People know that I have a beef with what passes for "church" nowadays. But what am I seeing exactly? What would I object to at your church? How do I think it should be? This blog entry may help shed some light on that a bit.
Let's start with the songs. Try this next Sunday. Make a "T" chart, and classify each of the songs/hymns sung, as to the primary, most repeated, most lines devoted to communicating, which one of the following (you're trying to decide which "side" it will primarily fall on, to my Brethren-raised thinking):
Us Stuff God Stuff
_______________________________
singing about us singing |
singing about us coming together this morning|
us sweetly surrendering our special lives to God|
singing about us and our feelings about God|
singing about us and our ideas about God|
|singing about what God has done
|singing about Who and What God is
|singing to God (without using that to segue into
"Us stuff")
Did you mostly sing about singing? Did you mostly sing about yourself and your thoughts and feelings? My own preference is for singing to God. I think God likes to be sung to.
My dad taught me that we worship God for Who He is, and praise Him for what He has done. How to worship? (we claim we're worshipping...) Read verses, talk, and sing about the essential nature of God, as much as we understand it. Displaying knowledge. Just saying "God's awesome!" displays zero understanding of Who it is we're worshipping. Do we have any understanding of Who we're claiming to worship? Are we getting to know Who He is?
How about praise? (we claim we're doing that too...) Can't really praise God in any of His three persons without talking about things He's doing/has done. When I visit churches, generally they're not really doing either. The songs may at best say "We love You, God, because You're worthy" and then continue to talk about how we feel, with crowd stuff like "We lift up our hands to You" which seem more about providing the crowd with a synchronized motion cue than with actually demonstrating any understanding and appreciation for God. An article by a hugely successful writer of modern worship songs has more to say about this here.
My dad taught me that we worship God for Who He is, and praise Him for what He has done. How to worship? (we claim we're worshipping...) Read verses, talk, and sing about the essential nature of God, as much as we understand it. Displaying knowledge. Just saying "God's awesome!" displays zero understanding of Who it is we're worshipping. Do we have any understanding of Who we're claiming to worship? Are we getting to know Who He is?
How about praise? (we claim we're doing that too...) Can't really praise God in any of His three persons without talking about things He's doing/has done. When I visit churches, generally they're not really doing either. The songs may at best say "We love You, God, because You're worthy" and then continue to talk about how we feel, with crowd stuff like "We lift up our hands to You" which seem more about providing the crowd with a synchronized motion cue than with actually demonstrating any understanding and appreciation for God. An article by a hugely successful writer of modern worship songs has more to say about this here.
Because of my upbringing, I expect every Sunday morning to be about the breaking of bread (the Eucharist), the apostle's doctrine, prayer and fellowship. That's in the apostles' writings, actually. As stuff the early Church did. And if I feel like none of those things really happened, I tend to view the church service as a waste of my time/idolatrous. As filling up that place that only God belongs in, with manmade church stuff instead. As a token pretense of doing what we're supposed to, but not actually doing it at all.
Taking those one at a time: I'm used to getting to take communion every single Sunday. So it seems totally pointless to me for Christians to bother showing up, if that's not going to be the point, the Jesus part, the climax of the whole thing. It's really odd to me, for Christians to go out Sunday morning, and not hear the name of Jesus Christ mentioned once, let alone the fact that he died. To not hear that sin was ever an issue. To not hear Hell mentioned. Last month I heard a pastor speak about sin for forty minutes, and we all went home without Jesus ever being mentioned, or any sharing of the idea that there's anything more to Christianity than "don't sin. God will catch you." He was preaching on the David and Bathsheba story, so Christ didn't enter into it. Just that David got caught. No redemption. No Jesus. That was weird.
Try this, to walk an aisle in my shoes: keep an eye on the clock, and see how many minutes into church you "go" before someone says something about Jesus and/or his death. Know that, if you were me, and you sat through the whole hour, and never once heard the death of Jesus Christ mentioned, you'd be tempted to go remove the cross from the wall, confiscate all the cross necklaces everyone was wearing, and ask people to stop calling themselves Christian. "God fans" maybe. But not Christians. Because Jesus Christ wasn't even name-checked, nor did what he accomplished for the human race ever get mentioned.
