On Church-Finding and Job Hazards:

This morning, Peter and I did something that we never, ever do:  we walked out of a church in the middle of a service.

We have visited three churches in Edinburgh so far.  We have visited one twice, one once, and the one this morning.  After travelling through the European continent over the last few months, we were expecting the churches in Scotland to have some of the similar qualities of many of the churches we found there.  That is to say, we were expecting enormous cathedrals nearly empty except for a few elderly people scattered throughout.  Instead, we have found many thriving churches filled with people of all ages, and we have been pleasantly surprised by this.

And yet, we haven’t found that fit, that almost indescribable sense of belonging that sometimes, miraculously, occurs when you take the time to sit your butt in a pew on a Sunday morning.  You sit, you listen, you sing, you pray, you shake some hands and smile at some faces.  You read through the bulletin or the liturgical guide, and you feel…home.

I am not an idealist about this occurrence, not even in the slightest bit.  I realize that a part of that “home” feel is accompanied by feelings of family dysfunction; that part of why I feel at “home” in a new church is because I feel like this might be a group of people who share my “traits” in some sense.  And in my case, these traits include, among other things, a tendency toward self-absorption and self-loathing, a fear of my past and of being “found out” for my past, an intolerance of elitism, on the one hand, and of banality, on the other.  In short, while I often feel at home in church because of all the good stuff (say, for example, the common awareness of God’s redemption of humanity in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit…), I also must confess that I feel at home among people who share my issues.  Maybe you know what I’m talking about…

But one of the hazards of following through with a sense of calling to a vocation in Christian ministry is that finding a church becomes an exercise in bringing out your inner split-personality.  There’s the one person, the scholar Christian, who sits in a pew and analyzes every minute detail of the entire experience of church-going (how is the sanctuary arranged, how does the service begin, what information is provided in the bulletin, why is that candle there, what are the theological and hermeneutical  presuppositions that allow the pastor to say that one sentence in the middle of the sermon, and, hey, what about that “um”… what does that imply?!?!).  And then there’s the other person, the believer Christian, who sits in the pew and spends most of the service trying to tell the scholar to shut up, all the while trying to feel something, dangit!  Feel!  Experience!  Believe!

Needless to say, finding a home amidst the chaos in my brain is… challenging.  (WHOA, I just had a total epiphany about the homeless epidemic!  Anyhoo…)

Still, with all this, I never just walk out of a church-in-progress.  I know from experience the difficulties and challenges of getting that one hour simply into existence.  And, by golly, I’m just too danged polite to walk out of a Christian sibling’s labor and toil.

But this morning, we walked out.  This morning, the scholar and the believer started their ordinary banter.  And I continued to sit and stand and sing and navigate my way around their arguments.  And then!  Something unprecedented.  Then, the scholar and the believer suddenly stopped in their tracks, looked at each other, and said in unison, “Uh…let’s get outta here.  STAT!”

So I looked at Peter and whispered, “Go?”  And we did.