A Blog for Brooke and Andy
Posts tagged church
“Objection…Relevance?”
Jul 12th
We went to church yesterday and, I must say, the sermon wasn’t very impressive. But more generally speaking, I haven’t really been impressed by a sermon in quite awhile.
I got to thinking about this while the sermon was going on, and while I was trying to follow what she was saying. Specifically, the pastor was talking about Creation, referring to the scripture readings from the beginning of Genesis (“In the beginning…”-type stuff). Now, she got to talking about dirt, how the ground can give you things and how you can “play” with/in dirt, etc. I was hoping she would then move into how this is important for farmers in the area, or people at home with their gardens. How the earth provides food that we need, and how satisfying it can be to use the earth at our disposal to be productive.
But she didn’t go there. Instead, she moved past that and made it to how, essentially, we need to read the Bible (i.e. “The Word”) and glean everything from it. She also repeatedly referred to “visions” she had (hopefully she meant “dream,” ’cause otherwise, I think she needs to adjust her meds accordingly) that provided analogs of Heaven, with people praising God in His Creation.
Basically, she re-tread the same steps countless pastors of mine have tread in the past. And these are things I’ve been exposed to practically every Sunday for 28 years.
Now, I realize that there is a time and a place for such talk. ”Seeker churches,” for example, where you have a proportion of individuals that have not been attending church for as long as me and they are hearing these things for the first time in their lives. And I also realize that, at any church, there will be folks that walk through the door and need to hear some of these things as an introduction to the Christian faith. Likewise, children in church need to hear it at some point, too (but there’s this thing called “Sunday School” where a lot of that can be addressed, and frequently is).
But seriously, it feels like Brooke and I have been attending churches on various levels for the last 5-10 years (and separately before that), hearing sermons in a variety of contexts, and the vast majority of them tread the same ground as has been done before. And the most serious problem for me is that “the same ground” is losing relevance quickly. The things being discussed in most of these sermons are the things I heard discussed when I was in elementary school. Are they still important? Sure. But so is poverty. So is on-going war. So is strife in third-world countries. So is crime. So are natural disasters. These are all things that are relevant in today’s world, that apply to everyone, and that need to be addressed in the church setting.
I’m not talking “poverty” in the sense of “poor people” like discussed in the Bible. I’m talking about specifics. About people in Asia and Africa that live on less than I make in 2 min, let alone all the people in the United States that don’t make a livable wage and can’t afford to feed their families. I’m not talking “war” in the sense of battles waged in the Bible, but the specifics of Afghanistan and Iraq, amongst other places in the world. I’m not talking “disasters” in the sense of a Great Flood, but in the specifics of Hurricane Katrina, tornadoes, flooding and a Gulf oil spill. And, moreover, I’m not talking about pastors devoting a sentence, or a mere mention to these issues, but rather about devoting the entirety of their sermon on such things.
To me, it represents a form of intellectual laziness. A given pastor can sit at their desk, read a book or two, and effectively repeat most of those tenets on a Sunday morning in their sermon. Books written that are designed to “transcend time” and talk generally about issues that affect a great many people in the world, but still don’t talk about today.
I think it takes quite a bit more thought and analysis to “find God” in the situations of the present, in the aforementioned poverty, wars, and crimes. It requires a lot more bravery on their part to discuss complicated issues that we are exposed to on a daily basis, including abortion and homosexuality. For some reason, these issues are popular to talk about outside of church, but once you are within the doors, they are ignored to avoid offending congregation members.
That is, I argue, what people today need to be hearing. Not what God did 2000+ years ago, but what He’s doing today.
Collecting Data
Jun 17th
So, I am still maintaining the Webster Hills UMC website, which will hopefully undergo a redesign in the upcoming months (depending on whether I get the “go ahead,” and when they decide what system they want to use…but that’s another story). Within the last few months, I instituted use of Google Analytics in order to help track where the web traffic was coming from, what search queries led people to the site, and generally which pages on the site visitors were viewing.
I instituted the same system on this website as well. We were running a similar bit of software to do the same thing, but the Google system is quite a bit more powerful and, as it’s built into Google, it’s very easy for me to access anywhere and look at who is visiting Linsenbardt.net.
Google Analytics tells me a variety of things, such as:
- 57% of visitors use Firefox; 22% use IE; and 16% use Chrome
- 26% use cable internet; 16% use DSL; and the remainder use other things (T1, OC3, etc.)
- 86% of visitors are “returning,” and 14% are “new” to the site.
- Most visitors are from Missouri (and now Iowa). Wisconsin, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania are the next in line for visitors to the site.
I find the “keywords” to be amongst the most interesting data, however. The top keyword used to find the site is “andy linsenbardt,” followed by various others, including “brooke and andy” (which, by the way, is crazy that searching for “brooke and andy” on Google takes you to our site…as if we’re the only ones on the internet?!).
