Church–When God Gets Lost in the Details

My lifelong church attendance has been, well, scant. When I was little our neighbor went to Catholic mass and sometimes I went with her. I liked the music. I liked being with her. My parents were brought up Catholic but considered themselves cured. Still, I thought it was nice to carry on the tradition. It didn’t, however, make a believer out of me.

Oh, I believed in God. “God, please don’t let my parents find out about this.” “God, please let me make the cheerleading team.” “God, please let me stop throwing up and I’ll never drink again.” But I didn’t have any definite ideas about religion.

As an adult, I discovered Spiritualism and I kind of liked that. It was a bit vague and didn’t require a whole lot of commitment but it offered some comfort. Maybe it was the vagueness but I just sort of drifted away after awhile.

A couple of years ago I went back to a church where I’d attended my friend’s father’s funeral. Five years later I remembered feeling so serene for days after that funeral. The church was plain, not one of those over-the-top warehouses of God with full orchestras and roofs that peel back to reveal the goal posts. I figured this was a good sign. Maybe they weren’t all about the money. Maybe they really did just want to share the Word of God.

I started attending and I liked it. The music was good. There was a range of people–rich, poor, young, old, black, white–that suggested acceptance and open mindedness. In one of the first services, the pastor made a joke about the Baptists. I had to laugh. We laughed a lot in the beginning. This guy didn’t take himself seriously at all. He joked through the whole sermon, had great delivery, but got a message across. Everyone there seemed very nice.

I ended up really getting into it and was baptized on January  22, 2006, a decision I certainly don’t regret. However, the honeymoon with the church was about the length of a weekend trip to the Bahamas–pretty short from where I live in Florida. The “church ladies” pounced. The envelopes for the money were handed out. The sermons became less humorous and more threatening. Members were pretty much expected to spend the better part of Sunday and a good bit of time during the week experiencing “fellowship” with other church members.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I work in sales. I spend over 40 hours a week “fellowshipping” with people and I didn’t want to do it on my time off. And, by the way, I was really starting to wonder where God actually fit into all of this because I wasn’t feeling it anymore. I was feeling stressed out over my dwindling checking account–”Our youth group needs money.” “The missionaries need funding for their Jamaica trip.” “Here comes the collection plate.” “Our missionaries need help buying and sending food to Jamaica and Haiti.” “Here comes the collection plate again.” And again and again until I was really starting to sweat.

This church had a significant amount of land donated by some very generous people, acres of it. Last January, plans were revealed for the new building. The old building more than adequately houses the congregation. But we gotta keep up with the Jonases. That’s when things started getting a bit tense. The pastor seemed almost grouchy. The sermons contained more recriminations. There was more of an absence than presence of God. The inner circle people seemed not to notice anyone who wasn’t part of the clique.

I’d see people, who’d turn around, smile sweetly and shake my hand every Sunday, at the grocery store or other public places. But they’d look right through me. We had a benefit garage sale at work for the family of a former employee who passed away suddenly and one of the church’s regulars haggled with us over the price of some toys she was buying for her Sunday school class. The reason for the sale was clearly denoted all over the place. But, I guess, charity only takes place through the church.

Back at the end of the summer, after I stopped attending, I received an email that went to all members. Collections had grown smaller and pleas had evidently gone unanswered. So, apparently, had prayers. Now it was time for extortion. The message read, “Prepare to start sacrificing next Sunday.” I found out later that they had turned the air conditioning off and withheld the coffee and pastries that I never thought were necessary to begin with. Maybe that’s because I helped do a ridiculous amount of dishes there for months.

Anyway, last month there was great praise emailed because the collection for ONE DAY was $34,000. Yes, there are supposed to be three zeros there. That’s more like it they implied. I guess so. 

For me, it’s back to the drawing board in terms of public worship. I won’t put anyone down for their beliefs. I won’t go broke going to church. I won’t follow any human blindly. Blind faith in God and God alone is one thing but, like anything else, throw some humans into the mix and the purest ingredients become spoiled.