Do we need “church”

I’m part of a ministerial association in Fairfield and at our last meeting the topic of “Back to Church Sunday” came up.  If you’re curious the big day is September 18th.  You can see the comercial for Back to Church Sunday below:

In our meeting we talked about how it’s all really just a marketing tool to get people back to church that have left for one reason or another.  But then, as it obviously would, the topic of heaven and hell came up.  One of the pastors said people in America just assume that they’re all going to heaven and that hell is only for the worst of the worst.  They then talked about how a member at the church went to a salon and tried to convince their hairdresser to come to church with them – but it didn’t go over too well.  The hairdresser tried to politely decline but the church member kept pushing the issue.  In the end they just seemed to go back and forth with one another about the nature of faith and the need for church.

 

Then another pastor chimed in and said something to the effect of, “When we think we’re right and someone else is wrong we have to remember that it’s not our job to judge them”.  To that another pastor said, “Sure, but we have to say/do something” and I sat there wondering if I would have to referee an interdenominational throw-down.  Happily the discussion stayed civil and we even had a good conversation on reason why a lot of people don’t want to go back to church due to emotional, spiritual, and physical abuse and cannot see church as a house of healing and community.

 

The conversation left me wondering, do we need church, do we need these brick and mortar institutions to help foster faith in Christ?

 

As someone whose livelihood depends on an offering plate I want to say yes, but that makes me feel dirty.  So here it is, I as a pastor, as someone that needs the church to stay alive and well so I can pay off my student loans and have a home, do not think we need “church”, or at least we don’t need it as it was discussed at my meeting.

 

We need community, we need spirituality and we need a space for loving and caring relationships, but I don’t think that means we need “church” when it is defined as the building on the corner that we go to every weekend because that’s just what good Christians do.  Good people, faithful people, have good reasons not to go to church.  And some people just like to sleep in – and I’m one of those people.

 

Faith is private and public in an odd relationship that needs both community and individuality.  So do we need “church”, no, do we need some sort of community, yes.  Will I invite someone back to church on the 18th?  Maybe, but if my goal is just to get someone in the building rather than getting to know for someone and sharing the love and grace that I feel than the “church” that I’m inviting them to isn’t really church.

 

nate

What Beautifully Breaks My Heart – The Jesus I Know

The Jesus I Know from the good people at Alter Video Magazine.

You Know You’re A Christian Hipster When…

You’re sitting at home in the shirt that you got supporting a homeless youth ministry while wearing a beanie in late summer even though it’s still 80+ degrees out and you decide that it would be a good idea to enjoy a nice hookah, some whiskey, a little web-surfing and Bible reading while listening to Explosions in the Sky.  So you get your supplies out and head over to christiannightmares.tumblr.com to see what more often than not breaks your heart about Christianity and just when you feel as if you can’t take any more  you head over to altervideomagazine.com and listen to something that breaks your heart but in a much more beautiful and life-giving way.  Then you decided that it’s time to do some Bible reading so you break out your “green” Bible but then realize that you are acting out a near perfect stereotype of Christian Hipsterdom (minus the skinny jeans, v-necks, and tom’s (at least at the moment)) and decide you must blog about it.

 

nate

Finally, a horror movie about church ladies

 

I won’t say what churches I’ve been in with these murderous church ladies, but I will say they’re out there…

nate

I hope I don’t look/sound like this

I’ll just let the video speak for itself.

found at The American Jesus

nate

 

 

 

 

Jesus – annoying and inconvenient

I work for a church that intentionally helps its community with financial assistance.  I’m proud of that.  We help make sure that people can keep their lights on, have a roof over their heads, the medication that they need or food in their cupbords.  And we do all of this without any strings attached, more or less.  By that I mean we wont give out cash to anyone, but we will send a check to a landlord or utilities company as long as they can provide us with documentation.  We don’t say you have to be a member to be helped, we don’t ask that you come to a service first, we just ask what can we do (provided we have funds in our assistance account).

 

Most of the time I like helping people, this week I haven’t.  I’ve still given out assistance, but I’ve done it grudgingly.

 

Wednesday night I was called, at home, by someone that was looking for the pastor that hasn’t lived in what is now my home for a year now.  This is not an uncommon happening.  The only reason I have a landline is for the church, yet people only call my home for him.  When I told the caller that he didn’t live here anymore he asked if I had replaced him at the church and I really wanted to say no.  I had things I wanted to do, like spending some time with my close friend, netflix.  But I couldn’t bring myself to lie and so I got caught up in a mess.

 

The caller said he was a pastor from Massachusetts and was calling me on behalf of a woman he was trying to help get from Arizona to Mass. and she was stranded in Ottumwa.  He had tried to talk to churches there but since he was calling at 8pm he didn’t have much luck catching anyone at the office and somehow he knew the pastor that I had replaced and so now I was going to have to postpone my date with netflix.

 

I drove the half-hour to Ottumwa and found the woman and her son in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  I got them some gas and then we headed back to Fairfield where I assumed I could get them a room for the night.  But there was no room at the inn.  All of the hotels in town were full, except one, and it only had one room.  However, the one that had an opening wasn’t handicap accessible.  The son, probably in his 40s/50s had Hodgkin’s disease and was also mentally handicapped and couldn’t go up stairs, and the one room that was open in Fairfield was on the top floor of a building that didn’t have an elevator.  I told the woman that they could stay at my house and I tried to convince her that it wouldn’t be an inconvenience, but she declined.  So I gave her directions to interstate 80 and sent them on their way, hoping that they would be able to find some shelter up the road.

 

Originally I didn’t even want to help this woman, and in the end it didn’t feel like I had really helped her anyway.

