Questions

A while back I came across this Pearls Before Swine cartoon.

And while Rat's question is perhaps a bit extreme, it reminded me of this discussion I once heard from a neighbor on a date, chatting after the date right outside my open window.

She told her date that she didn't want to go to heaven. She wanted to go to hell, because that's where all the fun people would be.

The problem though, is that Rat probably couldn't ask his question at church. Nor could my former neighbor share about her thoughts on hell. It's not typically an open-forum place where people can ask their questions, express their doubts, and find answers. Even in a small group setting, where people can actually be engaged in the conversation, there seems to be a limit on how far outside of the "normal Christian doubts" you can go.

On Desperate Housewives, Lynette once went to Brie's church and challenged the status quo. She raised her hand to ask a question about the sermon.

And although the pastor did respond to her questions and invite further dialogue, Brie was openly embarrassed and later criticized her friend, noting that church was not a place you go to ask questions. All too often, that's the way we react to genuine conversation in church.

I wonder if we'd have a better reputation and more visitors if we were willing to have a culture that engaged people and let them express their thoughts and doubts.

God's Love

Here's a quote from this week's sermon at LifeBridge:

"You and I are never gonna lock eyes with anyone who God doesn't love as much as he loves you." - Rick Rusaw, Senior Minister

Now maybe to many people, that doesn't sound particularly profound or jarring. But it was something I needed to hear.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm one of God's favorites. Not because I feel entitled or like I deserve his love more than anyone else—I know I don't—but because he's blessed me so much and I just feel such a great connection with him.

But you know how sometimes on the Bachelorette, guys that think they are a shoe-in and keep telling the camera they have the strongest connection with the girl...those guys end up going home? It's easy for them to think they've got a stronger connection because they don't see the girl's relationship with the other guys. They only see their own. And they make a comparison even though they only see the one side.

This quote was in the context of a sermon about James 2, where he says not to show favoritism. I'll be honest, I judge people far too often. How they dress, how they wear their hair, how they talk. And at least in my head, I show favoritism accordingly. But this passage tells us not to show favoritism because that's not a reflection of God. God doesn't show favoritism. I'm not one of his favorites because he doesn't have any.

When my neighbor felt it was a good idea to blast music for hours straight from his car...at midnight...God loved him as much as he loves me.

When my other neighbor let her 5- and 8-year old girls play outside at midnight on a different night, presumably while she was passed out drunk...God loved her as much as he loves me.

When the creepy guy came up to me in Walmart and starting telling me about math equations in Spanish...God loved him as much as God loves me.

When someone disagrees with me about religion or politics or moral values...God loves that person as much as he loves me.

When the people from Westboro Baptist who give Christians such a bad name picket at gay people's funerals...as hard as it is to believe...God loves those misguided baptists as much as he loves me. (And he loves the gay person who died just as much, too.)

I want to learn to see the value of others through the eyes of God. To see how even people who don't meet my standards of lovableness do meet God's. Which is pretty backwards since he is much more entitled to harsh standards for lovableness. I want to realize that I am no more lovable—or more to the point, no more loved—than anyone I come into contact with. I want to really get that in my thoughts, words, and actions toward others.

Notes

Last Sunday in church, as the preacher began his sermon, he stopped short and started singling people out in the congregation. Pointing to them, saying things like, "You, I can see you! You, hiding behind the pole...you can't hide!"

The people he was pointing out? People he could tell weren't taking notes. As if shaming people into doing some pseudo-spiritual act wasn't enough, he went on to say, "You'll remember it better if you take notes. Can you imagine taking a class in school and not taking notes? You'd never remember anything."

A fair point, for a seminarian. But for a sermon listener? Yuck. The whole thing made me want to stand up and shout, "THIS is what's wrong with sermons!"

Because school is about a transfer of knowledge. You need to know how to multiply fractions and that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and that leaves are green because of the chloroform. (And yes, I realize all my examples are things you learn in elementary school. Apparently I didn't take good enough notes in high school and college.) It makes sense that you need to write down things that are about knowledge.

But sermons shouldn't be about a transfer of knowledge. If all I've walked away with on a Sunday morning is a handful of Bible facts to file away in some binder and never review again (because let's be honest, the only reason you looked at your school notes were to study for a test) ...I've wasted my time. But if I walk away loving God a little more, sensing the Spirit's presence in my life a little more, challenged to do something practical to be a little more like Jesus...then I've been transformed. And that's what should happen in church. Gradually, slowly, church facilitates the process of refining that God is working on in our life.

I'm not saying there's no room for learning about the Bible. Too many Christians don't know enough about why they believe. But knowledge for knowledge sake, when it comes to Christianity, is worthless. Knowledge that leads to transformation? Priceless. And if you're really being transformed, you'll remember it without filling in the blanks on a sermon outline.

Pastor

My church is looking for a new senior pastor. It's been quite some time, and a couple weeks ago we had a prospective pastor come preach. To the extent that I like preaching, which isn't much, I felt like he was great. Very different in style from what our church is used to, but I found him engaging and relatable, and I walked away personally challenged.

