition of writing about my church that I’ve started has become one of my favorite moments of my week. It should be noted, I think, that while I am pretty critical of some things that go on there, I really do like the place. Perhaps that’s why I’m so critical. I’m looking for the perfect church, but I’m content too because I know the “perfect church” doesn’t really exist.

So, I guess the moral of the story is this: Don’t picture a cynical, hateful pessimist sitting in the pew from week to week taking notes on the slightest little thing he doesn’t like. That wouldn’t be accurate at all. In fact, I think that it takes an optimist of the highest order to be critical. After all, an optimist who is critical is a person who has hope–a pessimist who is critical is a cynic. I think I am the former.

At any rate, today in church we began by singing some hymns! I have got to say, I really get sick of singing lousily written praise drivel in church. It was really nice to sing some hymns again. Now, the order of worship still sucked (translation: it didn’t make any sense that we were singing songs in the order we did and the worship didn’t have the least bit of “flow,”) but singing an old hymn or two–albeit to a guitar rather than an organ–allowed me to forget about the details of liturgy that were notably absent. I sang my heart out this morning like I haven’t for months. It felt good.

If I were to have any gripe this morning I suppose it would have to be with the “alter call” portion of the service. It’s not really an alter call per se. The pastor says a prayer which he calls his “sorry, thank you, please” prayer. Essentially, it’s a prayer that walks people through the steps of asking for forgiveness and repentence and accepting Salvation. It’s probably not the technique I would use for evangelism, but I really don’t have a problem with the prayer, either.

What really holds me up is the concept that one minute a person could be listening along and all of a sudden they pray this prayer and their life is completely transformed. Does it really work this way?

Your knee jerk reaction is, “YES! Of course it works that way, Brandon!” It’s my knee jerk reaction too. But I’m not so sure it’s right. Perhaps on some abstract theological level praying this prayer radically transforms a persons life. But on a completely “non-abstract day to day grit and grime of daily life” level this prayer doesn’t do shit. When our pray-er goes home her alcoholic husband will still have just gone through 8 or 9 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and will be watching NASCAR, ready to beat the shit out of his wife because she didn’t have dinner out to him by 12 noon. It’s this that our “quick-fix” community has failed to recognize.

We tell people, on the one hand that “Salvation won’t end all suffering in our lives.” But, we go on portraying our lives as unblemished, perfect. No wonder folks get turned off fairly quickly after they get “saved” they feel like their salvation must not have worked just right. Somebody must have messed up when casting the spell, because bad shit is still happening to them.

I think if we really want people to authentically find a relationship with Christ, we need to stop having them say a “quick fix” prayer, and teach them they joys of community. We don’t need to have them accept Salvation; we need to teach them salvation through our actions. Allow them to find a more meaningful Salvation through living in community together.

By the way, after the prayer we proceeded to return to our “a-liturgistic” worship roots as we sang to “God kicks ass and takes names songs:” The battle belongs to the lord, and Awesome God. Of course these had nothing to do with the sermon…but what do I expect.

Thank God for the people! They, along with the diety we all share, make the place worthwhile.

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another church blog expose

Posted in faith at 1:17 pm by

This tradition of writing about my church that I’ve started has become one of my favorite moments of my week. It should be noted, I think, that while I am pretty critical of some things that go on there, I really do like the place. Perhaps that’s why I’m so critical. I’m looking for the perfect church, but I’m content too because I know the “perfect church” doesn’t really exist.

So, I guess the moral of the story is this: Don’t picture a cynical, hateful pessimist sitting in the pew from week to week taking notes on the slightest little thing he doesn’t like. That wouldn’t be accurate at all. In fact, I think that it takes an optimist of the highest order to be critical. After all, an optimist who is critical is a person who has hope–a pessimist who is critical is a cynic. I think I am the former.

At any rate, today in church we began by singing some hymns! I have got to say, I really get sick of singing lousily written praise drivel in church. It was really nice to sing some hymns again. Now, the order of worship still sucked (translation: it didn’t make any sense that we were singing songs in the order we did and the worship didn’t have the least bit of “flow,”) but singing an old hymn or two–albeit to a guitar rather than an organ–allowed me to forget about the details of liturgy that were notably absent. I sang my heart out this morning like I haven’t for months. It felt good.

If I were to have any gripe this morning I suppose it would have to be with the “alter call” portion of the service. It’s not really an alter call per se. The pastor says a prayer which he calls his “sorry, thank you, please” prayer. Essentially, it’s a prayer that walks people through the steps of asking for forgiveness and repentence and accepting Salvation. It’s probably not the technique I would use for evangelism, but I really don’t have a problem with the prayer, either.

What really holds me up is the concept that one minute a person could be listening along and all of a sudden they pray this prayer and their life is completely transformed. Does it really work this way?

Your knee jerk reaction is, “YES! Of course it works that way, Brandon!” It’s my knee jerk reaction too. But I’m not so sure it’s right. Perhaps on some abstract theological level praying this prayer radically transforms a persons life. But on a completely “non-abstract day to day grit and grime of daily life” level this prayer doesn’t do shit. When our pray-er goes home her alcoholic husband will still have just gone through 8 or 9 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and will be watching NASCAR, ready to beat the shit out of his wife because she didn’t have dinner out to him by 12 noon. It’s this that our “quick-fix” community has failed to recognize.

We tell people, on the one hand that “Salvation won’t end all suffering in our lives.” But, we go on portraying our lives as unblemished, perfect. No wonder folks get turned off fairly quickly after they get “saved” they feel like their salvation must not have worked just right. Somebody must have messed up when casting the spell, because bad shit is still happening to them.

I think if we really want people to authentically find a relationship with Christ, we need to stop having them say a “quick fix” prayer, and teach them they joys of community. We don’t need to have them accept Salvation; we need to teach them salvation through our actions. Allow them to find a more meaningful Salvation through living in community together.

By the way, after the prayer we proceeded to return to our “a-liturgistic” worship roots as we sang to “God kicks ass and takes names songs:” The battle belongs to the lord, and Awesome God. Of course these had nothing to do with the sermon…but what do I expect.

Thank God for the people! They, along with the diety we all share, make the place worthwhile.

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