Post by jagggar on Jun 20, 2007 13:07:09 GMT -5
Okay, so this rant is something I typed up an posted at thedigiport.com/forum
I felt like posting it more places as well.
[note]I've got a few ideas where I want this rant to go, but I'm not entirely sure how it will write itself, but I like to have a title before I begin, so there.
If I don't actually get back to the "master" thing, smack me so I do.[/note]
I've been growing steadily more unfortable at church the past... I really don't know how long. I'd say if I had to put a timeline on it, I'd guess about when I came back from college.
BACKGROUND!!! - You may skip this part if you want. It just seemed to need to come out before the main raint could. Scroll down for the main rant.[/note]
There's a trend in the Church where college aged attendees disappear and return around their thirties or so when they're settling down and starting families. If you've got a church with an active college-aged group, it's probably in a college town.
So when I came back from college, I rejoined our youth group (offical age range, 7th grade to seniors, promotion in the fall (so those who just graduated are still part until August or so)). Wednesday night youth group and Sunday School and those fun occasional activities.
Our leader at that time was 28-29. We created some new position that basicly had him as a lay minister until he could go back to school to get the actual lisence. His teaching style was pretty laid back. On Wednesday nights, we'd watch a movie clip (and sometimes convince him to let the movie keep running extra time) and then he had questions reguarding a certain theme in the clip. We'd discuss it for a bit, then he'd give little stats (like arrange marriages having a lower divorice rate than other marriages) and some Bible verses, but wouldn't ram "THIS IS THE WAY IT MUST BE!!!" down our throats. I wouldn't have minded a bit more Bible study at times, but for Wednesday, when we were trying to be more visitor friendly, I thought this was a pretty good setup.
Then, one Wednesday, he showed us the whole episode of Simpsons about Marge getting pregnant with Bart. We didn't exactly know where this one was going... Turns out, he was gunna be a daddy himself!
Little tiny problem: He wasn't married yet. (They were at least engaged.)
Bonus: He told us Wednesday. Cute lil' baby Jack was born Friday.
So, it turned into this huge big deal and we had a couple of meetings the entire congragation was invited to reguarding if he could keep his job or not. While quite a few adults (who weren't really that involved with the youth) kept saying they wanted what was best for the youth and all, they were kind of nasty, and most weren't seen later on, after it was all done. When he said that as far as living arrangements for baby Jack's benefit, that his mommy would be moving in, one of the women refered to it as "shacking up." While I understand the position against co-habitation, that was very respectful, wasn't it?
And while, looking back, he's okay with the result (more time to devote to baby Jack's care and such), quite a few people were not happy about how that result came about. (And one of the irritating things is that at least one family who's father was quite adamant "If he stays as youth minister, we're leaving" ended up disappearing anyway. My mom's not happy about that one.)
So we ended up with two volunteers that hadn't really been working with the youth before this fiasco. One disappeared after a few months (his job taking him out of town too often so he was never there) leaving us with the one volunteer.
At first, I was a little bit like a junior helper. Then, she got around to the "You're not really a youth anymore" push. Well yeah, I wasn't, but where was I supposed to go?
Finally, they got one of the older people who had been in the youth in the past to start a sort of 20-something group. But, as I said earlier, there's not usually many college-aged people at church. I'd say about half the Sundays we met, it was just me and him. And this class was several steps back. Like early when I was in the youth group (years and years ago, before the Interwebs) we'd watch those tapes with some guy talking sometimes. Occasionally he'd have something intersting to say, but sometimes very much not.
When he didn't show up to "teach" class, I'd go back down to the Youth group and join them. If I showed up too early, the woman would just tell me to go up and wait a while. I would, but most of the time I could figure out pretty quickly if we were going to have class or not.
So, eventually comes the weekend when my former roommate comes to visit me. We go to church. We wait a brief period to see if he's going to show up to teach class. I decide he's not, so we head down stairs. We're barely in the door before she's shooing us out and telling us to wait longer.
I've got a motherjogressing guest, and you jogressing kick us out? What, the jogress?
I'm seriously hurt. It's not really embaressed, it's like offended.
So, instead of going back up and waiting, we go to the women's restroom and I cry for a bit. We decide to head home, but are accidentally caught leaving the restroom. Turns out he was here, but wasn't planning on having class today. (Gee, big surprise!)
After that, if he didn't show up, I'd just go home. Eventually they think to inform me that he's not "teaching" the class anymore.
