Random Thoughts has a touching post about her new church experience.
So many people seem to be feeling similar things about “The Church” these days.
Not Jesus.
“The Church.”
We all long to feel a part of something, but when that something beats you down and just doesn’t care, what do you do? Where do you go?
I’m still a little paranoid about things regarding Maybe Church aka Not on Your Life Church, but less so. I’m getting closer and closer to not caring anymore who from that organization finds or reads my blog. Bring it on, Slappies!
During our tenure at Maybe Church, MB would take a small sketch book with him, writing and doodling in it during the sermon. Er, “teaching.” I wrote in a composition book I always had with me. You know, outlines for all those slanderous blog posts. If I could have, I would have live-blogged the Sunday service, I imagine. (Or “meeeeeetings” as this “family of churches” likes to call them.) We’d plop ourselves in the farthest reaches of the church, as far as we could sit from anything and anybody and still be sitting IN the church, bend our heads over our respective books, and look very earnest, very notetaker-y, very Onward Christian Soldiers about the whole dealio, when, really, I was just writing blog notes and MB was doodling caricatures of various church members and, when we weren’t doing THAT, we were busily writing notes to each other.
Oh, I miss Maybe Church! I do. For all the wrong reasons, but I DO miss it.
Below are excerpts from one page of Sunday notes to each other. These were written AFTER Outing Person had outed this shameful blog but BEFORE the retarded unsatisfying fallout. (Uhm, that I have yet to even write about.) I’d scan the actual page if I could, because the visuals are priceless, but it has real names on it, so you get my transcription instead.
I do hope you will be as edified by them as we were.
At the top of MB’s page, a list …..
Pastor Talents:
~ Supporting the short-sleeve casual industry
~ Channeling John Lithgow
~ Reviving the mustache
Then various frantic scribbles ….
HE: Hey, Perky Bob has backed off this week.
ME: He is DONE w/us. Maybe he saw the Ned Reyerson thing on my blog. Oops. Oh, THANK YOU, Outing Person!
*********
ME: I need some Icy Hot for my sore ass crack!
HE: In church?? You’re “de-gifted”!
(ed: That one is for Kris)
*********
ME: He’s really stuck on this “intersection” theme …… (several minutes later) ….. he’s talked about it every DAMN week …… (and another several minutes later) ….. if he says “intersection” one more time ….. KAPOW!!! …..(annnd another several minutes later) ….. Jesus must get bored …… zzzzzzzz …….
(Why MB was not moved enough to respond to my “intersection” plight, I do not know. I was clearly suffering.)
**********
ME: Where are they? Grumpy Guy and Nan? Theories?
HE: Hunting for food? Depression festival?
ME: It’s weird. Do you think it’s related to the whole “Tracey-is-a-tramp” extravaganza?
HE: Seems viable.
*********
Then there are various spot-on caricatures of the aforementioned people. It also says “Calvin” with a frowny face — because the pastor mentioned Calvin. Uhm, again.
Ah, yes. Church can be SO edifying, you know?
Sunday, we tried to go to another church.
Maybe Church is in our rearview mirror, forever known to us now as Not On Your Life Church.
But it was the Sunday before Christmas and when I woke up that morning, it suddenly hit me that we had nowhere to go. No church “home.” So I bolted up in bed and started to blub with the horrible horrible angst of it all and MB, lucky man, consoled me, which is just what every man wants to do in bed with his wife first thing in the morning on the Sunday before Christmas.
We discussed a couple of Christmas church possibilities. Places we “might” go. I just wailed some more and stared at the socks on floor. I told MB I might want to go to Maybe Church one last time because “It’s Christmas,” ran my tearful logic,” so maybe Outing Person will see me and say he’s very sorry for everything because,” I hiccupped, “of baby Jesus.”
Sure, Trace. That’s gonna happen.
I mention this telling detail lest any of you ever for a fleeting moment think I am the least bit intelligent.
I am not.
“I want to wear my ‘I am Tania’ outfit and go to Maybe Church and scare them all because I look like a brainwashed bank robber and then sit back and wait for everyone to apologize.”
