52 Churches

My dad offered to take us to the base chapel for a service, figuring that it’s better to go now, before the program year gets underway at his church and he “becomes more involved” (which sounds like he plans to be involved), and we took him up on it.  What I find so deliriously wonderful about military installation chapels around the globe is how ecumenical they are . . . and in the 20 years since I’ve left regular chapel attendance, they’ve only become more ecumenical. (This morning’s bulletin listed the four Protestant chaplains: United Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Latter Day Saints, and Free Methodist).  I’ve never see LDS on the Protestant chaplain’s list, and the LDS chaplain attended the service this morning.  (Chaplains are apportioned to installations based on the population of the installation (who answer a questionnaire that includes religious denomination when they move there) . . . given the large percentage of our local population who are LDS, this isn’t surprising here in Spokane . . . just surprising to me).

Among the nearly 2,900 clergy on active duty are 41 Mormon chaplains for 17,513 Mormons in uniform, 22 rabbis for 4,038 Jews, 11 imams for 3,386 Muslims, six teachers for 636 Christian Scientists, and one Buddhist chaplain for 4,546 Buddhists.

The numbers are from a fascinating article on the tumultuous relationship between the Wiccans and the military, and the struggle of one Army Chaplain stationed in Iraq who wanted to convert. I had not really considered that chaplains might want to convert during their terms, but I guess there isn’t any reason a chaplain might do it any less frequently than any other person. (For that matter, given how many people feel they “lose their faith” during seminary, it would make more sense that they’d convert more often than the rest of us).
Anyway, Wicca and conversion aside, I’ve always maintained that the service on a military installation is the Ultimate Generic Protestant Service, and that it’s roughly the same, anywhere you attend on the globe. The Fairchild AFB Chapel did not disappoint. The sermon was even on one of the best-known and oft-quoted passages from the Bible: the 23rd Psalm. I should have liked to hear the sermon at the 1330 Gospel Service, though, as the Chaplain’s speaking style lent itself to the more interactive format of a gospel service.

At the beginning of the sermon, he mentioned that Randy Pausch just died. I just asked Michael how that tied into the rest of the sermon, but neither of us know. I’m not sure he ever tied that in. (Actually, I’m pretty sure he didn’t). My dad suspected the sermon, “An Overflowing Cup,” wasn’t original, but I haven’t found anything to back up that suspicion. I do rather think most military chaplains recycle their own sermons, as they move and have a whole new congregation every year or two (or they stay put and, over the same interval, end up with a whole new congregation in the same location).

We stuck around at the end to watch the “changeover” from Protestant service to Catholic.  (Up went the projection screen, they changed out the religious flag (from Methodist to Catholic? not sure), removed most of the worship team’s instruments, opened the curtain on the reredos to reveal a crucifix, Mary, eternal light, and an altar, and opened a side wall to make room for (the choir? not sure)).  This is apparently more entertaining to me than the rest of my family.

At 3pm, we were still in the house.

Michael was still wearing his moose jammies.  I still hadn’t showered.

At 4pm, Michael announced he was going to go take a nap.

We left for the evening service at The Porch at 5pm (and everyone was washed, napped, and dressed).  I think we could probably get into an evening service . . . at least, in the summer, when a 6pm service is early enough that the sun still has not set when you arrive home at 9pm.

While we have been “church hopping” but not “church shopping” during the project, some of the questions we’ve ended up asking ourselves (What is church? What do we want in a faith community? What’s the point of church?  What’s the role of the service for a community of faith?  Where do we want to land at the end of the year?) sure look like the latter, more than the former.  We know, for example, that we’re not mega-church people.  We don’t like the mall as a place of commerce — we certainly don’t like it wearing church clothes.  We’re not sure we’re ready to dive into teeny again, but we’re pretty sure we’re more comfortable at <100, and maybe sub 50. We're drawn to churches whose mission is facing outward, whose focus is on community, and who have an impact on their local community.   Since many of the churches we've found thus far that fit this are urban, we're struggling, thinking about how we create community as rural dwellers, and what that kind of community looks like not located in town.  (And every so often, we say, “Dang–should we buy a little house in town?”).

When he greeted us, the worship leader, Peter,  told us about some of the things The Porch has done, as they’ve explored “being church.”  One of the things struck me: praying in a circle, facing outward, because they wanted to keep focused on including people and drawing people in, and not be closed off to their surroundings.

