Pew Sitting

I am extremely grateful to my parents that they brought me up in the church. Christianity has been so deeply ingrained in me that it has become part of who I am. I grew up going to Sunday School and Children's Church and then to youth group. I was taught about Adam & Eve, Noah, Moses, Jonah and Jesus and His disciples from such an early age that I can't remember a time that I didn't believe.

I've lived in the same town all my life. So it's only natural that my family brought me to the same church every Sunday. I remember when it was just a small brick building situated behind the Howard Johnson's hotel next to the highway. I was there when it grew an extension, complete with a great huge sanctuary with comfortable pews and a new parking lot to accomodate all the cars. Back then it was so modern. Now the church seems so small. The equipment outdated and the parking lot old and cracked.

I grew up in that church. It was such an important part of my youth. But I can never go back there again.

Sure, I can walk through the doors. I go to every Easter and Christmas Eve service. But as far as attending, I can't do it. I have a hard time just sitting through one service. I have a hard time pinpointing why I can no longer go there. There seems to be multiple reasons, but I can't decide if one reason outweighs the others.

One reason I don't want to go back is because of the church itself. I don't really like the atmosphere. It isn't very warm and friendly. I'm talking about the congregation. I grew up there, but there're very few people that I actually remember. And I only show up twice a year. You'd think people would come up to me and shake my hand and ask me if this was my first time attending this church. It's only happened once or twice.

I'm also not a fan of the pastor's style of preaching. Don't get me wrong, I've spoken to him on numerous occasions, and he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He's someone I would trust. However, I find his sermons completely boring. I find sermons hard to listen to in the first place, but his tend to put me to sleep. (Not really. I'm polite enough to stay awake. Besides, my snoring would cause a problem.) His style totally reminds me of a children's Sunday School class. His speech is very soft. Very.....nice. No passion behind what he's preaching. I don't know about you, but I like some fire in the sermons. I love it when the preacher occasionally yells, when he comes down into the congregation. I want some passion and excitement.

Another reason was due to personal shame. This was the biggest reason for a while, but isn't so much of a problem anymore. I'm thirty-five years old, single and still live at home with my parents. And I work in retail. Whenever I attended a service, I would always dread one question. "Where do you work now?" I cannot decribe the shame I felt when I answered that evil question. It was always a painful reminder that I did not have a career, I did not have a family, and I was not living on my own. When the service was over, I always tried to duck out the door as quickly as possible. It didn't always work.

Thankfully, now I can tell them that I am a manager now, at least.

Several years ago the church organized a Men's Retreat where the men in the church would go and spend a weekend at a nearby Christian center. This was after I had stopped attending that church. But my mother insisted that I go. I didn't have to pay for it. She wanted me to get out of the basement where I usually spent my weekends. Sometimes I think she thought I had turned my back on God, and this was going to help me get back on track. I didn't want to go, but I thought at least they have volleyball games there and a really nice indoor swimming pool. So reluctantly I went with my father.

That was a mistake. When I got there, I really didn't want to be there. Everyone there was older than me and married. Most had kids, some had grandkids. As soon as I got there, my personal barriers came right up. Remember that scene in the movie Wargames when that huge door locked up? That's what I was like the entire weekend. And everyone knew it. I barely spoke to anyone. Every once in a while someone would try to engage me in conversation in an effort to bring me out of my shell. But it never worked. I wasn't using a shell. I had titanium armor. My language skills had degenerated into sentence that consisted of up to two words. The room that I slept in had enough beds for three people. I was by myself in there.

I was completely alone for the entire weekend. At one point I found a phone and called long-distance, at the expense of the center, to my girlfriend. I couldn't get a hold of her. There was no volleyball and no pool games. By the end I felt terribly guilty because it had been a complete waste of money for me to be there. And I could tell that my father was upset and embarrassed because of me. After we got home, I gave him the money for the weekend. He tried to refuse, but I insisted. If it was going to be a waste of money, it was going to be my own. It was my way of apologizing for being such a sourpuss.

Another reason I can never go back to that church is because it's in the past. It is no longer a part of me, so I can't be a part of it. To go back it feels like I would be taking a step back. Like I would be insulting myself.

I used to work at a pizza restaurant that is right next door to the store where I work now. I worked there for over four years. One year when I was working at the store, I decided that it would be a good idea to re-apply at the pizza place. I had plenty of experience so they wouldn't have to do any real training. I could work maybe ten, fifteen hours a week and get a little extra cash for the Christmas season. They probably would've hired me right on the spot.

