So I've been going to First Baptist Church in Doylestown. I must say, there seem to be some great folks there and there is growth to be found there. I must, however, rant about Christmas Eve. It was more of an hour and a half Christmas talent show with the obligatory 30 second opening prayer and closing benediction; somewhere in the middle there was about 90 seconds of Scripture and then a 4 minute "sermon".
Nothing like 90 minutes of Christmas eve service without Christ.
Don't get me wrong. The soloists and choirists (my own word) and bell choirists are talented and as long as they were doing it to the glory of God and not themselves I don't think there's anything overtly wrong with that sort of thing but at the same time it doesn't include the congregation in the least little way.
I must admit that I haven't been going to service there on Sunday only the Sunday school classes which have been awesome. Unfortunately I work on Saturday nights and don't get to sleep until 3:00 or 3:30 AM so 9:00 AM service is pretty much out and then Sunday school is at 10:30, during second service.
I pray that regular services aren't as completely Christless. I'm hoping to have a job with regular people hours soon and that would be a complete let down to start going to service only to find it limp and lifeless.
Well, yesterday was my birthday. I'm 27.
My folks did take the family out to dinner at Ooka, a Japanese restaurant in town. Pretty magic place actually. We did the whoe hibachi thing where they cook in front of you and crack jokes and throw food etc.
My nephew Martin gave me what might be the best present I've ever recieved: a paper airplane of his own design. He's 4 and quite a character. I'm not sure which was better the hibachi experience with the fam or watching Martin enraptured by the hibachi experience. Pretty magic.
A lot of my frustrations come from the fact that we've fallen into a kind of Christian status quo. We adhere to a set of Christian social mores that are not in the least bit Biblical. A lot of Christians aren't comfortable when you tell them how you really are.
"How are you today Andy?"
"I'm right shitty thanks."
Followed by some uncomfortable silence, looking anywhere but at each other, then some mumbling about wishing the other a good afternoon...
We don't really want truth and intimacy. We want to put on the nice clothes, put on the nice smile, and act like everything is just hunkey dorey.
What it seems to come down to is that we have a western John Wayne thing going on and we try to do everything in our own strength. We are trying to be completely individualistic. These things are completely unbiblical.
Not only that but we, as Christians, claim to be something different when we're not. We may know the Scriptures but we don't live them. We try to justify ourselves and our worldliness in all manner of ways. I had more stuff stolen from me at Covenant College in the midst of a "Christian Community" than I ever did anywhere else. My Christian friends are meaner nastier and generally more base than my nonchristian friends.
We don't realize how desperate life really is because we don't want to. We fill ourselves with drink, drugs, tv, movies, video games, any number of things. the most insidious part of it is that we justify this by saying that there's nothing wrong with any of it. I don't want to say that video games and entertainment in general are bad because they're not but we will twist anything to fill our time and distract us from the only pursuit that matters... Christ.
I've added a new button in the pure entertainment section of my links. Homestar Runner, a hilarious online cartoon that you should check out if you already haven't. On your first time there you could watch the intro if you want to but it's just the theme song and what not. Once you get into the site I suggest the small round button near the top right that says "first time here?" and then maybe the characters section (Homestar and Strong Bad are the best in my opinion). The Strong Bad Emails are pretty great also although it might be wise to start at the bottom of the list as those are the first ones but it's not necessary. There's also some pretty great stuff in the toons section. My personal favorite is the Teen Girl Squad series (originally from a SBEmail) and also the YelloDello short. OK most of them are pretty funny.
Check it out.
As I mentioned a coupole of posts ago I've been experiencing a sort of spiritual malaise. For the past few years I've been becoming more and more disillusioned with Christianity or at more precisely the Christianity that I've been taught for so long and I've also been feeling a growing hatred for Christians. I've been coming to the conclusion that there is something fundamentally wrong with what we're taught as Christians as to what spirituality/life really is. Which leads to the fact that there is something fundamentally wrong with Christians. Please know that I am myself a Christian and place my self right in the group for which I've been feeling a growing hatred. I think you can see the growing difficulties. My hope is to start hashing out some of these things here on my blog.
I met a dude at church yesterday (about the 5th time I've been to church since coming home from Covenant College this past May) who seems to share some of the same struggles and thoughts that I've been having and I'm hoping to have a chance to talk more with him about this. For the time being he will remain nameless although I'm sure he wouldn't mind me using his name. I just haven't asked yet.
More to come.
Well we got our first real snow storm up here. Over Friday and Saturday we got about a foot of snow. Pretty awesome. some places in Maine are still geting blasted. I must say that this is one of the things I love about being up north for the time being, snow. I hate driving after snow because it all turns to slush and ice and after it goes away you get black ice. For those who don't know black ice is when the road just looks shin black like it's wet but it's actually a thin sheet of ice.