MB stroked my back. I didn’t look at him because I was pretty sure he was trying hard to arrange his face into the “yeah, she’s TOTALLY normal” look and I just couldn’t bear to see him struggle. So I stared at the overdue library book on the floor next to the socks I’d already stared at.
“So ….. that’s what you want to do?”
“Kind of.” I wiped my runny nose on the back of my hand. Sexy. I should have used the socks.
“Babe …… uh …… yeah, we’re not doing that. Just get dressed and let’s get some coffee.”
He’s so reasonable. Why must I always be overruled? I hate him.
But I dressed in my ‘I am Tania’ outfit anyway: jeans, a tank top, an army surplus shirt of MB’s that fits me like a jacket, a black beret. Basically, in that get-up, I am Tania meets Che and, look, I ain’t messing around, baby Jesus. I look like I could march into that manger with a machine gun and demand our Lord and Savior hand over the frankincense, tout de suite, which he would understand because, sure, he’s a baby, but he’s God, for pity’s sake, and God can speak French if he wants to even though he probably doesn’t. On the Sunday before Christmas, I think it’s important to dress as if you remember the real meaning of Christmas — which, as we all know, is looking like a brainwashed bank robber and blurting out your demands to the baby Jesus in French.
I stomped into the living room in this outfit and MB rolled his eyes.
“All right. Let’s get coffee.”
“Okay, Tania.”
He is not easily intimidated by me. It’s frustrating. He really should take me more seriously.
Standing in line for coffee, you will be shocked to hear, I got some furtive, worried looks. I think I caught an old man rolling his eyes at me, but maybe he had a medical condition, like his eyes get stuck from the desiccation of old age and he needs to roll them regularly or they’ll never move again, and then he’ll go blind and won’t be able to see women who like to walk around looking like brainwashed bank robbers on the Sunday before Christmas.
Growing old sure does suck.
Back in the car with our coffees, we drove around aimlessly for a bit.
“I just want to hear a whole sanctuary of people singing O Holy Night. That’s all I want.”
“Okay,” said MB. “Well, we can go to X or Y. You decide.”
Hm.
X was our old church.
Y was this megachurch some friends of ours attend.
I dithered back and forth on my options for a couple of freeway miles. Tania is not too decisive, despite appearances. The exit was coming up and these places were in opposite directions. Choose now or smash us into the median, dummy.
“Oh, screw it. Let’s be invisible. Let’s go to Y.”
MB swept his eyes over me, up, down. Yeah, she’s gonna be invisible. I wish I was invisible. He sighed a small sigh.
Megachurch Y is kind of a joke to me because I hate megachurches. The whole idea of “mega” anything annoys me unless it’s someone knocking on my door with giant check telling me I’ve just won the lottery and become a megamillionaire even though I don’t even play the lottery because I think it’s stupid. But I hate the commercialization of church, which is what megachurches are. Product placement. Power couples. Corporate churches with “cool” one-word names. Well, sometimes with “The” in front of them; sometimes not. You know, names like:
“The Fusion.”
“Refuge.”
“The Flood.”
Ugh. I think “The Wankers” would be a good church name. At least it’s honest.
“Where do you go to church, Trace?”
“Oh, I go to The Wankers. Wanna come?”
Still, that’s where my split-second choice had us headed — to the megachurch with the cool one-word name and 23 services on Sunday, one every 7 minutes, and 15 services on Saturday, and 493,720 members. Or something like that.
We pulled into the parking lot only to find it was actually a labyrinth of parking lots, one spilling into another and another and another, all of them “FULL” said the signs, and all designed, apparently, to FORCE you to go to this church or die in the parking lot because there is simply NO WAY OUT of this unholy maze.
Tania was getting ticked.
You know, perhaps Maybe Church didn’t need to go to all the trouble of those manic parking police MAKING YOU FEEL WELCOME and those incessant Perky Bob lunch invitations and the outing of this blog for its vicious anonymous slander just to win us over to the “sovereign” graciousness of their church. All just a waste of energy, really, compared to Megachurch Y’s straightforward but brilliant strategy to simply trap you forever their endless Escher-like parking lots.
