I think maybe I need to change my religion.
I suspect I am worn out with the whole thing at the moment. I'm not looking for a different doctrine or savior but a different expression. Actually, I'm looking for a peace-be-still kind of religion.
There is a Lutheran church a few blocks from my home, a big old stone building with bells I can hear from my back yard. I have no idea what goes on inside of this church but I find myself imagining hymns and sermons with thees and thous. If you'll please forgive me, I am longing for worship without projection screens. I feel hungry for an experience that is so low-key you have to be invested at the heart level to enter in because there's nothing to woo you. It's all a matter of choosing to worship as opposed to being caught up in it. I wouldn't mind an old lady on the organ and a gentleman at the pulpit leading the congregation in ancient songs without benefit of band or back-up.
I have a craving for something solemn and rich. For the King James Bible. For a place where there is no organized community so much as just rightness that compels outreach. I yearn for a sermon that no one would find on the Internet and that isn't inspired by the latest shining book in the window of your local Christian bookstore.
I don't want religion to out shout the world. I want it to quiet me and envelop me.
I want it to be entirely different from everything else I see and hear and touch.
Where do I find that?
Update: No changes with Dean's brother at last check-in yesterday. He is in the burn center at University of Michigan Hospital. Please continue to pray for him. Thanks.
Small grace: Hearing old gospel songs that are long past cool.
8 comments:
I know of a nice little Baptist Church just down the road...been there and since I was raised a little Baptist girl I could so have stayed there. But Tomer, who was raised a little Pentecostal boy was sooo not feeling it. And he is the head of this house. So I am a little ol' Pentecostal Grammy...sigh.
First baptist in Wyandotte... second service... organ and all. The Pastor there is AWESOME!
Our awesome Pastor (Toby) says all the time:
"It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people!"
Since we are all created uniquely we aren't meant to be in cookie cutter churches. What works for one doesn't work for another.
I was raised Catholic as a child and it was too solemn for me. In my adult years I felt that the churches we attended were lacking joy in their salvation, even the hymns sounded like funeral dirges. I am SO thankful where God put us 9 years ago, into Cross Timbers. It's a little glimpse of heaven here on earth!
Connie
I think that some of us who have been raised in the Pentecostal church, with all of it's wonderful praise and worship sometimes long for the church you describe, I know I do from time to time. Just as an old hymn will minister to you in its simplicity, so does the thought of a church like you are seeking. One in which you get lost in Holiness, not the projections screens or thumping bass...sorry Dean, your thumping bass is the exception!
Praying for Deans step brother. May this be a testimony of healing to the family.
Hoping and praying that all works out good for Deans family, I was raised pentecostal, but have found out thru the years other churches are not your enemy, there are many paths
Visit the church Thara, you may be pleasantly surprised. Our church is anything but Pentecostal but we've learned and are learning a lot. When I feel the urge to express myself in a pentecostal manner, I do it at home. "In quietness and confidence is your strength" Isaiah 30:15
I loveth thou.
This is a very elegant, honest, and non-belligerent account of how, I'm certain, many evangelicals in high-octane, get-in-here-and-get-pumped-and-then-go-out-and-conquer-the-world churches often, and perhaps secretly, feel. A very nice piece.
Won't it be great when, in glory, all of our worship will be void of hype, yet never dull? Until then, all the best.
TCC
I can really relate to this post. Especially during those times when life feels so overwhelming and I just need to be "quieted" as you expressed, so I can regain my perspective. I'm a member of a wonderful congregation with good preaching, teaching, music, outreach, you name it. But I find it appalling that there have been times I have stayed at home because my soul needed to be quiet and I had a longing to worship from my innermost being and through words of old familiar hymns with so much good doctrine and I just wasn't up to all the noise and "celebration". Thank you for giving voice to what I am sure many people in "contemporary" settings feel at times.
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