The order of the service last night was roughly this: prayer, a guided meditation with music, prayer, a break, prayer, the sermon, prayer, communion, music, prayer.   If guided meditation makes you queasy, I should note here that this was a uniquely Christian meditation.  The theme of the service was the Sabbath (part of a series on the 10 Commandments — keeping the Sabbath being #4).  Peter asked us to lie on the floor (or sofas, for the folks who were on the sofas, or just to close our eyes if we were seated), and he talked about finding rest.  The imagery probably worked for most people there, but it was urbacentric, in that he talked about walking out from one’s home, and through the city, and out into a quiet place, which is kind of where you start at my house.  The whole idea was to conjure an image of restfulness and peace.  This was interspersed with singing . . . we didn’t know any of the 3-4 songs they did that evening, which was kind of an interesting experience.  We usually know at least one of the songs.  They were familiar to many of the people in the congregation, who sang, lying on the floor, with their eyes closed.

After, we stood, sang the final verse again, and took the break.  According to bulletin:

community is a big value to us. One of the most important elements of our service is the “break.” We hope that you will take this chance to meet a few people or connect with old friends. We believe God is present as we gather.

If you’re from a liturgical tradition that uses a modern mass, you’ll recognize this as “the peace.” Sort of. And if “the peace” in your church has plenty of time to greet everyone else, hold a conversation or two, and grab a bit to eat (okay, the liturgical folks don’t actually snack during the peace) . . . then you have the idea.

The sermon, following the theme, was about The Sabbath. The pastor, Dave, started out talking about how babies fight sleep, and how, even as adults, we tend to fight resting and just being. He said he didn’t know why babies and little kids fight sleep: “If a really large woman wanted to pick me up and rock me to sleep,” he said, pantomiming being in the arms of a giantess, “I would not fight it.”

He asked a handful of questions in his sermon: Do we observe the Sabbath? Is it something we should be doing? How does it work? He had a handful of suggestions — no technology for the day, or no car, or lighting some candles, or sitting outside and reading, or spending time with friends and on spiritual things, or not buying anything for the day. Other folks contributed ideas — outreach, calling old friends, writing (snail!) mail, spending the day with pets (this one from Farmergirl — I’m not sure how that would differ from her normal day-to-day activities, but there you have it).

There were a couple of things that struck me about his suggestions, first and foremost, that they’re just pieces of the original Shabbat practices of the Hebrews . . . who took Deuteronomy 5:12-15 pretty seriously (and whose practices continue today within the Jewish community). But Christians have always lived with the tensions of the New Testamtent in addition to the commandments from the Old Testament.

Matt 11:28-30

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

The end of the service was dedicated to communion. The bulletin calls it a “sacred remembrance.” I’m not sure exactly what that means. It wasn’t liturgical or sacramental, and it was a bit like the Kaleo communion, but with only one big loaf and two glasses (one wine, one juice) on the altar up front. Peter played another song, and individuals could go up as they chose to, break off a piece of bread, and dip it in either glass. It was kind of a strange hybrid of a common cup communion (only two cups, go up front), and an individual communion (taken alone, no words of institution or distribution). I was recently reading Viola and Barna’s Pagan Christianity?, and its discussion on the original (community feast) that was the practice of communion in the early church. And I’m struck by how austere communion can be in the present day. In the summary of the chapter on communion, Viola and Barna write:

[T]he Lord’s Supper, when separated from its proper context of a full meal, turns into a strange, pagan-like rite. The Supper has become an empty ritual officiated by a clergyman, rather than a shared-life experience enjoyed by the church. It has become a morbid religious exercise, rather than a joyous festival–a stale individualistic ceremony, rather than a meaningful corporate event.
As one scholar put it, “It is not in doubt that the Lord’s Supper began as a family meal or a meal of friends in a private house . . . the Lord’s Supper moved from being a real meal into being a symbolic meal . . . the Lord’s Supper moved from bare simplicity to elaborate splendor . . . the celebration of the Lord’s Supper moved from being a lay function to a priestly function. In the New Testament itself, there is no indication that it was the special privilege or duty of anyone to lead worshipping fellowship in the Lord’s Supper.

In the context of the project, this was not a bad communion . . . but, in the same way we’re asking ourselves “What is Christian living? What is being church? What’s the purpose?” we’re also asking about the purpose of communion? (and the building? and the sermon? and the order of worship? and tithing? and the clergy?) — all the things Viola and Barna touch on, and then some.

In my former life, as a composition prof, I used to emphasize to my students the importance of knowing the answers to the following questions: Who’s your reader? What’s your purpose? All writers, I would tell them, have a reader and a purpose in mind, even if it’s often deep in the subconscious mind.

There are a number of wildly different readers of this blog — from our religiously conservative parents to Witnesses looking for the book study announcement to atheists and agnostics and Episcopalians. Knowing this makes writing about today’s service completely impossible, because of what I’ll term here the Inner Evangelical Voice. Here’s the issue, illustrated:
Jen, writing: Today we went to ECKANKAR, where we were greeted warmly at the door.

Inner Evangelical Voice: Of course you were warmly greeted, that’s what cults do.

Jen, writing: The greeter suggested a seating for three in the middle of the left side.

