I’m taking a sick day from church. God, the Internet, or maybe my new phone clearly doesn’t want me to write a detailed post about my thoughts right now, because I had one all written up and it got deleted somehow. Oh well.
This week
I’m taking a sick day from church. God, the Internet, or maybe my new phone clearly doesn’t want me to write a detailed post about my thoughts right now, because I had one all written up and it got deleted somehow. Oh well.
Church #24, Holy Spirit Lutheran (ELCA)
Date: 1/20/13
Church name/type: Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit, ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America)
Format summary: I will fill this in later…I can be lazy once in a while, I’m allowed.
Overall Impression: wonderful
Thoughts:
To start with I want to make note that although this denomination has Evangelical in the name it doesn’t feel very “Evangelical”. Let me explain, in case you didn’t get that. In my mind, if someone told me a group or person was Evangelical Christian, I’d immediately have an idea about them. They shout loudly during sermons, they expect you to say “amen” after every sentence, they are pushy, they want you to be ‘saved’, they think a very specific list of things will get you out of hell and outside that list you are screwed.
Well this church is nothing like that. ELCA will ordain gay ministers and sanction gay marriage- something a close friend assures me quotational “Evangelicals” would never do. For Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, evangelizing means spreading the good news. The good news in this church seems to be welcome, come one in, we like you as you are.
Now that the nomenclature is out of the way, I’ll tell you all the stuff I liked about this church. I arrived rather early and was the first in the sanctuary. A man greeted me and asked how I had found the church, which of course prompted me to mention my project. He reacted positively and asked if it was a school project. (This is a really common question because I look young) I told him it was a personal project and he smiled and welcomed me. Next the pastor greeted me, then, with no knowledge of me besides my name, he invited me to take communion during the worship. And he said there’d be choice of either wine or juice. I’ve never taken communion where there was a choice. Communion itself was also exciting in that I got to again kneel at a rail and get the wafer right on my tongue. How do pastors do that without ever missing?
Every part of service gave me reasons to feel nice about this church. The service had formal parts reminiscent of a Catholic Church, but was so relaxed you didn’t feel pressure to get it all right. The bulletin was easy to follow with most of the songs and even the singsong chanted words in musical notation. Behind me was a younger woman taking care of an older woman in a wheelchair. In front of me was a woman who didn’t seem to realize greeting time was over, explaining to her seat mates that peace is really two fingers together instead of apart like a V. (I think she may have been mentally disabled but highly functional.) The two women sitting with her just said, “Ok sit down now.” No one acted like it was a problem or unusual. Directly in front of me was a woman with two kids. She apologized to me before they’d even done anything, but not in an exasperated way. Just like, shrug smile- they’re kids, they wiggle! I like kids and they were fine. In one of the sections where the congregation said prayer together, we prayed that those taking care of animals continue to have the sense if responsibility in that. We prayed for those who are homeless, and were told how to donate to a shelter supported by the church. The back page of the bulletin was an extensive list of anything you might want to know as a visitor: bathrooms, gluten issues, kids area, inclusion of all in taking communion. Printed material means a lot to me and can often be a reflection if how much attention a church is willing to give those walking through its doors. Holy Spirit Lutheran did a superb job on both accounts.
After service I dawdled a bit as usual to see if new people would greet me. My first greeter came back to let me know about food in the room down the hall. Once there I also had a woman greet me and strike up a similar conversation, what brought me here, where did I live? She thought the pastor and visiting bishop might like to hear about my project so I also got to talk with them. Yeah, on top of all the other cool stuff, I got to meet a bishop. This is one of those weeks where my project makes me so happy. This church has the best vibe and I think I’ve found another denomination to love.
Notes to self: Learn more about wine, juice and how the cup is interpreted by the various denominations.
Church #23, Journey UCC
Date: 1/13/13
Church name/type: Journey UCC (United Church of Christ)
Format summary: Very open format; we sang a little, heard a reading, heard a message, prayed some intentions, and said some words together
Overall Impression: Meh.
