When a church dies...

Two months ago, on the back of the bulletin, there was one announcement and 17 people with contact information. Seventeen people to contact to get plugged in at church, but only one activity worth mentioning. That, my friends, is the writing on the wall. A community such as that surely must be dying, and in fact has now died.

Do I blame the overseers, who pruned the vision of our little congregation? No. Do I blame our leadership team? Yes. Fourteen people whose passion should have built up our church, yet squabbled so much that we didn't even know who we were anymore. If they cared so much about reaching people in the community, it would have been a drastically different story.

So what now? I feel relief and happiness. I have held the belief that people should be there for their church, and not the other way around. I am not a consumer of worship. I stuck it out for over three years with this church, hoping things would turn around. I have compromised my own faith and my wife's faith in doing so. I have compromised on expecting solid teaching, on the prominence of Scripture, on a diverse community, on dozens of things related to the church experience. No more.

We are liberated, and are going to take full advantage. We are church shoppers now, and won't buy until we feel there are no compromises to be made in doing so.

Six people and a cup of tea

I bring a cahier with me to pretty much anywhere I go, including church. My mind tends to wander, and sketching a person talking helps me focus. I'll do enough of these to someday have a style. An interesting thing to note here is that, contrary to countless ads and flyers surrounding evangelical America, the people aren't actually smiling.

Sunday night church.

From the bulletin:

"Due to Super Bowl broadcasting regulations and restrictions regarding the size of screen on which the game can be shown, we cannot broadcast the football game on any of the large screens at WVC. So, for our fourth annual Pierced Super Bowl party, we will be meeting in small groups at various homes."

This is indicative of large problems with the NFL, Fox Sports, broadcasting regulations, copyright law, and my church. I toast the backlash against most of these entities.

Church doors.

In the wake of the shootings last weekend, there's been a lot of play in the news about security at church. It seems most churches feel they need to have security guards involved. The idea of specific people at a church being responsible for keeping other specific people out of church seems completely bass ackwards to me. American churchgoers have had it good for a long time. They seem to feel they have this inherent right to safety. But Jesus never promised any such thing, in fact quite the opposite.

At church.

Everyone was listening attentively to Johnathan Licciardi, who talked about actually taking the things Jesus said seriously (a novel concept, even for Christians). The guy in the upper left always looks exactly like my dad, but only from behind. (He coincidentally has the same first name, too.)

Green room.

Last weekend I played bass for church. It's the kind of thing that tends to take up your whole weekend: rehearsal on Thursday night, playing from 3:30 to almost 8 on Saturday, and 7:30 to 1 on Sunday. It's a big time commitment. During the service it's common to hang out in the green room behind the stage. As compensation for your services, someone cooks dinner for everyone on Saturday night.

"The spread in the green room never disappoints. Makes me feel a little like a rock star, even if it's at church. Tonight is turkey tetrazini and some scrumptous cookies. I knew playing bass would take me places."