Try this, to walk an aisle in my shoes: keep an eye on the clock, and see how many minutes into church you "go" before someone says something about Jesus and/or his death. Know that, if you were me, and you sat through the whole hour, and never once heard the death of Jesus Christ mentioned, you'd be tempted to go remove the cross from the wall, confiscate all the cross necklaces everyone was wearing, and ask people to stop calling themselves Christian. "God fans" maybe. But not Christians. Because Jesus Christ wasn't even name-checked, nor did what he accomplished for the human race ever get mentioned.
Moving on to the apostle's doctrine. The apostle's doctrine as we have it, is in the form of our having (no doubt quite accurate) copies/translations/edits of the letters sent to the early church by the aforementioned apostles. Letters. What they had before emails. We have other people's emails to look at.
Here's something you can ask yourself, if you want to see things through my eyes: in your church group, in the course of a year, how many of these letters are read in their entirety, as letters are intended to be read? If you've only been handed scraps, or at most merely entire chapters, then to my mind why bother with them at all? They're letters. You can't possibly understand the message/intent in them from snipping them up into paper dolls, cutting and pasting them until they can be made to appear to be primarily about us. Because they're not. And if the apostle James wrote an epistle to "the church at Lanark county," there isn't one any more. There are hundreds. All carefully not working together, not agreeing, and mainly sending a clear message that we Christians are NOT one, not part of any unified, single Church/Body/Bride/thing.
And about the whole "which church do you go to?" thing: how many times in the course of a year do you find you've returned to discussions about the apostle's doctrine with people who don't even go to your church? You know? Other Christians in The Church, who live near you, or have connections to you, and so you naturally discuss stuff like that?
And never mind your church, how many apostolic letters did you read, start to finish, last year? You're a Christian, presumably, so how many letters to these other ancient Christians have you eavesdropped on? And how many apostolic letters are there that you've never personally read in that way? You know, to see what was being said. Not to use them. To know them. I highly recommend reading an apostolic letter all in one go, unless they're really, really long. It's an entirely different experience from hearing chunks people have torn out for their own purposes. Most of them you can do in one go, in a few hours. Try it.
About reading the bible. Try this: read a whole book of the bible. In a comfortable translation. With no study guide, or anyone to explain it to you. And here's the hard part: don't try to make it about you. Let it be itself, saying what it seems to want to say. There are no doubt going to be things that don't appear to have a meaning which is clear to you. There are no doubt going to be things you don't see how they have anything to do with you. And leave those like that. Don't reach for a guy or a book which will promise to explain everything, and apply and interpret it all up for you. Let that stuff steep in your heart and mind as it is. See what happens when you let it be itself, wearing its own texture and shape, rather than chewing bits of it all up and sticking some of that into the Jello mold immediately. Try it.
Here's something you can ask yourself, if you want to see things through my eyes: in your church group, in the course of a year, how many of these letters are read in their entirety, as letters are intended to be read? If you've only been handed scraps, or at most merely entire chapters, then to my mind why bother with them at all? They're letters. You can't possibly understand the message/intent in them from snipping them up into paper dolls, cutting and pasting them until they can be made to appear to be primarily about us. Because they're not. And if the apostle James wrote an epistle to "the church at Lanark county," there isn't one any more. There are hundreds. All carefully not working together, not agreeing, and mainly sending a clear message that we Christians are NOT one, not part of any unified, single Church/Body/Bride/thing.
And about the whole "which church do you go to?" thing: how many times in the course of a year do you find you've returned to discussions about the apostle's doctrine with people who don't even go to your church? You know? Other Christians in The Church, who live near you, or have connections to you, and so you naturally discuss stuff like that?
And never mind your church, how many apostolic letters did you read, start to finish, last year? You're a Christian, presumably, so how many letters to these other ancient Christians have you eavesdropped on? And how many apostolic letters are there that you've never personally read in that way? You know, to see what was being said. Not to use them. To know them. I highly recommend reading an apostolic letter all in one go, unless they're really, really long. It's an entirely different experience from hearing chunks people have torn out for their own purposes. Most of them you can do in one go, in a few hours. Try it.
