As I continue to ponder this seminary experience as both a "next chapter" of my real-time life as well as a continuation of some life I lived before, this amalgamation of thoughts, cultures, mindsets and expectations seems more and more complicated. The road of my past has not simply converged with the road I have more recently been traveling on, nor have I backtracked to something more familiar. I am both label-less and overly categorized to the extent that I feel the world has trouble knowing what to do with me. I want what I want but can't articulate it, can't put my finger on it. I'm not even certain enough of what it is to know if it exists or can be created.
I've visited three churches now since arriving at the seminary. The first was a church reminiscent of the one I worked at just after college. Non-denomiational (but really evangelical of some shade), seeker-sensitive, rock band worship, casual attire, chairs instead of pews... There was a woman who sat next to me and talked my ear off about the church, especially her small group, and then invited me to lunch. I declined.
As I was driving home, I wondered to myself what I had expected? I mean, I know how those churches work. I knew the sermon was going to be three points built on some kind of acronym or silly theme (I was right - "Big 'Buts' of the Bible"). I knew the music would be modern-ish but hard to sing along to. I knew it would be suburban and Wonder Bread white, not just in terms of congregants but in terms of taste - fluffy, room temperature, comforting but of no nutritive value. I think I went just to see if my expections, formed from within the walls of such a church, would hold for the same type of body now, years later, as my current self. They did. I'm sure that that church means something to the people that go there, just like the church I used to work at meant something to the people I used to work for. But for me, it did not resonate.
The other two churches I've visited were of the Presbyterian variety. These visits I felt obligated to make on account of my studying now at a Presbyterian school, but if I didn't know before, I know now - I'm not a Presbyterian. There is much about the tradition that I like, most of which can be summed up by the observation that they are a thinking and purposeful people. But I just can't get down on this Reformed worship thing. I don't like the prescribed liturgy, I don't like the creed recitation, and honestly, I don't even like the passing of the peace. It all feels like a shirt with too tight of a collar.
Each time I go to a church service, no matter where it is, I am always reminded, usually by virtue of the contrast of the scene before me, of the other church experiences I have had and counted as "good." That qualifier means nothing to anyone but me, in my own search for what church should be, but for me, there were things in these other experiences that resonated with me and with the people around me at the time.
My Home Church: The church I grew up in. I loved this church because during the time I was there, I was a part of the cast and crew of what was being put on. I was in the family - I knew everyone and everyone knew me. It was home, in the same way I think of being at my parents' house at Christmas. I was just being together; nothing flashy or over the top, just good, solid fellowship. Aside from my own parents, I had handfuls of other mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, weird uncles and aunts that always had gum. It was home, and I don't know if that will ever be recreated for me.
My Escape Church: Some friends, all of whom had become disillusioned with the church life we'd become accustomed to or worked in, came together to form a worship service that we literally just made up as we went along. There were traditional elements and non-traditional elements. There was evidence of all of our evangelical upbringings and our secret higher church longings. But what I remember liking most about it was that I just respected everyone there - not particularly even because I liked them all or even knew them all, but because I respected that there were those of us who were not happy with the status quo and decided to do something different, not in anger or rebellion, not out of a desire to simply be "alternative" for the sake of being such, but because we just wanted to peaceably try to see what would happen if we had a community that was intentional about worship, intentional about conversations, intentional about our spiritual lives. It was just an effort in joining together and paying attention and engaging, and I loved it.
My Last Ditch Effort Church: I was at the beginning of the end of my first church life, and I was going to a standard Southern Baptist church, in which I felt a sense of family through my adopted family-at-the-time. At this church, a contingency of us sought to form a Saturday night worship service that was less traditional that our Sunday morning service. I was in the band and taught some and enjoyed what we were doing, even though relationally (and as a result spiritually) my life was in utter chaos. That time, and the relationships therein, marked my exit from the Church for a season, but what I experienced there, in some small way, was what gave me hope to come back, though I wouldn't have imagined it would take so long, and I'm just now beginning to see the redeeming qualities of that slice of time. I remember a night where we were gathered at a house, doing a study on the Beatitudes (using Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship"). I was leading the discussion, and it was a mixed-age group, singles and marrieds, men and women. We got to the end of our alloted time and the conversation kept going... and going... and going for hours, and no one wanted to leave, though I kept giving plenty of outs. We were chewing on things and mulling things over and considering things in new ways. A bunch of Baptists doing all that, imagine. In that bible study, and in that time, I experienced actual life intersecting with actual God - a thin place - and I discovered that that is the only way that "church" has any meaning.
And that if I can't get that, then I don't want church.
This takes time and effort, I know. You have to build a community, build that level of trust. But do you? Really? Should it be that kind of work? The thing is, I'm not sure that it takes all the kind of effort that we're putting in. Denominations, labels, systematic theologies. I think it's more about the effort we must now put forth to simply listen when we're trained to talk, to be when we're trained to do, and to converse with we're trained to apologize and defend. An old friend asked me once, "What determines who God is?" For her, the answer is sola scriptura. For me, the answer is also the word of God, but in all its various forms, when we will just shut up and hear it. Or speak up and say it. Or get up and do it, as the Spirit leads.
Who wants to go to that church? Who wants to be that Church?
Recent Comments