Inner Evangelical Voice: Control. Yep. See? Cult.

Jen: We sat beside a lovely woman named Teresa, who whispered occasional words of clarification to me during the service.

IEV: Cult. I’m telling ya.

Jen: Alaetheia was invited to a youth group activity.

IEV: Get ’em young. Cult tactic.

Jen: And several people talked to us afterward.

IEV (chanting): Cult. Cult. Cult. Look it up in Walter Martin’s The Kingdom of the Cults.

Jen: Would you give it a rest? None of these things is particularly noteworthy in a run of the mill Protestant church . . . except that you often don’t even get a good greeting.

IEV (triumphant): Ha. See? Cults are great at that warm welcome.

Jen: Okay, now you’re not even making any sense.

IEV (taunting): If you’re questioning that you’re questioning if they’re a cult — that’s a sign of a cult.

Jen: Oh, for fuck’s sake — that doesn’t even make sense.

IEV (sing-songy): Cuuuulllt.

The IEV is really fucking annoying sometimes, at best, it gets in the way of a logical progression of thought . . . worse, it generally tries to obfuscate completely, on a mission of its own ends. There is a thought that permeated (and probably still permeates) the evangelical subculture that attending services, talking to people from, or reading the literature of other religions has a deleterious effect on one’s own spirituality. When I was young, either a box of Cracker Jacks or a Kinder Eir had a teeny Ouija board in it, which my parents whisked away before we had a chance to even examine the thing–such was the ability of inanimate objects to sully one’s soul. (Ditto for Tarot cards, the Parker Brothers version of the Ouija Game, anything involving fortune telling, Halloween, Dungeons and Dragons . . . I have friends whose parents additionally eschewed C.S. Lewis (witches and magic), shopping on Sunday, and Catholics, on much the same grounds).

The ECKANKAR worship service has three parts: The reading (from one of the ECKANKAR texts), the HU Song (a meditation that begins with a calm chanting of “HU” (sounds like “Hugh”), and the Group Discussion, using the reading as a starting point. The Cleric, Mindy, read the readings (which were also printed in the bulletin), and told a story about becoming more aware of God’s love in her life via her interactions with her dogs. She began the HU Song with a focus on the spot between our eyes. I’m thinking that this was a third eye kind of thing, but it made me think about my right eyebrow, which seems to be trying to become two eyebrows, which I find disturbing.

(The camera is a mirror cam, so the eyebrow you see on the right is my right eyebrow).

The HU Song at this service was prettier than the ones you can catch on YouTube, but I think that’s mostly because the congregation this morning was almost entirely comprised of soft-spoken, melodic women. (Of the two men present, one was named Hugh — we wondered afterward if this was something that led to in-jokes among ECKists, or if this was too solemn in the context of the religion — like Latino Catholics named Jesus).

At the conclusion of the service, we sang “Amazing HU,” to the tune of “Amazing Grace.” I have included the lyrics to both below.

I kept thinking: this would probably work better to Gilligan’s Island or House of the Rising Sun (try it! really! more fun!). But I think I had two reasons for finding the tune objectionable: first, I don’t really like changed lyrics to songs, and second, I have something against songs that change person, tense, or number mid-verse (see the final verse of the ECK version). For these reasons, I liked the HU Song much better than Amazing HU. (This does, however, point to an inconsistency on my part, since apparently I’m happy to swap out the original Gilligan/Rising Sun tunes and sing Amazing Grace to them . . . hmmm. Going to have to contemplate that).

Anyway, they were warm and welcoming, and it wasn’t half as weird as we thought it might be.

My friend Paul has this theory* that if you squint at the culture, you can get a pretty good idea of where the church will be in 20 years. His theory, put simply, is that the church is 20 years behind what ever the dominate cultural fad is, as demonstrated by things like Christian rock, and the grungy multi-media productions that are the mega-churches today. Although both the Christian and secular circles have cycled through this particular set of ideas before (here Michael would quip, “All the great heresies were invented by 300AD“), All Nations Christian Center has managed to jump on the Name It and Claim It, Blab It and Grab It, Prosperity theology simultaneously with The Secret and the Law of Attraction in the broader culture.

After a half hour of singing along with a music team that was set waaaaay too loud for the small sanctuary, “The Rev.” Landon Schott came out, and began what I thought was the sermon, but turned out to be the offertory, which involved first passing out little envelopes, and then collecting it [them] in plastic buckets. What is the deal with plastic buckets and church offerings? I don’t know that I think a church needs to have fancy offering plates or anything . . . but we’re talking about gallon-and-a-half white plastic buckets . . . like something you’d pick up at the dollar store before you realized it was too small to be a mop bucket, and put it into service as a tiny waste basket, or a garden hand tool caddie. So he launches into how tithing is important; how it’s better to obey than to make a sacrifice; and how, if we give to the church, God has to come through for us. Apparently God’s bound to some contract that, if you tithe regularly, he must honor your giving. God’s like a rule-bound toddler — he can’t not follow his own rules. If you tithe, he had got to do it . . . he should have to shoot the elephant after all. No, wait . . . that’s Orwell.

