Church Shopping

You learn a lot when you are out looking for a church. The Bean and I went to yet another one today. This one, unlike many of the others, we were very excited about. It had tagged itself as a "missional" church, and its lingo was straight out of Michael Frost's Shaping of things to Come.

It was a place for broken people, those tired of the mask they feel is needed in many arenas of their lives, in many sectors of society. It was a place that was welcome to those on the outside - whatever all that was supposed to mean. I don't care what anyone else says, it was still church in the modern era. The entire communities' justification for existing was still centered around the preacher's art and the music-dependant "worship." It was still entertainment-driven. The music is playing, the emotions are stirring, and to an outsider (of which for today, I was one), it was still exactly the sort of ritual a football coach takes his team through in the locker-room pep-talk. Got to rally them. Got to hook their emotions - it is the only way to make this successful. Got to play better, sing better, choose the songs better. And then we will arrive at nirvana, the confirmation of which is people walking out afterwards, nodding their heads and saying "that was really great."

Church isn't an event. It isn't something with a time and date that can be put on a bulletin, and predicatmized (sounds like victimized) onto a tight schedule. It is so void of life, of the natural rhythms and movements of the real world, to sit and "behave" for an hour, in a service that roughly still follows the outlines of Roman Senate meetings of the first three centuries: Sit now, stand now, lift praise to the diety now, go through the decisions of the body-politic, bow in reverence to the diety, and the republic it represents. Who are we worshipping anyway? God, or Caesar? We thought we threw him off at the Reformation, but it turns out we've retained more than we like to admit. Perhaps we need a new reformation . . . .