Church Misconceptions

It seems no matter what denomination, congregation size or geographic region, a lot of Americans are confused about what church is designed to be. I always thought church should be a place for corporate worship of God, fellowship with other Christians and to hear the Word preached.

Others tell me I’m wrong. Church should be about having personal needs met. It should be a comfortable experience, one in which I don’t have to think about the guy next to me because he’s not on my economic level. Church should be a place, people think, where the pastor strokes our ego, tells us how to prosper and assures us that America is the apple of God’s eye.

Certainly this isn’t a new phenomenon. When I was a boy many people thought church was a place to dress up, to be seen by others as fulfilling a weekly obligation, a reason to wash the car on Saturday.

I think our perceptions are screwy. Church is a place to give back, both to the community and to others in the body. It’s a place to use spiritual gifts, not ornately, but in humility. It’s a place to give generously, to the One who has provided everything.

Tolerating Distractions

Sometimes I get distracted at our church, which began as a Christian coffeehouse. With such origins, there is a counter at the rear of the room stocked with carafes of coffee. Although there is a designated time in the middle of the service for people to fill their cups, some folks tend to do so during worship or even during the sermon.

I find it distracting, even though the pastor doesn’t seem to mind people getting up from their seats and wandering to the caffeine supply. Perhaps I’m just too old school in believing that church is a formal affair that demands silence most of the time.

As a baby, my dad once started crying in the sanctuary. The minister stopped the service and ordered my grandmother to remove the squawking child from his presence. There wasn’t a lot of tolerance for children expressing themselves in the 1910s.

My dad went on to be a preacher himself for 65 years. Whenever a baby started to fuss and the mother would get up to leave the service, my dad would encourage her to stay in the sanctuary. “I can talk louder than the baby,” he would say. Such informality is a good lesson for me.