But the second I picked up that application, I realized I couldn't do it. All the memories of working there came flooding back. Not bad memories, per se. It had to do with what they meant. I knew I would have to wear the black pants and green polo shirt. I would have to come home smelling like pizza sauce. I would have to pull pizzas from the oven and box them up to be delivered. I would have to go out back to the walk-in to get more lettuce for the salads. I couldn't do it. For me to go back to working there again, it would have been the greatest insult I could do to myself.

It's for this same reason that I can't go back to my family's church. I have moved on. It is no longer a part of me.

After high school, my two best friends and I started going to a Pentecostal church right around the corner from where I live. I'd never been in there before. But I was completely blown away by the passion in the pastor's sermons. Here was someone who loved God and wasn't afraid to show it, to let it out. We started attending regularly and ended up meeting some powerful Christians who became very influential in each of our lives. I learned more in that church than I had ever learned in my parents' church.

However, I was never completely comfortable in that church. While I found a spiritual vigor that I had never before experienced, I did not like their worship style. You see, I grew up in a baptist church where the most passion that was ever displayed was the occasional exclamations of "Amen!" or "Hallelujah!" Then to be in the midst of a Pentecostal worship service was a jarring experience, what with all the clapping, moaning, dancing and speaking in tongues. There were times that it got so intense that I had to leave the service altogether. While I will probably never go back to that church (for reasons that will be given at another time), I have great respect for it and for the preaching that went on in there.

Every once in a while I would try other churches around town, just to see what they had to offer. I tried a congregational church just down the road from our house. It was too dull for me. I tried another baptist church about half a mile away. That was interesting. It turned out to be a liberal church, very non-offensive. The reverend was a woman (a first for me) and her sermon was about recycling. My brother brought me to a mega-church about thirty minutes to the south a couple times. During one of the small groups (which wasn't that small), we watched a couple clips from The Truman Show.

There was one baptist church near the town line that I attended for about a month. It was nice. It reminded me of a smaller version of my parents' church. The pastor showed a sense of humor in his sermons. I liked it. Until they started reciting the Lord's Prayer every week. That is a definite turn-off for me. I can't stand it. I've got nothing against the Prayer itself. It came from Jesus Himself. It acts as a guide for how we should pray. It is a very powerful passage of Scripture. But when it is recited in church every week, it sounds extremely monotonous and robotic, and it loses its power.

After leaving for college, I all but stopped attending any churches. There was a congregational church on the corner, one that dated back before the Declaration of Independence. But I had the same problem that I had with the previous congregational church. Too dull. I no longer had any contact with my best friends, so I couldn't lean on them for support.

After college, I rarely attended church. My mother tried to get me back into going to her church, but to no avail. I wanted to go back to church. My spiritual life was in the dumps and I knew I had to get it back on track. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. I made numerous attempts. I prayed about it. But I no longer cared enough.

It wasn't until one of my best friends returned home after his marriage crumbled that I found the means to return to church. He needed a new church for him and his children to attend in an effort to rebuild their lives. It turned out to be the same baptist church on the town line that I had tried all those years earlier. He invited me to come along, and I readily agreed. It was a different place from when I first attended. There was a new pastor and they no longer ecited the Lord's Prayer. It was old-fashioned, but trying to update itself with new technologies and current worship styles.

I was hesitant at first until I had an epiphany. Over the years of not attending church, I had put up defenses to protect myself from socializing, especially from answering he dreaded question, "Where do you work?" But I realized that I needed to take the next step. A lot of the church members had come up to me, shook my hand and welcomed me, but I was on the defensive. The solution was incredibly simple: Learn people's names. If I was going to attend this church, I was going to have to get to know these people, and it started with learning their names.

I like this church. While I do have some only-wishes, phrases that start with "I only wish", I like the people and the style of worship. Plus, it fits into my work schedule. And as an added bonus, they are planning a missions trip to Morocco, which I am absolutely thrilled about! Last Sunday, I gave my first tithe ever. I got my stimulus check in the mail, and I was so grateful to God for it, that I gave Him ten percent of it.

I'm still undecided if I want to become a full-fledged member of the church, mainly due to the only-wishes I have. But I see myself staying there for a long time.

Komodo Jazz