About reading the bible. Try this: read a whole book of the bible. In a comfortable translation. With no study guide, or anyone to explain it to you. And here's the hard part: don't try to make it about you. Let it be itself, saying what it seems to want to say. There are no doubt going to be things that don't appear to have a meaning which is clear to you. There are no doubt going to be things you don't see how they have anything to do with you. And leave those like that. Don't reach for a guy or a book which will promise to explain everything, and apply and interpret it all up for you. Let that stuff steep in your heart and mind as it is. See what happens when you let it be itself, wearing its own texture and shape, rather than chewing bits of it all up and sticking some of that into the Jello mold immediately. Try it.
Prayer. Does your church pray for everyone, or just old and sick people? Do people feel free to ask for prayer for stuff that's not physical? Stuff other than money and health? Personal stuff? Spiritual stuff? If you have doubt, loneliness, anxiety, depression or something less concrete like that, are you going to get yourself prayed for? Or will your lack of joy and satisfaction be seen as threatening to the success image of the group? Will it be okay if God never gets you out of that wheelchair, never gives you a spouse or a baby or a job? Or will you ruin the image, the message they're selling?
A thing I sometimes do is to offer any random Christians I meet, the following: "let us two Christians 'agree on earth' about something you think would be good in your life, for you."
I'm surprised how many find this uncomfortably intimate. Too much fellowship, trust and openness required, it seems.
And how about you praying to God? Just talking? Do you tell him your doubt, your frustration and your lack of understanding? He knows it, of course, but it's a relationship. In a relationship, you have to share stuff so you can remain connected properly. If you keep in all the less flattering, hard to deal with, problematic stuff, you're "protecting" the other person by shutting him or her out. Putting up walls. God doesn't need that. And He knows it all anyway, so not discussing what's bugging you is particularly dumb.
A thing I sometimes do is to offer any random Christians I meet, the following: "let us two Christians 'agree on earth' about something you think would be good in your life, for you."
I'm surprised how many find this uncomfortably intimate. Too much fellowship, trust and openness required, it seems.
And how about you praying to God? Just talking? Do you tell him your doubt, your frustration and your lack of understanding? He knows it, of course, but it's a relationship. In a relationship, you have to share stuff so you can remain connected properly. If you keep in all the less flattering, hard to deal with, problematic stuff, you're "protecting" the other person by shutting him or her out. Putting up walls. God doesn't need that. And He knows it all anyway, so not discussing what's bugging you is particularly dumb.
Fellowship. Means hanging out with peers and connecting to them, is what fellowship means. "Fellows" are peers. What percentage of the people out at church on a given Sunday have never been in your house? How often do you see church people outside of church, when you're not even relatives or coworkers? How many people at your church aren't contacts in your cel, and aren't "friends" with you on Facebook? I guess I'm fishing for the idea of friends. Connection. Befriending the people in your church. Letting them in a bit. Letting them know the real, unchurchy you. Even if they aren't relatives or coworkers.
Is your church such that there is enough sincere, genuine human connection to start to foster any of that "love" stuff described in the bible? Is there a connection to various Christians which is part of your month, and not just to plan church stuff? Let's say you're going to go have a bit of a pray now. How many things can you ask for, in an informed way, for the various Christians who live near you, or who you have connections to?
Is your church such that there is enough sincere, genuine human connection to start to foster any of that "love" stuff described in the bible? Is there a connection to various Christians which is part of your month, and not just to plan church stuff? Let's say you're going to go have a bit of a pray now. How many things can you ask for, in an informed way, for the various Christians who live near you, or who you have connections to?
Let's say you took all the "church" stuff going on at your church and put a month's worth of it out on a table to look at. Now remove all the bingo, movie nights, charity work, committee meetings, money-counting, worship team practice and all of that. How much is left? How much prayer, apostle's doctrine and fellowship are happening? And how much of all that good stuff happens outside those church boundaries, with people from other churches? If you do bible study, is it you studying the bible to experience new stuff, or is it just you presenting it to newbies, packaged up how you like it?
Some thoughts. Might help you see why someone like me might not be able to take your church even as seriously as you do.
2 comments:
great list. only recently started reading books at nearly one go, and it's an entirely different experience. hearing them read out loud is even better. old hymns kinda ruined me for anything else.
Hard for me, too, to see any purpose to 'doing church" when these basic mandates don't exist. May as well go skiing or see a movie….
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