It's a mystery

Last spring while I was in the middle of dealing with that obnoxious and prolonged illness and had lots of time on my hands, a good friend sent me an article about a site that posts reports from "Mystery Worshipers" -- because I was bedridden and looking for diversions, I applied to be a Mystery Worshiper. I was "accepted" and sent a link to the "MW" site. Oh, that I would have had my stuff at hand when we went to that horrid service this summer (scroll down to "Thing-a-ma-Jewif you haven't read it and want the gory details).

So, I've gone to two different churches in the past several weeks. I haven't seen my reports posted yet (and maybe they won't see the light of day), but it does raise a bit of the ongoing debate about modern day Christianity that made people like my grandma nuts. Should worship really be a consumer-driven deal? How often we hear the phrase "church shopping" when people move to a new area. Long gone are the days when you either went to the closest church to your home (if you were a "C&E" Christian) or hunted down the congregation from your denomination.

Nowadays, churches are bombarded with tips and hints from their denominations on how to attract new members -- coffee shops on the church campus, evening worship, contemporary worship -- a seemingly endless way of slicing and dicing demographics and trying to create a worship experience that is meaningful to each audience. Of course, others argue that that much splintering off means too homogeneous an assembly. There's no opportunity to intermingle with the older / younger / traditional / contemporary folk if you never see them. I think my sermon on Samuel and Eli probably tips my hand on the value I place of at least the intergenerational aspect of worship. (I can email the sermon to anyone who is interested.)

So, isn't a mystery shop a little like "botique-ifying" how one chooses a congregation? Well, maybe, but here are some common threads I've found in my own church-shopping and mystery worshiping experiences that would be important no matter the denomination or belief set.

• When you gotta go -- If your bathrooms aren't CLEARLY marked, then do so. Seriously. You don't want to have to track down an usher/greeter just because you had too much coffee on the way in. You want someone to feel welcome, making it easy for them to stay is a good first step.
• Assume we know nothing of your traditions 'cause we don't. I don't care if you're going from one church within your denomination to another. There isn't really as much of a common thread as you think. I've been to probably a dozen ELCA churches and more than a handful of UCC and UMC churches over the years (not to mention a few Missouri Synod Lutheran churches). Sometimes you'll find more similarities between churches of different denominations than you do within those that are supposed to be cut from the same cloth. You know that little ditty you sing after the offering (doxology for the fancy types)? Yeah, just because you've sung it for 20 or 30 years doesn't mean EVERYONE has. Really. If it's important enough that you sing it, print it in the bulletin or at least announce where you can find it.
• So what time do you meet, anyway? I cannot even begin to tell you how many churches (including an embarrassing number of churches I've belonged to) don't list their worship times on their answering machines. If we were omnipotent, we wouldn't need to go to church. But, since we're mere humans, how 'bout telling us when you meet? Oh, and if you think the newby is going to feel comfortable enough to leave a message so that (gasp) the minister needs to call the visitor back with the time, I would like you to give me more than one instance (heck, I'll settle for one) instance where that has actually happened.
• Cut the chatter. If you want to catch up with another person in the church, save it for fellowship. I'm not kidding when I tell you how many times there has been full-out conversations going on during worship, including supper plans, beefs with the choir, vacation highlights, DETAILED information about health conditions -- both mystery worship experiences had one form or another of this. Yes, there are places where this is acceptable. They're called coffee shops.
• Precious Lord, you can take my hand. Everyone else, cool it. I know there's something to be said for a warm handshake or even a hug from time to time. But when I'm a stranger in your midst, I may not be nuts about hand-holding and song-singing. These activities should be optional. Don't make them feel like a requirement. It comes off as aggressive, not warm and friendly.
• Lost and found -- While I don't want you to hug me if I don't even know your name, the other extreme is letting me wander around, like it's my personal wilderness experience. If I've got the wrong hymnal in my hands (which shouldn't happen, if it's announced in advance), feel free to lend a hand. If I'm walking around aimlessly before or after worship, feel free to ask if I need something or am just looking around. You don't need to be pushy, but at least check in.