I still went to Wednesday night group, but felt more and more out of place. Eventually, we have a lesson where the youth are divided in half, given note cards, and told to build the highest tower they can until the timelimit is up. jagggar? You don't get a group.
Wha-wha?
Exclusion feels crappy, and the point of the lesson was that they were never told they couldn't work together and that they should remember to work together as they plan the next "Youth Sunday." (Basicly, for some crazy reason, they think handing every part of the service over to the youth group is good occasionally.) I didn't feel like getting roped into participating in another one of those and so decided that I'd watch Lost on Wednesdays instead of subjecting myself to feelings of exclusion.
~ MAIN RANT ~
Letsee, where was I? Uncomfortable, yeah?
So this is like the fourth week or so in the sermon series. Each week they've been handing out a business card thing with the church's info on one side and the week's "Summer Prayers for Renewal" on the other. That little quote up at top is this week's prayer.
One of the things we do during the service is read the prayer together. I've kind of been skipping that part... Yay lip-syncing.
So, yeah...
One of my pet peeve sort of things is people who say they're something when they're not. I like to be able to label things (and that can include people) so I know what's what.
I don't particularly like it when people say they're Christian, and then can't answer a fairly simple doctrinal question. Or, when a handful of the people in my social group at high school were "Wiccan" and "Pagan" for, what seemed to be they were mostly just trying to be anti-Christian. Or, when one of them continued to pull the "Oh, I'm a Jew!" while doing the "dabbling in Paganism." (Good Jews don't do that.) Or the atheist who complained constantly about all the Jewish traditions and rituals, making fun of them and such, but never having the balls to tell her parents that she didn't believe any of it. Sure, maybe her family and Synaguge really would cut her off like she said, but damn girl, STFU. Don't you know how much numesludge your people have gone through to preserve those customs? At least have a little respect.
But, there's kind of a lack of terms. I mean, if you convert from one thing to another, then you've got something to call yourself and be called.
But there's not seperate terms for someone who's actually firm and confident in their beliefs and do what they can to live by them and those who were raised in a certain tradition but don't have any particular commitment to it.
Okay, you've got the distinction here and there with "Jewish" vs "Jew" and with "ex-Cathloics," to some degree, but that doesn't really cover everything. Ex-somethings tend to have rejected that something. Jews are both a ethnic group and a religion.
I don't fit into either of those categories. While this might sound kind of weird (or maybe abhorent to a few) I feel as though I have an intellectual acceptance of Christianity, but, at this time, I can't spiritually accept it. The mind is there, but the will isn't.
Part of the disconnect I feel, I honestly think comes from being raised in the same church for all 21 years of my life. Only time I didn't go regularly was when I as at college, but every weekend I was home, I went.
But, it's weird... Being raised in the church immediately implants the "Accept Jesus and you're forgiven for all your horrible horrible sins!" (*Exact message may vary by denomination.)
But when you're raised in the church, you're kind of already set up to be a good kid. Not that all church-goers are automatically good kids, but, I at least, kind of feel that expectation. You've got "God will forgive you if you screw up," but "Don't have premarital sex, don't ..., don't lie."
But we jogressing do anyway. There's no signfigant difference between churched and unchurched teens when it comes to sexual activity. How many times have I said, "Yeah, I did my homework"? Way too many say I don't lie very often.
The Bible says believers are supposed to set themselves apart from non-believers by their actions. But that's not the way it's working.
I don't to add to that problem. But if I'm not able to call myself Christian, then, I don't really have a label. Like I said, I've got an intellectual acceptance. I do feel I have a connection to the Bible and the God described in it (go to the Debate Hall if you want to talk about who/what that God is), but the connection I have isn't the one the Bible says we're supposed to have.
Right now, I really like the parable of "The Prodigal Son" (Luke 15) For those not too familiar with the Bible: A guy has two sons. Younger son asked for his inheretance and when given it, went and partyed. Hard. He ran out of money and the place he went was hit by famine. He hires himself out to take care of pigs and thinks how much better off his dad's servants are. So he hi-tails it home and asks if he can just be one of his dad's hired servants. Dad's all happy and crap and the older brother's pissed off that dad throws him a party while he's been loyal all the while and never got no party. Moral-cliffhanger is if the older son is willing to be happy that his brother is back or if he's just gunna be all spiteful.
While most of the time a sermon focuses on either how the father welcomes the son back or if you're going to be pissy like the older brother or welcome others with open arms, what keeps nagging at me is that the younger was allowed to leave.