The keyword that prompted me to write this post in the first place, however, was “lee strobel drop denomination.” Sure enough, if you search for that phrase, you find a blog posting I wrote way back in 2005 as the sixth down the page. Apparently, in one of his books, Lee Strobel suggested that it’s alright for churches to drop the denomination from their name (e.g. rather than “Webster Hills United Methodist Church,” call it “Webster Hills Community Church”). Incidentally, if you search for “Lee Strobel is an Idiot” on Google, my blog post comes in at #10. Not bad!
On a side-note, I’m starting to get a bit bored with the WordPress theme we’ve been using. It’s really only been up for a few months (September?), but with the newly announced WordPress 3.0 upgrade, I figure I may make a few changes. Could take a bit – depends on how motivated I am!
Context
Jan 31st
So, typically at church on Sunday mornings, the scripture lesson will precede the sermon. Today, the lesson was:
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Now, reading through that lesson, one would have to ask themselves, “hmmm…how’s Pastor Scott going to discuss abortion?”
He didn’t talk about it at all. Didn’t come up once.
In fact, Scott talked about having purpose in your life (the sermon title was “Motivation for Life”). He specifically discussed how the prophet Jeremiah was around 16 years old when God talked to him, and even at that young age, he had meaning in his life and was motivated to continue along the path put forth in front of him. The verse talked about how Jeremiah, specifically, was called to preach God’s Word to the masses.
So, I sat there thinking: “how could two so drastically different messages come from the same verse?” What Scott talked about was a motivation, a purpose, for all our lives and how we can do good with them. Instead, there are other voices that stop after the word “apart” midway through the 5th verse. These voices disregard the context in which the words were written, inserting their own meaning.
I realize we live in a world of soundbytes now, when a politician’s words can be cut and cropped to make it sound like they said something when they really didn’t. Largely, I think this occurs because people are generally lazy and don’t care to listen to the full series of phrases, let alone the entirety of a single Bible verse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that all of the world’s religions are guilty of the same mistakes…
…but I’d like to think we were smart enough now to know better than to accept the easy answer.
The Loss of a Friend
Dec 20th
Colette Anderson, our long-time family friend from St. Andrew’s in Columbia, was the kind of person that I only knew peripherally growing up, but around the time I hit college, it seemed like she and my Mom became really close. I can remember back to Freshman year when I’d go out to my car after church and find a case of Mountain Dew in the back seat, or I’d shake her husband, Chuck’s, hand after playing drums for the service, ending up with a $20 bill in return. They were both great people that I am happy to have known, and I am certainly changed by their influence and generosity.
Both Chuck and Colette actively attended St. Andrew’s Saturday Evening Service, one we started over a decade ago focused on contemporary music. They both appreciated my contributions to the service in playing drums (and later guitar), and of course, supported all of the other people that came through the service over the years, always coming up after the service to thank us for the work we had done (even when we screwed up royally…which happened on many an occasion…). In many ways, they were “honorary members” of the band, frequently joining us for dinner after church or at our various social gatherings.
Chuck passed away, unexpectedly, on December 21, 2002. I don’t think Colette ever fully recovered from the loss, but did her best to move on and devote more of herself to her family (including new grandchildren) and her “church family.” Earlier this year, however, she was diagnosed with cancer and lost her battle with it this past Wednesday, December 16th. I made the trip to Columbia for the memorial service, held yesterday.
I guess I felt it necessary to make particular note here of the way both of their memorial services were held. Rather than focusing on their lives and the things they had done, these services were designed in celebration of what they stood for and how we can all better ourselves by looking at their examples. For both services, I was honored to participate in playing drums, along with others playing guitar, piano, and singing. Colette chose the songs for Chuck’s memorial service, and was able to choose many of the same ones for her own service. She was sure to pick upbeat, yet meaningful, music to set the tone that she wanted: not to dwell on the loss of her, but as a reminder of the life she led and how we can incorporate her ideals into our own lives.
She would tell us how Chuck frequently hummed “Come, Now Is The Time To Worship” on the way home from church anytime we’d play it. Colette chose that song to be played at his service, and also wanted it played at hers. It was an inspiring experience to play that song just the way we’d always done it (fast and loud!), and once the clapping started during the tune, many of us cried. It may be the best we’d ever done it. “Trading My Sorrows” was another one the family requested, and even though we had only played it together as a group once before (some of us had never played it before that day), it turned out perfectly.
It was probably the best memorial service I’d ever gone to, and I hope mine is similar someday (preferably a long time from now, of course). Colette and Chuck will certainly be missed, but their inspiration and legacy will live on for years to come.
The Plan
Nov 25th
1. We’ll leave today for Hannibal and stay for lots of food and probably some shopping until Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. Edie has an appointment with Rachel’s dogs’ vet Friday morning to try to get to the bottom of her chewing, but it should be pretty relaxing.
2. We’ll head to Columbia Friday afternoon or Saturday morning to spend some time with Andy’s family and to play at St. Andrew’s with Mike Will from Missouri UMC on Saturday night. Sunday, Andy’s aunts have a baby shower in Lohman planned for us, then we’ll head back home.
3. It will probably take us four days to unload everything that we’ll have accumulated over the weekend, so we’ll see you late next week!!!
