Posted by Helen on: 12.11.2006 /
In comments #22-24 on Class #8: The Holy Spirit, Benjamin Ady shared some interesting thoughts about two recent, rather contrasting, church experiences.
As you read what Benjamin wrote, bear in mind that ‘HHJJ’ stands for Happy Happy Joy Joy. It is (I think) a reference to inappropriate pressure being put on Christians to appear happy all the time regardless of whether that is a true reflection of their current emotional state or not. (Which presumably is based on the belief that’s what Jesus wants)
I had a lovely time at ThursdayPM/Monkfish Abbey. I felt very … safe, and understood, and … familiar. Brilliant. Like the fact that such a time/place exists makes me lean toward believing in god and that she loves me.
On the other hand … I’ve made a committment to do something service oriented every week for these 7 weeks while my family is gone–kind of an attempt on my part to stay out of trouble. So today I went with my excellent friend Walter to help out at the monthly … thing where guys from the church get together and go out and do service for people in the community. Oh–it’s a thing that they do at Calvary Fellowship in Mountlake Terrace.
I almost cried when Andy told us about the family we were going to help today–they have a one year old who has cancer. So about 10 of us went over to their house and just did a bunch of odd things that needed doing to try to help out. It was fun kind of working and talking with the guys.The senior pastor, Wayne, was along, and he was a reaonably kewl guy, but he did try at least 4 times in our conversation to convince me to come to some event at their church. So that didn’t feel very … excellent. I find it especially … unfortunate since just now looking up their web site I see they have this almost at the top of their main page
Secondly, by being friendly, but without being annoyingly aggressive. Some people want to check out a church without being “cornered”, and we respect that.I didn’t even want to check out their church–I said right up front “I don’t go to church”.
Now I feel like maybe I was somehow wrongly taking advantage of the opportunity they provided for me to fulfill my service task for this week while failing to allow for the implied associated … aggresive invitations. Or maybe I’m excessively sensitive. Hmmmm….
(some) christians make me nervous. Like again, on Calvary Fellowship’s (mentioned above) web site, in the “our purpose” section, right at the top they say
Our purpose at Calvary Fellowship is to glorify God by pointing people to Jesus Christ, Who alone is sufficient for our every need.
. Now not only is it monga wierd to capitilize pronouns referring to god, it also strikes me as very very strange to say of anything or anyone “who alone is sufficient for every need”. What does that mean exactly? Because it seems to me that in order to say something like that, you either have to seriously wrest the word “sufficient”, or else you have to be brain dead (I mean as in a human vegetable–oh dear–I don’t mean to be crude–Eliza could help me out here–I mean literally completely cut off from almost all sensory experience or even consciousness) so you don’t see or feel the gargantuan enormitude of the need.
I think this might be related to HHJJ…
Comment by: Helen
1Benjamin, thanks for sharing these thoughts with us.
I would be very curious to see what happens if you e-mailed or called Pastor Wayne and said something along these lines:
“Thanks for letting me participate in your service project. I enjoyed meeting you – you seem like a cool guy.
There was one thing that made me uncomfortable. You invited me to your church a number of times. I’m just not ready to be part of a church right now. I’m wondering if it was wrong of me to join in your service project without being willing to go to your church. Are those projects intended for church members only?”
I think it would be good if you sent this because it would make him aware that he was maybe too pushy with you. And you will find out from his response if he is more cool or less cool than you thought. He might turn out to be more cool by apologizing for being pushy and by assuring you that you’re welcome to join in anytime.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming other people must know how we’re feeling. But they often don’t. He might have no idea how negatively his invitations came across to you. You could be doing him a favor by enlightening him.
As for the sufficiency and capitalization thing: capitalizing is a convention I’ve seen before. It’s supposed to show respect for God, I think. It seems to me that being the kind of people God wants us to be shows much more meaningful respect – however, I suppose, there’s no reason it has to be an either/or.
If you didn’t know this, it’s good to be aware that people who aren’t Christians sometimes write lower-case ‘god’ as a slam against Christian belief. If you do that some Christians might assume you’re an atheist/deliberately being hostile about their beliefs.
It’s sort of a Christian mantra that Jesus alone is sufficient to meet all our needs. Maybe it’s in the Bible somewhere; I’m sure it’s supposed to be at least derived from the Bible. I feel it minimizes the real, practical, life-threatening problems many people face in their daily lives. It reduces everything down to “Ultimately your most important eternal need is to avoid hell – and Jesus can take care of that for you”. I dislike this sort of Christian reductionism.
On the other hand, a church which does service projects clearly believes in helping people in the here-and-now regardless of what their website says their ultimate purpose is. I commend them for getting involved helping people with service projects. And I commend you for deciding that’s a good way to use some of your time while your wife and children are away visiting your wife’s family in Australia.
Comment by: JG
2Benjamin,
This sounds like a good example of how unhelpful certain comments can be when just baldly stated without any background or context.
I think it appears in various places in the Bible such as:
I agree with these principles but it is a question of undersatnding what they mean and don’t mean.
Questions arise. Such as if God is God and he does meet needs why does he appear to meet some needs and not other needs?
