Visited the C---burg Bible Church tonight upon being invited by a former neighbor. Chose the evening service as the lesser experience to endure (Sunday morning at a "Bible-based church which preaches only the TRUTH" leads me to think in terms of saving myself from a long sermon more than the possibility of being led to salvation).
The service opened with a man I know waddling up front to lead the singing.
Now, I know that we are all supposed to be Christians (ok, some of us are generally regarded as...falling off the slippery slope). And I know that we are called to forgive each other. And I know that we are all sinners.
But danG!
I know this guy. I know how his son mistreated girls in high school. I saw how the young man responded when an adult confronted him about the behavior. I know how this man backed up his son when students finally called him on his behavior. I saw the effects his behavior had on a one of his female classmates. I remember how this man, a teacher at the time, defiantly denied that his son's behavior was wrong. I saw how this man said it was the girls who were wrong.
I have watched and prayed as one girl continues to recover from the experience of being told that what she (and several others) knew happened did not in fact happen, that it was all a misunderstanding, that she was a troublemaker, that she only wanted attention, that she lied.
Turns out that Mr. Song Leader is a Youth Pastor now. Suuu--eee, bring your kids here to learn about the Lord.
They had a baptism tonight. Total immersion complete with a mini-sermon on how the baptism itself has no meaning, that the saving has already been done, that baptism is nothing more than an outward sign, that no sins are being washed away. Chapter/verse quotes were included for proof.
They had instrumental music, too, which means, according to the Bible-based church which only preaches the TRUTH where we used to attend, that this church is wrong and everyone in it is going to hell. The piano is sin enough, but to preach incorrectly about the meaning of baptism—! You can't get to heaven without it, because without baptism there's nothing to wash away your sins. Chapter/verse quotes were included for proof.
I think that you have to be just a little bit nuts to be a Christian in this environment, and I am less inclined than ever to go find some place to "belong."
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Friday, October 07, 2005
i've got my sparkle back
I applied to grad school this week. If all goes as planned I will graduate with a masters at the tender age of...52?
Cool!
In January someone said to me, "What's going on in your life? You have something sparkling around you." I've been hearing similar comments ever since.
People felt that way about me 15 years ago, right up until I got sick and lost my sparkle. People had such high expectations of me, such conviction that I was going to be somebody who made a big, good difference in the world!
I have been fighting, finding, exploring, learning, discovering, loving, forgiving, my way back ever since. I think I have found it. When I got sick I didn't have much religion. During my recovery I learned alot about religion, went to church, participated big time, studied Bible stuff, grew emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.
Then I outgrew church. (yah yah I can hear your snorting clear from here). I discovered that God is bigger than four walls, a ceiling, a well-dressed congregation and gluttonous, greedy, verbally abusive and emotionally manipulative preacher. Ok, that's not fair to most of you, but it fits the one we spent eight years with.
I discovered that God is big enough to let me learn to look to myself for answers, that the gifts he gave me are for me to use. If I limit their development to those sanctioned by fundamentalist Christian doctrine I am shortchanging God, myself, and his body, the church as defined in the bride-of-Christ sense.
Therefore, my spiritual journey now includes techniques and strategies condemned by no less a biggie than James Dobson himself:
I visualize what I want, thank you very much. I visualize health and job and any other task or question that warrants attention.
Sometimes I meditate on pieces of scripture and prayer. Lots of times I meditate by focusing on my breath and emptying my mind of thoughts.
I take a yoga class and enjoy greater strength, flexibility, balance—and a sense of peace.
I pay attention to my body and what it tells me. I nurture my psyche and my body.
I spend time loving myself and not just my neighbor.
I got my sparkle back. Once again, people expect big, huge things of me. It's not a sign that I'm about to get sick again, and it's not a sign that my former frenetic energy levels have returned (but if you ask most people who know me, you might suspect they have).
Rather, it's a sign of balance. In this crazy pursuit to give it all for God, I have learned to take some for myself. Three cheers for the gifts God has given us and the permission to use them!
Three cheers for breaking free of the chains of modern church and finding that God's will does not evaporate outside its walls!
Three cheers for hope, life and love! Three cheers for my SPARKLE!
Cool!
In January someone said to me, "What's going on in your life? You have something sparkling around you." I've been hearing similar comments ever since.
People felt that way about me 15 years ago, right up until I got sick and lost my sparkle. People had such high expectations of me, such conviction that I was going to be somebody who made a big, good difference in the world!
I have been fighting, finding, exploring, learning, discovering, loving, forgiving, my way back ever since. I think I have found it. When I got sick I didn't have much religion. During my recovery I learned alot about religion, went to church, participated big time, studied Bible stuff, grew emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.
