Week 8 Preview – Check in at Foursquare

Before the location-based social networking application allowed friends to publicly share where they were hanging out from their phones, the term Four Square was known as a playground game on elementary school courtyards. It is also the name of a church denomination started by a woman named Aimee Semple McPherson in 1927 in Los Angeles. I have a Foursquare church in my neighborhood.

Sister Aimee, as she was known, coined the term “Foursquare Gospel” during an evangelistic outreach in California. To her it represented an equally balanced expression of the four-fold ministry of Jesus:

1. as Savior
2. as Baptizer with the Holy Spirit
3. as Healer
4. and as the coming King

This denomination likes 4’s. Their strategy for accomplishing their church planting vision is as follows:

1. Pioneer
2. Establish
3. Empower
4. Send

Their website is divided into four segments:

1. I’m new to Foursquare
2. I want to get involved
3. I’m a foursquare leader
4. I’m looking for leadership tools

They believe that biblical truth meets people in four main segments:

1. Salvation
2. Christian Walk
3. The Spirit-filled Life
4. The Afterlife

The Foursquare church in my neighborhood (who list their membership at 400) lists four ways to start a relationship with Jesus:

1. Start Reading the Bible
2. Get Water Baptized
3. Connect with others at their church
4. Begin to journal.

I’ve got the 1, 2, and 4^th covered. This weekend, I’ll hit number 3, connecting with others in their fellowship.

Here’s a video that the Foursquare denomination has prepared for their first time visitors.

Have you ever visited a Foursquare church?

Week 7 – Islamic Mosque

My decision to go to an Islamic Mosque on the same day as Egypt’s revolution left me with very little preparation time. I had planned to do more research on Islam so I’d know what to expect—again, I find that my preconceived ideas about Muslims and their faith have been formed from TV programs, movies, and what I’ve been taught in my Christian Sunday School class.

I felt vulnerable walking into this very different place of worship. Some of my friends would suggest that I was opening myself up to demonic attack by simply walking into a building that had been built to honor Allah. I’m more secure in my faith than that, and am not worried that the Holy Spirit will depart me just because I am daring to meet the Muslims in my neighborhood on their turf. I didn’t feel afraid, just out of my element.

There was a big sign on the front door reminding people to turn off their phones, which I was quick to do. There was no message about taking off your shoes, but seeing all of the footwear stacked in the shelves outside, I got down to my socks as well- glad that I’d worn a pair with no holes in them.

The man behind the desk told me that I was welcome. I told him this was my first visit and just wanted to observe. He assured me this was okay so I walked down the hall to where the men were gathering. The women were assembling in a room on the other side of the building.

I was 10 minutes early and many of the men were already in prayer. They would go from sitting cross-legged on the ground, to standing, down to their knees, and then press their foreheads to the carpet. It was a very clean room, but I couldn’t help but notice the smell of men’s bare and stocking feet; I was glad that I wasn’t prostrating myself to the floor with them. No doubt some of what I smelled were my own feet.

Some things are very different in a Mosque than in the typical Christian Churches that I’m used to—there were no visitor cards, no bulletin, no offering plates, and no worship team. Some things were very similar—the message was on giving.

I learned quite a bit about Zakat, the third pillar of Islam, which is about compulsory charity. A Muslim in good standing is required to give a portion (a literal percentage) of his excess to those who are in need. This is the Muslim’s religious answer to social justice in their communities. To be selfish, to be hypocritical, to not honor Allah for providing for them carries heavy penalties for a Muslim- including punishment and hellfire in the afterlife. To honor the Zakat is literally a means of purification in this world against being controlled by wealth.

I heard very similar messages about money in the Mosque as I have in the Church.

• “You can’t out-give Allah.”
• “To the measure you give, Allah will give back to you.”
• “Charity never decreases wealth”
• “You need to store your wealth in places where it can’t be destroyed and where thieves can’t steal it.”

