|
Wow. It's official. I made all A's last semester. Wow. That hasn't happened since...ever. Yesterday's entry got a bit out of hand...I do go on. And yet there's so much more I'd like to have said. Big topic, I guess. One thing I forgot, which I really wanted to say...the baptismal rolls of most churches are a lot longer than the list of people who show up on Sunday. We have a sad case of empty pew syndrome in the mainstream denominations. Many people who consider themselves Christians don't feel any need to show up for church, and that's truly sad. Christianity is not a private affair, no matter what the simplistic tracts (or monastic hermits sitting atop ruined columns) tell you - it's a life lived in community. Certainly it's a life spurred by a private, inner conviction...but ultimately it's a corporate faith. Too many Christians only see the inside of a church on Easter and Christmas Eve, and maybe for weddings. Rectors joke that after a wedding they ought to say to the couple, "See you for your first kid's baptism!" Fr. H once told me that he refused to marry people who didn't attend church. "Marriage is a sacrament," he said, "and I'm not going to perform a sacrament for people who don't practice sacramental faith." This is cleric-speak for "If you're going to talk the talk..." I don't say this by way of shame. Heaven knows (a pointed use of the phrase) that I've skipped my share of church...fourteen or fifteen years worth, actually. We all have other pulls on our attention and time. But where do we put our priority? So I'd like to invite you to church this coming Sunday. I specifically mean those people who consider themselves Christian, who call themselves Christian, but who don't attend church for whatever reason. If you still technically belong to a church, shock the minister by showing up this Sunday. If you've come to disagree with the denomination in which you were raised, try another. If you're just too pooped on Sunday morning, look around...somebody has an evening service, I guarantee. Maybe you'll go back to church and find there all the reasons you left to begin with. Maybe nothing will have gotten any better. Or maybe you'll discover something you didn't even know you'd lost. Maybe you'll discover yourself as a member of the body. |