Finally, as I've said before. Thing-a-ma-Jew is not an appropriate phrase to use before, during or after worship. I'd go back and give the fella a piece of my mind when I'm back in the area again, but he didn't have the worship times on his answering machine. Maybe there is a method to that madness after all...

Hey, hey, hey! It's word vs. sacrament!

If for no other reason, I'm grateful to be in seminary to get to the root of why the things about "the church" whizz me off. Here's one that's gotten under my skin for years. Why is it that in so many denominations, you need to be ordained to administer the sacraments (or get a special "hall pass" from an ordained person or church authority)? In lecture this week, we were discussing (okay, the professor mostly talks and we mostly listen, so discussing is probably not an apt verb) the role of scripture and sacraments for Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism and various flavors of Zwingli/Calvinism.

The crude way of looking at it is if we were to be playing a variation of rock, paper, scissors with the Roman Catholics, sacrament beats scripture/word. In the reformed traditions, it's supposed to be the reverse. If we Protestants place such importance on the word/sacrament (in which the readings and sermon are the main players of worship, as opposed to communion at a mass), then why is it any ol' fool can get up and "do the sermon" at many churches, yet there are a zillion hoops to jump through to administer the sacraments (of which there are two: baptism and communion).

I have to say, having my professor spell out what I hadn't gotten around to articulating was helpful. It also places the sermon I'm preaching tomorrow on a new level. I'm administering something more important than the sacrament, according to my denomination. At least that puts the drinking game I proposed in a lower level of egregiousness, since it's more closely aligned with a sacrament than having anything to do with the word ... except the words my listeners may choose for their little game. On the plus side, it would encourage a closer listening of the sermon, so in the immortal words of Fat Albert, "If you're not careful, you just might learn something before it's done!"

Taking attendance

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, evil has been lurking close to home for me and mine. So much so that some family members have questioned the existence of God or at the very least, have noted God’s absence.

Now, in instances like that, I suppose I could toss out some quasi-pastoral line about not seeing footprints in the sand because God is carrying you or some such noise, but I don’t find that comforting myself, nor do I believe it. So, what can I say when I’m hearing about an AWOL God? How ‘bout the truth? What I responded to one family member was, “Oh, yeah. That. God hasn’t really been present for me in years.” So, the follow-up question I received was, “Um, where are you driving home from tonight?” Yeah. The seminary. See, that’s a little secret you don’t often hear. Lots of us “God-types” aren’t exactly tight with God.

The most notable example of this living-in-God’s-absence-and-soldiering-on type of minister is Mother Teresa. A batch of letters came out after her death that chronicled a span of more than four decades in which she just wasn’t feeling it. Yet, every day she’d get up, put on her clothes and get out there doing her job. Isn’t that what we all do? Okay, most of us aren’t exactly drumming up dough to feed, clothe and educate gobs of hungry orphans. But we still do our own acts of heroism every day, attending to the needs of family and friends in their times of suffering, making cookies for a bake sale to benefit a neighbor or school, letting someone merge onto the highway from the on ramp. Acts of kindness. It’s what we do. It’s our way of bringing humanity into an often cruel and inhumane world.

The God thing? Well, that’s a leap of faith.

Faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.*

St. Augustine argued that love was the most important of the big three, ‘cause the Bible sez so. I disagree. Sure, love’s great. But, I think most of us have a handle on love. We get it. What’s harder for us everyday schmucks is having faith in an absent God when those we love are hurt. It’s also having faith that maybe God’s absence is a clue that we really do need to rely on each other to carry forth the work of God and feel God’s work being acted out on our behalf by others. So what is this work? It’s the work of stewarding and caring for our planet and the creation that resides within it – whales, dogs, cats, turtles, redwood trees, tulips, ferns, polar bears and humans. We do it out of love; we do it as an act of faith.

*That’s my top of mind recollection of 1 Corinthians 13 for those keeping track at home. Most folks recognize it from about a zillion weddings they’ve attended.

What makes me crankier than Twins losing? God bless America

Yes, you've heard it here first. I'm a commie pinko, un-American freak. Almost 48 hours later and what makes me crabbier than the Twins losing Sunday's game was the "requirement" we all stand in the 7th inning and listen to some way overdressed chick sing "God Bless America." WTF???

