Church has Died

I am friends with a great many Christians. They are group whose company I've enjoyed for years. However, I've been feeling a concern for many of them lately. I do not fear that they are straying from the throne of God only to meander into Satan's clutches or anything like that, but there is something happening.

It's a story that is replayed quite frequently among people I know. Friday night hits and the group starts slipping away to go home. Somebody, usually my wife, calls out, "See you in Sabbath School tomorrow."

There is a shifty-foot filled silence as eyes dart about the room. "Yeah, we'll try to be there."

It seems that sleep is the ultimate deterrent for most I know. This issue has been something that has bothered me for more than four years. At that time, most of the people that would choose sleep over church were college students who would say up front, "Nine-thirty? That's so early. I'll still be in bed." God wouldn't wake up early for you either, was my usual response. Since then, I've tried to tone it down. What bothers me is that if something demands your time, such as a job or school, I know that people get up and move. But there is something casual enough about church that allows so many people to roll over and sleep on.

This whole irritation magnified a few months ago. Having a 3 month old child is no simple thing. And getting said child ready to go anywhere is task that doubles my normal preparation time. Still, my wife and I do what it takes (getting up early, mostly) to get our whole family to church. Never before has sleep been a more enticing option, and yet we still do what we can to make it to our Bible study classes as close to on time as possible. With this is mind, my rage (maybe righteous indignation) flares. How hard is it to get up in the morning? If I can make it with a child, then I see no reason others can't do the same thing without such a time-handicap.

This is becoming a rant, not what I intended. Reality is, I fear for communal spirituality. In college, I was all for skipping church, all the while declaring, "Going to church doesn't make you a holy person." Though I still believe that, I've found that a community of believers is more than beneficial--it is spiritually mature. Church is a place to reestablish faith, and in many cases, defend it. To find God in the morning among people who carry their own beliefs, so way off-base, is an excellent exercise to engage in. Also, my wife and I often try to get other searching-for-God Christians to attend. My wife's sister, for instance, brought her boyfriend (for all practical purposes, an atheist) one week. The room was nearly empty. My closest friends did not attend. Nothing in my recent history has pissed me off so thoroughly. Here's a situation that requires a gathering of Christians to show an example, to dispel many pre-conceived ideas. But when the time came, they chose to stay home. They were ready and willing to socialize afterwards, but by that time I was furious, brooding, and crabby.

As I said earlier, I do not fear for the salvation of any of my friends. Our conversations smell of spirituality, and our Bible studies seem ripe with blessings. But there appears to be a lack of concern for church, an issue I've never before concerned myself with. Recent times have shown me, though, that when Christians don't gather together, damage is done. Whether it be in the minds of the few that blog their frustrations weeks after the fact, or the damage is done among the searching, the damage still exists and strains to maim relationships and weaken holiness.

Ruth

Recently, I've been reading through some of the old testament books in hope to reconnect with some of the old and "Seriously? I've never heard of that" stories. I skipped past the book of Moses (though I know there are scads of stories and tidbits I don't know about) and took off with Joshua, finishing up through Ruth most recently.

Ruth, a book I had previously struggled with to find lasting value, grabbed hold of my mind this time through. Ruth's devotion to her mother-in-law, Naomi, slid by as a point of truth I've heard too many times to interest me. However, between the two I came to another gem.

After losing her sons, Naomi is heading back to her homeland. Ruth, the wife of one her Naomi's sons, is ready to travel with her away from everything she knows. Here we find the most famous passage from the book--"Your people will be my people, your God my God." This comes after naomi suggests that Ruth stay with her people, to return to her former way of life. "Your reason for associating with me is gone, so why don't you return to what you know," is the kind of idea I've been playing with for a while. I believe that Naomi suggested Ruth stay in Moab (her home country) for noble and kind reasons, but I this idea of changing between different ways of life has stuck with me.

Why do people join churches? Reasons abound, but what interests me is how they are treated when they come. Do "God's people" ever suggest returning to an older way of life. I hope not, but I'd bet my toenails that it happens all the time in the nonverbals, indirect comments. Had Ruth listened to Naomi, she would not have gone down in history as David's great-grandmother, she would likely have not stayed familiar with the God of Israel, she would have gone back to a Moabite's way of life (Moab was often in conflict with Israel), and her soul may have been lost. Tragically, not everybody, I'd say most, who come through the church doors are looking for stability, to lose something in their life as well as gain something. This transplanting of lives takes time and leaves people mighty fragile as they search, question, wonder, and crave. A line from Wislawa Szymborska's poem "A Contribution to Statisics:"

"Out of a hundred people...

righteous

-thirty-five, which is a lot,

righteous

and understanding

-three

worthy of compassion

-ninety-nine"

Weekend of Odd

Weather gets crazy in Nebraska. After living in Colorado and Texas, where the weather is pretty predictable, Nebraska has taken this many years to get used to. So when Saturday morning was gorgeous, I should have expected it to not last. Silly me. We wandered to the park, knowing that it was the ideal temperature (in the high 50s--good hoodie weather). Unfortunately, as soon as we got there, clouds rolled in and the wind decided it wanted to put on a show for us. Leaves leaped into our faces and the wind chilled us. Within 20 minutes, we threw the idea out and went back to my place. Sad. I was hoping for a quality fall afternoon, but no luck.