 

Then earlier today a woman came in asking if I would be able to give her money so she could get some groceries. I tried to explain to the woman that we don’t really work that way, that I’d be able to help her but that I could not give her cash.  She didn’t quite get it.  She kept saying that she needed money and I kept trying to say that we or the food pantry in town could help her with that, but that we wouldn’t give her money.  So I told her that since it was almost time for my lunch break that if she would wait a few minutes I’d take her to the store and get her what she needed.  And then she asked if, “for example”, she ran out of what we got her on Tuesday she could come in on Wednesday and go shopping with me again.  This put me in an odd state of mind because I didn’t want to tell her no, we wont help you if you run out of food but I also didn’t want to enter into some sort of paternalistic relationship with us.  I told her about the food pantry in town again and how they would be able to help if she needed a large amount of food.  She then said that she doesn’t really eat that much, which, by her stature, didn’t ring true, and that she would rather just go to the store with me.  So we were off.

 

Now when I take people grocery shopping I wont tell them what they can and cannot get, other than tobacco and alcohol and  I ask them to be mindful of how much they spend since we work with a limited assistance budget and usually spend between $50 and $75 on groceries.  And I do this because I dont believe that beggars can’t be choosers.  I wont strip persons of their ability to make a decision.  They know what food they like and what they don’t, they know what they will actually eat and what would just feel like a handout and I want to respect their personhood and their ability to choose.

 

Today I wouldn’t say that policy backfired, but it was tested.  After reading “The Omnivores Dilemma”, watching “Food Inc” and reading other essays about things that we call “food” I was concerned when the woman I walked with only a handful things that seemed like actual food today.  Let’s just say she was a fan of sweets and snacks.

 

When I walk with people in the grocery store my main question for them is what do you need and to that this woman said cookies, and soda, and strawberry shortcake, and cereal, and an air freshener. She did get some food, and it may last her a couple days, but it wont last long.  Throughout our shopping experience I just kept asking what do you need and would occasionally offer suggestions based on what I usually get with people: bread, pasta, potatoes, frozen meals, cans of soup etc.  Those were not this woman’s style.  She just kept saying, no, I don’t really eat that much.  And I kept wanting to say, no, from my perspective it’s pretty clear that you eat a lot,  But I bit my tongue, hard, I only let a few exhausted and exasperated sighs, and that was only after our 2nd lap through the 8th largest grocery store in Iowa.

 

When I dropped her off at her apartment and helped her carry in the bags of “food” and cleaning supplies I didn’t know what to say.  I know this food wont last her till Tuesday, and part of me really hopes I don’t see her Wednesday.  To put it succinctly, her idiosyncrasies do not go well with mine.  Then again, I hope she gets the help she needs and if she needs it from us I’ll take another 4 laps at Hy-Vee and sigh every time she grabs a bag of chips over something fresh, nutritious and lasting.  But then again let’s be honest, I can only make that sigh because I’m middle class enough to be able to eat organic food, I can afford to be healthy while many others can’t.

 

In many ways, the church is a service industry and in my context in small town Iowa I’m still trying to figure out what that means, and how it can be more than service to, but service with.

 

One of the passages of the New Testament that I try to take literally is in Matthew 25 where Jesus says whatever you do to the least of these you do to me.  But that means Jesus is often inconvenient, a little annoying and likes junkfood.

 

I’ll keep trying to find the divine within those that I servie and walk with, but I’ve got to admit that I often don’t want to.  Indifference is easy.  Saying I’ll help you, but only after my lunch break and you can only get these church approved items would have been easy, but it wouldn’t be right.

 

Maybe someday these virtues of care and compassion that I’m trying to cultivate will come naturally, but until then I’m going to keep finding Jesus in inconvenient and annoying places.

nate nims

 

*while editing a man from the same apartment complex came to the church and said that he had heard that we help people get groceries.  News travels fast, especially in a small town.

In love with doubt

The thing about faith is, at least for me, it doesn’t come easy.  I want to believe, I think I believe, but I have my fair share of doubts; I’m proud of that.  And on top of that I can’t really imagine any “religious” person not having questions or doubts.  If faith is the belief in things not seen then faith must deal with, and have, doubt.

 

This is especially true after May 21st.  The rapture was nothing more than a joke that bewildered an old man (and I’m doing my best not to make horrid ageist jokes here) and his handful of followers.  Leading up to the 21st I wondered, if that is faith do I really want it?  Do I really want to be a person that so arrogantly believes they’re right and everyone else is damned because they have to be wrong since they fail to believe or understand the special/secret knowledge that only I have been smart enough/blessed enough to have?

 

I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have quit a job or sold your possessions for a date that was, to everyone outside of the Camping cliche, a joke.  Faith can make people do, sadly, stupid things and even worse, faith can make people do horrid things.  It’s not hard to put together a list of all the failings that faith has brought to the world.  But I still want to say there’s hope.  I still want to believe.

 

And as much as I don’t want to sound like a Calvinist, I probably believe because I can’t not believe.  I’ve tried to give up my faith, I’ve tried to say the beauty of the universe is enough in and of itself, that there don’t have to be fairies in the garden for it to be beautiful (or whatever that quote is), but I can’t shake God and I’m still compelled and challenged by Jesus.  So I still believe, or at least try to.

 

As a minister (and as such a professional christian) it’s not always easy to admit to doubt or to tell people that come to me for spiritual guidance that maybe we need to read the Bible in different ways and be open to new interpretations, that we don’t have to be a literalist always and that we can move with the spirit and trust that there is something even when we feel nothing. But that’s what I’m trying to do, I don’t know if it always comes across, but I try, because that’s all I know.

 

Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe faith is a waste of my time.  But even if it is I still think it’s beautiful, or at least can be.  And so I love doubt, and I wouldn’t have faith without it.

 

nate