8.24.2009

Home Again? (Part One)

Because we are adventure-seekers, Amanda and I traveled north last weekend to experience the Prince William County Fair. We stayed with my parents. But I am not writing about the gigantic turkey leg my dad bought that I had to gnaw on because it was too tough for his mouth, or the $4 my mom won for getting second prize in the "homemade jackets" category, or the fact that we did not ride any rides because Amanda is pregnant and it looked stormy, or the animal/magic/comedy show for kids that we watched. No, I am not writing about those things.

I am writing about when, the morning after the fair, we worshiped at Manassas Baptist Church, my "home church," where I attended until going off to college nine years ago this week. Go ahead, click the link. Right there is a picture of what makes MBC unique, and its curse: the middle school and grounds the church bought in 2002 next door to the main church building. It is now known as "The Rock." I may be biased because I wasn't in favor of that purchase to begin with, but The Rock is a big boulder catapulting downhill, pulling the church with it. And because the church used a balloon loan for the multi-million-dollar acquisition (remember 2002?), and the loan is about to "pop," MBC is now in, as my 11th-grade humanities teacher once said, deep kim-chi. The pastor, the same pastor who led the church into this mess, is continuing to try to rally people around "God's plan" -- although I remain unconvinced that God requires big buildings to change hearts.

When I say "the pastor," I mean Dr. Bill, the Senior Pastor, not the Lead Pastor or the Pastor for Discipleship/Evangelism or the Contemporary Worship Leader/Coordinator. At least there's no "assimilation" pastor as there was at First Baptist in Charlottesville. Manassas Baptist has always been a fairly big church, but growing up, it seemed more like a naturally big church, not one bloated by pride and property and wanting to be a megachurch.

All of this is background for my thoughts on Sunday's service at MBC. First piece of excitement: They have a new bulletin format. It is a full-color 11x17 sheet tri-folded, with a nice logo on the front and photos of actual churchgoers. (The only two I recognize are the senior citizens, though.) My dad told me that they are trying to copy McLean Bible Church. It seems MBC is always looking to copy one megachurch or another. Underlying that is a genuine desire to do God's will, though.

In some ways, the 11:00 service at MBC is a comforting reminder of my childhood. Manassas does visitor cards the same way it always has, with two ushers coming to the front and turning around, the person at the pulpit instructing visitors to raise their hands, and the ushers walking towards the back handing out visitor cards. I never thought much about this approach, but now I dislike it. The ushers always start walking a little too early, so if there are any visitors in the first five or ten pews, the ushers walk past them before the visitors know to raise their hands. Plus, if I were a visitor, I might not always feel like raising my hand. I've experienced the bulletin tear-off, the sign-a-register-on-each-pew, the small-church call-out, and the card in the pew rack. I think the card in the pew rack is my favorite: you don't have to scream that you're a visitor, and you have a chance to ask questions.

Over the years, MBC has transitioned from Baptist to what I call Claptist. Maybe it's the contemporary service, or maybe the congregation is just moved to praise God with their hands, but they generally clap after solos. I was taught that clapping in church is generally not appropriate unless you're really sure who the clapping is for: if it's for God's Glory or to say thanks for the gifts of the performers, that's OK, but if it's for someone who just performed, that's kind of like worshiping them instead of God. Clapping is very unusual at UBC, but if a precious darling so much as squeaks out an "Amen," the congregation at MBC will clap. Guaranteed. And I'm pretty sure it's usually for the performance, not for the Glory of God. (It is also interesting that clapping is only after music and rarely after the sermon. Isn't speaking a gift, too?)

The sermon was actually pretty good. My mom said it was Dr. Bill's best in a while, and Amanda said that although it was about 30 minutes long, it kept her attention. (That could have been because we were in the second row, though.) Dr. Bill asks a lot of questions and wants people to raise their hands. As with the clapping, the hand-raising bugs me. It turns some people off to church and makes others uncomfortable -- it's not necessarily bad for a sermon to make people uncomfortable, but it is bad when they're uncomfortable because they're being asked to answer yes or no to a silly question without time to devote conscious thought to it.

Dr. Bill mentioned a celebrity's support for Darfur, which I thought showed a nice awareness of issues outside typical evangelistic confines, although he pronounced Darfur a way I have never heard it pronounced before. I think it rhymed with "Babar." Another highlight of the sermon was that I received an unexpected shout-out from Dr. Bill as he was reminiscing about the large whale costume that my mother made for a musical about Jonah: "You were in it!" Well, almost; I wasn't in the whale suit (that was the husband of the Director of Music), but I was in the musical.