Perhaps all religious institutions have ways of pressuring their followers into giving. The penalty for not doing so appears greater for a Muslim as the Zakat that he didn’t give away is literally tied around his neck during his punishment in the afterlife. At the same time, a Muslim doesn’t need to give his charity gift through the Mosque, but is allowed to freely give these finances to individuals, organizations, etc. Not only does the Mosque not try to control where and how Zakat is spent, they encourage the givers to keep their giving undercover. There is more blessing from Allah if your giving is in secret. If you let the community know how charitable you are, then that is the extent of your blessing.

As the sermon came to a close the men started organizing themselves into rows. I found myself at the edge of the room, right beside the door where it wasn’t so conspicuous that I wasn’t participating in their religious calisthenics. If the men stood, so did I, but when they went through their kneeling motions I simply sat back down. They were all praying and reciting things in Arabic that I didn’t understand. I was silently and fervently praying myself.

After attending one Muslim service I have lots of questions. I’m not doing this project as a comparative religion study, but it is a part of my journey to understand my neighbors. This comes with some introspection, investigation, visitation, and hopefully some follow up. As I hoped might happen the Imam introduced himself to me at the end of the meeting. We know each other by our first names now. We have each other’s phone numbers. This man is no longer a caricature in my mind, he is my neighbor.

I chose today to go to the Mosque on this day because of the fears of my friends in regards to the political revolution in Egypt. I sat and stood, in silence, waiting for this group to show their true, fundamentalist colors. Finally a man stood at the end of the program to give the weekly announcements. There were three:

1. The men were encouraged to greet a new convert.
2. One of the men was a new grandfather; he had brought doughnuts to celebrate for after the service.
3. Smiling the announcer said, “I’m sure by now you’ve all heard of what happened in Egypt today. Let us now pray for a democratic government to be established in that country. And let us pray that it is all done in a peaceful manner.”

And to that I joyously responded with my own expression of faith, “Amen!”

Week 7 Preview - “Free, Free, Egypt is Free!”

This morning after 18 days of protests in Tahir Square, a 30-second announcement ended a 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. The scenes being televised by the media are priceless; people dancing, wide-eyed children riding high on the shoulders of their parents, fireworks exploding, and soldiers smiling and taking pictures with their fellow countrymen. It is a day to celebrate!

Unless, of course, you live in FEAR.

Some of my friends choose to compare today’s toppling of a tyrant to what happened 32 years ago (to the day) when young revolutionaries overran the government buildings and radio stations in Iran. My conservative friends’ concern is that Egypt will become an Islamic controlled state and that world terrorism and Christian persecution will multiply.

Other friends choose to contrast this overthrow in Egypt with what the United States forcefully did in Iraq; observing that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein destroyed a country, killed thousands upon thousands of their population, fractured their people into opposing forces, and has nearly bankrupted our own country.

I’m wondering how the churches in my neighborhood will respond.

I drive to the grocery store to pick up items for tonight’s dinner. I flip through the news channels so I can continue hearing updates. Our President is scheduled to give a speech in a short time. Instead I find the channel with Rush Limbaugh’s rants. The first words out of his mouth suggest that Obama will try to take credit for what happened in Egypt. I’m pretty sure that isn’t what the leader of the free world will say. I think it will be more like, “Can you believe what just happened?!” but in a presidential tone.

I don’t hear anyone in the grocery store talking about Egypt, but when I get home I see lots of social media comments on Facebook and Twitter. Glenn Beck thinks this is all one big conspiracy and tells his critics that they can “Go to Hell.” Other people online are sharing stories about Christians and Muslims protecting each other’s religious freedoms and expressions.

Again, I wonder what I will find in my neighborhood. There is only one way to tell. I could choose to be afraid of what might come, or I could purposefully work on creating a better tomorrow starting here in my own town.

As soon as the President is finished speaking, I’m on my way to the local Mosque to attend a service and get to know some people.

Church 6 – Metropolitan Community Church

I visited a Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) today. What I learned is that I certainly have some misperceptions of how other people pursue a relationship with God and engage in worship. This is why this project of visiting the churches in my neighborhood is important to me.

Visiting a gay church is not the same thing as visiting a gay bar; or at least it isn’t the same as the notion of the gay bar I have in my head.

