Pew Exchange

One of my goals for 2015 is that once a month, I will (try to) worship somewhere other than the congregation where I am member.  It's fortunate that I'm flexible with my yearly resolutions, because I am really not making it to church every Sunday as it is.  Still, this feels important.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King once famously said that 11 o'clock on a Sunday is the most segregated hour in America.  I think it's still true, and I also think that knowingly perpetuating religious segregation makes my life as a Christian duller, less interesting, less love-soaked, and smaller than it could be.  As I look for other communities to worship with, I'm thinking both about racial segregation and theological segregation.  What it means to be saved (or how much we desire salvation) depends very much on what we most long to be delivered from.  Jesus saves from many things, and if I believe in the whole body of Christ, in the entire communion of saints, then maybe I need to be witness that wide variety of deliverance.  Some churches will have an emphasis that doesn't meet my needs.  That's good.  It's good to be more aware of other needs.  Makes my God less small. Also: some churches will meet needs I don't know I have.  That's good, too.  Makes my heart a little bigger.

I can't bear to think that the Little Biscuit might grow up thinking that saints all look, think, and sound like him.  It's uncomfortable to take in disparate ideas of what it means to be Christian, but choosing to be uncomfortable is also choosing to respect and be formed by our sisters and brothers who practice in unfamiliar ways.  Because God help us when we think that only the familiar is holy.