Needless to say, I practiced my First Amendment right to not stand and to not have some sense of phony reverence for a cheesy song made popular by yet another overdressed chick back when my mother was still in diapers (and it was an old, dusty tune then).

That's not to say I don't pray for my country. I do. Fervently. A lot. Do I need to somehow prove my American-ness in the company of 50,000 beer drinking, baseball-watching fans? Heck no. While I'm not opposed to a song that asks the almighty for guidance, I am opposed to and offended by the forced patriotism that resides behind the action being done in a public venue like a major league baseball game. In a post-9/11 world, I completely agree our nation needs guidance. I just question the motivation behind and appropriateness of the action, not to mention it's a pretty dumb tune.

That's not to say that I didn't spring to my feet when "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was sung. Now that's a bit of group think I can live with. Right motivation. Right venue.

The question of evil

Unwittingly, I have looked evil in the face and survived, although the swath of destruction in the wake of what's unfolded will run deep and wide for years to come. It's cases of bad, indeed truly horrible, things happening to good and innocent people that solidify my thoughts on intercessory prayer. If God were truly hanging out just waiting to jump on the scene, if only enough people were to pray about it, that puts a lot of power on individuals and shows a lack of faith in God. (These folks seem to think God doesn't know God's business without a little micro-managing from humanity.) Not only that, but if God were to be following marching orders dictated by us humans, there would be a lot of folks who would suddenly go up in puffs of smoke because God would be pulling double shifts in the smiting business. But, I guess when humanity has lost faith in itself, it needs to turn somewhere. I'm just not convinced this placing of human desires on the human construct of God is healthy for anyone.

Thank God for dogs!

While most of my posts are seminary-related, this one's a bit of a stretch. I guess it is in the roundabout sense that Bob and I have always embraced stewardship of creation as a shared value.



What could celebrate the gift of creation and stewardship more than a totally gratuitous video I just created with some software I found on my computer? (And irritatingly, it won't post on Facebook; I think FB hates the Allman Brothers.) Being caregivers for abandoned doggies in need of medical attention seems like a pretty good way to make the most of creation.



Call this my holiday sermon and moment of thanksgiving...

I think it's no coincidence that God and Dog share the same letters. Dogs make terrific preachers and praise-singers.

Thing-a-ma-jew? Really???

It's been yet another event-filled week, once again culminated by bizarre, homicidal vehicles on interstate highways. After our most recent brush with death, complete with failed brakes, flaming engines and merging semi-trucks in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Bob and I decided "what the hell?" we'd go to church on Sunday morning. While we weren't expecting any conversion experiences, a la The Blues Brothers, we were mildly surprised at how the service went...and it wasn't like this.




You could say we did see the light, or that it was an enlightening experience, but only in that it reinforced why it is that I'm still less than enamored with Christianity, even though I'm about 1/6 of the way through seminary with the ultimate goal of being ordained. I know I write entirely too many LONG posts, so I'll give you the truncated version and let you fill in the blanks.

A minister's "Don't list" of how to conduct Sunday service

• Don't meander in during the gathering time whistling an entirely different tune than the organist is playing...better still, don't whistle at all.
• Don't spend the first 10 minutes of what's supposed to be worship telling personal stories that are only loosely related, in that they all have to do with you.
• Don't humiliate your children in front of the congregation by airing your dirty laundry.
• Don't think that bullying the local police, breaking down a door, threatening a group of teenagers in the name of "rescuing" a child who is hanging out drinking a couple of beers is acceptable.
• Don't confuse patriotism with Christianity. God's got the whole world to pay attention to. What makes you think that God should play favorites, or if God does, that our country would be it?
• Don't act proud when you tell the congregation you "didn't come from monkeys" -- it's offensive to the monkeys that you try to associate yourself with them at all.
• Don't forget that the God that we worship is the one who originated from the Jews. By demeaning them, you spit in the face of the one you believe is your creator.
• Don't have at least 7 times more mentions of yourself than you do of God, or even of "The Kid" -- it's just plain tacky.
• Don't, for the love of God, DON'T ever, EVER use the phrase Thing-A-Ma-Jew. Ever.

These really shouldn't be too difficult to follow, especially the last one. Really.