The reason he was talking about Jonah was the God's Plan Argument. Which is: God had a plan for Jonah. Jonah said "meh" to God's plan. God caused Jonah to have an unpleasant experience that led him to follow God's plan after all. Do you want to resist God's plan? Of course you do not, because you will end up inside a whale, and that would be unpleasant in this day and age of harpoons and whatnot. So you should follow God's plan for your life. And you should follow God's plan for Manassas Baptist Church.

I am with Dr. Bill to this point. Where I am not with him is when he draws the conclusion that God's plan for Manassas Baptist Church equals Dr. Bill's plan for Manassas Baptist Church, the implication being that church members should step up and keep the church from going into foreclosure or having to sell off the middle school property. Or else you're gonna feel guilty, or whale-eaten, or worse. As I said before, I am not convinced that God requires a middle school for Manassas Baptist Church to do its work. He certainly might, and the building has certainly spurred new ministries at and brought new notoriety to MBC, but might not an investment of $9 million in the existing property and new programs have enabled similar transformations?

Amanda noticed - although I did not - something else Dr. Bill said. It was when he was talking about Madonna (the pop icon, not the virgin Mary) and her transition to spirituality. He noted that Christian churches probably never told Madonna that they loved her or that God loved her. But God did, and does, love her. And then Dr. Bill pointed to the congregation and said, "And I love you. Because I have the heart of God!", which sounds like a slightly presumptuous claim that he is, in fact, more spiritual than the rest of us by having God's heart. I think he probably meant it as, "The person who spreads God's love in this way is acting in line with God's heart."

I think the physical expansion of MBC has created two churches where there was one: traditional vs. contemporary, organ vs. drums, hymnals vs. PowerPoint. Apparently they have tried a "blended" service, but when the traditionalists requested a slightly lower volume level so that their ears didn't get blown off their skulls, the boppers said, "No way, we like to feel the beat in our kidneys." Did I mention that when we arrived at church, Dr. Bill was finishing up the boppin' service, dressed in a casual polo shirt? And by the time the traditional service started, 10 minutes later, he was in a full suit. It's like he's Superman or something, changing in a phone booth between services to adopt a new identity. And that identity is required because he is serving two congregations. What if the two congregations' differences go deeper than clothing and worship style?

The reason we were sitting up front was because my mom was interpreting the service for a deaf woman. I always feel bad for my mom when Dr. Bill goes into strange stories, sarcasm, or recites the Bob Mumford quote, “if we fix the fix that God has fixed to fix us, He will simply have to fix another fix to fix us.” (My mother told us that because he says that once or twice a year, she has memorized how to sign it.) The ministry for the deaf is one of the really good things about MBC.

The service raised what I think is a fundamental question about how churches prioritize what they do: telling the lost vs. serving the downtrodden. Evangelism vs. social justice. Looking to save Madonna's soul vs. picking her up when she has fallen. Both are important. But given a finite amount of time, there is a real conflict in trying to do both. Churches like First Baptist and Manassas Baptist are very focused on evangelism, on telling the Good News, on winning souls, and this is often to the detriment of their missions and social justice commitments. Other churches are militant about social justice and downright scared of the term "evangelical." A select few find a balance where service and progressive ideals become the evangelism: instead of using the tongue alone, the whole person becomes an example of what God can do. That's what I'm looking for in a church.

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posted by Peter @ 17:23 0 Comments

8.20.2009

Mickey Chuckles

[Confused? Read this first.]

On Sunday we decided not to visit anywhere special but went to University Baptist, in part because a minister who was there during our student days was back as a guest preacher. We remember him offering the kind of energy and welcome that we're looking for.

He did not disappoint. On my way inside, his wife remembered my name - amazing because I didn't remember hers - and they chatted with me for a moment. Amanda and I felt that his sermon was more relevant than what we've been used to, or maybe it was just that his expressive tone kept us from zoning out (much). A bonus surprise was a duet our guest sang with the music minister.