I think we were in Tijuana when we finally parked. We climbed out of the car, glanced around to make sure no TJ drug lord was about to behead us, and suddenly found ourselves lost in the swell of other churchies faithfully trudging to the compound entrance where Jesus was some 20 miles away. We’d never been there. We didn’t know where anything was. We just followed the flow, walking and walking, carrying our coffee, snarking under our breath. The beret pressing on my forehead furrowed my grumpy brow even more.
We made it to the entrance alive despite the fact that there was no one along this marathon route offering us Dixie cups of water or Gatorade or anything to ensure that we would live to tithe again. It was sheer grit on our part, obviously. Up the sweeping stairway we climbed, into the building and, yamahama, the place was massive. It overwhelmed. It made me embarrassed somehow. Glowing flagstone tile, vaulted ceilings, sky lights, spiritual wall art, everything earth tones and soothing yet grand, just the kind of giant tony headquarters you’d expect if Jesus CEO ran the world and wanted to show off how much he wasn’t showing off. To the right, tables with product. T-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers so people can know that the wanker who just cut them off is a Christian and they can find that wanker here, at the church conveniently mentioned on this sticker. Directly ahead of us was some kind of giant information center, spilling over with computers and flyers and people who seemed to pointedly ignore the people who needed information.
I hissed to MB.
“Oh, no. This will never be our church. This is a one-time deal.”
To the left were entrances into the sanctuary, half a dozen of them, like a sports arena. Crazy. From behind those doors, I could hear the singing.
The very end of O Holy Night.
Ah, crap.
We didn’t know what time the service started. We didn’t know anything. I marched up to the information center.
“What time is the next service?”
“Noon.”
It was 10:30.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Do you want to go in?” said MB.
I shrugged. Whatever. “Okay.”
Maybe they’d sing O Holy Night again at the end. Of course, they would, Tania.
The doors were closed with a security person in each doorway. We approached the dude at Door #1.
He barked at us.
“No coffee in the sanctuary.”
Translation: Welcome to our church!
“Okay,” said MB. “Can we go in?”
“No. Downstairs is full.”
We walked away.
Tania was pissed and muttered, “Thanks for making us feel welcome.”
For a fleeting second, I missed the doggedness of Perky Bob.
We were turned away at the next door, too, so it wasn’t just a personality problem with the first guy. They either really didn’t want us in the downstairs area or all their volunteers were psychos. We were Mary and Joseph, I tell you, being turned away time after time. Except Mary was pregnant and a virgin and not dressed like a brainwashed bank robber. One assumes.
The second guy pointed skyward and told us there was room in the balcony level. The way he said it, we could tell it wasn’t ideal. That it was where the undesirables sat or something. You know, the manger of the church. We rode the — ahem — elevator to the third floor, hid our coffee inside our coats, take that, security, and entered the church arena just in time to hear the pastor — a former NFL player — punctuating what he’d just said by saying “word!” and the congregation echoing him with “word!”
Annnd …. that was it. We entered through one door, heard that, and immediately exited through the very next door 10 feet away. We were in; we were out.
Nope. Can’t hang with that.
“Word.”
We shared the elevator down with a little black kid. He looked about 11, leaning against the elevator wall with his backpack slung over his shoulder. I decided Tania would talk to him and wouldn’t we have a nice little exchange because I looked so normal in my beret and army surplus shirt and huge sunglasses I was still wearing.
“So do you go to this church every Sunday?”
The kid looked a little startled. The thing with the blonde hair and the Sleestak eyes was talking to him.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Do you like it?”
He did the so-so motion with his hand.
“Well, lots of people here, huh?”
Suddenly, the floodgates opened.
“The security people here are DUMB! They told me I couldn’t go into the service I was supposed to serve in!”
The way he emphasized dumb, I almost lost it, but we were having a moment, I thought, Tania and the kid, so I didn’t want to blow it by laughing, in addition to looking like a freak.
“That is whacked,” I said.
“Whacked,” MB said.
The kid just looked at us. White people are weird. Moment over.
On the ground floor, we nearly sprinted. Out the massive front doors we flew, past the information center, past the product table, past the mega-lomania of everything.
Outside, I could breathe again, see straight, and something caught my eye.
