Church Two

May 1, 2011

Church #2

I plunked my finger down on the 5 sheets of yellow pages church listings, and three times it came up on the church I ended up going to. I tried several times because I happen to know the minister, and thought, “oh I shouldn’t go somewhere where I’ll be KNOWN.” Whatever. I decided I “had” to go with what the finger said. This church was as far from “slick” as you could get. Almost “rustic” in its presentation. Walls of windows so you could see trees everywhere. Not a lot of decoration, although the Easter banners of course were up. The people smiled and offered their handshakes. Someone recognized me during an announcement they were giving….”Hi!!!” A baby did some screaming, nobody seemed to think twice about it. I appreciated the large print tri-fold bulletin. They did my least favorite thing, passing the peace, but only at the very end, and from what the pastor said, it sounds like it is not a regular occurrence. Whew! What I most felt as I left and through the day after when I thought about it, was … just that: I thought about things that I heard in the service and the sermon. I understand that this is likely something basic for me about the worship service: I want to hear something I can chew on for awhile. In this service, I specifically heard, “we are called to lay our hands on the suffering in the world,” as Thomas put his hands in Christ’s wounds. I realized that I heard the sermon as “here’s what life can be,” rather than, with finger pointing: “here’s what you should be doing.” Which was nice. I have always felt that churches – perhaps like people? – spend way too much time fussing about being different, rather than just accepting who they already are. I felt this church was living its personality already.