Thoughts:
At first I was really excited about this church. The building was small but full, in a location hidden behind a dentist office. This type of thing is usually a signal that the church is new, vibrant, growing and working towards a new space for the expanding congregation. They are moving in March I was told, but the location sounds to be just as hidden in another existing building. Well that’s really not a reason to fault them. A church is not a building right? But it does have to exist in one. The building currently in use is small but painted in a warm French vanilla color. The back wall is one third taken up by a large rainbow flag so, as I found at the last UCC church, the membership is open those of all sexualities. I see that as a positive. There didn’t seem to be a bulletin or any literature about the church anywhere around. I tend to take a brochure or pamphlet of some kind if I can. Maybe this place is too casual for that. So when I arrived and walked in a woman near the door greeted me and offered me food and coffee. It seems that they all snack during service and no one minds. Ok, they are very relaxed and I started to imagine lovely conversations I’m going to have with this group afterwards.
Next comes the actual service content. The message was in part about “extravagant welcome”. This was vague at best. We watched a commercial put out by the UCC in 2006 called “Bouncer” which was supposed to illustrate this type of welcome. We heard the commercial was extremely controversial. It seemed mostly to deal with accepting race differences, but on watching it again at home via YouTube I did notice a couple of females holding hands. Probably this was a very understated nod to same sex couples. I also noted the participants in the bouncer commercial are well-dressed- no commentary on poverty I see. Overall this really doesn’t strike me as a radical commercial. Our guest fill-in speaker talked about being accepting of gays and how good it is that this church does that. Especially given the rainbow flag in the room, I don’t see how this message was pertinent. Telling people in a church to be ok with gay couples is pointless if they already are ok with gay couples. If that’s been established I expect a new or at least more nuanced message. The one good bit was when the speaker talked about slavery as compared to homosexuality. Both have been cited as biblical and both have passed their expiration date. I like that this was something we might use as a point when speaking with others who are still on the fence about same sex relationships. Slavery was very much condoned and approved by religious teachers who used bible verses. The fact that we have changed our views on that should signal us that change is still possible regarding other concepts. The rest of the message was a bit boring and hard to follow. I was fairly annoyed by the lack of bulletin by the end. The projection screen with lyrics and prayers wasn’t very visible owing to the low ceiling and people’s heads in my way. I’ve never been in love with projection screens; they are often hard to read because of distance or font, and they have no musical notation to follow. This church would benefit from a printed version of the prayers and songs.
So the closing was spoken and I waited around a few minutes for some extravagant welcome, maybe more snacking and some conversation. One new person greeted me; we didn’t talk alot. There wasn’t any fellowship after the service- I suppose because we all ate during the service. All kinds of talk about welcoming and I didn’t get much of it. I miss an actual fellowship hour. And if the sermon includes reference to “welcoming” I ought to feel welcomed. So what happened this time? Was it just an off week? The Pastor was away, maybe without her lead the congregation forgets who is new and how to say hello to them? Are they just reserved until they see you a few times? Or did I fit in so well they thought I was already a member? Whatever happened it was a disappointing end to an only moderately interesting service.
Another look?: As with every church I do realize that this was just a single visit. It is always possible the further visits would give me a more positive view. Also possibly a more negative view. I just don’t know. The nature of my project and my rules tells me to visit each church minimally however, so I can get them all done in the next few years- so it’s onward from here.
Some church songs
Tired, bored, still sick. No deep thoughts today. Instead, here is a list of songs we sang regularly at my childhood church:
Earthen Vessels
Though the mountains may fall
The lights of the City
Blest be the Lord
If God is for us
One bread one body
Be not afraid
Sing to the Mountains
Praise the Lord, my soul
What you hear in the dark
We also had a fast version of the Amen and Lamb of God, both of which I particularly loved. If these songs were any the same for you, you can probably hear them in your head now. What songs were a staple in your church?