But clearly this sort of thing makes no sense at all if it is taken in isolation. So if there is a God and there is something beyond this life then we need to interpret God meeting our needs in that context. This does not mean IMO that it is merely referring to needs beyond this life. I agree with Helen that reducing:
is unhelpful – and misleading. The verses quoted refer to meeting needs in this lifetime.
Issues like these (eg why if God does meet needs does he appear to meet some needs but not others)are complex and I feel strongly that it is unhelpful when Christians appear to give simplistic “pat” answers which wholly fail to address the issues.
I’m, not going to attempt to address this particular issue here as this is not the main point of this thread save to say that in most cases, I believe God works through ordinary people rather than miraculously though I do not rule out the latter.
Haven’t looked at their website but from what you have said, if I was at Calvary Fellowship, I would be suggesting that they rework their pourpose section.
I do have faith that God can meet my needs. I have to say though such faith would be severely tested if I had to manage on my own for seven weeks. My house feels empty if just one of the children is away for a night or two.
It must feel like a dark tunnel – but a great light at the end of the tunnel when they get back.
I don’t know why I have had to go through my own “dark tunnel” experiences. Wouldn’t wish them on anyone. But I have to say, with hindsight, looking back, I am stronger for them.
Comment by: benjamin ady
3=)Helen–your comments made me grin several times. Like do you think that “some Christians might assume” I’m “an atheist/deliberately being hostile” even more because I used “she” for god than because I didn’t capitilize? I hadn’t heard that said right out loud before, but it makes sense, and I think perhaps I was doing something quite similar to “deliberately being hostile, but with slightly less power and negativity than these words imply. I think I am semi-deliberately, semi-subconsciously … *gently* poking at the very people you are talking about–the people who find it offensive *not* to capitlize god. kind of thinking along similar lines to you–like “if *that* is really that important to someone, then perhaps … they could be missing something?”
I love the comment Megs made at TheKindlings Live at Hale’s Ales. They had a panel talking about the devil, and taking questions from the audience, and she said
There was collective gasp of really loud silence after she said that from the crowd and panel, who were largely if not all christians. I would only add to the end of her comment “and then, according to christians, they burn in hell forever”. But probably her version is better.
I heard Dan Allender say at a conference once that I went to
Dan was talking about the passage from Jeremiah where Jeremiah is basically telling God “You seduced me, and then you raped me.” It was so refreshing to hear this level of honesty/reality from christian leader.
I shall email Wayne as you suggest.
Comment by: Helen
4Benjamin, it doesn’t surprise me that you were intentionally being provocative! Yes, I did pick up on ‘she’ as provocative also ;-)
I am very much in agreement with you that being honest about our reaction to Bible stories/teaching is preferable to having to stay within the ‘range of acceptable answers’ which leaves us feeling unheard, invalidated and alone with our ‘unacceptable’ reactions.
Having said that, I intend to be on my best behavior tonight rather than aiming for maximum shock value. (But my best behavior might not be very good ;-))
JG thanks for your comments.
Comment by: Helen
5Benjamin wrote:
Let us know how he responds (being appropriate discreet about private communication).
The reason I suggested this is that I know I’m very prone to assuming I know how others will respond. Whereas what I should do is always give them the chance to respond – in case my presuppositions about them are wrong.
Comment by: Marty G.
6Benjamin,
I am glad you are going to email the pastor as Helen suggested. I think it’s healthy to let churches know where they’ve messed up and can improve. I recently contacted a church for more specific info about a ministry and they sent me a form letter full of non-specific information I had already gleaned from their website. I emailed them back and made it clear that the form letter was inappropriate because it made it seem like they didn’t even read my request. I received a gracious email from the pastor after that thanking me for pointing out the error. I will be anxiously awaiting hearing what the pastor’s response will be.
Comment by: Jim Henderson
7Ben
When you email Wayne ask him if he remembers Jim Henderson from the Jesus People Days and the band called Justice?
Comment by: benjamin ady
8.. Jim. alas–I already emailed him before I saw your request. If I end up in further correspondence with him, I shall thus ask him… Of course now I’m terribly curious, and want to ask *you* about the band called Justice and the Jesus People Days!
Comment by: Rachel
9Hey, Jim – Interesting that you mention the Jesus People. I’ve lately taken an interest in the JP movement and have been doing lots of reading about it. Are you familiar with Duane Pederson and the Hollywood Free Paper? I’ve gotten in touch with him by email.
Comment by: benjamin ady
10So Wayne emailed me back, and apologized, and was very gracious and normal. By normal I mean he didn’t respond like … a lot of christian leaders I’ve known–he just responded like a normal person would–you know–”Oh, sorry about that”. I hope that makes some sort of sense. I think I shall have to invite him to something emergent sometime. He seems increasingly kewl.
Jim. Wayne said
Comment by: Helen
11Benjamin, I’m glad Wayne turned out to be normal and hence ‘increasingly kewl’ :-)
I find that having real interactions with real Christians helps me not to retreat into an unreal world in which negative stereotypes of Christians, driven by my bad experiences, are allowed to reign free. I want to be internally honest about those experiences yet keep them appropriately in check so they don’t overly color my view of other Christians, who may be quite different.