Offering Plates, Amens, and Songs About Blood

 

Last Sunday, I did something out of character.  I went to a church I'd never been to, by myself.  I went because it's a sister campus to our church, and they were teaching on homosexuality.  The sermon was wonderful, and you can listen to it here, but that's not what I'm writing about today.  For those of you who know me personally, or have been readers for a while, you know that I'm… outgoing… extroverted… a people person, if you will.  I have a wild, grassy expanse of a comfort zone, which, contrary to popular belief, does  have its limits.  As social and out there as I am, I still have to steel myself when I walk into social situations solo. 

I walked into this church Sunday night not knowing their "format".  I checked out the general populace, a 19-27 crowd characterized by hipsterness.  There were no bulletins, so I made small talk with the person at the information table before finding a seat in the usual spot (left side, four rows back) #creatureofhabit.  We "did" worship for the first 20 minutes or so, then the announcements guy did announcements, the pastor spoke, we had communion, and sang another song or two before dismissing. 

Now, all of that was fairly "normal".  I'm a pretty well-schooled church kid, having attended about 9 different churches in my lifetime, ranging from Southern Baptist to Reformed mega church to Methodist/Episcopal/Presbyterian combo.  I've got the lingo down pretty well.  I know when to stand up/sit down/close my eyes/pass the plate/ say Amen and all the rest.  After my "church by myself" experience, I got to thinking about people who didn't grow up church kids, who haven't the foggiest idea what communion is, much less what it means, or what to do with an offering plate. 

Let's pretend I was not a churchy person, walking into church on a Sunday.  There are all these semi-dressed up people milling around smiling and asking about "small group" and "outreach" and "summer missions".  Someone with a name tag shakes my hand and says he's glad I'm here.  Ok, well, that's nice I guess.  Someone's glad I'm here.  Cool.  Now, what do I do?  At the appointed time, everyone makes their way into something people call a "sanctuary", which sounds like a place you keep endangered tigers.  Weird, but whatever. 

 A guy with a beard starts playing a guitar and singing some song about blood washing away sin.  This just got weirder.  Sin is a word people use about chocolate, and blood doesn't wash stuff.  I look around to see what people are doing.  Everyone looks all happy and clean cut and put together.  Looking happy while singing about sin and blood is weird.  Some of them have their eyes closed and they're putting their hands in the air like their favorite football team just scored.  Now we're singing a song about how great our God is, and a king and stuff.  We go from blood to a king wrapped in light.  What is this, Lord of the Rings? 

Then the beard guy stops and says good morning and tells us to shake hands.  So we do.  There's a hipster couple sitting next to me and a mom with I-lost-count-how-many kids sitting behind me.  She's probably one of those people who teach their kids at home or something.  Beard guy says we can sit down, so we do.  Then another guy comes on stage and starts talking about Jesus (heard of him, usually when my co-workers are ticked off).  He reads a quote about bread and a body and blood (what is their deal with blood?!) and wine and stuff.  I try to pay attention, but I get a little lost in the middle.  Then they pass around this tray thing with pita chips and grape juice cups.  Bread and blood guy said don't take it unless you follow Jesus.  I'm not a part of that club, so I just hand it to hipster guy. 

Beard guy plays another song and then another guy walks on stage.  He says we're going to talk about something that sounded like santafication.  At first I thought it meant turning into Santa or getting ready for Christmas, which made no sense, but then later he explained that it was being more holy.  Church people love talking about holy stuff.  I don't really get it, but he said we can't get holy by ourselves.  I sure get that part.  He said something about righteous robes of Jesus, which I don't really get, but it sounded cool.  Anyway, he talked for a while, and read lots of quotes from the Bible.  He told a couple stories and made some jokes I didn't really understand.  That's ok, the church people got it and laughed, which probably made him feel good. 

So, yeah, church is kinda weird.  They use a lot of words that normal people don't use, and I heard the word blood more than I did when I went to the Red Cross to donate blood.  They're nice enough, but I don’t really get why they all look so happy and glowy.  I feel like I need a Church for Dummies manual so I can figure out what's going on before I show up next time and think that you can take money out or put money in the bucket they pass down the row.  Oops…

Remember, people, not everyone thinks singing about blood is normal. 

Much love,

Little Miss Sunshine