“Hey, there’s a Trader Joe’s over there! Let’s go. I need to pick up some things.”
“Okay.”
We had church at Trader Joe’s.
When we left a while later, we couldn’t help but notice just how many cars with Christian fish or Christian bumpers stickers were parked in the Trader Joe’s lot.
The lot that had big signs at the end of every row:
No Church Parking.
So I spent the Sunday before Christmas at Trader Joe’s. No, I didn’t hear a choir singing O Holy Night, but I did hear Olivia Newton-John singing Have You Never Been Mellow? while I shopped for chicken strips in the frozen food.
And no. No, honestly, I have never been mellow.
I am Tania.
Sometimes, God really annoys me. He asks me to do stuff that I don’t want to do and, frankly, it’s annoying. But he pesters you until you do it. Yeah, that’s it: God’s a real pest and I intend to talk to him about it some day if I ever stop peeing my pants in his presence. And on a side note: If I’m pants-less in heaven — as in naked — I will totally lose it and run around wailing and shrieking, I swear.
But recently, this annoying God asked me to do something anonymously for someone who has really betrayed me and, you know, it cost me — emotionally and financially. I don’t say this to say Oh, lookie me, I’m so great. Actually, I say this to say I very well may be the stupidest person I know and I know some pretty stupid people.
Several years ago, God asked this exact thing from me with a different cast of characters and I did it then, too, for months until he said to stop, and, frankly, for a long time, I felt foolish and stupid and it hurt. I cried myself to sleep over how much I did not want to do it. I felt like God was asking me to be a chump and I’m cool, not a chump, right? That argument didn’t really work on him. Before I complied, I would lie in bed and beg and beg to be let off the hook: Please, please, ask me something else, God. Ask me to walk down the street naked — which I’d rather die than do — but I know I will really die if I do this, so why don’t you just cut to the chase and kill me? Or …. how about that naked thing? No?
Because, you see, God, that pest, was asking me to bless those who curse me, you know, as the Good Book says. And now that I think about it, before I go to bed tonight, I think I’m going to cross that part out of my Bible posthaste because it’s caused me no end of trouble.
Still, it won’t change the fact that it really does say that and that, if you think about it or actually do it, it will truly and deeply chap your hide. You know, I tried to talk God into letting me toss some prayers his way about the person who’d wronged me, prayers that I’d say with verve! and gusto! to disguise the fact that I meant nary a word: “God, I will totally pray for this person. I will. IwillIwillIwillIwill I WILL.”
No, you won’t, Tracey.
Wha?? God can see through me?? Drat that omniscience anyway.
So I wheedled and begged and begged and wheedled and God just laughed, I suppose. I’m pretty sure I amuse him a lot.
The thing is, praying is fine. We’re supposed to pray for people, love our enemies, all that, but God knows me and knows I WON’T DO IT. If it’s some kind of mental/spiritual ritual, something slippery or vaporous, he knows: I WON’T DO IT. Well, that’s not entirely true. I mean, if it’s about someone I love, someone I care about who’s hurting or sad or betrayed, I’m there. I’ll do it, no problem. I’ll WANT to do it. But if it’s about someone who’s hurt me? Wronged me? Fuggedaboudit. Again, God knows: I WON’T DO IT. It’s too easy to say I’ll pray for that scum, that ass, that douche — none of which I ever say, of course — and then, uh-oh! poof! the notion just disappears into thin air. I WON’T DO IT because my heart is hard. Because I’m hurt. Because I’m clothed in my own righteousness and don’t I look nice? Because not doing it is easy-peasy.
So, with me, God pesters and pesters and pesters while I’m trying to sleep or watch TV. I know he knows I need sleep — I mean, sleep, hullo, his idea — but sometimes he doesn’t seem to CARE that I need to sleep or, well, watch House. I’ll bet even God watches House. But nope. He seems to really delight in waking me up in the dead of night or interrupting my ogling of Hugh Laurie and asking me to be proactive. Thoughts, prayers — good, but, let’s be honest: a quiet prayer sent heavenward costs a person nothing. I can pray in my head and not be embarrassed, not feel foolish, not feel mortified — I can even pray NAKED and not be mortified — and sometimes, God is fine with that, but again, with me, when I’m hurt or betrayed and jumping on the speeding train to Bitter Town, God asks something else of me: I have to DO something. Not think something. DO something.