He moved quickly onto the sermon, which was entitled “Get Your Faith Up,” which he began by asking the largely white, suburban crowd to exhort one another with that phrase, “Get your faith up,” which most people obligingly did. He started with one of the mustard seed parables — Matt. 17:19-20 — but seemed a little confused about the size of a mustard seed, as he kept cupping his hand and pantomiming an avocado pit. (This confusion came to a head a bit later, when, in complete disregard for the geography of Dijon (France), Bavaria(Germany), or even the middle east, he announced that “mustard grows in warm, tropical climates” in order to illustrate that we should plant our faith in the “right location.”

He went on to say, in the ranting, rambling style of tent revival preachers, which seemed weird coming from a young white man with far too much hair product in the pacific northwest (but would have been right in place in a tent in the south east) that we must speak faith, think good things, that speaking faith was positive and that praised the Lord — “if it’s happy; it’s faith” –that we must speak promotion and prosperity . . . speak life, faith, promotional, happy things.
If this is all sounding kind of familiar, let’s harken back to the principles underlying the Law of Attraction:

* Know what one desires and ask the universe for it. (The “universe” is mentioned broadly, stating that it can be anything the individual envisions it to be, from God to an unknown source of energy.)
* Focus one’s thought upon the thing desired with great feeling such as enthusiasm or gratitude.
* Feel and behave as if the object of one’s desire is already acquired.
* Be open to receiving it.
Thinking of what one does not have, they say, manifests itself in the perpetuation of not having, while if one abides by these principles, and avoids “negative” thoughts, the Universe will manifest a person’s desires.

Or The Secret:

Ask ~ Know what you want and ask the universe for it. This is where you need to get clear on what it is you want to create and visualise what you want as being as ‘real’ as possible.
Believe ~ Feel and behave as if the object of your desire is on its way. Focus your thoughts and your language on what it is you want to attract. You want to feel the feeling of really ‘knowing’ that what you desire is on its way to you, even if you have to trick yourself into believing it – do it.
Receive ~ Be open to receiving it. Pay attention to your intuitive messages, synchronicities, signs from the Universe to help you along the way as assurance you are on the ‘right’ path. As you align yourself with the Universe and open yourself up to receiving, the very thing you are wanting to manifest will show up.

It was interesting watching which portions of his patter he had “down” and which he fumbled from lack of practice. It would be interesting to see a series of sermons to note what gets more play.

Toward the end, he told a story about his mother, who was traveling in Hawaii and passing through an area that had a lot of street performers and musicians busking. At first I thought it was a flub, but he equated the street performers and the poor persons who were begging (“asking for alms” he said) over and again. His mother, he said, spends a lot of time looking at the ground, and often picks up change from the street, and, in this crowded area filled with street performers and “bums” she saw what she thought was a dollar bill, but turned out to be a roll of twenties.
I thought perhaps she would try to find the rightful owner. That wasn’t it.
I thought perhaps she’d open the roll, and start distributing the bills to the buskers and beggars. That wasn’t it.
Nope, his point was that here were all these people trying to get ahead and make some money, and all the while they were “overlooking the treasure in their midst.”

I’m not sure where in the Gospel we’re supposed to overlook people in need, keep our eyes on the gutter, and hope for bundles of money to manifest themselves . . . it’s probably right after the bit where we tithe, and thus indebt God to do our bidding.

*Paul’s wife informs me that Paul says this is from Francis Schaefer, but Francis Schaefer never said it to me, so I’m going to attribute it to Paul, who did say it to me.

If you’ve already read the Holy Cow! post, you know that we doubled back on Kaleo this week. So even though Kaleo had the morning service, it’s week 26a because it has already been counted as one of the 52.

I’m still not sure what to make of the communion. They do it every week, and feel it’s important, but it’s definitely only symbolic, and it’s not particularly corporate, because each of the round tables has a roll and a cup of grape juice, and you rip off a piece yourself and then perform intinction (that is, dip it in the juice) . . . so while everyone is doing it at roughly the same time, it’s still a very individual act.

Our Gra has become too catholic in the past few years to just leave the elements, and insisted on collecting the left-over bread and bringing it home to disperse back into nature, which is a common practice of sacramental churches. I think a few of the rolls were dispersed into the goats, too, which I suspect doesn’t get quite as favourable a nod. (Though if birds or squirrels or voles get the pickings off the pasture, I’m not sure it’s any “worse” for goats to get it on pasture).