Watched Star Trek again on Saturday night. Tis so good. Which leads me to the next odd thing this weekend--New Moon. I know that it surprised everybody, but how does a vampire romance outsell The Dark Knight on its first day? I'm still in shock.

Sunday was a crazy day in which my mind was bent on putting things in the place. I didn't want to grade or do anything work related, but house projects were on my mind. So I moved a bed around, some shelves, did some laundry (but was so gracious to leave some for my wife to do), and finished off the leave sin my front yard.

The day was interrupted for a church meeting that went well, but was one of those that leaves a funny taste in your mouth.

Thanksgiving's coming. Three days of work. Praise be.

Heading for the Weekend

It's getting closer. I can almost taste it. Though this weekend will be like so many before it and load me up with a lot of things to do, I welcome it anyway. I preach tomorrow and still need to pull my sermon together. On Sunday, I'll have plenty o' grading to do. But aside from that, no real plans. Wife has a baby shower on Sunday, and I should probably rake up the million and a half leaves in our back yard. In my spare time, if I'm not totally exhausted, I'll write.

My writing has been fun, but I didn't get a chance to do any last night at all. Instead I went and saw Where the Wild Thing Are. If you haven't seen it yet, go. For me, there were so many levels to connect with. There were the childhood remembrances, but I've heard a lot of people talk of that. What thrilled me were the creatures. It makes me sad that so few creatures are created anymore. With the rise of CGI, the beauty and art form has suffered, and with the talent of the Jim Henson company, I could cry that they don't have more opportunities to demonstrate their magic.

Anyhow, I must do work stuff again (lame).

50 Hour Week

Parent Teacher conferences are always a real pain. It's not that the parents are so bad. It's not that I don't want to see parents (because I do; way better that talking over the phone). The bane of it all is the extra eight hours I have to put in over the first two days.

I don't know what would make this necessary nuisance any better. Maybe line it up with a break or a long weekend. That would be awesome anyway because so many take a day off anyhow by the end of the week (apparently we have 8 teachers for which they couldn't find subs).

Luckily, my classes remain chill throughout the day and this weekend requires little to nothing of me. I will grade and read, play games, and not have to teach a Sabbath School lesson or preach. Stress should reduce, and life will be peachy.

In other news, I'm getting the itch to write again, but I'm truly distraught about how to go about it. Ideas are coming and going on a week that I can't focus on much of anything. And with my laptop urinated on and my destruction of my mouse for my desktop, I'm not sure how things will come to be (I've even been jotting down things by hand...BY HAND! It's all caveman-ish.).

A Different Feeling to Responsibility

A week ago or so, I put a plan into motion to relieve the pastors of my church of their typical preaching duties. As I talked to my senior pastor, he thought of more ways to utilize me and the rest of the church elders. End result: Elders run communion this week, and elders search and assign speakers for November. I got an email from my pastor today stating that the speaking duty for communion was mine. As often as I speak in my church. This one feels quite different for a couple of reasons.

1. In the Seventh-day Adventist church, communion comes around every three months. It's an event of great significance that doesn't always inspire the awe and respect it should. For me to speak at this puts a new responsibility on my shoulders--to set the tone that exudes the reverence such a ceremony should have (a feat I'll have to repeat in a month when I conduct my brother's wedding ceremony).

2. Whenever I speak, it is on whatever I feel God has given me to say. This time, I'm given the topic--Communion--that leads to the ceremonial foot-washing--a part of the service whose significance has eluded me for years. Already, the Spirit has been giving me great things to say, so it's all very exciting. But again, a new responsibility.

3. Ten minutes. Because of washing feet, extra prayers, bread munching, and "wine" slurping, I'm suppose to keep my message to ten minutes. If anybody knows me, or has seen me speak, this limit is a joke, an impossibility.

Fortunately, God will work. I am beyond fortunate to have him use me for His glory.

Weekend Update

Wow.

I hate being that guy that posts just to tell people how busy he is, so I won't come right out and say it...but wow.