Bless those who curse you, Tracey.
Ugh. It’s a real pisser, I’ll be honest.
Again, I’d much rather lie there in bed like some Posturepedic pope whispering, I bless thee, I bless thee, I bless thee and then drift off into the divine dreamless sleep I richly deserve. It’s easy to just SAY it. But doing it?
Ugh. It’s a real pisser, I’ll be honest.
The first time I did this, several years ago, I sent coffee gift cards, anonymously, to the person who had “cursed me” — because the person was a huge coffee freak and because God said, “Send the jerk some coffee cards” or, well, maybe not quite like that. I thought I would only do it once and be done with it. When I reached the mailbox and was about to put the envelope in, I paused, then walked away, muttering, Nope. I can’t do this, God, no way.
Go back, Tracey.
I turned, stepped one step toward the mailbox, then turned back away. This was on a public sidewalk now, this insane back and forth.
No. I don’t want to bless this person. I don’t want to give this.
I know. So then … can you give it to me?
Ah, crap. Are you kidding? Good one.
Yep.
I turned, stomped back to the mailbox, and shoved the stupid “blessing” in, overflowing with Christian love.
And the angels rejoiced!
Walking back to my car, I thought, Phhhew, thank God, that’s over.
It’s not over, Tracey.
Eh? Yes, it is. I mailed it.
You did, but you’re not done.
Oh, seriously?
Yep.
Okaay. Uhm, what now?
You’re going to do it again next month.
No way! That totally sucks.
That’s why you need to keep doing it. Until it doesn’t suck.
Ohh, pippa. It sucked for seven long months.
Because I didn’t get it and I didn’t get it.
I didn’t get just how bitter I was becoming about this person and I didn’t get that God’s prescription for my bitterness, for “the curse” I’d received was its counterpoint, its total opposite: a blessing. God’s prescription was something that cost me, emotionally much more than financially, something that felt like a curse itself, but was actually something other altogether.
Because as time went on, the ritual at the mailbox became easier. Each month that passed, I had shorter debates with God, I felt less huffy, I looked less like a free-range demented person, mumbling and stomping around a mailbox, and more like a regular person mailing a simple letter, no biggie.
Except it was a biggie, because with each month, I felt my heart, that looming glacier of bitterness, melt just the tiniest bit towards this person. The tiniest bit.
There was no excuse for what this person had done to me. It wasn’t a “hurt feelings” issue; it was, by anyone’s account, a wrong, an abusive wrong. God wasn’t asking me to do this to gloss over what the person had done and act like la di dah, it was no big deal. That wasn’t it at all. It was a huge deal, God knew that, I believe, and because he knew that, he knew the basic human potential for bitterness to take root in a wounded heart. My heart. We’re all just human, for God’s sake, and God knows that. And because he knew this person wouldn’t reconcile with me, he knew my heart well enough to know the only choice it would feel it could make in the face of such blithe abusiveness would be bitterness and thoughts of revenge. And because he actually does love me, he wouldn’t let me go there. Or rather, he wouldn’t let me stay there. (I had already gone there all by myself, ahem.) It took me seven months to feel free and to realize, too, that it was for ME that God had asked me to do this. Sure, that person got those gift cards, but that whole thing — a project MB dubbed “Blessings for Butthead” — was about me, actually. My heart, my spirit, my bitterness, and how to start to be free of it.
And now, he’s asking this of me again.
And it’s a real pisser, I’ll be honest.
But much less so this time around. And not because it’s some small thing or my feelings were merely hurt or because I feel less angry or betrayed with this situation. Actually, it’s worse than the first time — how it’s all hit me. Much worse.
This time is easier maybe, just maybe, because my heart’s kneejerk bitterness has been slowed, delayed, because of that time, several years ago, when God, that pest, told me to bless those who curse you.
I don’t know how long it will last this time around. I have a feeling it’s not done.
Because, let’s face it, God is just annoying sometimes.
