The Role of the Church (Copied from Facebook March 8, 2009)

Obviously, I've switched gears when it comes to church, faith, etc. By some standards, I've become too "liberal" by attending and becoming a member of an ELCA Lutheran church with a woman pastor. But the point is not those church differences that everyone likes to point out. The idea is the community. I like going to a church where there is structure and tradition, based on practices that have been going on for hundreds of years, not shifting based on fads or trends in worship style. I like going to a church where during a lenten meal I talk to a middle-aged gay couple who is open and honest and doesn't have to hide who they are for fear of rejection. We spend so much time in a lot of contemporary churches getting emotionally involved in worship songs just because the key changes stir up feelings and the sermons are fun and encouraging. We go to church to talk to a few people and then go home, lacking community. We spend so much time just "doing God" on our own instead of looking to others. "Quiet times" don't have to be quiet, nor do they have to be done in solitude. Time spent with God can be planting trees in a park with a friend or just rolling around in a field and enjoying the weather. It can be writing a song or sketching a chair. For me, the church service is the tradition, the coming-together of what I believe into a cohesive hour and 15 minutes. But everything else can be unstructured.

But aside from all this, if we really want to get back to the basics, we have to know what the "basics" really are. The basics are the Hebrew people and their history, written and oral, as described in the Old Testament. We have a glimpse into their world that most people skip over because they think the OT is just boring laws that don't apply to us anymore. The NT is a commentary of the OT. How can we understand the NT without the history it is based on?

I got a challenge from my sociology professor to just go out in nature and read the OT out loud, focusing on the oral history of these books and their significance as a study of a people different from our own. It's been awesome so far.

The Hebrews didn't concern themselves with science or accuracy or regiment. They were a passionate people who took God as He appeared to them, without legislating how people should worship. Life was community, and community was worship.

But is that how it is today?
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