Some church songs
Tired, bored, still sick. No deep thoughts today. Instead, here is a list of songs we sang regularly at my childhood church:
Earthen Vessels
Though the mountains may fall
The lights of the City
Blest be the Lord
If God is for us
One bread one body
Be not afraid
Sing to the Mountains
Praise the Lord, my soul
What you hear in the dark
We also had a fast version of the Amen and Lamb of God, both of which I particularly loved. If these songs were any the same for you, you can probably hear them in your head now. What songs were a staple in your church?
Thinking about repentance
Watching A Christmas Carol last week I was struck with the theme of repentance. I was trying to decide how it fits with my thoughts on good intentions. What does repentance really refer to and how do most people use the term? Most simply, repentance is usually thought of as being sorry that you’ve done something wrong. This is sometimes coupled with the expectation of not repeating the mistake. If we separate intentions from actual outcome, any mistakes or sins of which we might repent happen in one of three ways.
1) We intended bad and we did bad.
2) We intended good and we did bad.
3) We weren’t really paying attention, had no particular intention, and the outcome was bad.
Is repentance available for all three? If yes, do we consider it the same kind of repentance, or are there different flavors?
1) Bad -> bad
This seems the least likely candidate in my mind for repentance. If you had a thought to do something bad, then took the time to consider it as bad, then decided to act on it and create bad in the world…well you probably aren’t concerned with God’s opinion or anyone you might be hurting. So repentance is an option for you, but you probably won’t seek it. I can’t say what repentance would mean in a case like this, because it’s difficult for me to imagine a person truly wanting a bad thing to happen and only later seeing it as wrong. (Lying to yourself about your intent is something a little different which I’d put in category 3.)
2) Good intent -> bad
You meant to save the life of a chipmunk by swerving your car and ran over a cat. It is definitely a mistake which you can learn from (swerve more gently next time) but would the learning experience be considered repentance? You are probably sorry and vow to not repeat the mistake. My guess is that most people would not consider this repentance. If it is, then it’s a lesser variety.
3) Indifference -> bad
This I would imagine is by far the most common reason for bad actions/results. This includes anything you didn’t think through or didn’t think about. This is every case of stupidity that transmitted a sexual disease and every drunk who crashed into another car. This is me in high school basically telling a friend that homosexuality is disgusting and later realizing he was probably gay. It was stupid and uninformed and probably messed this guy up. This is what repentance means for me. I wish so hard I hadn’t done that. I am really sorry. I will never repeat the mistake. And I really didn’t have a particular intention when I did it, I just hadn’t thought about my own opinions much or what it might be like to be gay in a Catholic town.
Having no particular intention is what we are doing most of the time with our lives. How many of us really micromanage our thoughts to find ways of being good at every moment? I think far more often, we skip that part. It can be unintentional as my above examples are. But I would also include willful inattentiveness in this category. If you see leftover snacks from a college event and the cleanup crew are all back in the kitchen, can you take the food? Maybe. It’s very possible they are going to throw it away. Or maybe the leftover food is meant for the kitchen help or another event, or is going to a food bank. You could ask, or you could stop yourself from even considering these things because, you know, you really want snacks and it probably doesn’t really equal stealing. I am 99% sure they were just going to throw those snacks away and would have given them to me. But I don’t know for sure. And since I’ve ignored possible outcomes like this, I can see how easy it might be to ignore bigger things and tell yourself it’s probably fine. Until someone points out what actually happened. Which brings we to my original reason for posting; my pondering on Ebenezer Scrooge’s repentance. As a youngster I assumed it was the unlikely type of repentance I mentioned in example 1. He was a bad guy doing bad deeds because he liked it, then somehow saw the error of his ways and became good. Only I don’t think this is how it was meant in the book, or the numerous movies. I don’t think Scrooge was as frightened by the threat of eternal punishment as he was touched by the thought of Tiny Tim’s death as an innocent. Scrooge didn’t think that by underpaying Bob Cratchit he was sentencing a young boy to death. He should probably have thought more about all the things he was doing. And it seemed he did in his younger days before he got sidetracked by his career. It was the knowledge that he was doing things that harmed others that finally reminded Scrooge to pay closer attention and make some changes in his life. My guess is that most repentance looks like this.