Overnight with Noah

Tuesday afternoon, Al and I embarked on “a round (Bible) trip to the time of Noah,” as his official VBS ticket indicates. We had been invited by the pastor at a church we visited back in July, and I signed Al up. It made a good activity for the last week before school starts (a week from today), and I was intrigued by the idea of an overnight VBS.

There are still some churches in town that still run a traditional daytime VBS program. But as so many families have both parents working during the day, many churches have switched to an evening format. This gives adults the opportunity to volunteer without having to take vacation days from work. And at least at the church where I helped run an evening VBS, there were a lot of men involved, which (in my experience) is rare in a daytime VBS.

I don’t know this church’s reason for the overnight format, or whether they had done it before. We started at 4 PM (which would normally be early for me, but since I am working from5 AM to 2 PM this week, it was no problem), and the children participated in a wide variety of activities before heading to bed at about 10 PM. Staying overnight was optional, but required a parent or grandparent to stay also. I would guess at least half the children left before bedtime.

For me – especially having been up since 4 AM - it was nice to be there more as spectator than participant. I did greatly enjoy meeting Noah, and watching him tell his story to the children, and show them all the tools he had to use. I found myself wondering just what kind of tools were available back in Noah’s time, whenever that was. (Personally I am inclined toward the view that the flood was “universal” in that it affected the whole “known world” at the time, but was not global.)

Our Noah was careful to include no power tools, though the food and water buckets looked suspiciously like plastic. I also am fairly certain that kerosene lanterns, while quite antique in appearance, were way ahead of Noah’s time. Noah helped us get an idea of the ark’s dimensions by pointing out that it would reach from the room we were in all the way to the elementary school on the other side of the neighboring church. I looked out the door and could only try to imagine the immense proportions of the boat.

Like any VBS, this had music (how soon will “Who Built the Ark?” stop going through my head?) and several crafts, plus “pin the animals on the ark,” water games, and – after dark – a bonfire, complete with hot chocolate and s’mores. Supper was pretty good, consisting of:

• Soggy Logs
• Pitch sandwiches
• Noah mix
• Rabbit food
• Cow sticks
• Vineyard special
• Boat juice

I have decided, however, that next time I sleep on board a boat, even one disguised as a Sunday School classroom, I need extra padding under my sleeping bag.

Another church property dispute

Having grown up in the United Church of Christ, I naturally take an interest when the UCC is in the news. During my teen years, when I came to personal faith in Christ through the ministry of an independent Bible church, I left the UCC, which I came to see as having watered down the Gospel message or outright replaced it with their emphasis on social issues.

As a young adult, I discovered that there were some more conservative Congregational churches that – unlike the church my father went to his whole life – had not joined the United Church of Christ when it was formed in 1957 (the merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church, each formed as a merger less than three decades earlier). After all, one defining characteristic of Congregational churches is their congregational polity – that is, that each congregation is autonomous, associated with other churches but not bound by an ecclesiastical hierarchy.

In Michigan, where my husband pastored a small Presbyterian church, I came to know a few members of another non-UCC Congregational church (we sang in a community Christian choral group, so I got to know members of at least a dozen other churches). I chatted briefly with the pastor after an ecumenical service I attended there, and suspected I would have been quite happy to attend there if I were in need of a church home. At the time I figured such churches must be purely independent (like the church I attended as a teen and many other Bible or Baptist churches).

Today I learned that there are at least two other Congregational denominations, both more conservative than the UCC (though as the UCC is well known as one of the most - if not the most – liberal of the Protestant denominations, that may not be saying a great deal). Center Congregational Church, in Atlanta, left the UCC and joined the much smaller but more conservative National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, after the UCC voted in 2005 to bless gay marriage.

Meditation/Study: Cleansing of the temple

This is another well-known story, often brought up as an example of Jesus displaying anger. Just a couple weeks ago, there was a lengthy discussion at worldmagblog over whether anger is a sin, and this incident naturally came up repeatedly in the conversation. To my surprise, one person kept arguing (actually quoting the arguments of another person, someone I had never heard of named Roy Masters) that Jesus did not in fact feel the emotion of anger, but rather that he acted in judgment without feeling anger.

At one time that teaching would have greatly appealed to me. I grew up in a home where emotions were often out of control. My father could fly into a rage over what seemed like minor things. My mother’s anger was less violent but more frequent, and her bouts of crying (and complaining that no one loved her) were as hard to take as my father’s temper. I grew up convinced that a stoic approach to life was preferable to one ruled by emotion. It was only when I was an adult that I learned that one could benefit from emotions but not be ruled by them.

I don’t think there’s any way to determine conclusively from the passages (Matt. 21:12-16; Mark 11:15-18) what Jesus felt or didn’t feel, since it doesn’t say. One reads it in light of one’s own beliefs about the nature of human emotions. I now consider emotions to be neither good nor bad in themselves, but rather indicators – rather like the lights and gauges on your dashboard – alerting us to aspects of a situation that we need to respond to. Whether we respond appropriately or not determines whether we sin or not.

