disclaimer: I may step on someones toes in this blog. It is not intentional, it's just that I feel like I have to get out what's going on in my head and some of it may not come across the way I mean it to. Feel free to comment, I'm a big girl, I can take it. I'm going to assume you all are big boys/girls too.....
Don't we want more? Are we really satisfied with what is going on in the religious culture around us? Church or no church, let's just put that aside. My problem is not with that building we go to every Sunday, my problem is not with traditional vs contemporary, hymns vs. praise (I actually prefer hymns, the words have more meaning), Baptist/Methodist/Presby/whatever, my problem is that, from what I see, none of it seems to be making a difference in the culture around us. My problem is that it seems like we have taken this institution we call the "church" (building/programs of course, not the people), that's only been around for a few hundred years, and decided IT is the way to do things. Why is it so bad to feel like there may be something better? It is not sacrilegious to question the validity of the modern-day church.
The last thing I would want to do is start a new "church". I agree with Aubry in that the US needs no more new churches. Although, I think we think this for different reasons. I want to be no part of a new building/staff/budgeting blah blah blah, if anything I run from it. More of the same is not going to get the job done. Isn't that the old definition of insanity that we've all heard a million times? Doing the same thing and expecting different results?
When I break it down I don't even understand why we have church buildings with Pastors and committees and all that. Where did it come from? The Bible? No, from the Catholics, if I'm not mistaken. Martin Luther tried to change things, but during the protestant reformation even he got discouraged and they ended up basing their new structure for the protestant church on what they knew, the Catholic church. Where in the Bible does it say that one man should be the leader of a church? Doesn't that just give all of us other "saints" a good excuse to sit on our rears? It leads to burned out pastors who have too much responsibility heaped on them, and lazy Christians sitting in the pews expecting the people who get paid to do everything. And a church building is just a "come and see" mentality. You can get to know God, you can find peace and happiness and all that, if you come to our building we'll tell you about it.
I know what you're thinking. I sound bitter. But I will honestly say, I am not. We have had challenging times as leadership in various churches, and I have been bitter in the past, but that is not where this is coming from. This is coming from a heart that wants more. I can't believe someone can read the New Testament, I mean REALLY read the New Testament and not be dissatisfied with the way things are done today. How many times have we heard "WWJD"? Well, what would he do? Where would he be? Would he be in our churches? I don't have the answers, I'm not claiming I do. I'm just looking around me and not seeing anything that sends my soul into overdrive.
Jesus went to the people. He didn't sequester himself in a building, build up great programs that he hoped would attract the people and then say "come over here", he got messy in their lives. He ate with them, lived with them, touched their diseased and broken lives. He was missional. And not just at "appropriate" times like mission trips or special events, it was his life.
I know I sound like a young person who thinks they know more than the older people who've been in church forever, (and I know I don't) I know I sound impatient and like I want things to change right now. But, you know what, I don't care, I do want things to change right now. In my life.
I can't speak for you, I don't pretend to speak for you, these blogs are about my questions and frustrations with the whole concept. I like your input, I want to know how other people are dealing with these issues in their own lives, and I don't judge you for them, but this is me working out the desires that God has placed in my heart. I don't know what to do with them. I want to be like Jesus, like the paragraph I wrote just above this one, but then there's the human side of me that has children, that says "whoa, I don't want to get messy with my kids in tow", so what am I to do? I pray about it, alot. I pray that God would show me, in the perfect time, what the heck all these things in my head are for.
And I pray that no one calls the SBC and tells them I'm a heretic and my husband loses his job.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Is it me?
That's the question John and I have been asking ourselves alot lately. It just seems everyone around us is satisfied with the way we "do church". I KNOW that this is the way it's been done for a million zillion years, I KNOW that SOME good things come out of it, I KNOW that this is the way I was raised and I turned out semi-normal, but I have basically decided I don't want it. So, where does that leave me? I don't go to church and hate it or anything like that. I just have such a restlessness, such a dissatisfaction, and I want something different. But what are my options in the place I am? Honestly, the only option I see out there is starting our own house church. But, I am going to have a baby in 5 weeks, John is SUPER-busy, our lives are SUPER-busy, when do we have time to do this? And even if we do it one day, what do we do in the mean-time?
For a while I stopped reading books and thinking about the whole church concept. It caused such a frustration in me that I thought it was getting unhealthy and I quit. But the issue is a huge one in my life. I am not going to give up God, not even a thought about that, and I don't want to "forsake the gathering......", but what do I do? So I realized that I cannot ignore this issue and hope it resolves itself. I actually had the thought last week, on our way to a perfectly good church in Hammond on a Sunday morning, "why not?", why not just join the church, sing in the choir, put Sadie in their perfectly good Children's program, join a Women's bible study and be done with it. The thought came because it would be so much easier than trying to figure out what else to do with this restlessness. But I can't. There is some reason that God has put this in my heart, our heart (John too), and it's killing me!