Oh, dear. He’s back.
Yes, we were at church on Sunday. We have unfinished business. We are, you know, making people offers they can’t refuse and whatnot.
The problem is I may be slightly addicted to this particular little sideshow. Part of me is enjoying a bit too much being on the fringe of this church, doing my research on it, and seeing that what I read is totally true Sunday after Sunday. Something IS rotten in the state of Denmark. But something is rotten with me because it’s all I can do not to waltz into this place with a bag of popcorn every Sunday.
Or, you know, burst into tears.
I was sitting alone for a few moments before the service started Sunday. Most people seem to drag in late during worship, so the place was basically empty. Out of nowhere — and I still don’t know how he does this — Perky Bob appeared and plopped down in the row in front of me.
Oh, no.
“Hi!”
“Hey, Bob, how are you?”
“Oh, I’m great! I just got back from Maryland, seeing my grandkids!”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
“Yeah. I don’t wanna brag but my new baby grandson puts the Gerber Baby to shame.”
“Aww. I’m sure he does. Sounds like you had a great time.”
“Yeah! So … what about you? Do you have grandkids?”
Excuse me? Do I have GRANDKIDS??? Uhm, I’m sorry, I can’t answer that because I need to go slit my wrists if you think I look old enough to have GRANDKIDS.
GRANDKIDS??
GRANDKIDS???
No, but, guess what, Perky Bob, my arteries are now instantly hardening and sudden glaucoma is taking my sight and I feel the imminence of a tragic and unholy urinary incontinence.
Good GOD. Just ask me to lunch instead.
“Uh, no,” I said, “no, I don’t.”
“Oh, okay.”
No, Perky Bob. It’s not okay. And unless I know that you have to clean the pee stain I just left on the pew cushion, it will NEVER BE OKAY AGAIN.
EVER!!
SOB.
In the comments here, I asked blog friend Brian to tell me more about his home church. He sent me such a lovely, thoughtful email about the whole thing, about his spiritual process, that I asked him if I could please post it here. During the process of writing about church, I’ve been somewhat surprised at how many emails I’ve received from readers who don’t comment but who said to me, “I feel that way too.” “I feel alienated.” “I feel burned.” “I don’t know what to do.”
The church at large has a problem. It’s hurting its own people, not to mention the wrong message that sends to would-be or don’t-wanna-be Christians about what being a Christian actually IS.
So I share Brian’s email with those people too. It gives me hope. Maybe it will do the same for someone else. It teared me up with hope, actually, that maybe, just maybe, church can do what Jesus wanted it to do all along.
Thanks, Brian.
Here’s his email:
Tracey,
When I read things like your recent blog post it makes me sad. I cry because God wants so much more from his Church and some people just get in the way. We Christians have become a dysfunctional family, and who wants to be part of a dysfunctional family? Just drive down any street in this country and you’ll see church buildings on every corner and the only thing that divides them are rules or beliefs that man has put in place: we use electric guitars – well we don’t, we worship on Sunday – well we worship on Saturday, we take communion each week – well, we don’t… it goes on and on.
I’m going to make a very long story short.
I have been part of the institutional church all my life. I was baptized as a baby in the Catholic Church and again when I was seventeen and part of a non-denominational Christian Church. As it stands I believe that Jesus is the son of God, died on the cross, was buried, and raised to life three days later. I believe that the bible is the Word of God and he left it to tell us his story and if we want to know him we need to read his story. I believe that his Spirit dwells among us today teaching, guiding, and inspiring us. Beyond this I take things as they come and trust that the Lord knows better than I do.
About four years ago I started to really look at the church I was attending and how they were spending their time and resources. I began by reading and studying the four Gospels and the book of Acts to see what Jesus and his early followers were doing with everything they were given. The church we were attending had recently adopted the “seeker friendly” model that many mega-churches had adopted. Each week I started to see Jesus getting pushed to the side in favor of feel good sermons, stories, and events. Sermons became more like Dr. Phil or Oprah shows. Programs were started and forgotten. If there was a new person on Sunday morning I’d never know it because they’d be one of the thousand mixing in with the crowd. We built a coffee shop in the church and charged money for coffees and snacks under the guise of relationship building. Our monthly budget was well into the seven figures. If I drove by the church building during the week I noticed it was typically empty. The parking spaces that were filled were usually by the thirty plus staff members that worked there. All of this and our church was dying.
