Leaving church

Yesterday was my last day at church. I was interviewed and asked for money and prayers. I didn't say anything too dumb, mostly because I knew the answers to all the questions. A few people said they would give me money, some said they would pray. I'll be sad not to see them again. 

Redemption church has been good value, and I will keep praying for them over the next few years. It's so strange saying goodbye to people I see every week. In some ways it's hard to remember that I won't see them next Sunday; that I won't be putting James' bass guitar into my backseat, picking up Hannah on the way and borrowing Wayne's tuner. I'm so glad it isn't goodbye forever, that our friendships will continue into eternity!

Church tourism

I while ago I visited a Catholic church with my friend. Last Sunday I decided to visit a church chosen entirely based on geography: the nearest church to my house. This turned out to be a Uniting church. The only thing I know about the Uniting Church as an organisation is that it is a bit of a conglomeration of a bunch of other denominations: Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationals according to Wikipedia.

Now, I could spend ages talking about music, robes, demographics, buildings, sermon length, morning tea, welcomedness, or any of a whole raft of things we love to discuss when talking about churches. But really, whether these things are good or bad, they pale into insignificance when placed next to the great failing of this church: they have lost the gospel. In his sermon on Acts 1, the minister failed to mention the promise of the Holy Spirit, the expectation of the spread of the gospel, the historicity of the resurrection, the promise of the return of Christ, or anything else that the passage really mentioned. Instead, he reached the conclusion that heaven (to be fair, it is mentioned three times in the passage) is present on earth, achieved by Christians taking part in social action. He referred to an article in Time magazine to support this. During the service, a young woman stood up and spoke about what the youth of the Uniting Church had decided was important, namely, social justice. She read a statement composed by the delgates at a recent youth leadership conference which listed Aboriginal rights, assistance for immigrants and refugees, and reducing the gap between rich and poor as high priorities (among others which I forget).

Now, I should say that these things are very important, but here they have been placed in the centre, a position rightfully belonging to Jesus. Signing up to causes and raising awareness of social issues has taken the place of boldly proclaiming Christ's death and resurrection, and the forgiveness of sins to those who believe. This pattern continued as I went for coffee with a couple of girls afterwards. One of the girls described the Christian group at her university as a bit crazy, implying that they took evangelism too far at the expense of being sensitive to the needs of those they preached to. Maybe that is true, but the Bible shows that forgiveness is the greatest need anybody has (Matt 9:1-8), so surely it would be preferable to be too bold and cause offence, rather than be over careful and withhold salvation.

As always, it took two days for the good responses to come to me, but at the very least I have been encouraged again to be bold and hold fast to the message of the cross which is the power of God for salvation.

The hardest part of the email to write

Is totally the subject line. You know, the bit where you summarise in five words or less what the email is going to be about. But what if it's just an email saying hi and telling the news. My mum always writes 'From Mum' or 'From Diana' which solves the problem of having to think of things, but seems a little redundant given that her email address includes her name. I often go with 'Hi' or 'Yo' but I think I like the idea of starting a sentence in the subject and then continuing it in the email, a technique mastered by my eldest sister and demonstrated by me in this very blog post. But none of those options really seemed appropriate for this email I just sent off: Hi Tim, This is a bit out of the blue, but I have been thinking for a while about starting an MTS traineeship with an AFES group. I go to Redemption Church in Claremont and currently work full time. I'm originally from over east, near Newcastle, but moved over here for work. Although my default plan is to work in Newcastle where I studied and know people, I want to explore my options a little before I jump in. This leads me to the question: is there a possibility of doing MTS at a Perth uni? I hope to start next year or maybe the year after. Cheers, Heather Sent from my iPad [I can probably stop this pretentious little line from concluding all my emails, but for reasons that I can't explain, I never do] So what goes in the subject line? I've never really met Tim, although we have been in the same room before, and I don't want to give too much away too soon. Anyway, I went with 'MTS' lacking in creativity though it may be.