Then I outgrew church. (yah yah I can hear your snorting clear from here). I discovered that God is bigger than four walls, a ceiling, a well-dressed congregation and gluttonous, greedy, verbally abusive and emotionally manipulative preacher. Ok, that's not fair to most of you, but it fits the one we spent eight years with.
I discovered that God is big enough to let me learn to look to myself for answers, that the gifts he gave me are for me to use. If I limit their development to those sanctioned by fundamentalist Christian doctrine I am shortchanging God, myself, and his body, the church as defined in the bride-of-Christ sense.
Therefore, my spiritual journey now includes techniques and strategies condemned by no less a biggie than James Dobson himself:
I visualize what I want, thank you very much. I visualize health and job and any other task or question that warrants attention.
Sometimes I meditate on pieces of scripture and prayer. Lots of times I meditate by focusing on my breath and emptying my mind of thoughts.
I take a yoga class and enjoy greater strength, flexibility, balance—and a sense of peace.
I pay attention to my body and what it tells me. I nurture my psyche and my body.
I spend time loving myself and not just my neighbor.
I got my sparkle back. Once again, people expect big, huge things of me. It's not a sign that I'm about to get sick again, and it's not a sign that my former frenetic energy levels have returned (but if you ask most people who know me, you might suspect they have).
Rather, it's a sign of balance. In this crazy pursuit to give it all for God, I have learned to take some for myself. Three cheers for the gifts God has given us and the permission to use them!
Three cheers for breaking free of the chains of modern church and finding that God's will does not evaporate outside its walls!
Three cheers for hope, life and love! Three cheers for my SPARKLE!
the ultimate sacrifice?
A guy on the radio a few weeks ago said the usual: God gave his only begotten son to die upon the cross...you hear it a hundred times a week on Christian radio. Then, to make his point about God's love for us perfectly clear, he called the death of Jesus The Ultimate Sacrifice, which sent me off on my own sermon:
I've wondered for a long time why I/we as Christians cling so tightly to the experience of being alive and have such a tenuous hold on the hope and joy that Jesus' death is supposed to give us. It never seems as though our biological drive to survive is explanation enough.
Being me, I've figured out why we have such a difficult time getting our minds and hearts wrapped around this: It's a language issue.
When a guy on the radio calls Jesus' death The Ultimate Sacrifice, he's using the same phrase that we use when someone chooses to die for the benefit of another. Soldiers, rescue workers, police, guards...when one dies in the line of duty we call it the ultimate sacrifice. We mean they died, that they gave up their life on earth.
We mean they stopped breathing air and eating food, they are gone and we will never again experience their presence or their laughter or their hand in ours.
That's not the kind of death experience that Jesus underwent. Being both God and human, Jesus stepped neatly (ok, maybe it wasn't such a smooth transaction) from our life into his own. He left humanity and went home to be with his father—his real father. His death was our loss in human terms, but his gain in God terms.
If God had given his son to make The Ultimate Sacrifice in the way that we humans use the phrase, then the separation would have been the complete, unbridgeable separation of God from his son. The opposite happened instead: The physical death of the human Jesus brought about not only the permanent reunion of God with his son, but also (if I have my theology correct here) the possibility of that same renunion of us with God.
So that's it preachers: If you are worth your salt (and most of you are not)* no more calling sacrificial deaths "The Ultimate Sacrifice." If you really believe your doctrine, the ultimate sacrifice happens when one chooses to walk away from the door left open by the death of Jesus, when they choose to not realize the opportunity to go to the home provided for us by God.
*harsh words subject to deletion upon softening of my heart or one less alcoholic drink + a benevolent mood. caution: could be a very cold day.
I've wondered for a long time why I/we as Christians cling so tightly to the experience of being alive and have such a tenuous hold on the hope and joy that Jesus' death is supposed to give us. It never seems as though our biological drive to survive is explanation enough.
Being me, I've figured out why we have such a difficult time getting our minds and hearts wrapped around this: It's a language issue.
When a guy on the radio calls Jesus' death The Ultimate Sacrifice, he's using the same phrase that we use when someone chooses to die for the benefit of another. Soldiers, rescue workers, police, guards...when one dies in the line of duty we call it the ultimate sacrifice. We mean they died, that they gave up their life on earth.
We mean they stopped breathing air and eating food, they are gone and we will never again experience their presence or their laughter or their hand in ours.
That's not the kind of death experience that Jesus underwent. Being both God and human, Jesus stepped neatly (ok, maybe it wasn't such a smooth transaction) from our life into his own. He left humanity and went home to be with his father—his real father. His death was our loss in human terms, but his gain in God terms.
