Churches
1. Family Church: I once wrote a poem, as part of a writing exercise that summed up my relationship to this church in my youth. It wasn’t particularly poetic, but it was able to sum it up in a few ideas: that my parents brought me to church two weeks after I was born, and I didn’t miss a Sunday unless I was sick until I was in high school.
But that is only partly true. When I was eight, the church split, and my family went with the Pastor who was kicked out. We had church at the Wandalin Inn for almost a year. Then we went back. At the time, I was just happy to see Optimus Prime again (his family stayed), but now that I’m older, I realize that the families who left were mostly lower-middle class and the ones that stayed, the ones who got the Pastor kicked out in the first place, were upper-middle class.
If I knew what was going on, I would have been disillusioned by church a long time ago.
Instead, I joined the youth group, and then the youth group leadership. I took ,y role seriously, especially when Pastor Donald Duck became the youth pastor. He made me believe that a revival was really going to happen at the church, and it would start with the youth group. But he was also a loud mouth who liked to get people riled up. I ended up being the go between when he offended people because I wasn’t afraid to stick up to him. We had that kind of relationship him and I. He thought I was wise.
When he left, and there was no revival, I started to feel like maybe it was all hype. Well, the feeling started before he left, but it grew even bigger when was gone.
I was also involved in sound (which was a big deal for this church) ushering and various other duties.
I still go back now and then. One summer, after I stopped going to church, I even filled in for my Dad cleaning the place. Very weird to have all that time alone in a place where you literally grew up, and then essentially rejected.
2. Art Church: Pastor Goofy seduced me with talk of a church that would be open to sharing all kinds of ideas and forms of worship, a church that would emphasize art and artistic expression. I was enamoured. Unfortunately, Goofy was a salesperson. He knew what to say to everybody, what everybody was looking for in a church, and there was no way it could live up to all those expectations. As a result, a lot of the people who helped start the church left unsatisfied.
I stayed after the first exodus because I had a job there (working on Aporia). It didn’t help. Goofy couldn’t concentrate on any one task or idea long enough to make any concrete plans, and my frustration with working for him helped feed my dissatisfaction with church in general.
I left because I moved to Waterloo, and I visited when I went back (I even met Wilma there) but I never felt a part of it again, and when I moved back for good, I stayed away.
3. Campus Church: This wasn’t really a church, it was an intervarsity group, but it was all I had the first few months I was in Waterloo. I was church hopping then, looking for something. This gave me stability. But it also made me feel out of place. I had given up on atonement and the Bible, and that didn’t sit well with those people, so I had to either keep my mouth shut and play along or leave. I eventually picked the latter, and had the balls to tell a few people whom I had developed friendships with why I made my decision. It felt similar, I imagine, to coming out of the closet.
4. Grape Church: I actually attended a Vineyard church in Waterloo for about a month. That’s where I met Peter Parker. He was a Catholic who had a girlfriend that attended the church. The relationship didn’t last, and we both decided that we didn’t belong in an evangelical church anyway. So instead, we spent lots of time wandering through downtown Waterloo and Kitchener discussing atonement, the bible, hell and Catholicism. AND we are still friends.
5. Hungry Church: This was an Anglican church, and I really only went a few times, but I was a regular volunteer at their soup kitchen. It was the time I felt most useful to other human beings, not because my cutting of vegetables was so valuable, or my expert dish washing abilities were miraculous, but because when I sat down to eat, I sat down with people nobody else would, and I tried to have real conversations with them. And it seemed like, at least for a moment, they didn’t feel so alone. I actually made an impact on somebody else’s life. Even if it was a little one, and a fleeting one. The director of the soup kitchen talked to me about religion and my beliefs and prayed for me and hugged me and accepted me.
6 Mystery Church: One Sunday I wandered through the snow, not really sure where I was going, and I came across a church. I don’t even remember what kind. But I remember feeling like God was there. I remember feeling like it didn’t matter where I went to church, or if I went to church, I could find God anywhere if I just looked.
But that is only partly true. When I was eight, the church split, and my family went with the Pastor who was kicked out. We had church at the Wandalin Inn for almost a year. Then we went back. At the time, I was just happy to see Optimus Prime again (his family stayed), but now that I’m older, I realize that the families who left were mostly lower-middle class and the ones that stayed, the ones who got the Pastor kicked out in the first place, were upper-middle class.
If I knew what was going on, I would have been disillusioned by church a long time ago.
Instead, I joined the youth group, and then the youth group leadership. I took ,y role seriously, especially when Pastor Donald Duck became the youth pastor. He made me believe that a revival was really going to happen at the church, and it would start with the youth group. But he was also a loud mouth who liked to get people riled up. I ended up being the go between when he offended people because I wasn’t afraid to stick up to him. We had that kind of relationship him and I. He thought I was wise.
When he left, and there was no revival, I started to feel like maybe it was all hype. Well, the feeling started before he left, but it grew even bigger when was gone.
I was also involved in sound (which was a big deal for this church) ushering and various other duties.
I still go back now and then. One summer, after I stopped going to church, I even filled in for my Dad cleaning the place. Very weird to have all that time alone in a place where you literally grew up, and then essentially rejected.
2. Art Church: Pastor Goofy seduced me with talk of a church that would be open to sharing all kinds of ideas and forms of worship, a church that would emphasize art and artistic expression. I was enamoured. Unfortunately, Goofy was a salesperson. He knew what to say to everybody, what everybody was looking for in a church, and there was no way it could live up to all those expectations. As a result, a lot of the people who helped start the church left unsatisfied.
I stayed after the first exodus because I had a job there (working on Aporia). It didn’t help. Goofy couldn’t concentrate on any one task or idea long enough to make any concrete plans, and my frustration with working for him helped feed my dissatisfaction with church in general.
I left because I moved to Waterloo, and I visited when I went back (I even met Wilma there) but I never felt a part of it again, and when I moved back for good, I stayed away.
3. Campus Church: This wasn’t really a church, it was an intervarsity group, but it was all I had the first few months I was in Waterloo. I was church hopping then, looking for something. This gave me stability. But it also made me feel out of place. I had given up on atonement and the Bible, and that didn’t sit well with those people, so I had to either keep my mouth shut and play along or leave. I eventually picked the latter, and had the balls to tell a few people whom I had developed friendships with why I made my decision. It felt similar, I imagine, to coming out of the closet.
4. Grape Church: I actually attended a Vineyard church in Waterloo for about a month. That’s where I met Peter Parker. He was a Catholic who had a girlfriend that attended the church. The relationship didn’t last, and we both decided that we didn’t belong in an evangelical church anyway. So instead, we spent lots of time wandering through downtown Waterloo and Kitchener discussing atonement, the bible, hell and Catholicism. AND we are still friends.
5. Hungry Church: This was an Anglican church, and I really only went a few times, but I was a regular volunteer at their soup kitchen. It was the time I felt most useful to other human beings, not because my cutting of vegetables was so valuable, or my expert dish washing abilities were miraculous, but because when I sat down to eat, I sat down with people nobody else would, and I tried to have real conversations with them. And it seemed like, at least for a moment, they didn’t feel so alone. I actually made an impact on somebody else’s life. Even if it was a little one, and a fleeting one. The director of the soup kitchen talked to me about religion and my beliefs and prayed for me and hugged me and accepted me.
6 Mystery Church: One Sunday I wandered through the snow, not really sure where I was going, and I came across a church. I don’t even remember what kind. But I remember feeling like God was there. I remember feeling like it didn’t matter where I went to church, or if I went to church, I could find God anywhere if I just looked.
posted by deadwriter at 9:38 p.m.
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