Church Shopping (A Poorly Written, Half-Thought Rant Posted Anyway)
Went to a candlelight service at Grace Anglican the other night. It wasn't candlelight because of Advent; it was just... candlelight. The music was chosen to fit the atmosphere, and the atmosphere was beautiful. Trust them Anglicans to do it right.
Actually, i'm still one of them. That is, if Church of the Resurrection up in Chicago hasn't misplaced my membership yet. We're still trying to find a place to belong down here. One of the first places we looked was the AMiA directory - out of simple expediency more than brand loyalty; i have less patience for shooting in the dark when there are fifty varieties of Community Christian Church within ten miles and my attendance at the most typical of them, i fear, might do me more harm than good. Not to mention those around me. In an environment thick enough with spiritual cliches, biting your tongue starts to hurt after a while.
I mean, worship is about God and not us, and if you work at it, you can manage to do it anywhere, even at the precise moment when the young Gap-clad "worship leader" (as if worship consisted only of childish music with semiliterate lyrics) is beginning the latest WOW! hit for the fifth consecutive time. But if what we call worship has nothing to do with our experience, then let's all just sit around on Sunday morning and read aloud from the front pages of the hymnal. The 1947 one. Not that that's not interesting too, in its own way, but you see my point.
So we've been visiting at Grace Anglican. We've also visited a little AMiA churchplant in our own neighborhood - an interesting little collection of people characterized not least by quite a bit of anger, per capita, at the Episcopal Church. Anger (even the "righteous" sort) isn't always a bad thing, but given that righteous indignation to date has launched about nine thousand different schisms and counting, maybe it's not the best motivator around. Also, we were the youngest people there by approximately three decades. But being at Grace, in any case, has made me realize how badly i'd been missing Church of the Rez, as well as my last home-away-from-home-church, Christ Anglican in Mobile. Of all places.
I grew up in the Lutheran church, which i guess makes me something of a statistical oddity among my Lutheran gradeschool peers in that i still attend any kind of church at all. I hated school, but i think i hated church more. The only good thing about it was that it didn't last as long as school, and it more than atoned for that minor positive quality by planting itself, an island of drudgery and coercion, squarely in the center of my weekend. I really did hate church. I still cordially despise many varieties of it. But i've learned that the real thing's out there, and i have discovered enough shimmering oases of this reality that my thirst for it has been able to overcome my resistance. I quit listening to "Christian" music in general a long time ago for the same polarized reason - half of it was totally irrelevant to ninety-nine percent of Christians, let alone anyone else, and the other half tried so hard to be "relevant" that in the end it was just all about image. Which is where the vast majority of it seems to be today. Not that so-called secular music is any different, but i think the stuff calling itself Christian should be held to a higher standard - just as with people. But there were always a rare few artists - Rich Mullins, to hazard an example - who embodied that higher standard, who seemed to care more about being authentic than about their image. These few were more than just palatable to me. At times, they were life preservers.
But a reaction to style-obsession is a style all its own. Which means i'm still just church shopping. Is this all just about style? I don't think so. In a sense, it is; everything in human society is about style. It always has been. That's what human society is: people grouped together around similar ways of seeing the world. So of course we cluster by music type or liturgy use or age. Maybe the answer is not to make a great show of trying to avoid such cliques (as if we could without forming new ones) but rather just to make sure we shake them up on a very regular basis. But i still really think it's not about style as much as it's about awareness. Not awareness of current trends, but awareness of trendiness. Everyone is aware of trends, whether their awareness is up to the minute or lags several years behind. Compulsive attention to dressing right and using just the right music is not companionate with authenticity. Even if you're the first one in your neigborhood to do everything, you're still just following, sucked in and swept along, and it's merely annoying to anyone who happens to be thirty seconds more up-to-date than you. And though you won't recognize them, of course, there will always be people like that. No, i'm talking about awareness of that - which leads to freedom. Knowing, but not caring overly much...now that's style.