When the Bible speaks of God’s anger, it is of course not identical to ours. Our emotions are linked to our physical bodies (which is why various chemicals can heighten or dampen emotions, or even make us feel emotions with no basis except the chemical stimuli), which God does not have. But as the Bible also says we are made in God’s image, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to think our capacity for emotions is patterned in some way on God.

Favorite music: hymns

I think it was a post by Renaissance Guy on favorite hymns that first introduced me to his blog, Significant Pursuit. So rather than repeat the list I gave there, I decided to make this list a bit different. There are a lot of hymns I could call favorites, meaning that I really like singing them and would suggest them for use in a worship service, given the opportunity. But I’ve noticed that some of those favorites I like primarily for the words, and others especially for the melody.

In the first group, for instance, I would include “How Firm a Foundation,” “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” and “O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High.” I know at least two melodies commonly sung for each of those sets of words, and while I have a preference in each case, matching the words with the other melody still produces a good hymn.

On the other hand, there are melodies that I enjoy regardless of the words. (Well, not quite regardless, because there could be a really lousy set of words – but I don’t have a preference for just one set.) Austrian Hymn by Haydn is one of those, and Ash Grove is another. Regent Square is another, although it’s hard to sing it without thinking of “Angels from the Realms of Glory.” I know at least two sets of words set to Finlandia, and I know there are others.

But my list of favorite hymns this time will be those where that are favorites because of both the words and music, and because the music seems to suit the words particularly well. If there are other words to these melodies, or other melodies used with these words, I’m not familiar with them – and not particularly interested in learning them. Sometimes words and music have been associated with each other for so long that it is distracting to try to use one without the other.

My first example of this is “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It is a Latin hymn (though I don’t think I’ve ever sung it in Latin), based on a style of music called plainsong. The simple, almost plaintive melody carries perfectly the longing of a people for the One who will deliver them. Yet in the chorus it calls us to rejoice, even while we are still waiting, confident that He will come.

Favorite music: St. Louis Jesuits

I do remember when I first heard music by the St. Louis Jesuits (in contrast to the music of Simon & Garfunkel, as I posted yesterday). I was 20 years old, my first year out of college, trying (without much success) to teach French and Spanish at a non-denominational Christian school.

An older staff member (she was probably about the age I am now, which seemed pretty old to me at the time!) loaned me several cassette tapes, and I loved a few of them so much I promptly went out and bought my own copies. I’ll get to the other two in a later post, but the one that I loved most was Earthen Vessels by the St. Louis Jesuits.

I was struggling (generally on the losing side) with depression, so much so that the school administration required me to begin seeing a psychologist as a condition of continued employment. I didn’t find those visits particularly helpful, but listening to the words of Scripture set to music gave me strength to face challenges I would just as soon have avoided.

Until then, the only Christian music I knew, aside from hymns sung in church, was two varieties of contemporary Christian music. There was the music that was allowed at the fundamentalist college I had attended (such as music by Bill Gaither and by John W. Peterson, some of Amy Grant’s early songs, and the like) – nothing that sounded like a Christianized version of secular rock music. Then there was the music that was not allowed – Petra, some of Amy Grant’s later songs, and no doubt a lot of names I had never heard of because I had never cared for rock music of any flavor.

I wasn’t sure what to think of music by a group of Jesuits. I was accustomed to thinking of anything from the Catholic church as being suspect, as the fundamentalist churches I had attended considered the Catholic church to be apostate, though perhaps somewhat less so than the liberal Protestant churches, because the Catholics at least took the Bible seriously.

I had once or twice been in a Catholic church because my parents had a blind friend who sometimes went on vacation with us. As she was Catholic that meant taking her to Mass, and as she was blind it meant sitting with her and trying to make sense of frequent changes between sitting, standing, and kneeling.

I didn’t remember anything remotely inspiring in the music, prayers, or homily at those churches. (To be fair, I didn’t find much except the music inspiring at the Protestant churches we visited with my father.) Perhaps the music of the St. Louis Jesuits was just starting to make inroads on the Catholic parishes back then.

But from the first words and notes that came out of my tape player when I inserted the Earthen Vessels cassette, I felt a joy and a peace – as well as a longing for a closer relationship with God – that were for the most part foreign to me. I listened over and over to “Though the Mountains May Fall” and “Be Not Afraid,” and reminded myself throughout the day of their message about the ever-faithful love of God, no matter how challenging my circumstances.

What’s new?

New is sometimes better. A house looks better with a new coat of paint. Most people like to get new clothing. Kids just about always are excited about new toys. Many products are advertised as “New and Improved!” When I eat at a restaurant (which is very infrequently), I like to get the daily special as it is often something new to me. The New Year is an opportunity to start fresh and establish new and better habits.

But new isn’t always better. New shoes usually hurt until they get broken in. I don’t care for alcohol, but I’m pretty sure older is generally considered better. I do like cheddar cheese, and it definitely is tastier if it has been aged longer. “Newfangled” has a pejorative connotation, indicating many people’s discomfort with new inventions. Newspeak (in George Orwell’s novel 1984) is the oppressive creation of a totalitarian regime to enslave men’s minds by removing from their language words that describe freedom or rebellion.

