This week, my friends and I went to a Presbyterian church. One of the first things the pastor said to the congregation was that he encouraged them to spend a week or two exploring different religions. He said he didn't want them to convert, or to preach to them about how the new religion was wrong, but just to meet people outside of their religious family, and to maybe make a few connections with people who have different views. When I heard his encouragement, my first reaction was "Amen, brother." Of course, I want to get more than connections from my little journey, and my religious exploration is going to take more than a few weeks, but I can respect a church that is confident enough to let their members look at other religions. I know this plan might backfire, and a few people might actually convert to a different religion, but even if they do I think finding a new faith is better than being afraid to explore and losing religion all together (not that being atheist is bad- I have a friend who is atheist and she's pretty tight), or not really knowing if you agree with your religion just because you're afraid to look and see if there's something better out there.
The service we went to was pretty casual. Given, the one we went to was named the "informal" service- there was a traditional one a few hours later. The website for this church said that the informal service had a guitar, and I'll admit that was a pretty big draw for us. You know those commercials for Christian Rock cds that have the band on stage and a huge audience singing Awesome God? That's always kind of what I think of when someone tells me their church uses a guitar. Given, I've known Presbyterians and knew beforehand that they were a little more traditional than that, but I can still hope right?
I thought the actual service was kind of an odd mix of traditional and contemporary. I don't know why, but I think I have an easier time focusing in a more traditional setting. I think this might be because the church I grew up in was fairly traditional. My first pastor (well, okay, not my FIRST pastor, but the one m church had for most of my childhood) was pretty serious. I've always considered the people in my church to be a pretty open minded group of people, and they'll accept anyone. So as far as opinions go, I’d say we’re pretty modern, but the actual service is pretty traditional. There are a lot of things we do that are, as far as I know, still done just because they’re tradition. If they had a functional purpose at one time, that purpose is gone. As ridiculous as this is, if you mess with those little things, it kind of bothers me. For example, you know when churches have candles on/around the altar? It bothers me when those are lit or put out in the wrong order. I think I need to have all of those weird little things in order to really be able to take the service seriously. Either be a traditional Christian church, or go in a completely different direction. So, I guess what I’m trying to say in this big ridiculous run-on paragraph is that I was having a hard time paying attention this morning. Instead of paying attention to what was going on, I spent a good 20 minutes watching the little boy sitting next us read his I Spy book. Remember those? They’re like Where’s Waldo, only you’re trying to find a list of objects hidden in the picture instead of Waldo, and on the cover they always have this really shiny silver square that you can use to reflect light. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the actual book only amused the kid for about 5 minutes, and then he started to use the cover to shine light onto the ceiling and walls and, of course, into people’s eyes.
Despite how uninspiring the service was, there was a part of the sermon that did kind of stay with me. At the very beginning of it, the pastor told us that the first time he saw Star Wars (you read that right, he talked about Star Wars), he was struck by the scene where Leia is talking to Tarkin, and he tells her that no one will oppose the emperor, and she tells him “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” He said that people have too tight of a grip on what they have, and this tight grip is making their spiritual well-being is slipping through their fingers. It might be a bit of a stretch as far as metaphors go, but I still liked it. A lot of the stuff Jesus talked about kind of reflects that- it seemed like he was telling everyone to give up everything they had to follow God. You know, the last shall be first and all of that good stuff. The poor and disabled and all of the other people who have some hardship they have to overcome will be the first ones welcomed into heaven. Let go of your wealth and follow God.
No comments:
Post a Comment