I'm not an expert on ancient Jewish customs, but it doesn't really sound like something they did normally. It makes me think of that period where the Amish let their teens go check out the technological world and if they wanna stay there they can stay. (Not that jagggar's researched the Amish, but it's one of those pop culture facts that might be wrong, but you know what I'm talking about anyway.)
We don't have anything "offical" like that. It's like college is your chance to get out and do that. As they say on South Park, "There's a time and a place for everything; and its called college."
But hi, college dropout. *wave*
If I hadn't gone to church when I was back for the weekend, if I hadn't gone back to regularly attending when I returned. Maybe I could have that period right now. But I did. So it's almost like I'm "stuck" going.
Pretty much my whole life, my only social interaction has been at school and at church. I'm not in school anymore, so church is about the only place I get to see people.
Whole life, one church... Just about everyone knows me.
Which, with that "good kid" expectation I talked about earlier, makes it hard to say, "Hey mom, I don't feel like going to church." Even though we talked a few months ago about this maybe not being the right church for me anymore, it's still not something I think I'd feel comfortable saying.
Saying it and doing it is one thing. But then, assuming my mom keeps going, she'd be left with the, "Hey, where's jagggar? .... Oh, well tell her we miss her," responsibility, and that I really don't feel right doing. Like that's the real guilt trip about it.
Oh, because in additon to the general "good kid" expectation, I, for a while, felt like I was called to be a youth minister. Freshman year, I took one of the courses for the college's youth ministry certificate. And quite a few people knew I was planning on doing that, so it'd somehow feel like I 'fell' really far.
I kind of feel like part of the reason I'm so uncomfortable is because it almost feels like the sermons and what we're studying in Sunday school (kind of in my mom's Sunday school class currently) (Proverbs) are. . . targeted at me.
It's creepy. Yes, Wiseman > Fool, but I. . . I wanna touch the friggin' stove myself. I mean, it's weird. (On the other hand, I have slight suspisions I'm a masochist.) Even if it's probably going to hurt me somehow, I kind of want to do it anyway.
Okay, Didn't get to the master part yet. Go ahead and smack me. I do intend to write it though.
I felt like posting it more places as well.
[note]I've got a few ideas where I want this rant to go, but I'm not entirely sure how it will write itself, but I like to have a title before I begin, so there.
If I don't actually get back to the "master" thing, smack me so I do.[/note]
God,
let me walk in the light of your love so that
darkness is shattered and
there is no more hate.
let me walk in the light of your love so that
darkness is shattered and
there is no more hate.
I've been growing steadily more unfortable at church the past... I really don't know how long. I'd say if I had to put a timeline on it, I'd guess about when I came back from college.
BACKGROUND!!! - You may skip this part if you want. It just seemed to need to come out before the main raint could. Scroll down for the main rant.[/note]
There's a trend in the Church where college aged attendees disappear and return around their thirties or so when they're settling down and starting families. If you've got a church with an active college-aged group, it's probably in a college town.
So when I came back from college, I rejoined our youth group (offical age range, 7th grade to seniors, promotion in the fall (so those who just graduated are still part until August or so)). Wednesday night youth group and Sunday School and those fun occasional activities.
Our leader at that time was 28-29. We created some new position that basicly had him as a lay minister until he could go back to school to get the actual lisence. His teaching style was pretty laid back. On Wednesday nights, we'd watch a movie clip (and sometimes convince him to let the movie keep running extra time) and then he had questions reguarding a certain theme in the clip. We'd discuss it for a bit, then he'd give little stats (like arrange marriages having a lower divorice rate than other marriages) and some Bible verses, but wouldn't ram "THIS IS THE WAY IT MUST BE!!!" down our throats. I wouldn't have minded a bit more Bible study at times, but for Wednesday, when we were trying to be more visitor friendly, I thought this was a pretty good setup.
Then, one Wednesday, he showed us the whole episode of Simpsons about Marge getting pregnant with Bart. We didn't exactly know where this one was going... Turns out, he was gunna be a daddy himself!
Little tiny problem: He wasn't married yet. (They were at least engaged.)
Bonus: He told us Wednesday. Cute lil' baby Jack was born Friday.