So anyway, I started reading again. I'm reading "The Shaping of Things to Come", and so far it's great, but the restlessness begins anew. I want what they are saying is possible. I want to find a way to worship that is ACTUALLY missional, not just titling itself that way, I want to know GOD, not RELIGION and TRADITION. I know those two things can be good, can help you to know God, but so often in churches what I see is that they are replacing Him.
And then there is the issue of how we want to raise Sadie and baby-boy (I say "baby-boy" because John has decided he might be okay with "Jack", but now I don't know because I've called him JP for so long that I feel like it would be weird changing his name at this point). I commented a little about this on Benjamin's blog, because it is something John and I think about alot. Our children will be raised to be Godly men and women, they will be taught about Jesus and the Bible and grace and mercy. But we will be the ones to teach them. It is our responsibility, not Sunday School and VBS. But, do we want them to grow up without Sunday School and VBS? Would it be better for them to grow into an understanding of God that doesn't have to be one day deconstructed because of all the religious trappings? Would that be what happened, or would there just be different deconstructing and religious trappings? Oh crap, who knows. Is any of this making sense? I want some coffee.
All this to say I'm frustrated. With myself, with the churches I've visited, with the people I encounter who just don't see IT, with the fact that I can't have six cups of coffee a day and I've gained WAY too much weight, but mostly just with myself. That's why I ask, is it me?
For a while I stopped reading books and thinking about the whole church concept. It caused such a frustration in me that I thought it was getting unhealthy and I quit. But the issue is a huge one in my life. I am not going to give up God, not even a thought about that, and I don't want to "forsake the gathering......", but what do I do? So I realized that I cannot ignore this issue and hope it resolves itself. I actually had the thought last week, on our way to a perfectly good church in Hammond on a Sunday morning, "why not?", why not just join the church, sing in the choir, put Sadie in their perfectly good Children's program, join a Women's bible study and be done with it. The thought came because it would be so much easier than trying to figure out what else to do with this restlessness. But I can't. There is some reason that God has put this in my heart, our heart (John too), and it's killing me!
So anyway, I started reading again. I'm reading "The Shaping of Things to Come", and so far it's great, but the restlessness begins anew. I want what they are saying is possible. I want to find a way to worship that is ACTUALLY missional, not just titling itself that way, I want to know GOD, not RELIGION and TRADITION. I know those two things can be good, can help you to know God, but so often in churches what I see is that they are replacing Him.
And then there is the issue of how we want to raise Sadie and baby-boy (I say "baby-boy" because John has decided he might be okay with "Jack", but now I don't know because I've called him JP for so long that I feel like it would be weird changing his name at this point). I commented a little about this on Benjamin's blog, because it is something John and I think about alot. Our children will be raised to be Godly men and women, they will be taught about Jesus and the Bible and grace and mercy. But we will be the ones to teach them. It is our responsibility, not Sunday School and VBS. But, do we want them to grow up without Sunday School and VBS? Would it be better for them to grow into an understanding of God that doesn't have to be one day deconstructed because of all the religious trappings? Would that be what happened, or would there just be different deconstructing and religious trappings? Oh crap, who knows. Is any of this making sense? I want some coffee.
All this to say I'm frustrated. With myself, with the churches I've visited, with the people I encounter who just don't see IT, with the fact that I can't have six cups of coffee a day and I've gained WAY too much weight, but mostly just with myself. That's why I ask, is it me?
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
My Beauty
She is so big now. It makes me so sad sometimes. I'm thrilled that we're about to have another one, really, but sometimes it makes me sad that she won't be the only one anymore. I hope that doesn't make me a bad mom. Anyway, I snapped some pics yesterday and wanted to share how big she is. I made a list for her baby book of all the words she knows and so far have come up with 103. When did this happen? Yesterday she was a blob who couldn't move without me, and today she's bringing me a book and saying "read it momma".
I had a moment of e-bay madness last week where I found a really cute peacock outfit for halloween, bid on it and watched it for a while. Then had a profound thought "I just bid 20 bucks for a used costume she will wear once for one hour, and it costs 13 dollars to ship it. Have I lost my mind?". So, as you can imagine I was relieved when someone outbid me, and then I promptly went to big lots and got this doggie that she LOVES for 9 dollars. Big Lots is definately not good for everything, paint supplies there absolutely suck and fall apart in two seconds, but the costume was a hit.
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