Centered on the parable of the mustard seed, the sermon pondered the idea of deliberately sitting back to let God cultivate the church, and whether that will result in something like what happens when we leave a garden to God's cultivation: a mixture of wheat and weeds, fruity vines and bushy chaos. (For non-Bible scholars, he explained that mustard was essentially a kudzu-like weed in Jesus' time.) He put this in the context of growing the church: Should churches focus on the traditional three B's (building, budget, and bodies)? Or should churches grow each person spiritually, and focus on being the church in the community, without worrying so much about size, money, and outward appearances? Should churches be cleanly cultivated so they look impressive, or should they be diverse enough to include both people who the world views as wheat and those viewed as weeds?

We're not sure if he was describing where he sees UBC heading, or challenging the church to head in that direction. But I wanted to go to the church that gracefully welcomes weeds and wheat and deliberately grows everyone spiritually instead of just growing the three B's.

And I guess that's one reason we're not sure about our future at UBC: Amanda and I aren't entirely sure we're growing there. I wonder, though, if we'd grow more if we spent more time trying. In the summer, we've basically only been present for Sunday worship, and only two or three times a month.

So it was a better-than-average day at our moderate-but-traditional church. But we're not sure if this was because we had higher expectations, because it was something different, or what.

This is not to say we don't like the regular pastor. He's a nice man, he's caring, and I believe he has a genuine concern for social justice. But he doesn't seem to connect with the congregation in a challenging way like the pastor at our church in Greensboro did. Plus, there's definitely something to be said for having a different voice from the pulpit every once in a while.

We are off the hook for deciding where to go the next two weeks because we'll be out of town. And one of those weeks will be in Greensboro, so we will see if things at that church are as rosy as we make them out to be now that we're gone.

Also: Amanda and I have decided we should get paid by churches to evaluate them. Maybe we should take a commission out of the offering plates.

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posted by Peter @ 18:43 2 Comments

8.17.2009

new look

I agree with the comments about the previous template (white on black) being too hard to look at. Especially when I write things this long. Is this better?

posted by Peter @ 21:05 1 Comments

Visit: Large Conservative Church

Last week, Amanda and I visited First Baptist Church on Park Street. I wrote a lot more about the fact that Charlottesville has two churches called First Baptist, and the parking lot and stuff, but it somehow got lost in the sinews of the Interwebs. I will, however, try to recreate what I said about the screens.

First Baptist is a large, fairly conservative church. They are in the Southern Baptist Convention and appear to be proud of it. Friends, I am not a big fan of the Southern Baptist Convention. I think some of what it has done in the last decade or two has led conservative Christians down a dark path. Since going to college, one of my main prerequisites for a church was that it not be in the Southern Baptist Convention. This is probably a big reason I ended up at a militantly liberal church in Chapel Hill - I admired that it had been kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention. Point is, I am not a big fan of the Southern Baptist Convention. But since First Baptist is a big, fairly well-respected Baptist church on a nice street in town, Amanda and I figured we'd give it a try.

The sanctuary has lots of screens. There's a huge projector screen on the front wall, along with smaller but still massive flat-screen TVs mounted in various locations so everyone can see. The huge screen is blocking the baptismal pool and two stained-glass windows, so - GET THIS - some wise Baptist took a photograph of the wall when the screen was not there, and when the screen is not showing words, IT SHOWS A PICTURE OF WHAT'S BEHIND IT! I thought this was phenomenal. Oddly, the TVs also showed this picture, although they were not blocking miniature baptismal pools and stained-glass windows.

The service began with a video about debt, which sort of played like a commercial for the church's financial management ministry. Not worshipful, but probably useful for some. After we got into a more worshipful state through a litany, hymns, and prayer, the pastor initiated the Greeting, during which everyone was asked to tear off a piece of the bulletin to place in the offering plate recording their attendance, and then to greet others. For years, I have felt that these greeting times are nice but break the worshipful mood, but this one was over the top. The ritualistic ripping of paper distracted from the mood if it didn't kill it, and then we nervously said hello to the people near us, who of course had no idea if we were visitors or members, because it is such a large church. Then we sat down. But it continued. Apparently each person was supposed to say hello to all of the 900 other people there, or at least it felt like there was time to do so.

