We visited the churchiusedtogoto last Sunday.
There aren't a lot of options for church on a Sunday morning in a small town. There are high liturgical churches, ultracharismatic churches, super conservative evangelical churches and the churchiusedtogoto. So we'll be back there from time to time. Once a month, every six weeks. Something like that.
The way it's evolved is I take something to read. As soon as the service is over, I make a beeline for the door and read in the car so my extrovert husband can have a chance to drink some tea and chat with friends.
I'm still working through this thing. Being "in but not of" the congregation we've called home for the better part of 20 years. Where our kids were dedicated, where I was baptised.
I recently read ReChurch by Stephen Mansfield. He's written a book to people who've been hurt by churches and it's a good one. Sympathetic and challenging at the same time.
But it's written to people who are bitter. Angry about what's been done to them, and that's not me. I'm just... I don't know. Sad, I guess. Wishing things were different.
I keep coming back to a question that was asked me by one of the people who said no. At that fateful meeting, she asked me "Can you enter into worship?". The question surprised me at the time and I said yes, but I've thought about it a bit since.
"Enter into worship" is churchese for allowing yourself to refocus your heart and mind from the immediate and what's next, to reach a place where you're open to hearing from God and speaking to him. It's an internal thing, which made it a rather personal question, but I respected her for asking it.
Can I, despite feeling alienated, allow myself to join in?
I just can't decide whether it was remarkably insightful, or completely blinkered.
If she was asking whether I'm moved to that place during the 'song service', because the songs are good and the drums are well played and the psalm she read was well chosen... then it's the latter. And the answer is no. I've written about that before.
But I said yes, because I took the question at face value.
This past Sunday was a wonderful worship time for me. That had nothing to do with what she had done.
All through the service, the hour and a half I was in the building, I was looking at people. At their faces, the backs of their heads, their profiles.
People I've known forever.
The elderly couple a few rows ahead of us. They're gracious and lovely. They sing with their hands raised, hers at shoulder height, his high above his head. One time after a service, she told me how much my contribution had meant to her and kissed me. I'll never forget that. She walks with a cane now.
Another older man, who used to be the pastor of this church. He and his wife spent their lives pastoring small churches, investing in the lives of the people around them, week after week, year after year, going wherever they heard God calling them to.
The woman in the same row, next section. She sits during the song service, not singing but nodding along. She used to play the piano in this room, out of the hymn book. She was widowed and, years later, remarried a rather nice man who is standing beside where she sits, not singing.
Further away, a younger man whose wife left him. He's remarried, too, and they have cute kids. I've never seen him sing. He has a passion for sports and an easy, wry smile.
His dad and mom were fantastic people, founders of this church. I never met his dad, but I sang at his mom's funeral. A woman with a "driving ministry". She'd get alone with someone in a car and pray that God would take the conversation somewhere good. And he did, time and time again.
The couple behind me. I answered the church phone the day he called to ask for prayer because she'd left him. The family went through a rough couple of years until they were both able to humble themselves enough to try again. And it worked.
The woman off to the other side. She's long divorced and she's walked through some mental illness. She's had some crap in her life, but she keeps coming back. In her professional capacity, she was a great help at school to my kids when they needed it. Patient and gentle.
That man behind me and to the left has struggled with depression.
The woman who's been married for I don't know how long, but I've never seen her husband in the building. Their son deployed to Afghanistan last week.
The man who is a single dad, reformed alcoholic; the passionate prayer of his parents for years - now being answered one day at a time.
The woman who is a single mom of a special needs son. He's taller than she is now, well into his teens. Wearing a Halo3 t-shirt and playing air drums. (Him, not her.)
And they're all there. Some sing, some don't. Some pay attention to the sermon, some don't. But they all take the bread and the wine and we all eat and drink together.
For me to sit in that company - surrounded by stories of redemption and reconciliation and healing, struggle and decades of faithfulness, help and helplessness and gifts given and received, triumph and 'two steps forward one step back', fear and trust - is to be refocused. Whatever the sermon is about is secondary. What songs we sing comes third.
Because it's all about those people and their God.
I remember every one of their stories and I 'enter into worship'. I thank God for each of them and for what he's done in their lives. I pray for them as I sit there and I hope they're praying for me.
I miss some of the sermon and I don't sing all the songs, but I listen to the music and look around at these people, these brothers and sisters, as the lyrics fill the room.
But it's all memories. All in the past. Set aside as I am, I'm not part of the new stories. Not learning what God is doing in these people's lives now.
That's what I'm mourning. What I have to figure out or rationalize or justify for myself. 'Cause that's what I've lost.