If God had given his son to make The Ultimate Sacrifice in the way that we humans use the phrase, then the separation would have been the complete, unbridgeable separation of God from his son. The opposite happened instead: The physical death of the human Jesus brought about not only the permanent reunion of God with his son, but also (if I have my theology correct here) the possibility of that same renunion of us with God.
So that's it preachers: If you are worth your salt (and most of you are not)* no more calling sacrificial deaths "The Ultimate Sacrifice." If you really believe your doctrine, the ultimate sacrifice happens when one chooses to walk away from the door left open by the death of Jesus, when they choose to not realize the opportunity to go to the home provided for us by God.
*harsh words subject to deletion upon softening of my heart or one less alcoholic drink + a benevolent mood. caution: could be a very cold day.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Godding for Dollars: The Balance Sheet of Doing Church
I know a preacher. I like him, trust him as a person, respect his intellect, believe that despite his years on the job he remains a good man who loves God. He knows and believes that the equation "time equals money" does not belong on the church balance sheet. .
And yet: Sometimes people give enough money to make the cut from ordinary member to signifcant financial contributor.
And then: You put a human heart behind the giver and recipient and that's when my guy ends up weighing his time in terms of " be late for an appointment?" or "risk the bottom line?"
This same guy is constantly making decisions based on "will this cause giving to rise or fall?" If he is pressed for time when certain someones call he may take the call in order not to offend them.
If there are complaints over a certain policy, the income/influence level of the complainer can make a difference.
A dirty sink might not bother most of us, but if X is complaining...better get it scrubbed.
This makes my man sound like a money driven, shallow-hearted grub. And while we can make the standard high-minded arguments about where a man's heart lies blahblahblah, who's applying the pressure?
Not me, of course. I don't contribute money to that congregation.
But I do contribute money elsewhere; it's under $10,000 a year (hey, it's under $5,000/year, too, but which sounds better?) and even I think at times in terms of "I wonder if I gave more I could ask them to consider...."
I don't have a solution, but here are a few tensions that we Christians should think about:
*the tension between how church governing bodies measure success "does the preaching increase membership?" and "does the preaching increase giving?" versus "does the preaching help clarify and strengthen the faith of those who are here to hear?"
*the tension between the what the church's governing body sees as mission goals and what congregants are willing to financially support.
*the tension between the fiscal requirements of supporting a large governing body (e.g. Catholic church and the papacy, most Protestant churches and their national governing bodies) and the abilities/needs/interests of local congregations.
The preacher I guy I like so much is caught—trapped—in a minefield set by these governing tensions. While it is evident that he has gotten pretty good at finding his way safely through the minefield, I fear that it has been at the expense of Christ's body and peril to our subject's soul.
I do not think the shortcoming is entirely his.
And yet: Sometimes people give enough money to make the cut from ordinary member to signifcant financial contributor.
And then: You put a human heart behind the giver and recipient and that's when my guy ends up weighing his time in terms of " be late for an appointment?" or "risk the bottom line?"
This same guy is constantly making decisions based on "will this cause giving to rise or fall?" If he is pressed for time when certain someones call he may take the call in order not to offend them.
If there are complaints over a certain policy, the income/influence level of the complainer can make a difference.
A dirty sink might not bother most of us, but if X is complaining...better get it scrubbed.
This makes my man sound like a money driven, shallow-hearted grub. And while we can make the standard high-minded arguments about where a man's heart lies blahblahblah, who's applying the pressure?
Not me, of course. I don't contribute money to that congregation.
But I do contribute money elsewhere; it's under $10,000 a year (hey, it's under $5,000/year, too, but which sounds better?) and even I think at times in terms of "I wonder if I gave more I could ask them to consider...."
I don't have a solution, but here are a few tensions that we Christians should think about:
*the tension between how church governing bodies measure success "does the preaching increase membership?" and "does the preaching increase giving?" versus "does the preaching help clarify and strengthen the faith of those who are here to hear?"
*the tension between the what the church's governing body sees as mission goals and what congregants are willing to financially support.
*the tension between the fiscal requirements of supporting a large governing body (e.g. Catholic church and the papacy, most Protestant churches and their national governing bodies) and the abilities/needs/interests of local congregations.
The preacher I guy I like so much is caught—trapped—in a minefield set by these governing tensions. While it is evident that he has gotten pretty good at finding his way safely through the minefield, I fear that it has been at the expense of Christ's body and peril to our subject's soul.
I do not think the shortcoming is entirely his.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