One of my hang-ups with homosexuality is that I get the picture of the male same-sex, sex act in my head and find it a big turnoff. I can easily reduce the complexity, creativity, and uniqueness of a person by an imagined action. It’s sad, really. I think people would be missing a whole lot of who I am if they mainly choose to categorize my life based on my sexual preferences. What I enjoy doing with my wife in the privacy of our bedroom isn’t at the forefront of people’s minds when I am grocery shopping, making a business deal, or worshipping next to them in church; the fact that I’ve made this the predominant issue for viewing the LBGT community isn’t very loving.

“But it’s sin!” you counter. It may be—but then so was the adultery that the woman had been caught up with before she was dragged to Jesus. Yet in that story he doesn’t categorize her or judge her. In fact, he responds to the situation in such a way that when he looks up from his ground-based Etch-a-Sketch he has to ask, “Hey naked lady, where are your accusers?” If I’d have asked that question this Sunday morning the Metropolitan congregation would have easily been able to point out their religious accusers. They still deal with rocks being tossed their way.

So I empty my hands of any pebbles that I’m carrying and walk into the LGBT community center where the church meets. My hand is immediately filled with the warm hand of another. There is a smile, there is a greeting, there is an exchange of names and she ushers me into the fellowship hall where the service will take place. She introduces me around. They laugh that they will be able to remember my name since there is just one new person in their midst, but that I will have more trouble because all of them are new to me.

I take stock of the people filling the room. Sex is now the last thing on my mind. These aren’t the good looking characters from the situational comedies on TV. Some are big, some are plain, some are crippled, some are awkward, some are old. Any thoughts I had about this being a place to “hook-up” were erased. These people had a far different agenda all together—they had come to worship God together.

It was a pretty typical service. There were both hymns and contemporary worship songs, an offering, an opportunity to give to the building fund, candle-lighting for specific prayers, communion, two Bible readings, an applicable message from the scripture, and a fellowship time following the benediction with cup cakes. Listening to the prayer time was very revealing- they weren’t praying for “gay” things. They were praying for their kids, for their jobs (or lack of them, in this economy), their parents, their friends having surgeries, their aches and pains, their sufferings in this world. They prayed for patience and understanding—the very things I was praying today for myself.

I went to an MCC, queer, homosexual, LGBT, left-leaning, different, church today. I worshipped God and made friends.

Who are the Churches in your Neighborhood?

Week 6 Preview—Preparing to Go to a Gay Church

Most of the gay people I have gone to church with fit into one of two categories:

1. They are doing everything they can not to “be” gay, including whatever programs our church has to modify or “heal” their sexual orientation.
2. They are doing everything they can not to “act” gay, as they know that coming out will be devastating in our religious environment.

What I’ve never experienced in a church environment is people being upfront about their same-sex orientation, while at the same time pursuing healthy spirituality. Since that doesn’t happen in my church, I’ll be going down the street to one where it does.

I’m not sure what to expect

When I close my eyes and try to picture a gay church all of the popular, Hollywood depictions come to mind.

• The men will talk like Will and Jack from Will and Grace
• The women will all wear pants, like Ellen DeGeneres
• The couples will be funny, like Mitchell and Cameron from The Modern Family
• Everyone will be dressed to the standards of the Fashon Fab Five from The Queer Eye
• The worship music will include show tunes and be sprinkled through the service like songs in a glee episode.

I have some cultural biases, don’t I? I wonder if I will find any of them to be true.

It isn’t easy to be “out” in my town

I don’t live in the most liberal state. My neighborhood is pretty conservative, even though we’ve been voting for the Democratic candidates of late. We still rubberneck when we see two men walking down the sidewalk holding hands—and wonder if our kids in the backseat saw it too—and if we are going to have to discuss it with them over dinner.

There is even a church in the next town that has frequently used its billboard as a bullying, battering ram. They let the community know that homosexuality is a gross sin and that anyone who practices it will go straight to hell without pause. They state it in multiple ways, in short little quips, always in ALL CAPS (though I guess it is true that most billboards use all caps, this church just seems to be screaming a bit louder). I’m not sure what their motivation is for their advertisements. Do they expect gay people to come to their church and repent because of the drive-by proclamation? Is it, instead, just a way to position their church with others? (Look how righteous we are! We openly bash homosexuals!) Do they think it is in their job description to tell everyone what they think is right and wrong? (Which, by the way, didn’t we learn from Adam and Eve’s experience in the Garden of Eden that wanting to be like God and determine the difference between good and evil is a sin itself?)

