Month: June 2014

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Unvisited Church, Grand Street Church of Christ

Today’s church report will be a little different. There is one church that’s been on my list to visit which I’ve been avoiding. I’ve decided I’m not going. It’s a church whose location appears to be someone’s house. Frankly that’s intimidating. A church building acts as more of a public space. One can enter without knocking or asking permission during a specific portion of Sunday and often other days too. But in someone’s home it feels different. Without being invited it seems intrusive. Without knowing anyone there it seems unsafe. So I’m attending from afar this time.

The church has a handful of videos on YouTube under MrPastorPeter. There is was a blog: Grand Street Church Pastors Blog
The last blog entry is from 2010. Ostensibly it continues at a new site…but the link doesn’t work. YouTube is much more current. The video on top is from 3/17/13.

The video is about 15 minutes long and of poor sound quality. It includes sermon of around 9 mins, an unintelligible message from a woman which might be prayer*, and the lead-in to communion with Lord’s Prayer by the deacon who is being advanced to pastor in one week’s time.

The content of the sermon was very simplistic. It compared the Christian life to running in a race. There only seem to be a couple similarities however; you have judges and they decide if you win. In this case winning equals going to heaven. We were also told that God loves us, we have to do our best, and that we are saved by grace which we do not deserve. I fail to see how both these metaphors can work. Winning a race and receiving a prize is more like the opposite of getting something undeserved. Besides the sloppy content, the delivery was halting, as if the pastor can’t read or speak well. He even mispronounced several words.

The church video ended with communion. The three members we already saw came up to take communion and two additional women also. If all members took communion this is a congregation of five adults- and the baby that the pastor was holding at one point.

Overall I found it to be definitely Christian but also extremely disorganized and amateurish. I probably don’t need to attend one for real if this is all I’d find there. Since I’m not even sure it still exists attendance might be impossible anyways.

*This isn’t a criticism of content. The sound is so poor I can’t make out what this woman is saying except ‘amen’ at the end.

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Reasons not to sin

So if you remember, one of the things I complained about White Couch was the idea that sin makes Jesus sad. I’m seeing a really interesting parallel point in the recent Christianity Today debacle. So, to give a long story a brief treatment, Christianity Today ran a story last week about a youth pastor who sexually abused a youth under his leadership. Many people complained (rightly) that the article was incredibly problematic, riddled with language that seemed to remove the abuser from responsibility and make the focus all about how terrible the sin had made his life. After much uproar the article was (again rightly) taken down.

I think there is something really interesting going on here and it has to do with how different Christians and Christian groups view sin. I generally equate ‘sin’ with ‘wrong’. I see sin as the harmful things humans do. I’ve really been wondering lately if that’s backwards from the rest of Christianity. There have been more than a few sermons and books and blog posts that suggest sin is more like breaking a contract you made with God. This would mean the only problem with sinning is that it violates the promise you made. In my view of sin, I’m concerned with who or what is being hurt. In this alternate view of sin there is no need to be concerned with anything outside the sinner and God. I think that’s a problem. And I think that exact problem is why Christianity Today could run an article and not be aware of its offensiveness.

The way I see it, sin as “hurtful to God” or “makes Jesus sad” -is incomplete. If Christians stop there, it misses the impact sin has on others and the world. As Christians we need to not be missing that. I’m not even sure how asking God to forgive our sins can ever be complete if we ignore the harm our sins do outside of ourselves. Sin should never be just about God’s disappointment with us. For me Christianity has always been about paying attention to others. The impact we have on others needs to be a part of the conversation when we discuss sin. Period.

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Shortpost 3- relationships

What is it we think we believe about divorce that makes it ok? Because Jesus seems to have said it’s not ok. And yet, we allow it on the basis that a person in a constrictingly terrible relationship will be happier and better off out of said relationship. That Jesus mostly went around healing people suggests he wants us to be well and whole as people. What kind of life would we assign the unhappily married to, should divorce not be an option? Similarly, what kind of life do we expect gay and lesbian folks to have if we restrict them from the relationships they want?

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Shortpost 2- manipulating God

Again I find myself considering prayer and it’s usage. I had a friend who suggested this idea and I’m kinda wondering about it.

Prayer chains, PUSH (pray until something happens), and prayer as vending machine Christianity posit that there is a correlation between prayer amount and prayer result. Does this mean by praying more we are forcing God to grant our wishes?

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Shortpost 1- guns

I wrote this thought in my church journal. It has no specific bearing on any church. It was just something that came to me.

Christians shouldn’t want guns. If we say we place our trust in God, why do we need weapons?

It has been on my mind that Christians arguing for guns as defense against humans seems backwards. Jesus was all about peace. Jesus said if someone slaps you, let them slap you a second time on the other cheek. He didn’t say retaliate, he didn’t even say defend yourself. Jesus told us to trust God. Shouldn’t that be enough?

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Church #58, First UMC Rensselaer/ Iglesia Emmanuel

Date: 6/1/14

Church name/type:
The church is called First United Methodist and is part of UMC the United Methodist Church, but also goes by the name Iglesia Emmanuel

Pastor: Mariana Rodriguez

Style of worship:
The service was about half music, half message, with communion at the end

Language: Spanish was used extensively but portions of the service were translated either by a churchgoer or by the pastor, repetition style. I was able to understand much of the Spanish and it strikes me that the very thing I’ve complained about in the past- Christian phrases and special meanings- were the things I caught when in another language.

Useful takeaways:
The music was really great and there was a lot of it. I was at this church for around three hours. Granted the service started a bit later than advertised. The sign lists 2:30 as service. It was probably closer to 3:15. But the music was a significant part of the worship. Everyone was singing boisterously and clapping or using percussion. Several songs were mixed Spanish and English. A couple were Spanish only. Everyone was just having so much fun singing. It really felt awesome.

The sermon had some good points. It was of course a little harder to absorb because a lot of my focus was on the Spanish. Part of the sermon related how God cares for us and gives us good things. But it was also made clear that God doesn’t take away all troubles, so that we shouldn’t expect God to magically make everything great. This has a nice balance, although I think it needs much more elaboration to fully make sense. And as I said, the Spanish translation may have contributed to loss of part of the message.

Communion was really nice. The entire church stood in a circle and we all took communion at the same time. Its kind of hard to describe why this felt so nice. I think it may have been the intimate number of participants. There were about 12-20. After this we sang again.

Problems/Improvements: I had a disappointing conversation with the musician after church. He had asked me elaborate why I no longer worshipped in the Catholic Church. I started to talk about church governance and the Catholic Church not being able to listen and change. He pointed out the the people could be corrupt. I answered that the leadership could be corrupt too. I said I thought there were many ways to read the bible and interpret it. He started to argue that the bible is very clear, you just have to read it. I tried to point out some discrepant interpretations for verses, but the conversation just kept going back to him saying, “No it is very clear.” I found myself saying, “I respectfully disagree.” He just pointed out how the bible is clear. Again.