I decided to start my experiment by going back to the beginning. My earliest recollections of church are at a building not too far from my current home. The building has housed several different types of Christian churches through the year, but I imagined I’d have a bigger emotional impact by first visiting the building rather than the actual congregation of people that used to meet in that location. (I’ll visit them later in the year.) Now the building is home to the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church. Driving up to the church was sad. I parked near the back of the building where the playground used to be. This was also the same building where I started elementary school so I had spent a lot of time on the playground equipment with childhood friends in this back lot. This is where we played ‘boys chase the girls’ around the old fashioned merry-go-round and where I watched a classmate on the swing set try to swing so high that he’d flip all the way around the bar. He flew out and broke both arms and the fire department had to come. It was pretty cool. Now the playground is entirely gone. Someone literally paved my childhood paradise and put up a parking lot.
Some of the things inside the building were different too. The pews had been replaced with padded chairs. The balcony was empty and the entrance was blocked. But the smell was the same. As soon as I opened one of the big double doors I caught the aroma of fundamentalism that I’d remembered from those early years. I paused in the foyer to glance around at the surrounding classrooms and remember classmates and teachers that have such solid places in my memories.
I was a bit surprised to be standing in the foyer alone. I arrived five minutes earlier than the starting time that had been advertised on the church’s website and posted on their doors. They hadn’t waited though; the three man band was already into their first or second song when I found a seat in the sanctuary.
There was some disorganization. It was the first Sunday of the year and the Sr. Pastor was still on his holiday break. The Christmas decorations and banners were still spread throughout the sanctuary; then again, I haven’t put mine away at home either. The comment cards, to be filled out and put into the offering baskets weren’t on the chairs so there was a mad rush to make sure all of the visitors, meaning me, had one.
The man who gave the announcements made reference to this being the first service of the New Year and was hopeful that 2011 would be better for the church than 2010 had been. “Do you realize we only meet like this for 78 hours the entire year?” he asked the congregation. 52 weeks at 1.5 hour sessions on Sundays aren’t really that big of a commitment, I realized. How a church uses this time on the weekend certainly impacts the rest of their practices and outreach to their local community.
The hour and a half spent this weekend was used to differentiate between their church community and society. The associate pastor even made several distinctions between the type of “wise” Christians he was asking the congregation to be as opposed to how many other Christians lived. It was hard for me to get past the rhetoric and twice I had to sit on my hands to keep from raising them and challenging one of his offhand comments.
The only further mention of the surrounding community was during the benediction when the pastor prayed that his congregation would all be lights for the lost and dying world. I think that is how they see their gathering, a refuge from the corruption outside and an ark of safety from the coming judgment. It’s not what I expected based on this quote from their denomination’s website:
The Alliance is a unique missionary denomination—a maverick movement into whose soul the Head of the Church breathed “Go!” from the very start. —L.L. King, C&MA President (1978-1987)The inward struggles of this church and the deviation from the missionary heart of their denomination may be some of the reasons why there were only 35 souls in the building on this Sunday morning, including my own.
When I was a young man in this church I remember my family filing out of the building and getting to shake the pastor’s hand. No one had spoken to me on the way in, during, or now on my way out of the service. The young pastor even glanced down at a text message on his phone when I was in front of him getting my communion elements. Possibly I was too much of an enigma for them, wondering what I was doing in their boat.
Just as I was leaving an elderly gentleman asked me why I was taking so many notes during the service. I stuck out my hand, introduced myself, and then told him I was back visiting the church building after many years away. He relaxed and we spent the next several minutes discussing our town, the pastors and friends we had in common, our missionary adventures around the globe, and his wife that he lost this last summer after 50+ years of marriage. He teared up when I asked him how this Christmas season was without her. At the end of our time together, he reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a gospel track that had his name and address printed on the back. It was the only material I had been given that morning. I plan to write him a note today and drop it in the mail, thanking him for our time of sharing yesterday. For some reason I think that is the only follow up that will take place from this first week of visiting the 50 closest religious institutions near my home.