Maybe I’ll go visit this church too, even though they are outside my neighborhood project, just to see if I can get any more clarity.

I’m annoyed at myself for feeling uneasy about this church visitation

I’ve been worried that some of my blog readers may stop caring about this project when I start reporting on churches that don’t match up with their belief system. But this project is only about the readers when they consider themselves in their own neighborhoods. As for me, the Metropolitan Community Church IS in my neighborhood and this congregation is worth the time and effort of getting to know. I’m pretty sure Jesus loves them immensely, and he would at least drop by their place of worship or share a meal with them; so I’m starting with that as my motivation.

I’m also worried that I’ll stand out like a sore thumb—that they’ll look at me and know immediately that I’m so straight that I’ve never met a pair of boobs I didn’t like. I’m worried they will ask me to leave because I can’t get the gaydar needle to budge.

I’m worried that somebody will try to hit on me. I’m worried that I’m not fabulous enough and that no one will.

And if I’m really, super honest, I’m not worried about finding things to criticize, disagree with, and throw stones at; but I am worried that I’ll see Jesus living in their broken lives, just like I know he’s living in mine.

Church 5 – Calvary Chapel

Church or Reality TV

Beverly Hills
That's where I want to be
Livin' in Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills
Rolling like a celebrity
Livin' in Beverly Hills
*****
The truth is I don't stand a chance
It's something that you're born into
And I just don't belong

—Lyrics from the song, Beverly Hills, by Weezer

Calvary Chapel is one of the biggest churches in my town. They have it all—big screens, coffee bar, book store, kids ministries, youth ministries, men’s, women’s and singles’ ministries, schools, broadcast ministries, social media outlets, parenting classes, small groups, Bible study classes, local outreaches and global missions. It is life encompassing, a one-stop shopping center of the Christian religion experience.

Calvary Chapel is one of those denominations that like to refer to itself as non-denominational. I guess it depends upon what your definition of is, is. They are certainly a fellowship of churches with a leadership hierarchy (Sr. Pastor led), boundaries on who is in and who is out (evangelical, dispensational, pretribulationist), strict adherence to teaching distinctives (focused on the inerrancy of the Bible and the expository teaching from Genesis to Revelation). For many in my neighborhood, this feels very safe and very desirable. They have multiple services to handle all the people who call this church home.

This was my first visit to this church, but I felt like I’d seen this show many times before. Everyone was in their place, the service was scripted to the minute, and the stage was awash with camera lights. The man entering the sanctuary in front of me was greeted by a very warm and grinning usher. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, sir,” he said, with his cheeks never leaving their upturned state. “Other than living water we don’t allow any beverages inside the service.” The man looked down at the cup in his hand, realizing he’d nearly stepped over a fundamental boundary.

“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed.

“No sin done,” the usher continued, putting his hand on his shoulder and leading him away from the door, “but feel free to finish your java in our outer courtyard. There is a video feed of what is going on inside. Then when you are ready to join us, please do so.”

The chastised man looked down at his drink and then over to the giant screen in the courtyard where a handful of other caffeine lepers stood. “Nah, I’m done with this,” he said, dumping the paper cup burden in a trash receptacle and walking back towards the sanctuary door. I was glad I’d left my coffee mug in my vehicle.

Now I have to admit, I was more than a bit critical during this service. It isn’t that I found anything wrong with what was happening, it is that as professional clergy I have been trained to nit-pick this style of professional service to death in order to give feedback on how to do it better for the next service or the next weekend. It is hard for me to relax and take the content of the service in when it has become second nature for me to evaluate its effectiveness. I am a living, breathing, church service Neilson rating.

If I was a church consultant, or if the senior pastor asked my opinion, I would let him know the following:

• There wasn’t enough light for people to be seated once the song service started.
• There was not enough greeting time after the worship service. There was more time given in the announcements about going to church functions so you could get to know people than time in the service while people were already in the church for them to get to know each other.
• You preached too long.
• You didn’t have a good closing point to your expository teaching and the crowd wasn’t sure how to respond.
• You forgot to mention the prayer ministry team, standing up front, waiting to pray for people.
• It was tacky to tell the congregation that there were cameras in the sanctuary making sure no one took money from the offering plate.

