questioning ecclesiology in the wilderness

I didn’t always like going to church, but when I became a minister I felt like I had to go. Growing up in North Carolina made it easy to be a Christian. Children went to Sunday School every Sunday even if your parents just dropped you off then joined you later for “big” church. You didn’t have to stay in “big” church long. The minister welcomed people, prayed a prayer and everyone sang two hymns. During the second hymn all the children came to the first few rows to hear a special message just for them. I cannot remember any specific lesson taught during these moments. I remember it being a time when bible stories were told. Stories about Jesus that we had just heard in Sunday School were retold with the minister’s explanation tagged on the end. After the children’s time in worship, we were led back to the Sunday School rooms for Children’s Church. Perhaps, this is where the idea of “church” was formed. Church, for children, meant sitting back in the Sunday School rooms waiting for our parents to finish whatever church meant to them. Children’s church consisted of playing “Bible” Football or “Bible” Charades or “Bible” Baseball. It was all knowledge-based. Therefore, church meant knowing something.

I wanted to go to church. More specifically, I wanted to go to Sunday School. Every quarter there was a special assembly held in the fellowship hall to honor attendance in Sunday School. Pins were awarded for perfect attendance. I cannot remember in what increments awards were given, but I certainly remember that I earned the “one-year” pin. However, it was a lie. It was not a lie that I told or my parents, but my Sunday School teacher fudged the books a little in my favor.

One winter Sunday morning, I remember both of my parents coming into my room. After waking me up, they informed me that it had snowed all night and that we might not be able to drive to church safely. Knowing that my sights were set on the attendance award, they asked very gently if it would be okay to stay home. I agreed. The following Sunday the Sunday School teacher asked me if I would have come to Sunday school if it had not snowed. I said yes. She changed the attendance book and some time later, I was awarded a pin for perfect attendance at Sunday school for one year. And so I was taught another lesson about church. Church meant achieving something.

These are not bad memories, but ones that come to the forefront of my mind as I think now about the nature of church. Is church about knowing something? Is church about achieving something? For many, I am afraid it is. Church is about knowing AND agreeing with a statement of faith. Many use wording such as, “We believe in….” or “We confess…” But, isn’t it true that many of these statements of faith could be said, “We know this about God,” or “We know that about the Bible,” and so forth? The implication, then, is that they know something I (you?) do not. I am not interested in that. Furthermore, the Christian life itself is characterized by achieving something (e.g., a better relationship with God, a revelation of life’s purpose, or the satisfaction on Sunday afternoon that I actually went to church and everyone saw me there and I can speak all next week with the piety of the Pharisees).

I wait for an experience, a revelation, a vision of what church means.

Like the Israelites wandering through the wilderness, I am afraid. I am terrified that what I might find along this journey is not what I set out to see. I’m afraid that what I might actually see is a church that is radically different than the way it looks now.

Is the “promised land” just another place to rest in our unfaithfulness until we’re wiped out by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, or whoever comes along with a bigger army than ours?

liberation theology

When I was younger, I thought growing up in Rocky Mount, North Carolina was not as good as say growing up in Atlantic Beach, NC or California. Like every kid, I guess I had some sense that life would be better somewhere else. I did not necessarily want to be away from my family. In fact, the opposite was true. I liked being home. I just thought that home would be better at the beach or in California.

Saturday nights were sacred especially in the summer. They were ritual. Mama would cook baked potatoes and make a tossed salad. She always made me a salad that I never ate. She made salad dressing and stored it in a yellow Tupperware container. The tea was sweet. Daddy would cook steaks on the grill. It was a charcoal grill that my maternal grandfather (“Big Daddy”) bought or had made somewhere. One for us and one for grandma and him. The steak was always good. Mostly we cooked sirloin steak as opposed to strip, filet, or rib eye. Of course, Daddy would always cut off a few pieces to eat right from the grill. It tasted better that way. I guess every family has rituals. Perhaps even the most sporadic families has them as well.

Our backyard was large enough for a kickball/baseball/football field. Actually, it wasn’t that big, but it was for eight-year old professional athletes. Sometimes we would play in the neighbors’ back yard since it was free from any trees, storage buildings, or workshops. They did not have any children and never seemed to mind. Our sports changed with the seasons. In the fall we played football complete with uniform, protective pads, helmets, and the fights that came when we tackled each other too hard. In the winter, we tried to play basketball though besides the weather being cool, our abilities were frozen in some respects. The spring and summer were the best. We played baseball and always ran the risk of breaking a window with an extreme foul ball or long home run. I cannot remember ever breaking a window.

My great granddaddy lived “across the railroad tracks.” This meant he was white, lived in his home in the neighborhood where he had lived for many years, and had new neighbors due to the fact that the old ones had either died or moved away. I loved visiting his house. He had a garden, a work shop, and lawn chairs to sit in outside and talk. Rarely, do I remember going to visit him and talking inside. Although I do remember that the kitchen always smelled like great grandma’s biscuits and country ham. The entire family on my father’s side would cross the tracks every year on the Saturday following Thanksgiving for an oyster roast. We would eat, talk, catch up with cousins, uncles, and aunts. The day would end with two other rituals – shaking the pecan trees and taking the family photograph for that year.

I cannot think of any real reason that I believed growing up somewhere other than Rocky Mount would have been better. Life creates rituals. Rituals, sometimes, keeps life interesting and familiar. Wherever we are we probably create rituals that connect us to home and family. Ritual gives a sense of meaning and purpose and understanding. Ritual makes an imprint on our memory perhaps so that when we’ve grown up and recall our childhood, the rituals are now liberating.