So, it turned into this huge big deal and we had a couple of meetings the entire congragation was invited to reguarding if he could keep his job or not. While quite a few adults (who weren't really that involved with the youth) kept saying they wanted what was best for the youth and all, they were kind of nasty, and most weren't seen later on, after it was all done. When he said that as far as living arrangements for baby Jack's benefit, that his mommy would be moving in, one of the women refered to it as "shacking up." While I understand the position against co-habitation, that was very respectful, wasn't it?
And while, looking back, he's okay with the result (more time to devote to baby Jack's care and such), quite a few people were not happy about how that result came about. (And one of the irritating things is that at least one family who's father was quite adamant "If he stays as youth minister, we're leaving" ended up disappearing anyway. My mom's not happy about that one.)
So we ended up with two volunteers that hadn't really been working with the youth before this fiasco. One disappeared after a few months (his job taking him out of town too often so he was never there) leaving us with the one volunteer.
At first, I was a little bit like a junior helper. Then, she got around to the "You're not really a youth anymore" push. Well yeah, I wasn't, but where was I supposed to go?
Finally, they got one of the older people who had been in the youth in the past to start a sort of 20-something group. But, as I said earlier, there's not usually many college-aged people at church. I'd say about half the Sundays we met, it was just me and him. And this class was several steps back. Like early when I was in the youth group (years and years ago, before the Interwebs) we'd watch those tapes with some guy talking sometimes. Occasionally he'd have something intersting to say, but sometimes very much not.
When he didn't show up to "teach" class, I'd go back down to the Youth group and join them. If I showed up too early, the woman would just tell me to go up and wait a while. I would, but most of the time I could figure out pretty quickly if we were going to have class or not.
So, eventually comes the weekend when my former roommate comes to visit me. We go to church. We wait a brief period to see if he's going to show up to teach class. I decide he's not, so we head down stairs. We're barely in the door before she's shooing us out and telling us to wait longer.
I've got a motherjogressing guest, and you jogressing kick us out? What, the jogress?
I'm seriously hurt. It's not really embaressed, it's like offended.
So, instead of going back up and waiting, we go to the women's restroom and I cry for a bit. We decide to head home, but are accidentally caught leaving the restroom. Turns out he was here, but wasn't planning on having class today. (Gee, big surprise!)
After that, if he didn't show up, I'd just go home. Eventually they think to inform me that he's not "teaching" the class anymore.
I still went to Wednesday night group, but felt more and more out of place. Eventually, we have a lesson where the youth are divided in half, given note cards, and told to build the highest tower they can until the timelimit is up. jagggar? You don't get a group.
Wha-wha?
Exclusion feels crappy, and the point of the lesson was that they were never told they couldn't work together and that they should remember to work together as they plan the next "Youth Sunday." (Basicly, for some crazy reason, they think handing every part of the service over to the youth group is good occasionally.) I didn't feel like getting roped into participating in another one of those and so decided that I'd watch Lost on Wednesdays instead of subjecting myself to feelings of exclusion.
~ MAIN RANT ~
Letsee, where was I? Uncomfortable, yeah?
So this is like the fourth week or so in the sermon series. Each week they've been handing out a business card thing with the church's info on one side and the week's "Summer Prayers for Renewal" on the other. That little quote up at top is this week's prayer.
One of the things we do during the service is read the prayer together. I've kind of been skipping that part... Yay lip-syncing.
So, yeah...
One of my pet peeve sort of things is people who say they're something when they're not. I like to be able to label things (and that can include people) so I know what's what.
I don't particularly like it when people say they're Christian, and then can't answer a fairly simple doctrinal question. Or, when a handful of the people in my social group at high school were "Wiccan" and "Pagan" for, what seemed to be they were mostly just trying to be anti-Christian. Or, when one of them continued to pull the "Oh, I'm a Jew!" while doing the "dabbling in Paganism." (Good Jews don't do that.) Or the atheist who complained constantly about all the Jewish traditions and rituals, making fun of them and such, but never having the balls to tell her parents that she didn't believe any of it. Sure, maybe her family and Synaguge really would cut her off like she said, but damn girl, STFU. Don't you know how much numesludge your people have gone through to preserve those customs? At least have a little respect.
But, there's kind of a lack of terms. I mean, if you convert from one thing to another, then you've got something to call yourself and be called.
But there's not seperate terms for someone who's actually firm and confident in their beliefs and do what they can to live by them and those who were raised in a certain tradition but don't have any particular commitment to it.
