What Next, God?

Well, in my prior post about picking a church I COMPLETELY forgot that this is my husband’s church as well. He wanted to go back to the more distant, more liberal church – Hope – so we did. I hadn’t been in a while. Or, actually I’d missed a few weeks, and went twice I think in the last month to my old church.

Today was good because the sermon spoke to me and I needed it. (I don’t get that in the other church.) The kiddie room staff loves Amelia who now seems to have a crush on a boy who must be 10-12 years old. All the kids in the room and the staffers were calling out for her.

After service, the pastor came up and spoke with us. He mentioned seeing us to our former pastor at the the last local Wesleyan meeting a few weeks ago -which embarrassed me, because it is likely that the pastor from our closer Wesleyan church might have been right in ear shot at that time.

Anyway, he realized that we didn’t get a welcome notice, so he said he would get on that and that he would find us a growth group nearer to where we live. He doesn’t live as far as we do, but he is a bit closer to us so there will be groups in that area. And at the end of the month there is a church picnic.

Chris told him that I don’t highway drive and we were hesitant about coming, but the pastor mentioned that Lehigh has lots of backroads to get anywhere (as I am happily learning).

And if all that weren’t enough, he mentioned Jim Wallis in sermon, which is confirmation for me anyway. So it’s good to have a home and I’ll find a way there one way or another!

I’m sorry I haven’t written so long, but I’ve been working, parenting, and even writing. I’m facing a conundrum, and I’m not sure what to do.

My beloved pastor is leaving my former beloved church – for one year – and we are going there a lot to say goodbye. He expects us to continue attending monthly – no more than that, and I wish I could go every Sunday but that’s impractical in so many ways (it’s an hour away).

So we tried the nearby Wesleyan, and we felt a lot of love there and a need for growth. The problem was the sermons didn’t reach me. At ALL. They felt childish – ok, you can call that hubris, but at a certian spiritual level you need a certain amount of nourishment. So Pastor L suggested we try this other church I’d mentioned before we left, and we went. It was great – a certain lack of community, maybe, smaller than the other church, and nearly impossible for me to reach at this point since I haven’t learned highway driving yet. (I’m from NYC, driving is an OPTION there, so I didn’t get my license until less than 2 years ago.)

Trouble is the new church called (AND sent a card). They are having evening growth groups for families with kids similar ages, and vacation bible school in July, and they want us back. New church hasn’t contacted us at all, while the other church keeps at it. New church is much more liberal – first time there, pastor did a George W. Bush joke. TOTALLY up my alley, and personally, I’m again starting to get repelled by Christians who believe that God started this awful Iraqi war and don’t question our ‘great’ leader just because he’s (allegedly) a conservative Christian.

What do I do?? Go for like-minded but mostly inaccessible (at this point) church, or go for nearby and welcoming (or is it stalking??)? I’m REALLY interested in finding people who can help me on my Christian path, but won’t stick their hand in my face because I believe that you are born gay, or that Clinton really WAS a good president, or that abortion is more of a grey issue than black and white.

In a day when I slept in and skipped church intentionally – the first day I wanted to in several years, and the one time my husband spoke the idea aloud as I was thinking it – I saw this from a New York Times article:

“I need God in my life, but I told the pastor, I get sleepy,” she said. “You have to stay in church from 1:30 to 5. I think if services were shorter, more entertaining I’d go.”

It wasn’t until I read this that I had my first glimmer of guilt – but it was only a glimmer. The issue right now is that I’m in a period of spiritual flux (as evidenced by recent postings) and need something a bit deeper than the usual that I get at my new church (which is in all fairness not quite up to what I got at my former church).

I don’t feel that same ecstatic sweep of godly passion, I’m not learning in the same way, and I’m just not feeling it.

But that is QUITE different than putting off God because I can’t get my butt out of bed. And, “make it more entertaining” ?? Are you kidding? Now I’m not advocating stern, stiff services, like the kind people older than me experienced with Latin Catholic masses and such. Not at all.

But you don’t go to church for entertainment. You don’t go because you have nothing better to do on Sunday mornings (like sleep). You don’t go to catch up with friends, or show face in front of your priest/pastor/peers, etc. You don’t go because it’s what you’ve always done, and you don’t know what else to do. You don’t go because the Word will be fed to you so you don’t have to study on your own that day (guilty!)

You GO because you WANT to.

You GO to share worship with a community of (hopefully) similar minded believers.

You GO to feel God’s presence and fire in your life.

You GO for God.

We are so RIDICULOUSLY soft in this country, it’s sad. Think of Christians (and Jews and Moslems and all other faiths) in communist, anti-religion countries where people can be jailed or worse for creating a house church, which is the only way they can worship.

And here we are bothered by the inconvenience of going out of our to publicly worship our Creator, who gave us EVERYTHING?

Argh. It’s upsetting.

If you don’t believe don’t go. If you’re having a crisis of faith, well, maybe take a week or two off, or find another church or religion or path to God. Or find another day and way to worship the Lord regularly. I don’t see anything wrong with that.

But don’t be lukewarm and say it’s too hard to spend a small part of your Sunday in church.

I always worried about this verse:

But since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth. Rev. 3:16

But now I get it. I may be confused, lost, unsure, uncertain, and trying to find my footing, but I hope and pray that I will NEVER be lukewarm about my Lord, because I’m always passionate in just about everything else (a real flaw of mine, btw).