But I've got to admit, I was drifting off a bit during the sermon. Maybe I was the only visual learner in there, but I could have used a couple of photos from the preacher's visit to Israel to liven things up a bit. So I tried to re-focus and stealthily tucked into a few chapters of Acts, just for the adventure of it, while keeping an ear open for anything new during the talk.
And it probably wasn't fair for me to keep a tally of the number of times the elder leading the service said "afresh". He couldn't possibly have known that it's become a bit of a trigger word for me. I filled a whole five bar gate during an hour's semi-listening. And when that happens, I just have to run for the hills and get some "afresh" air.
So I'm walking around the streets nearby, glorious sunshine (for the second day running, and I'm nursing sunburn because I always think the sun's too weak in April to do any damage), chucking a miniature rugby ball to myself and saying (out loud, which is a bit weird I guess, or would be for the people driving past with their windows down) stuff like "Lord, I'm really excited by everything that life with you has to offer, so why do I want to head to the hills during a church service like that? Why do they have to remind me how old I am (40 next week, by the way) by playing Graham Kendrick's Servant King? I get it that Iron Maiden do a retro tour to India to make a mint from the Indian generation that didn't get to see the World Slavery Tour first time round in 1984. I get it that Major League Baseball and the National Football League cash in on nostalgia by playing games in retro uniforms. But why, with all the Christian songwriting that's happened in the last couple of decades, does one of Rugby's liveliest worship teams serve up a handful of songs from yesteryear? And where's the Holy Spirit exactly if it's the treadmill of sing-total quiet-worship leader says the first couple lines out loud-sing-more stunned silence-introduce next song. I mean, when I'm jogging around the streets with my ipod keeping tempo, I'm listening to all that superb stuff from Bethel, with worship leaders who create space for the Spirit to speak to people and improvise stuff."
So I got to wondering how it was that particular church got started. Maybe it was a few decades ago, and some folks were getting a bit fed up with the structures and routines of their old churches (perhaps those old churches seemed a bit out of touch with everyday life, a bit set in their ways), and they felt God speaking to them "afresh" about how to do church. Maybe they met in their own homes for a bit while they sorted out a building to rent, then buy, then extend. I don't know how it was. But I wondered how it is that something that was meant to be a revolution in how to meet together and worship and grow together gradually turns into something uncomfortably similar to the thing it was meant to be a break from.
Today, for instance, we made an awkward entrance (admittedly greeted at the door by someone from the Welcome team), thankfully caught the eye of someone Kate already knew who offered to sit with us, and got chatting a bit to someone we met a few months ago. The service starts, and we listen to notices, and for the remaining hour and a half hear the voices of three men: the elder leading the service, the worship leader, and the preacher. Although, actually, there was a point when two people in the crowd were invited to pray for missionaries and the world, but I could only hear one of them, because they weren't miked up. Boy, for one of the town's more informal churches, it sure felt formal.
I find all that stuff a bit tricky after reading stuff like Wolfgang Simson's Houses that Change the World. I think it's a polemical book, I don't agree with everything it says, and it throws the baby out with the bathwater (but maybe the bathwater needs throwing out, and assuming the baby's landed on the grass, it's easy enough to pick it up again) but lots of it rang true with me. Like his ideas about the formality of much of church life (Sunday services in particular):
Life in any culture has two aspects, the private and the public, everyday-life and the special events, celebrations of weddings, function and festivals, funerals and traditional happenings. Both aspects of life have their own and valid ways of expression. Everyday life is usually expressed in the family, the basic cell unit of every society and culture. Families are usually very organic, informal, relational and consist of whatever it takes to share lives. Weddings and other functions are extraordinary events, for which everyone duly prepare; they are usually formal, need heavy organization and are often highly structured.
Imagine you would have to attend a wedding each week. It follows the same basic pattern, has even the same bridegroom and bride, and maybe even the food is the same. After some weeks the excitement would considerably wear down. You would know what to expect, and you know what’s going to happen next. It still would remain a nice thing, a beautiful tradition, but it would feel odd to have the same type of festival each week.
We need to be careful not to do this with church. Jesus has shown us a way to live, not only a way to celebrate. Both aspects are necessary, both are good. But everyday life is not like a wedding, as any married couple can tell us. If we allow church to take on only ”celebration structures”, we will start celebrating ”a wedding a week”, and our behavior will soon be far removed from real life and cease to make sense to ordinary people. It would become an artificial weekly event and performance. If church is a God-given way of community life, and if life takes place in the basic unit of a family living in a home, there is nothing more appropriate for the church to be a housechurch, to be the church based in simple, ordinary, everyday homes.
Sure, a church can have a Welcome Team, but I think it's an interesting emphasis to say in the notice sheet "please make yourself known to us..." Or maybe someone from the Welcome Team shakes hands and says "Hello Mr Matt, Sir" every Sunday for a few weeks. That's fine for some folks, but it reminded me of the road signs on a nearby street during some utilities rejigging: Access to Frontages Only.
So there's a big part of me that feels like setting fire to my shoes during most kinds of traditional service where I'm mostly a passenger, a passive listener. And if the real connections with people are meant to be made after the service, during the hubbub of tea and coffee and standing around, then I'm atrocious at that, because I'm mostly wanting to round my children up and get home in time for lunch. And although I'm trying to realise that it's not that way for everybody, and that I'm not to get isolated (I like what Floyd McClung has to say about simple churches staying connected with bigger churches and not just being in rebellion from them the whole time), I feel compelled, and a little bit liberated, to try seeing things differently for a while.
[footnote: this "setting fire to my shoes" phrase is one I nabbed from Tim Simmonds, who blogged about how he felt at a particularly dull home group one night. I'd link to the original post if I could, but I've lost it. Funnily enough, Tim moved up from the West Midlands to Levenshulme, Manchester, just as we were getting ready to make the reverse trip. God nudged him to get involved in the lovelevenshulme blog that I'd started all those years back, and he (and the fantastic Helen Power) are now taking it to the next level. Thankfully, BBC Manchester have updated their database now, and call on Tim to comment on Levenshulme issues rather than me (although I was finding it slightly cool to get phoned by the media on my way to work.) Tim didn't know I was a Christian at the time of the blog baton change, but God knew exactly what was in store for that particular crazy little grassroots project. He always does: looking at things from outside of time helps.]
Update September 2011:
But no two weeks are the same. I was at the same church a couple of months later, and in praying for me at the end of the service the pastor (with the Spirit's help) was able to hit a lot of nails on the head, real insightful stuff, and a lot of what was spoken has been encouraging and helped bring clarity to some things over the coming weeks.
Best not to set fire to my shoes.