Sometimes there is a serious difference of opinion about whether new is good or not. Among Christians, there are sharp disagreements about whether new Bible translations and new styles of music are a great opportunity to reach people with the Gospel or an insidious movement to replace God’s words with man’s. New ideas in theology are seen by their proponents as freeing people from primitive superstition, and by opponents as rank apostasy.

For a Christian, there are two areas where new is certainly better.

C what I’m thankful for

Church
This is another easy one to pick out for the top of the list. (See my Thanksgiving ABC’s post if you’re wondering what list I’m talking about.) I’ve been part of one church or another since I was an infant (not that I remember much of the first couple years, but I do remember playing in the toddler nursery and singing Eensy Weensy Spider and getting graham crackers for snack).

As a teenager and young adult I found role models in the church, adults who helped fill in some of the rather significant gaps in my social and emotional development, as well as encouraging me in my spiritual life. I’ve always wanted to be able to pass on that gift of caring and encouragement to some other confused young person, but either most young people aren’t as confused as I was, or God knows I’m still not ready to have that kind of influence on a young Christian.

Most of my best friendships have come about through church. I met my husband at a young adults group at church. And I met God at church. I’ve been welcomed, challenged, instructed, and nurtured in the churches where I have worshipped and served. Church is a second family, and a second home. When I’m new at a church (I’ve lived in six different states since college, and each move means a new church) it can feel pretty lonely, but in time I get to know my new brothers and sisters.

Cedarville University
When I graduated in 1982 it was called Cedarville College. It’s a lot bigger now (the last time I was on campus was a very brief visit in 1998, it had already grown a lot, and I know from reading alumni magazines that it has continued to grow), but so far as I can tell from its website, it is still faithfully teaching young people to pursue excellence in their education and in their service to God.

Reading: At the Corner of East and Now

This is the kind of book I would love to find any time I want to learn about an unfamiliar faith or church tradition. Frederica Mathewes-Green tells how she came to be an Orthodox Christian, what their worship service is like (including explaining all sorts of words and customs that would make little or no sense to an outsider), the history behind it all, and Orthodox views on a variety of topics. Interspersed with all this, she introduces the reader to various Orthodox Christians, mostly from her own parish but some she met elsewhere, in all their quirky individuality (no cookie-cutter Christians here!).

I was particularly interested in Mathewes-Green’s comparisons of Orthodox tradition to Protestant Christianity, from which she and her husband converted to Orthodoxy. She can explain effectively to evangelical Christians how and why the Orthodox believe and practice what they do, because she knows how both think. (She gives examples of lifelong Orthodox who find evangelical views incomprehensible.)

Evangelical Christianity has been concerned, especially in recent years, about being “relevant” to the culture. Worship services, music, language, teaching styles, and evangelistic methods are all designed with a view to speak to people in the context of what they already are familiar with. While Mathewes-Green does give an example of Orthodox monks publishing a punk-style ezine to reach young people crippled by the nihilism and despair of the punk subculture, Orthodox worship has no concern for cultural relevance.

This is a good thing, Mathewes-Green says. “People newly coming to church should have an unfamiliar experience. It should be apparent to them that they are encountering something very different from the mundane. It should be discontinuous with their everyday experience, because God is discontinuous. God is holy, other, strange, and if we go expecting an affable market-testing nice guy, we won’t be getting the whole picture.”

More thoughts on church and worship

Between blogs, books, and sermons at church, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about different ways of doing/being church. Some perhaps rambling thoughts on the subject:

There are three common faith-oriented responses to the perceived (and sometimes very real) shallowness of evangelical churches. There are also of course responses that are not what I would call “faith-oriented”: staying in the church and accepting shallowness as good enough, becoming cynical and giving up on any form of church, or complaining about it but doing little or nothing about it.

The first response is to try to make incremental changes from within the church. This is the approach taken by most Christians I have known personally. They pray for revival, work to establish small group Bible studies to get people to go deeper in the Word and in obedience, try to influence worship planning to include more meaningful songs or more Scripture or time for personal prayer and reflection. This is the approach I have taken myself, whether out of conviction it is the best approach or for lack of seeing a viable alternative.

Sabbath visit

This morning we visited a Seventh Day Adventist church. My husband’s co-worker Scott attends there with his family, and had extended an invitation to my husband to join them. As Scott had previously come to worship at our church one Sunday morning, we made the somewhat lengthy drive (my husband’s workplace is 27 miles away, and the church is at least another 30 miles from there) to join him.

Aside from the strangeness of being dressed up for church on a Saturday morning (I sometimes attend my own church Saturday evening, but just about everyone, including the pastor, dresses very casually for that service), there were few differences from many Baptist churches I have visited. This particular congregation happens to be mostly African-American, and it was not quite as emotionally charged as some black Baptist churches I have visited – but the visiting preacher (a hospital chaplain) proclaimed his message in traditional black preaching style (which my husband really enjoys!).

When I was younger, I knew very little of Seventh Day Adventists, but tended to think of them in some general “strange and separate” category along with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, and perhaps Mormons. Perhaps they were treated as a “cult” when I was in Bible school, though I don’t remember for sure.