So last we spoke I mentioned that
church I found on the way home from the grocery
store. Ps. This thing totally doesn’t
show up on Google maps or anything. I took a quick glance and noticed that the
service was at 10:30 so that gave me all I needed to know.
I was a quick walk from my house as
most of the churches I have been going to are. As I walked into the entry way I saw that
another service was just getting out, it
appeared to be of the same demographic mix of people as the service going in. (
don’t quote me on this, but I think the earlier service was in German) . It was
filled with mostly people of the retirement age and I was getting a lot of weird
look like usual with people wondering what the heck I was doing there.
I felt the need to get away from the
crowd so I moved off to a back corner where I found an elderly man aprox 80
years old. I we sat down and had a nice
conversation ( one of the sweetest old men I will ever meet) he mentioned how
things have become hard at his age and then told me that in the bible it tells
us that there will be coming years in our lives where living is hard. I haven’t
found that part yet. But ill believe the guy.
A lot of the seniors in the church are
normally the first ones to greet me, which has been the norm at almost every
church I have been to. Then they ask me if I had been here before? And that of
cores results in me telling them about my little project. Most of them are
deeply shocked and confused and say”that’s nice” and simply scurry off.
I had another one of those today, but
this time when I told her about my project she reacted with “ but you should
not be going around to other denominations because some of them do not act like PROPER Christians.” My only thoughts
on this were REALLY??? REALLY??? YOUR
ONE OF THOSE??? . God help us all!
This was one of those “bare churches”
as they call them. Not much had changed in it. Epically not the seating, which
was still rocking the pea-soup green upholstery. Classy :P
Despite
the out-dated colour, they were some of
this most comfy pews I have ever sat in.
There was also little “reserved” singes on some of the pews. Why they are reserved?
I have no idea? For the elderly? For all those people with children ? For the people sneaking in last min hoping on
one noticed? I digress.
I counted about 50 heads mostly of
people over the retirement age, with maybe 6 people in their late teen s early
20’s. There was no children at this
service. I the pastor was your average middle aged whit guy who bore a resemblance
to Don Cherry. I the one thing I can be sure about this guy is that he knows
how to conduct cause even without thinking he was waving his hand away as we
sang the first few songs.
This service was odd in the fact that at no point was a
section of scripture taken out and discussed
and analyzed. It was just along rant from the pastor trying to address “ hot
button issues” with the modern church,
while actually doing nothing to address them. Spoken like a true politician. So
all I have for ya at the moment is a long list of quotes that I was able to
jot-down in the time I had.
-“ people are tired of conflict”
-“everyone’s personal gifts are
important”
-“you cannot buy your salvation”
-“allowing or not allowing speaking
with tongs and ticks.”
- “False Religions are the ones that
deny Christ is God.”
…………I’m not going to get into this. However
I would love to see the look on their faces when all the richly tolerant Buddhists
agree with them. Hahahahahah! * Please see my article on the Tao Buddhist
temple to more fully understand the joke.
-“to help the church stay on track,
avoid false teachings”
- “the church has to be careful on the
matters of morality”
The one interesting fact that I got out
of this was the answer to why the Greek-Orthodox church split off of the Catholics.
Apparently it was all over the question,
“who sends the holly spirit”? Pretty silly little thing to have the entire
church split over, but apparently it was a big issue at the time.
Communion was offered but I decided not
to take it, it just didn’t feel right. It was done in an odd manner thou. There was groups of people that came up, about
15 people at a time, stood in a half circle and had the bread and wine
distributed to them. (Apparently at this church there is an option of wine or
grape juice) . And then the pastor would say a prayer to each group, but I noticed
that he did not repeat the same prayer for all 4 groups. Each was different. Interesting. Side-note:
one of the guy in the half circle was backing up and not looking where he was
going, and almost feel over an artificial tree.
Just as I was getting up to go, I got Into
conversation with a middle aged women who I told about my project who swiftly
moved me across the church to meet with
the other 12 or so of college aged kids there. So I did as I always do, I get in
front of them and explain my project. I this 5 min of each of my adventures
fills the gap that contains the best and worst part of my Sundays. The best
part is that moment when I talk about my 100 churches and how I got into all
this. The crowd is interested and listening
and I’m happy. And then the moment comes
that shitty when I tell them I am also a Universalist and I am also going to 10
different places that are not churches. That’s
the moment when half of the crowd losses eye contact with me and leaves. Sad
moments be Sad.
I would like to take one last word to
mention the pastor. I had this feeling as a watched and listened to him that he
had some kind of a weight on his shoulders. Something was bothering him. One
thing I noticed in his speeches is that even thou he was sitting in front of a
very conservative crowd that he was at least fair and balanced in presentation
and opinion.
I mentioned this to one of the other you
people there and mentioned that even for being a right wing church at least
they were not “scary”. Then the girls eye’s open wide and said “ there has been moments where it
actually gets pretty scary.” ………..i did
not know how to respond to that. This girl also asked me what I thought of
their church. I summed that up in one word “Conservative”. She is also one of
the ones that got seriously pissed at me when I said that I was going to more than
just churches. She even got upset and almost yelled at me at one point. Whatever. I
will find a better place next Sunday.
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