Okay, you've got the distinction here and there with "Jewish" vs "Jew" and with "ex-Cathloics," to some degree, but that doesn't really cover everything. Ex-somethings tend to have rejected that something. Jews are both a ethnic group and a religion.
I don't fit into either of those categories. While this might sound kind of weird (or maybe abhorent to a few) I feel as though I have an intellectual acceptance of Christianity, but, at this time, I can't spiritually accept it. The mind is there, but the will isn't.
Part of the disconnect I feel, I honestly think comes from being raised in the same church for all 21 years of my life. Only time I didn't go regularly was when I as at college, but every weekend I was home, I went.
But, it's weird... Being raised in the church immediately implants the "Accept Jesus and you're forgiven for all your horrible horrible sins!" (*Exact message may vary by denomination.)
But when you're raised in the church, you're kind of already set up to be a good kid. Not that all church-goers are automatically good kids, but, I at least, kind of feel that expectation. You've got "God will forgive you if you screw up," but "Don't have premarital sex, don't ..., don't lie."
But we jogressing do anyway. There's no signfigant difference between churched and unchurched teens when it comes to sexual activity. How many times have I said, "Yeah, I did my homework"? Way too many say I don't lie very often.
The Bible says believers are supposed to set themselves apart from non-believers by their actions. But that's not the way it's working.
I don't to add to that problem. But if I'm not able to call myself Christian, then, I don't really have a label. Like I said, I've got an intellectual acceptance. I do feel I have a connection to the Bible and the God described in it (go to the Debate Hall if you want to talk about who/what that God is), but the connection I have isn't the one the Bible says we're supposed to have.
Right now, I really like the parable of "The Prodigal Son" (Luke 15) For those not too familiar with the Bible: A guy has two sons. Younger son asked for his inheretance and when given it, went and partyed. Hard. He ran out of money and the place he went was hit by famine. He hires himself out to take care of pigs and thinks how much better off his dad's servants are. So he hi-tails it home and asks if he can just be one of his dad's hired servants. Dad's all happy and crap and the older brother's pissed off that dad throws him a party while he's been loyal all the while and never got no party. Moral-cliffhanger is if the older son is willing to be happy that his brother is back or if he's just gunna be all spiteful.
While most of the time a sermon focuses on either how the father welcomes the son back or if you're going to be pissy like the older brother or welcome others with open arms, what keeps nagging at me is that the younger was allowed to leave.
I'm not an expert on ancient Jewish customs, but it doesn't really sound like something they did normally. It makes me think of that period where the Amish let their teens go check out the technological world and if they wanna stay there they can stay. (Not that jagggar's researched the Amish, but it's one of those pop culture facts that might be wrong, but you know what I'm talking about anyway.)
We don't have anything "offical" like that. It's like college is your chance to get out and do that. As they say on South Park, "There's a time and a place for everything; and its called college."
But hi, college dropout. *wave*
If I hadn't gone to church when I was back for the weekend, if I hadn't gone back to regularly attending when I returned. Maybe I could have that period right now. But I did. So it's almost like I'm "stuck" going.
Pretty much my whole life, my only social interaction has been at school and at church. I'm not in school anymore, so church is about the only place I get to see people.
Whole life, one church... Just about everyone knows me.
Which, with that "good kid" expectation I talked about earlier, makes it hard to say, "Hey mom, I don't feel like going to church." Even though we talked a few months ago about this maybe not being the right church for me anymore, it's still not something I think I'd feel comfortable saying.
Saying it and doing it is one thing. But then, assuming my mom keeps going, she'd be left with the, "Hey, where's jagggar? .... Oh, well tell her we miss her," responsibility, and that I really don't feel right doing. Like that's the real guilt trip about it.
Oh, because in additon to the general "good kid" expectation, I, for a while, felt like I was called to be a youth minister. Freshman year, I took one of the courses for the college's youth ministry certificate. And quite a few people knew I was planning on doing that, so it'd somehow feel like I 'fell' really far.
I kind of feel like part of the reason I'm so uncomfortable is because it almost feels like the sermons and what we're studying in Sunday school (kind of in my mom's Sunday school class currently) (Proverbs) are. . . targeted at me.
It's creepy. Yes, Wiseman > Fool, but I. . . I wanna touch the friggin' stove myself. I mean, it's weird. (On the other hand, I have slight suspisions I'm a masochist.) Even if it's probably going to hurt me somehow, I kind of want to do it anyway.
Okay, Didn't get to the master part yet. Go ahead and smack me. I do intend to write it though.