This pained me but I kept it to myself.
At this same time I was an adult leader with the High School students. On a mission trip to Mexico I ended up driving a supply van down that I was in charge of all week. One of the other adult leaders rode with me during the time we were in Mexico. Our discussions led to my feelings about the church and how Jesus was being left behind. She understood and felt the same way. She told me I should read a book – “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller. I’d never heard of it. Donald Miller was from Portland which made it kind of cool. Upon my return to Portland I picked up a copy and devoured it. Where had this guy been all this time? He blew my mind. I’d never read anything like this by a Christian author. He nailed it for me and gave me the courage to stand up and start asking questions and to seek Jesus in our midst.
After Mexico and Blue Like Jazz my conversations with people changed and I found out I wasn’t alone. For the next three years I researched, talked, conversed, prayed, read, and really searched for Jesus. I got off my butt and started working with the homeless ministry downtown and even became a mentor to the guys in the program.
This journey brought us to some ugly places. We saw things in the church we didn’t like and things people did we thought made Jesus look bad. I know you’ve experience this also. In this journey we switched churches a few times and met a lot of different people. There was good and there was bad. We kept on the journey never giving up faith that God loved us and knew what was best for us. I get the impression this is where you and your husband are these days. Searching.
This year we started our son in a TaeKwonDo class to help build his confidence and to gain a little discipline. After a few weeks we learned that the Master’s who ran the Dojang were believers. They are awesome people. We learned that the Dojang was part of their ministry and that they also had a home church group that they were part of. They use the Dojang to be part of the community and to meet people and to be a light in a dark place. They are bold about their faith and they pull no punches (pun intended).
About the same time this happened my wife ran into an old college friend at the church we were attending on Sundays. She told my wife about the home church ministry that they were part of. My wife was intrigued. They run an organization that helps people in need fix their homes. It’s kind of like Habitat for Humanity but instead of building a whole house they fix what is already there. Through this organization they share Jesus and his love. Then on Sunday nights they meet in different homes and worship, commune, and celebrate life. We decided to get together with them for dinner to catch up on life and to hear more about their ministry.
At this dinner we got to share our story and our journey of the last couple years with them. They smiled and nodded. They knew. They had been there too. The husband recommended a book called “Pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola and George Barna. I picked up the book and read it. It confirmed many of the things that I had seen over the years that I didn’t think were parts of the church that God had written into his plan and some of the shortcomings of the institutional church. Side note in case you read it: some of the book is a little silly and the authors take it to the extreme in a few cases, but the authors are home church advocates and are trying to make their point that it is a better way to do church.
We are now part of our friend’s home church group. I’m also volunteering time with his non-profit organization. Four weeks ago I was on the roof, in the pouring rain, of a man who broke his back on the job and had a leaky roof. Through the amazing donations by local businesses and the volunteer time of a general contractor we totally replaced this family’s roof. No cost to them, no strings attached. We did it because we love Jesus and that is what he would have done. Tonight me and another guy are having coffee at the family’s house under their new roof.
When we meet on Sunday nights at someone’s house we sit together as fellow believers in Christ. We share a meal and sit and talk about life. We share scripture and what Jesus is doing in our lives. We tell our stories. We pray and meditate. Sometimes we will sing a song or two, sometimes we don’t. We laugh together and cry together. It is a family. It is Church how, in my humble opinion, God intended. The group is diverse, very diverse. We have old people and young, alcoholics & drug addicts, married, divorced, single, the fat and the thin, the employed and unemployed.
As I read the book of Acts I see the Church of that day meeting in homes, gathering in the community, supporting each other, loving each other, correcting each other, and living their lives in a way that glorifies the risen Christ. This is what we strive for. We are not perfect, we do not have all the answers, but we try and I think God will bless us for that.
For now we are putting our faith in God that he has us in the right place. We are at peace and really enjoying this new experience. People think we’re crazy and that’s okay, maybe we are.