Ash Wednesday Part 2

The last post on this topic was extremely long, so I decided to cut it in two. Hopefully this one will be shorter, although I can't promise anything.

Last time I talked about the church service itself, but now I'd like to consider the content. The catholic church teaches all sorts of things that, as a protestant, I don't believe. Things like Mary being perfect, the pope having the same authority as the bible, their understanding of the Holy Communion. I have problems with all of these, but I didn't encounter that many things I didn't agree with. Bear in mind that I was sitting a fair way back, and couldn't see or hear everything, but as far as I could tell most of the content was pretty similar to the book of common prayer used by a lot of Anglican churches. I participated with most things, although at least once I chose not to say amen because I didn't agree with part of what they said. I think they only mentioned Mary once, and the pope never.

There were two readings, one was Psalm 51, I don't remember what the other one was, but it was a sizeable chunk, probably predetermined and used every year in the Ash Wednesday service. The message was brief and a bit airy-fairy as far as I could tell, but I don't remember anything particularly unbiblical (or, frankly, at all). I've heard worse in Protestant churches.

Although I was told I couldn't take Holy Communion, I think that if I had seriously thought about it (which I didn't at the time, although maybe I would have if I had had the opportunity to decide) I would have chosen not to participate. I think that sharing in communion in any church implies a certain alignment of view, and there is far much that I object to in the teachings of the catholic church, even if it didn't come up in the actual service I went to.

I look forward to having more discussions about Catholocism with my friend. I plan to give her a copy of Nothing in My Hand I Bring, which I found very helpful. It will be interesting to hear her reactions to it.

Ash Wednesday

I had planned to go to a Catholic mass with my friend from work for a while. She had come to Bible study with me a few times, and I thought it fair to return the favour. Also I wanted to have intelligent discussions with about Catholocism, and it's easier to be taken seriously if I have actually been to a mass rather than just reading about it. So, on Ash Wednesday, just before we both went to Bible study run by my church, we went to mass.

It's a worthwhile thing, every now and again, to visit a new church, particularly one quite different from your own. It points out the strengths and weaknesses of your own and other churches. It also makes blindingly obvious the things that are strange and difficult to follow for outsiders. Is it worth explaining every week why we pray, or sing, or participate in communion? How clear should we be about certain rituals, that we do out of habit while a new church-goer is confused and uncertain? Do we stand to sing? Kneel or close our eyes to pray?

I actually found the mass reasonably easy to follow. This surprised me because I had expected a lot of strange ritual and things I didn't understand. Maybe it was easier to understand because it was a special mass, which even semi-regular and lapsed Catholics, and even the non-religious might attend. Maybe my keen Catholic friend sitting next to me and whispering hints into my ear helped me out. There was also an order of service printed nice and large and laminated in all the rows, although I didn't get my hands in this till the end. Still it was quite well done.

They did a few other things well. The two times that we interacted directly with the priest (the Ash bit and the holy communion) were done with tremendous efficiency. We all lined up, ash on head/bit of host and wine, then went back to our seats. It was much faster than any other communion service I've been involved in, although less communityish and more individual servicy.

The building was less ostentatious, with fewer stained-glass windows and statues, than I had expected. It was far less decorated than most of the Anglican churches I have been in. Also, the priests were pretty relaxed, making sure they were shouting loud enough for the people at the back and assuring us that it wouldn't take to long, just like in lots of church services and professional presentations.

It was not without its weaknesses though. If I hadn't been with my friend, I would have missed out on important things. Apparently I'm not supposed to take communion if I haven't done the confirmation course and had my first holy communion. I can still go up to the priest, but I cross my arms over my chest and he blesses me instead. That was nice, in its way, but I think it would be helpful to clarify beforehand otherwise I might have eaten some cardboard and sipped some port unaware of the evil I was perpetrating. I suspect I still made a fool of myself though, because when he blessed me I said "thankyou" instead of "amen." It made more sense at the time.