I've just about had it up to here with the Sunday performance! Ever since my voice broke I have been unable to sing in tune. What's worse, I can hear that I am out of tune but cannot persuade my voice to co-operate. So I hate singing. I really hate singing. It's not a pleasant sound to me. What's more I can hear that other people cannot sing in tune. So, first off the singing at the Sunday performance is like a cacophonous noise to me. I like music. But this is not.
Then there is the Sunday oratory... even assuming that the person speaking is not wildly misquoting scripture its just so boring. When I was at school I hated lessons - listening to a teacher was about the worst way for me to learn and listening to the Sunday oratory is similarly unhelpful.
But those who run what we call churches seem to have this idea in their head that the Sunday performance is the key event of the week. For me it's not even really church. The early followers of Jesus met in each others homes, shared meals together, talked and learnt from each other. They shared their needs and prayed together. Sounds like a million miles from the Sunday performance.
And in that way leadership was different. You didn't need the mega-star leader who proclaimed from the front and was six feet above contradiction. Maybe occasionally there would be someone who had something valuable to say and would give a talk but on the whole it bore little resemblance to what we call church and so the leadership was truly servant leadership.
Now on a Friday evening a bunch of us followers of the Way meet together for a meal. We pray together and then study the Scriptures. All except for me go to one specific Sunday performance. One of the members of this group repeatedly tries to coerce me to come on a Sunday. Sometimes I go to a different Sunday performance, but increasingly I am tiring of the same platitudes and misquoted Scriptures.
So why not just abandon the Sunday meeting and church together on a Friday? Well, actually I could go further... since I work with a group of other followers of the Way during the week, we church together every weekday. My weekdays are worship and glorifying our Lord. Saturday is the day I enjoy Him - normally we sail together. I love the sea that He created. There are more references to Him spending time on boats in the Gospels that teaching in Synagogues!
So why not just abandon the Sunday meeting and church together on a Friday? Well, I feel guilty if I miss the drudgery of a Sunday performance. Somewhere deep in my psyche I am programmed that the Sunday performance is a must. Even though it makes me feel further from God... even though I come back feeling angry with the world... even though more and more I meet loyal followers of the Way who have abandoned this in favour of churching together at other times. Still I feel I should go. And hate it.
The other problem is that those people who do get a buzz out of the Sunday performance continually make it sound like that is the main thing. Last Friday evening during the time we were sharing almost everyone was buzzing about their church... and then turned to me about the place I do sometimes go to on a Sunday. No, I didn't even begin to feel the same way they expressed. And then I felt guilty I should feel the same as they do. I feel isolated from them. Alienated.
I'm tired of this... I long for a gathering of followers of the Way who cannot stand the Sunday performance. I long for people who love the Lord and don't try to persuade you to attend a meeting which phenomenologically looks like a theatre show or sing-a-long concert. Then I would feel at home in family.
I recently saw a website entitled Church 2.0. A church without leaders. A church that sounded quite a lot like I have been feeling. Searching for Church 2.0 in Google I see a lot of people thinking about a reinventing of the church. Theologians call this 'repristinization' - making the gathering new for each generation. Why, oh why, is there nothing like that here? Are we totally away from the moving of the Holy Spirit in Cyprus?
1 comment:
Interesting. It seems like I am seeing and hearing about more and more people who in some way express a heart cry, "There has to be more," in reference to what they are experiencing with the traditional church service.
A group of us were discussing this last Tuesday night. I was distressed because of the of the emptiness of the show that I have experienced on Sunday morning and wondered, "Where is a new believer suppose to go?" My thought was that a new believer has to be taught how to be a believer. In that instant I realized that what I was saying in my concern that I could not trust the Holy Spirit and that 1 John 2:27 doesn't really say what it says.
To all those who are out there I have found that there is more, so much more. It is not found in following the traditions of man in a religious setting but living with God every moment of everyday. When I turned from man's way to God's I felt like I stepped into life and can never go back.
Bob
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