I've lost the future.
r
There aren't a lot of options for church on a Sunday morning in a small town. There are high liturgical churches, ultracharismatic churches, super conservative evangelical churches and the churchiusedtogoto. So we'll be back there from time to time. Once a month, every six weeks. Something like that.
The way it's evolved is I take something to read. As soon as the service is over, I make a beeline for the door and read in the car so my extrovert husband can have a chance to drink some tea and chat with friends.
I'm still working through this thing. Being "in but not of" the congregation we've called home for the better part of 20 years. Where our kids were dedicated, where I was baptised.
I recently read ReChurch by Stephen Mansfield. He's written a book to people who've been hurt by churches and it's a good one. Sympathetic and challenging at the same time.
But it's written to people who are bitter. Angry about what's been done to them, and that's not me. I'm just... I don't know. Sad, I guess. Wishing things were different.
I keep coming back to a question that was asked me by one of the people who said no. At that fateful meeting, she asked me "Can you enter into worship?". The question surprised me at the time and I said yes, but I've thought about it a bit since.
"Enter into worship" is churchese for allowing yourself to refocus your heart and mind from the immediate and what's next, to reach a place where you're open to hearing from God and speaking to him. It's an internal thing, which made it a rather personal question, but I respected her for asking it.
Can I, despite feeling alienated, allow myself to join in?
I just can't decide whether it was remarkably insightful, or completely blinkered.
If she was asking whether I'm moved to that place during the 'song service', because the songs are good and the drums are well played and the psalm she read was well chosen... then it's the latter. And the answer is no. I've written about that before.
But I said yes, because I took the question at face value.
This past Sunday was a wonderful worship time for me. That had nothing to do with what she had done.
All through the service, the hour and a half I was in the building, I was looking at people. At their faces, the backs of their heads, their profiles.
People I've known forever.
The elderly couple a few rows ahead of us. They're gracious and lovely. They sing with their hands raised, hers at shoulder height, his high above his head. One time after a service, she told me how much my contribution had meant to her and kissed me. I'll never forget that. She walks with a cane now.
Another older man, who used to be the pastor of this church. He and his wife spent their lives pastoring small churches, investing in the lives of the people around them, week after week, year after year, going wherever they heard God calling them to.
The woman in the same row, next section. She sits during the song service, not singing but nodding along. She used to play the piano in this room, out of the hymn book. She was widowed and, years later, remarried a rather nice man who is standing beside where she sits, not singing.
Further away, a younger man whose wife left him. He's remarried, too, and they have cute kids. I've never seen him sing. He has a passion for sports and an easy, wry smile.
His dad and mom were fantastic people, founders of this church. I never met his dad, but I sang at his mom's funeral. A woman with a "driving ministry". She'd get alone with someone in a car and pray that God would take the conversation somewhere good. And he did, time and time again.
The couple behind me. I answered the church phone the day he called to ask for prayer because she'd left him. The family went through a rough couple of years until they were both able to humble themselves enough to try again. And it worked.
The woman off to the other side. She's long divorced and she's walked through some mental illness. She's had some crap in her life, but she keeps coming back. In her professional capacity, she was a great help at school to my kids when they needed it. Patient and gentle.
That man behind me and to the left has struggled with depression.
The woman who's been married for I don't know how long, but I've never seen her husband in the building. Their son deployed to Afghanistan last week.
The man who is a single dad, reformed alcoholic; the passionate prayer of his parents for years - now being answered one day at a time.
The woman who is a single mom of a special needs son. He's taller than she is now, well into his teens. Wearing a Halo3 t-shirt and playing air drums. (Him, not her.)
And they're all there. Some sing, some don't. Some pay attention to the sermon, some don't. But they all take the bread and the wine and we all eat and drink together.
For me to sit in that company - surrounded by stories of redemption and reconciliation and healing, struggle and decades of faithfulness, help and helplessness and gifts given and received, triumph and 'two steps forward one step back', fear and trust - is to be refocused. Whatever the sermon is about is secondary. What songs we sing comes third.
Because it's all about those people and their God.
I remember every one of their stories and I 'enter into worship'. I thank God for each of them and for what he's done in their lives. I pray for them as I sit there and I hope they're praying for me.
I miss some of the sermon and I don't sing all the songs, but I listen to the music and look around at these people, these brothers and sisters, as the lyrics fill the room.
No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of Hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from his hand
'Til he returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand...
But it's all memories. All in the past. Set aside as I am, I'm not part of the new stories. Not learning what God is doing in these people's lives now.
That's what I'm mourning. What I have to figure out or rationalize or justify for myself. 'Cause that's what I've lost.
I've lost the future.
r