So I'm here at Annual Conference. We're halfway through, and today is Missionary Day. As I struggle to remember what colors are supposed to be worn for which breakfast, lunch, and dinner event, and as I balk at paying $30.00 for breakfast (that's the same as the one the hotel offers) and being asked for $10.00 to $50.00 for the offering in each of the three daily worship services, it occurs to me that we spend too much time DOing (the business of) church and not enough time BEING the church. Why in the world are we putting on white suits and parading around to commemorate the missionaries. How about something like, I don't know -- mission work? Nah. That's out. Somebody might break a nail or get their suits dirty.
And regarding the offerings: I don't think of myself as a particularly cheap person. Frugal, yes, but not cheap. I believe in giving to and through the church. But I also believe in stewardship. We get repeated requests for money, but what's being done with it? How is it being used for Kingdombuilding? I don't understand why we're having a convention in a fancy hotel that serves $15.00 hamburgers, one that is so uncomfortably expensive for most of our congregants that they've had to offer a cheaper option (5 wings or 5 chicken tenders or 2 hotdogs or a hamburger for $5.00. Not a veggie in sight). I don't understand why we're having a convention in a fancy hotel that serves $15.00 hamburgers when many of our congregants will return to their home and use food stamps or food pantries to survive. Seems to me we could find a better use for the money than spending it in hotels. True, you can't put a cost on fellowship, and true this is an opportunity for the extended family which is our church to congregates, but I as I look around, every organization I'm aware of has had to tighten its belt and cut costs. Many times those cost cutting measures include slashing salaries or entire jobs. How can we not be mindful of that as we plan events?
I've noticed what I perceive to be an inclination of some people of color to behave quite rudely to service staff. I'm not sure if it's a falsely heightened sense of importance (we who were once the servants are now being served) or a response to a prior situation (I'm going to transfer to you all the hostility I've felt at having to serve or be considered less-than for all these years), but in the end it doesn't really matter. The behavior, in my estimation, is not acceptable. It's usually displayed towards non-English speaking people in subservient roles, and, as I said, is not behavior I consider acceptable. I get that it may have some sort of ethnic and/or socioeconomic slant, but especially at a place like this (a church conference) it leaves me wondering "(How) Does our Christian witness transcend and transform our cultural/ethnic boundaries and identities?" We talk about Christ doing a New Thing in us. We talk about being New Creations in Christ Jesus, yet we display the same old attitudes and behaviors. What kind of Christian witness is that? I need a discussion board with this blog.
I remember starting weight watchers once and saying how I didn't want to be the stereotypical fat black churchlady. As I look around, it appears that most of our members are obese; given that this is a conference where some of us see each other only once a year, the changes in some people are quite marked. There's never any mention of our collective obesity, and we're always selling tickets for fatty, carb-laden meals and we're the ones behind the horrible food mentioned above (although I think I just saw a salad!). But my question is this: How can institutionally encouraged obesity be Godly? How can intentional obesity be Godly? What about maintaining the body, which is the temple of the soul? It seems that we Christians rant and rave about lots of things concerning the body (I'm thinking sexuality here), but this is a big pink elephant in the middle of the room and nobody, to my knowledge, is acknowledging it. What about overeating, our general tendencies towards overindulgence? We have a culture of gathering and eating (eat and greet, chit chat chew, etc.), but we also have an historical Christian history of table fellowship. Again, I think the issue here is balance, and I don't know that I have an answer.
It's about 1 and they're just starting the "noon" worship service. Everybody wants to get up and put their $0.02 in, the Bishop allows them, and then we run way over time. I think time management is a form of stewardship, and I think our church is in dire need of better stewardship -- of both chronological and financial resources.
As I said, everyone wants to get up and put their $0.02 in. While I understand that preachers need to make their reports, I can't help but think some of them are self-promoting. It makes me think about when Jesus talked about the folks praying in the synagogue: he told them they could have their rewards here or above. Seems to me that people who need to always say something, who always fall out and start shouting when they're in church but never when they're on 5th Ave or behind the wheel of a car -- seems to me that many of those folk seem to need a little recognition. I don't know; I think I'd rather wait and get mine above, but that's just me. It's not my place to judge what other people do, and I don't want to underestimate the importance of people's testimony. I guess I kinda think that if we developed a habit of thanking and praising God individually and on a regular basis, we wouldn't make such a spectacle of doing it when we got around other people. But that's just me.
Was talking with someone about my thoughts on homosexuality. You know, how God loves us all, and how, if we're gonna pick and choose which parts of the Bible we believe to be authoritative, that I'd just as soon pick those that talk about Jesus' love, and leave the condemnation to God. So we got to talking about things, and about how our theological framework informs our treatment of others. I kinda think there is no undergirding theological framework in our church; that's part of the problem. But as individuals, we should have some sort of theological viewpoint, as opposed to just a tradition of religion. The tradition of religion does not give us a space from which to respond to "other" -- people who are LGBT; people who are physically, mentally, or emotionally challenged; people who don't fit into our little molds. If we have no theological framework, but only a tradition of religion, then we respond to the "other" from a place of judgement or fear; if we have some sort of theological framework then presumably that framework would guide how we respond to "other." At the end of the day, we need to understand that our treatment of "others" is a reflection of our Christian witness. Perhaps if we understood that, if we could truly walk with one another in true love and charity, as opposed to doing the things we think we should do if we had love and charity -- if we truly did unto others as we would have them do unto us -- then perhaps this world would be a better place.
I've written this blog, and they're still inside singing and carrying on. We're more than an hour late, and they still haven't figured out how to shorten the service. Is that still worship? Is it worship if it's completely predictable and makes everybody's day late? How does that glorify God? I'm gonna listen to my vmail and perhaps by then they will have started preaching....
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