Another
Sunday, another church. I made my way thru the back streets of my neighbor-hood
till I came to this little church, 8 blocks from my house.
One of the first things I noticed in the very commonly set up
bear walled church, was the two full sized drum kits sitting at the front of
the church ( it took incredible self restraint not to run up there and start
playing one of them) lol. Not to mention
the other instruments such as a few guitars and a piano. Being in such a small
space it was kind of like Gordon Price Music at the front of that church :P (
yes I know they changed their name but fuck, you I still call it Gordon Price
and no corporate take-over will change that) .
But apparently this assortment of instruments was not all for their use
and another worship group comes in and uses them also. It was really small crowd
that day. Only around a dozen but I am told there is normally 40-50. But they
had a special service the night before so a lot did not show for the morning.
I took a look at the alter in the back and caved into the top
edge running across the front of it was the words “ In Remembrance of me” carved in big bold letters. I thought it was a nice touch and very appropriate
considering it actual had all the stuff for communion sitting on it.
So the service was pretty typical, got the prayer and the
hems, and the kid’s corner. (the kids corner was super fun :P we got to all
sing “I’m in the lords army” and learn all the moves for it. It was like camp
fire songs at summer camp all over again. ) We had your typical 40 something
year old white guy, preaching at the front of the church. Just another Sunday,
but he did put some enthusiasm into it. While this gentleman was doing the kids
corner, he brought up the topic of rules. Then the conclusion came down to gods
two highest laws which of course is, “love thy god” and “love thy nebghour” . Which I think really needs to be taught more
to adults then kids sometimes. The minister explained to the kids that “God
wants us to love EVERYONE”. But I really don’t think people realize someday
that that means EVERYONE, including everyone that is a different colour then
you, speaks a different language, Has different political views, different religion(*hear the fundamentalist
Christians gasp) different sexual orientation.
In short LOVE ALL PEOPLES EVERYWHERE!!!!!
The focus on that day was the start of advent, and the
lighting of one of 5 candles in wreath.
Advent is defined as meaning “the coming” and celebrates the 40 days before
Christmas and the round wreath represents god’s eternal glory. Advent is new to
me. I had no idea what advent was when I was growing up. I thought it was some
old European tradition that allowed kids to have cardboard calendars with festively
shaped chocolates. Guess I was wrong :P
The sermon of the day basically had the theme of “what if Christ
never came?” . So part of this guys speech
was arguing that there would be no hope of rebirth, resurrection, forgiveness,
salvation. Etc. But something else he threw out there is that a lot of thing
like universities, hospitals, YMCA’s were all founded by christen people and
would not exist without them. Personally I don’t care for the “what if” game. I
have no idea what “would have” happened in the world if I slept in 5 more minutes
today or taken the train instead of the buss. Maybe if I would have taken the
wrong turn off on the highway the sun would have exploded and incinerated us all.
I have many friends that would sit up to late hours of the night arguing all different
types of theories that the Buddhists or Jews or Atheists united would have
built and run these intuitions just the same and the world would just keep on spinning.
But I’m not God. I don’t have answers to these things so I will just leave them
as is.
Fact of the day : Emmanuel translates out to mean “god is
with us” . Sounds good hey? J