The church was very into their own vision, but they didn’t seem very interested in me.

• You were only asked to fill out the visitor card if there was something more you wanted to know about the church. They didn’t have anything to indicate that they wanted to know more about me.
• There were no directions on what to do with the visitor card if I decided to fill it out.
• The pastor did mention a Church Family Booklet that I could pick up in the foyer, but I couldn’t locate one. It was much easier to find a booklet on what is wrong with the Mormon view of Jesus. I finally found a couple behind a church desk and asked for the handout. The man looked at me like I’d asked for a Vietnamese version of The Shack. His wife disappeared into the office to try to locate one. I walked out of the building with more documentation and church history than contained in the book of Acts.
• There will be no follow up from this church because they don’t even know that I was there.

It was hard to distinguish if I was in a church service or a member of a live audience TV program.

• Although I was only eight rows back, it was easier to watch the pastor on the giant screen than it was to look directly at him.
• Half the crowd would awkwardly clap at the end of each song in the worship service like it was a performance.
• There were so many commercials for other events in the week and so many references to upcoming messages in the teaching series that I felt like I was watching the Calvary Chapel network.
• For those who are used to church in this manner, there isn’t anything distasteful to choke on. You can plug in, tune in (or out), and select the exact programming to fit your interest. There is a place for you in this church if you want to be the next Chuck Smith as well as for those who just want to sit back and be fed another message. There is nothing bad about going to church this way. There is also nothing wrong with finding your marriage partner on The Bachelor. It works for some. But for me, it’s really awkward, and showy, and impersonal.

I was sad when I drove away from the church; not because I was in disagreement or opposed to doctrine, but because I felt like they’d tried to impress me. I wasn’t looking for excellence; I was looking to be embraced.

You don’t have to be rich
To be my girl
You don’t have to be cool
To rule my world
Ain’t no particular sign I’m more compatible with
I just want your extra time and your kiss

—Lyrics from the song, Kiss, by Prince, on my radio as I left Calvary Chapel

Week 5 Preview – The Bigger the Better?

This weekend I’ll attend one of the Mega Churches in town. They are a BIG CHURCH. I’ve heard reports of their attendance and been told that the numbers seem inflated, like stuffed ballot boxes in Chicago. I’m not sure I trust the criticism though; it came from one of the staff members at another Mega Church in town.

How does your church count your attendance? Some churches pass attendance logs down the pews so they can keep an exact count of who showed and who didn’t. Some report with the numbers on their membership rolls, not the actual butt cheek imprints on their padded pews. I staffed a church that hired a counter on Sundays to walk around each service to count every head from the newborns on up to the eldest elders. They’d count the same head again if the person was present on the church property for the next service. We counted everything, as if numbers were the ultimate indication of our weekly success.

In our town it sometimes feels like the Mega Churches are the monsters that battle each other over the city like Godzilla and Gigan. Now you wouldn’t hear these pastors say anything negative in public about each other. They pat each other on the back and talk up each other’s ministries. They sit beside each other at community prayer meetings and even bring their churches together on evangelistic crusades. But in back rooms I’ve also heard some of these same pastors talk about the other large churches in town like they are they competition, and discuss the other senior pastors as if they were business rivals instead of men of God.

This church that I’ll be attending this week is known as a solid church in our community. They have good local ministries and foreign missions. They have good teaching within their walls and good outreaches outside them. Their building is big, but not gaudy. They are big enough to have multiple services on multiple days. They have a radio ministry, a TV ministry, and more parking than several car lots combined.

Don’t get me wrong, I like big church. There are tons of things a big church can do that smaller ones can’t. But when they morph into monsters, it is scary.

This weekend I’ll attend a Mega Church that is promoting that a traveling band is in town to lead their worship. I’ll also watch 1980’s pop stars Tiffany and Debbie Gibson star in Mega Python Vs Gatoroid on the SyFy channel. Both programs should be entertaining.