So maybe it's a little bit about style, but only peripherally. What it's really about is authenticity, and that's about humility, which is maturity, which is wisdom, which is...truth. That's what i like in people, and that's what i like in a collection of people called a church. Not that i have any of it myself. But i want it when i see it. Which is the first step to having anything. I hope.
Actually, i'm still one of them. That is, if Church of the Resurrection up in Chicago hasn't misplaced my membership yet. We're still trying to find a place to belong down here. One of the first places we looked was the AMiA directory - out of simple expediency more than brand loyalty; i have less patience for shooting in the dark when there are fifty varieties of Community Christian Church within ten miles and my attendance at the most typical of them, i fear, might do me more harm than good. Not to mention those around me. In an environment thick enough with spiritual cliches, biting your tongue starts to hurt after a while.
I mean, worship is about God and not us, and if you work at it, you can manage to do it anywhere, even at the precise moment when the young Gap-clad "worship leader" (as if worship consisted only of childish music with semiliterate lyrics) is beginning the latest WOW! hit for the fifth consecutive time. But if what we call worship has nothing to do with our experience, then let's all just sit around on Sunday morning and read aloud from the front pages of the hymnal. The 1947 one. Not that that's not interesting too, in its own way, but you see my point.
So we've been visiting at Grace Anglican. We've also visited a little AMiA churchplant in our own neighborhood - an interesting little collection of people characterized not least by quite a bit of anger, per capita, at the Episcopal Church. Anger (even the "righteous" sort) isn't always a bad thing, but given that righteous indignation to date has launched about nine thousand different schisms and counting, maybe it's not the best motivator around. Also, we were the youngest people there by approximately three decades. But being at Grace, in any case, has made me realize how badly i'd been missing Church of the Rez, as well as my last home-away-from-home-church, Christ Anglican in Mobile. Of all places.
I grew up in the Lutheran church, which i guess makes me something of a statistical oddity among my Lutheran gradeschool peers in that i still attend any kind of church at all. I hated school, but i think i hated church more. The only good thing about it was that it didn't last as long as school, and it more than atoned for that minor positive quality by planting itself, an island of drudgery and coercion, squarely in the center of my weekend. I really did hate church. I still cordially despise many varieties of it. But i've learned that the real thing's out there, and i have discovered enough shimmering oases of this reality that my thirst for it has been able to overcome my resistance. I quit listening to "Christian" music in general a long time ago for the same polarized reason - half of it was totally irrelevant to ninety-nine percent of Christians, let alone anyone else, and the other half tried so hard to be "relevant" that in the end it was just all about image. Which is where the vast majority of it seems to be today. Not that so-called secular music is any different, but i think the stuff calling itself Christian should be held to a higher standard - just as with people. But there were always a rare few artists - Rich Mullins, to hazard an example - who embodied that higher standard, who seemed to care more about being authentic than about their image. These few were more than just palatable to me. At times, they were life preservers.
But a reaction to style-obsession is a style all its own. Which means i'm still just church shopping. Is this all just about style? I don't think so. In a sense, it is; everything in human society is about style. It always has been. That's what human society is: people grouped together around similar ways of seeing the world. So of course we cluster by music type or liturgy use or age. Maybe the answer is not to make a great show of trying to avoid such cliques (as if we could without forming new ones) but rather just to make sure we shake them up on a very regular basis. But i still really think it's not about style as much as it's about awareness. Not awareness of current trends, but awareness of trendiness. Everyone is aware of trends, whether their awareness is up to the minute or lags several years behind. Compulsive attention to dressing right and using just the right music is not companionate with authenticity. Even if you're the first one in your neigborhood to do everything, you're still just following, sucked in and swept along, and it's merely annoying to anyone who happens to be thirty seconds more up-to-date than you. And though you won't recognize them, of course, there will always be people like that. No, i'm talking about awareness of that - which leads to freedom. Knowing, but not caring overly much...now that's style.
So maybe it's a little bit about style, but only peripherally. What it's really about is authenticity, and that's about humility, which is maturity, which is wisdom, which is...truth. That's what i like in people, and that's what i like in a collection of people called a church. Not that i have any of it myself. But i want it when i see it. Which is the first step to having anything. I hope.
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