The weekend seemed a bit wacky. Saturday was mostly good, but Sunday left my head spinning. I awoke and cleaned up a bit around the house. Left the house around 9:30 and graded for a couple of hours. This is pretty standard Sunday fare, but I was annoyed that after two full hours of grading that I have at least that much more to do. I don't think that it's because I've fallen behind (though I'm not taking the time right now to remedy the situation), but it's starting to settle in that my current class load requires a lot more time to grade...a lot more time.

I mowed the lawn for the first time since early July. Surprisingly it wasn't awful. I only took care of the front (the back is a whole other beast), and I expected my allergies to declare war on me all over again. Luckily though, I finished that fairly quickly and, thanks to my gorgeous wife's awesomeness in buying me new drugs, allergies never entered the picture.

We're trying to get things ready for the fetus. So my wife was way busier than I was (feeling guilty for even whining right now). But there was a good chunk of the day dedicated to clearing out the spare room as we prep it for Squishface when he arrives.

Church had an ice cream social on Sunday also. So I had to drive around town to pick up massive tubs of sweet, sugary goodness and then help serve it all up. And with a church board meeting tonight and another two events next weekend, church will continue to dominate our time.

Finally got to settle down, and we watched Last Crusade. Dang the movie is awesome--simply, purely awesome. More than anything, I realized this time through how groovy the stunt work is, and I missed the days when a film had elaborate action sequences that required dozens of people to tumble, yell, and fall. Then I missed the integrity that Spielberg and Lucas used to have.

By far the best thing of the weekend, though, and it totally made up for this whole whine-fest happened Saturday night. My wife has been trying to get me to feel the fetus kick for weeks. On Saturday night, while watching Return of the Jedi, I finally did. It's a weird experience. If you didn't know there was a kid swimming around in there, you'd never notice. But it was really cool to be able to feel something alive in there. I think he was just so excited that my wife was finally catching up on her Star Wars that he couldn't stay still and wanted to affirm what was happening.

Theological Labyrinth

A few weeks ago, a friend at work asked me about a billboard she had seen on the west end of town. It read, "The Antichrist changed the day of worship to Sunday. The day of worship is Saturday." It ended with a "call this number for more information" and was sponsored by my church--not my church specifically (at least I hope not), but my denomination. As my friend told me about this, I hung my head in shame. I really don't like the tactics many churches use to get people's attention. Scaring people into belief needs to go no further than Plan 9.

Since that time, I've decided to study out the Antichrist and what it means in scripture--not a task that takes a small amount of time. So I've been trying to take time every night to dig through Revelation 12 and 13 and work out the symbols (and trying not to consult any kind of we've-got-it-all-figured out sources.

On top of this, my reading of the Psalms have led into some interesting waters as far as my thought process goes. For some reason, I didn't expect to run into any walls theologically speaking while reading the Psalms. But some of the things that David writes bamboozles me. So for now, I'm keeping up with reading the Psalms (very eager for tomorrow's), but some may not be posted for a while (want to sort things out a bit more in my brain).

Let the Kids Blow it Up

I swear I had posted on Monday. Sorry, folks. 

Well, there's a lot to yammer on about this week--reflections on the best amateur fireworks show I've seen, the most horrid and vomit-inducing class I've taken in recent years, and my lunch with former American Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. I've decided to talk about Ted tomorrow and build up my thoughts on my current class (they are many, though in the same vein of hatred and boredom), leaving tonight's post about fireworks.

I've liked 4th of July all my life, but I don't know that I've loved it. It's always been fun and had been a good reason for my mom to make homemade ice cream (peach--it's the bomb-diggity). But growing up in Colorado meant we never got a lot of leeway in the explosives department. With fear of forrest fires, the biggest things we could set off were fountains, and as cool as some of those can be, they stay entertaining for only so long. I'm told that Nebraska has restrictions, but compared to firework famine that Colorado endures every year, I was about to witness the clashing of heavenly bodies.

New theory, the best fireworks show you'll see will result in leaving high schoolers in charge of everything. On Saturday, we had a church youth group 4th of July party in Bennet. Tell, the host as it was, is a fireworks fanatic. This kid's parents give him his birthday and Christmas presents in the form of fireworks--and he knows how to put on a show. I was excited to see things blow up in the sky, but Tell and his friends coordinated several "light and run away" moments that left a platforms a-blazin' with several fountains sprayin' and artillery shells booming. On the second stage, other families brought their fireworks piles. In this arena, the result was a man tying Black Cats into a nine foot-long bull whip and waving them around his head while they sparked, sprayed, and smoked.

The finale of the night was a group of kids making a pipe bomb from several artillery shells and taping them into a launching tube. They set it off in the street, and the blast sprayed about 100 feet in every direction. I'm pretty sure I now have plans for every summer now.