A Month of Sundays Part VI
On Sunday I visited another church.This time it was different, though. The other times I went to churches I had never been to before. This time I decided to do a Thomas Wolfe-ian experiment and visited my first childhood church experience- the Lutheran church. Unable to go back to Savannah, Georgia and recreate my ABSOLUTE first church memory, (getting yelled at by a lady for running around and playing hide-and-seek in a darkened church sanctuary!) I visited the little Lutheran church that we went to for about three years off and on when my family first moved to Oklahoma back when I was in fifth grade.
Childhood is obviously a powerful time for people- all kinds of new experiences, neural connections being formed in the brain, new habits unrolling, a worldview shaping, etc. And the idea of God and church being thrown into the mix at this time? Pretty overwhelming when you look back!
And “look back” I did. Since I had insider knowledge I realized that some things don’t change much. The building and grounds are all largely the same- four walls, a steeple and a parking lot surrounded by a lot of land. Over the last twenty or so years this church never built on an additional wing, never added services or offered choices of worship styles to accommodate an influx of new people or made any of the changes typical of a “successful” church. They still recite the Divine Order of Worship, (I can still sing the tunes in my head), they still sing every verse on hymns and stand on the last one. They may have switched out more comfortable chairs for the wooden pews and gotten a new pastor, lost some of their folks to old age and the regular movements of life, and Lord knows I’ve changed since my junior high years, but Sunday felt like I had travelled back in time.
The strange thing was that there were still some older people left who remembered the thirteen year old version of me, which I didn’t expect.
“How are your mom and brother Todd?”
“Where is your mom now?”
“Are you living here?”
“You used to play the guitar…”
The best line I heard... when I said that I have a church family of Nazarenes here in town, a lady slyly said “They’re good…but we’re better!”
I really wonder how a church like that has survived through the generations. There were about 50 people present in that sanctuary (which seemed so much larger to my shy, childhood brain.) The average age was the oldest I’ve seen yet, probably in the mid to late sixties (probably due to the fact that the church is very close to a couple retirement communities), with a handful of children present.
Let me speak for a moment in crass commercial language. How does a church like this compete in what is unfortunately a marketplace? In the last few weeks I’ve seen what draws the young and hip- the excitement and energy. I’ve also seen the church situations where one can advance in social standing by immersing themselves into a larger pool of like-minded folks. This unassuming building, this small group of folks, can offer neither of those two things.
I looked around, wondering what has kept these people together through those changing tides and times? The couple young mothers with their noisy kids sharing the same air as octogenarian choir members...what has kept this thing alive? If I were indeed writing a book I would have interviewed some of these folks and gotten some of their stories.
So, what was the service like?
Lutheran worship is by the book. Literally. Everything is written out as if the congregation and pastor were speaking the lines of a play, (“the most boring play ever written,” if you asked some folks.)
A Diversion:“Thy and My”
One important note on theology and memory: There is a point in the liturgy where you are supposed to sing “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.” Turns out I remembered the tune correctly over these years but the words slightly incorrectly “…the joy of MY salvation.” That’s a big difference, theologically-speaking, contained in less than a syllable: God’s salvation vs. My salvation. Hopefully God has not been offended over the years for my incorrect thoughts!
There were some very strange feelings welling up in me. “This used to feel so normal, so routine.” No longer. I’ve already discussed my problems with reading things aloud, even if they have had been passed down over hundreds of years. And then there were the silences- waiting for people to walk from the back of the room to the front to read the day’s scriptures, waiting for the pastor to walk from the altar to the back to sing with the choir, and then back, the un-polished-ness of it-- the silences were brutal. I realized for better or worse, that I am used to a pretty well-oiled machine of continuity in church services.
I also realized how hard these people are working to make even this simple worship service happen. Go to a larger church with some “professionals” around and you can hide or blend in and go months or years without anyone asking anything from you. Not so in a church this size. (Within five minutes after the service I was recruited to play guitar!)
Again I am left with questions: why would someone engage in this activity on a Sunday morning? Is it a convenient, regular meeting place and time for your friends and support network? Is there something to the liturgy or the act of performing the liturgy? Is it just what they’ve always done? Is it the sermon? The hymns?
I shall continue to think on it…
posted by Mike @ 3:58 PM
2 Comments:
Everything is so polished these days. Perhaps spiritual moments can be found in the awkward moments?
Sounds like without the hi-tech stuff, people actually had to talk to each other. Awkward, not easy, uncomfortable....... and the point?
I think it's a matter of priorities. You (either "you" personally or a church)do well what you pour your efforts into.
Want to be relational and community-minded? Practice being relational and community-minded.
Want to put on a rock show? Practice putting on a rock show.
Also there is the issue of the size of the congregation, the group of people in the room. As a visitor in a group of 50 people who know each other from weeks, months, years of being together I stuck out and people wanted to know why afterwards.
As a visitor in a group of hundreds or people, that becomes less likely as the number of people increases.
And that's kind of what I was getting at when I visited the mega-church, the kind of purposelessness I was feeling.
Now, maybe there are some people out there for whom "relating" and "connecting to people" is NOT the point. The point for them is to "get their worship on," to have what they consider a "transcendent moment with God" (which in my mind is just a normal aesthetic reaction to hearing and seeing music performed live.) I make no distinction between that and seeing your favorite band in a club or arena or what-have-you.
But in either case, it's not like during the liturgy nor during the rock show I am talking to the person beside me.
But there it is, another big question.
What is worship anyway? Is it SUPPOSED to fulfill these interpersonal needs.
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