The music was interesting: There was probably an average or above-average quantity of songs, but they were grouped into only a few bunches. So it was two hymns, then some other stuff, then two boppin' praise-&-worship songs, then the sermon, then two more hymns. There was a full orchestra to help out the organist (who was one of Amanda's music teachers in elementary school). The music dragged on a bit: the hymns, though I liked them OK, were a little slow, and the boppin' songs were mind-numbingly repetitive, as boppin' songs tend to be. (I had not heard them before, and by the time they were finished, I was content not to hear them again.) And oddly, the congregation didn't seem to be singing much. But they did applaud a little after the boppin', after a "Praise the Lord!" urging from the Worship Pastor. Oh, and the offertory was sung while standing, using words on the screens, which was different, but it was helpful to be standing already when I had to walk down the pew to pass the plate.

There were a lot of kids, which is usually a good sign of a family-friendly place. I bet they have a lovely playground. Only a handful of itty bitties came forward for the children's message, though. Maybe it's limited to preschoolers so as not to overwhelm the speaker with squirmers.

During the pastoral prayer, some folks came up front and kneeled, and there were a few upraised hands during songs, so some of the congregants embrace a more participatory worship style. The pastor seems to be a nice old man (with a booming voice - a bit like a televangelist), but it's hard to tell much else from one sermon. He had props: plaid shorts and a shirt that, apparently, he wears during his downtime at home. There wasn't a scripture reading before the sermon; it was integrated into his 35-minute message. I was impressed that he hardly looked at his notes the whole time. I got tired of his yelling style of speaking and didn't get the main idea of the sermon other than to take joy in God - a nice reminder, but not helpful in evaluating the church's position on much of anything. He did say that, 9 out of 10 times, the answer to anything is in the Bible, and I got the impression that First Baptist is a little more literal on the Scriptures than I believe is appropriate.

I just want to say that 35 minutes is too long for a sermon. I learned in engineering school that most people have an attention span of up to 25 minutes, but even that has to be broken up somewhat. The service at First Baptist began at 10:45, which we figured was so they'd get out before the Presbyterians down the street and snag the best tables at Applebee's. But no. They begin at 10:45 so they can have an extra 15 minutes and still end a little past noon.

Sorry for all the complaining, but one of my pet peeves is when a pastor cuts off the invitational hymn after a verse or two because nobody has come forward. The bulletin indicated we'd be singing two hymns during "A Time to Decide," and after he cut us off during the first one, he made a comment about not wanting to draw it out and force anyone to make a decision. I respect that. And although I was ready for the service to be over, it seems like cheating to cut out music like that. It's as if he wanted a few more minutes of yell-preaching and made an on-the-fly executive decision to remove some music. What if I had been looking forward to singing "Satisfied with Jesus"?

One final personal complaint: First Baptist uses altogether too much Comic Sans. Not in the bulletin (thankfully), but on the screens and the web site. I know I sound like a diva, but come on, it's Comic Sans.

The pastor's name is Lindsay. The back of the bulletin has an invitation for guests to "meet Lindsay in the parlor to receive your gift for visiting us today." Small problem: Guests do not know where the parlor is. This is, as I have said, a large church. There are multiple buildings. I wasn't sure I needed my gift, but Amanda is a sucker for a freebie, and I was somewhat interested, so we looked around for a while before giving up. We did get a nice e-mail from one of the pastors with info about a home group Bible study for young adults and a college-age Sunday School class. And we're on their e-mail/mailing list for a six-month free trial period. (Thanks, torn-off part of bulletin!)

The church's vision is "Love God, Love Others, Serve Both," which is included on a lot of its materials. I like this vision; it's well-focused and valuable for keeping such a large congregation centered. In principle, it has its priorities straight, and I think First Baptist is making a positive contribution to Charlottesville. But overall, Amanda and I agreed that it's not the place we were looking for.

If I thought I had a substantial number of people reading all the way to the end of this, I'd ask for a vote of which church we should visit next. Maybe next time.

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posted by Peter @ 17:07 3 Comments

Escaping Greensboro

[I made the following post a while ago on the facebook. I am now copying it here for continuity's sake, with some edits to avoid full names.]

Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 9:51pm

It seems more difficult than it should be for Amanda and me to "escape" from Greensboro and North Carolina in general. We keep getting pesky reminders that it still exists, that there's still a church there with a lot of people that we miss.

 For example, we just received our first checkbook from the UVA Community Credit Union. The checks have lovely photos of Charlottesville landmarks... and they came to us straight from the manufacturing/distribution facility in Greensboro. Then there's furniture. Now that we're not planning to move in the next couple years, we're ready to move beyond the futon and the plastic nightstand. But the furniture store taunts us with "Carolina Prices." And we bought something, I don't remember what, that had a label from Boone, of all places. Boone! And just today, in church, they announced a quick overnight mission trip to lovely Charlotte for the purpose of packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.