There are reasons why, for about the last six weeks, this blog has been completely lame. Some are behind-the-scenes personal things that are consuming my thoughts, things I’m not inclined to share right now. Others are church-related things sucking my brains away. And, actually, that’s the stuff I’ve been hinting about. The stuff I don’t know how to talk about or where, even, to begin.
Suffice it to say right now my blog is being “watched” by powers that be within the larger organization of Seriously Not Likely Church, formerly known as Maybe Church.
Suffice it to say that someone I trusted, someone I’d always believed trustworthy without question — someone I would have trusted with my life — who came by my blog address through a series of bizarre, stupid, and somewhat happenstance events, outed my blog to the church people who are now “watching” it.
Suffice it to say that these powers seem to believe I have “slandered” them and their church, despite the fact that the name of this church has never ever been mentioned here.
Suffice it to say that these powers would likely NEVER have found my blog had it not been outed. They couldn’t have Googled anything church related and found me. And if they had stumbled upon me, they would never have known what church I’m even talking about had they not been told.
Suffice it to say that I barely understand anything that’s going on here anymore.
But suffice it to say, that at this point, I’m furious and I want to say to all of these watchers:
SCREW IT.
SCREW IT.
Yep. I said screw it. Please alert more powers. Also Jesus. Or you know what, watchers? Confront me about my “sin.” My sins. Whatever you’ve decided I’ve done wrong here. Please do. Make yourselves known. You’ve got something you want to say to me? SAY it. For God’s sake, when I have bigger cojones than the men in the church, something’s wrong. Nothing worse to me than cowardly men.
I’m tired of tiptoeing around. I’m tired of betrayal. I’m tired of the contempt I’ve been made to feel for my own blog and for myself.
Please GOD, I am SO SO TIRED.
Where are the good people anymore? Where have they gone, God? Please tell me. I’m literally begging you. I’m completely losing hope in this area. Not in you, but in your people. Honestly, I can’t take it anymore. And the betrayal here at the core of this whole thing — I can’t even write about that part of it.
Look, Slappies. I doubt you’re here because you like the writing or me — which are the reasons that my regular readers/normal people come here, actually. No. You’re coming here with some kind of agenda. You’re coming here with judgment in your hearts already, a truly sickening thing since I have done absolutely nothing but write about my foray into a new anonymous church. And that’s somehow gossip? Or slander? You know, I can’t abide people who don’t understand basic meanings of basic words and use their misunderstandings of basic words to form the basis of ridiculous, mind-bogglingly stupid judgments.
What is wrong with you? Seriously, what is wrong with you?? Don’t come here bearing the name of Christ if you’re just going to be douches.
I’m sorry to my regular readers. I really am. I’m pissed and sick of feeling cowed.
Watch out, watchers. I haven’t named any names, but I make no promises to STAY discreet. I have no allegiance to your precious “organization.” Jesus doesn’t call us to that.
And, you know, watchers, I’m feeling kind of trampy and really pissed off, so I think maybe next Sunday, I shall don something “immodest” (by your crazy-rigid standards) and form-fitting when I dress for church. So beware my saucy D’s! If you ask me, they’re the very model of — what’s that phrase you like to throw around? — “Christian womanhood.” Alas, bummer for those of you who don’t attend this location. You’ll miss the D’s.
Let’s face it. If you’re viewing me as some kind of slanderous slattern, may as well look the part, right?
I’ll leave you to figure out how to manage that one next Sunday. I mean, you can’t stare at the saucy D’s; I’ll know it’s you. And you can’t avert your eyes from the saucy D’s, or I’ll know it’s you. Hm. Conundrum. Hm.
Well, I imagine I’ve said enough in this one post to send you all weeping and wailing in repentance to every last man in church for reading this filthy blog. I mean, clearly, there’s nothing here but slander and smut so you really should move along, for the sake of your eternal souls. At least with this post I’ve given you something to judge me for.
(And if you want to add “ends sentence with a preposition” as something FOR WHICH to judge me, so be it.)
See how the Lord provides? You have a need to judge and, behold, this post — his provision!
Judge away, Slappies.