But what I really liked about this guy wasn't his preaching. Like I said, I'm not real into preaching period. What I liked was his heart. His character. He was authentic, humble, and genuine. He spoke earnestly about what he cared about and some of his failings. He had a passion for helping people seek God and live as part of God's kingdom, and I was so excited for that kind of leader.

Today we had a church vote on him. I didn't get to vote since I'm not a member, and we won't know the results until later this week. But before the vote people shared various opinions and questions. And one thing that several people mentioned was not being a fan of his preaching style.

Now I get that some people have different preferences than me, and prefer different styles. (But again...my real preference would be no preaching,  just a guy leading discussion that helps us draw out what the Scripture is saying. In fact in my sermon journal I write down ideas of experiences and discussions that could make the same teaching interactive and memorable. But I digress.)

But ultimately I just feel like preaching is not a big enough thing to say yes or no because of. I mean, it's 30 minutes a week of a full-time job. Sure, it's the most visible part...but that doesn't mean it's the most important. I think the most important thing about a pastor is that he can lead and manage the congregation with integrity. That he can help us grow closer to Christ and seek and serve him more.

I don't know how the people who didn't like his preaching voted, if that was enough to be a "no" for them. But I felt very discouraged sitting there and realizing how much emphasis many congregants were placing on preaching (which was just 1 out of 5 strengths our search team looked at).

So whether or not he gets the vote and comes to be our new pastor, I'm still discouraged. A church isn't made vibrant by 30 minutes of brilliant orating each week. A church is made vibrant when the people in it grow more and more in their love for God every day, support each other in community, and serve in unity. And the real job of a pastor is facilitating that and being an example of that.

Processing

You may recall that one of my New Year's resolutions was to be me - to discover and embrace the person God created me to be.

I've been thinking about this a lot, letting God define me and reading a book on the topic, The Me I Want to Be by John Ortberg. All this got me thinking about how I process things best: by writing about them. (So now you get why I blog so much!) I even had a reading assignment in college where I asked the professor if I could submit a paper about my readings (which wasn't assigned), because I knew that without writing or discussion, the information would go straight out of my mind.

And then I started thinking about all my complaints about sermons, and how it's pretty unlikely that I am going to find a church that has interactive learning rather than passive listening in services. But that there is something I can do about this...based on the way I process.

So I bought a journal last week for use in church. Not to take bullet pointed notes and regurgitate what the pastor is saying in written form. Rather, the purpose is to take notes about my responses to the sermon. How does it challenge me? What does it make me think about? For instance, this week the pastor talked asked what we consider to be a good life. So I made a list of what I seek for a "good life." And I wrote that if we want to hire this prospective pastor we should give him a rose like on The Bachelor. That seemed important. And I wrote a challenge for myself to apply the sermon.

So, that's what I'm doing to help myself grow more from listening to sermons instead of letting it all slip out of my mind in a couple of hours.

Questions

I'll admit it: I'm a fan of Desperate Housewives. And there's an episode in Season 4 that has stuck with me for a long time.

In it, Lynette has just overcome cancer and nearly lost her family in a tornado (but they were fine). And she has questions about God's goodness. And about why she survived these things when so many others don't. So she decides to turn to church.

She'd never been to church, not even as a kid, but she went with Bree. And when the preacher was finishing his sermon, she raised her hand and asked her question. And started dialoguing with the preacher.

Well, Bree was mortified and told Lynette that church isn't about asking questions, it's about listening for the answers. Lynette wasn't satisfied and sought another church.

But I think Lynette was on to something. She was making church into an active, participatory experience.

Because if faith isn't meant to be passive, why is it that the crux of communal faith (church) is so passive? And what does that do to our natural tendency to live a passive faith in day-to-day life? To sit in our metaphorical pews and watch someone else live out faith? How does our church model discourage thinking for oneself about faith, and instead teach us to blindly accept the words of the "experts"? (What could we have to offer when we've got a seminary grad on stage?)

And what if I had the courage to raise my hand and ask questions in church like Lynette did? Ah, but I wouldn't. Because I've been going to church long enough to know that's not how it works. Unlike Lynette, I know that church culture is to sit obediently and listen, maybe throwing out the occasional "amen" if your denomination is OK with that or you're really brave.

I went to church yesterday. The sermon was about godly words. One of the points was that godly words are few, and I found it ironic that someone could talk uninterrupted for over half an hour and part of the talk could be about having few words.

He also said something about "attending church" as a mark of Christianity. And I thought about that phrase, "attend church." We use it so often, so casually, we don't think about it. But what if the verb that goes with church wasn't "attending" like you do with a play or a class, but experiencing? What if we could truthfully say we "experience church" every Sunday?

I've talked to numerous people at Group about my frustrations with this passive thing we call church. Many of them share my frustrations. Thom Schultz, our founder and CEO, blogs about it often. (I had a link to his blog, but it looks like it might've been hacked today.) I think it's because we know there's a better way to learn. To discover. To explore. And we're frustrated that no one is doing it in "big church."