The freakiest thing is that our church has some missionaries visiting next Wednesday for a world-missions focus. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship missionaries. Missionaries to Hungary. Missionaries who we don't really know but who were celebrities from our church in Greensboro. I am hoping that they'll bring some people we do know "on tour" with them as roadies.

Isn't it enough that I have to pretend MSU is giving the sermon, instead of our dear TEL, in order to pay attention? Isn't it enough that I wish BTM would play "Jesus Loves Me" on the organ before and after the children's sermon? Or that I want the ushers to stop passing the offering plate across the whole row? Or that I really wish we could have the closing hymn without a spoken invitation every time?

Sheesh. I want to copy and paste my past into my present.

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posted by Peter @ 07:09 0 Comments

8.15.2009

More on Churches (not Moron Churches)

Looking back on the few entries I have made here, they mostly address church and work. Those are two big parts of my life, and this post begins another mini-series about churches.

I'm a little sad that I didn't blog much about church when Amanda and I lived in Greensboro, because now we really miss the church we had there.

It's not like everything there was perfect. In fact, when I rediscovered this blog site of mine, I had an unfinished entry (it was barely started, actually - just a title) about how I was not in support of that church leveling a historic house for a few more parking spaces. But it was a place where both Amanda and I felt welcomed and included, and where we grew in our faith. So we miss being there.

Kinda like we missed our old church in Charlottesville after we moved to Chapel Hill. And now we've been back in Charlottesville for 10 months, attending University Baptist Church, the church we used to miss, where we were married. So all is right with the world, yes?

Except we've changed... We began our married life in Chapel Hill, moved to Carrboro, then moved to Greensboro. We church-hopped in Chapel Hill, settled on a militantly liberal church that didn't ever feel quite right, then moved to Greensboro and visited only two churches before finding one that was basically perfect. We changed through our life experiences.

...And our church in Charlottesville hasn't. That's one of the comforting things about it: each Sunday, the order of worship is strikingly the same, the offertory is done the same way, Communion never varies. This consistent nature is one thing I love about how the music is done there: for each hymn, the organist plays a full verse as an introduction, the congregation stands on the last stanza of the introduction, the first and last verses are in unison, and any middle verses are in parts. Once you learn the routine, it makes it easy to worship without worrying about doing something wrong. It is still a moderate church with a traditional style.

But maybe a church needs to change a little.

I'm not sure what change is needed. Maybe the leadership retreat (termed an "advance") will figure that out, and I look forward to hearing its findings. But it just doesn't feel quite right anymore.

As a result, at the risk of offending people there, which I really do not want to do, Amanda and are checking out some other churches in our city. When I started at UVA, I did that. I visited the big church, the hokey church, the black church, and others before settling on UBC. Having grown up nearby, Amanda has pretty much only been to her home church and this one.

Visiting elsewhere might simply end up making us feel sure that we should stay at UBC. Perhaps seeing other places will help us appreciate the qualities that made it ideal for my college years. Or perhaps we'll find someplace else that feels right. If that happens, it will be sad to leave, but a church should help with spiritual growth, and if that's not happening, it's not the right place.

Timing is also important. It would be even more troublesome to be church-shopping if we already had kids who were "established" at a church. So it looks like we've got until February to figure something out!

But still, we're somewhat invested at UBC. I sing in the choir and got nominated to serve on the Transportation committee.

In the end, we enjoy tossing the blame for this experience on the pastor at our church in Greensboro. He helped us see how a church could welcome us and help us grow spiritually and, as a result, raised the bar a bit for future - and past - religious experiences.

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posted by Peter @ 07:22 0 Comments

Hello, blog!

I kind of lost track of this blog for, you know, a couple years. But I recently had need of writing, so I found it and will try to put my thoughts here a little more frequently than before. Maybe I'll go back and make some edits, too. Just in case I become famous.

For now, think on this, something I wrote here in May 2006 and just rediscovered:
"I mean, I tend to lean a little more towards the liberal side than Amanda does, so I can't see myself being happy in a very conservative/ evangelical/ fundamentalist church, but I don't want to force her to attend a church where she doesn't feel at home. Neither do I want for us to end up attending separate churches."

More to come...

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posted by Peter @ 07:14 0 Comments