Church shopping 101

Kailey:
As I recall, it was originally Alastair’s idea for us to visit the Quaker Church. Alex was on board, and Beck and I had just decided to embark upon this little social experiment a few days earlier. My desire to visit other churches in the area probably had very little to do with any venerable scheme of expanding the depth of my connection with the One True God, by denying myself the comforts of familiar worship—though I might have told people that at the time, and I may yet say that later. (I doubt so many people will visit this blog for me to fear incrimination, and it does make me sound so holy and spiritual…)

Beck was thinking about checking out another church down the road (which, for purposes of anonymity, I shall call “Prestige”), and I mostly went along cause I like her and wanted to offer moral support. I remember listening to the worship and thinking smugly to myself how much better the worship was at my church. (See, now I sound way less holy…) Then the pastor (who I shall call “Amour-free”), proceeded to preach an entire sermon on judgment and spiritual exclusivity. It was a crushing blow to my loftiness, and to be sure I’m glad for it. I realized with a healthy level of self-disgust that I had, in fact, become a church snob. And in practice, being fashionably aloof is very hard to distinguish from insolence. In truth, I wanted to start visiting churches because (for someone who works for a church) I have a shamefully limited perspective on worship, and an even more shameful comfort with that. (See, now I don’t sound holy at all…)

We’ve now visited 6 churches since the start of our experiment, and at times it’s been quite the adventure. In my best moments, my desire is to allow this time to transform me and sharpen the effectiveness with which I can communicate the Good News. But I continue to feel a natural (or not so natural) ebb and flow between this and the thrill of basic, affirming comparison. In any case, God is greater than the worst of my humanity, and my prayer is that Beck and I will walk away with more than a few good ideas on how to do effective lighting. (Though we certainly will make notes of that…)

Becka: Kailey's blog makes me want to yell, "I agree!" I guess that would be "Amen!" in church-language.

Becka:
What we’re doing is visiting churches. If I were, say, to write a blog explaining why I’m doing so, I’d have to admit that the basic, fundamental reason is I’m nosy. I just want to see what everyone is doing. (And then, of course, being me, I have an opinion about it.) For many, many years (i.e. since around 2005 or so), I’ve tossed around the idea of visiting churches, and I guess I’m finally not-busy enough to do something about it. And also I have Kailey. That’s important, too. I need some support to walk into new places every week. I have a firm belief that information is helpful to a person, so I’m not worried that this experience will be wasted personally: in my theory, by the way, more information helps you make more connections between ideas, people, and so on. (The connections are important). It would be great if these visits were also helpful to someone else eventually, but I don’t have any big plans for how they would be.

If you happen to wonder what I’m thinking about there and afterwards… first (but not primarily), I am interested in what they do: what makes this church different, what have I never seen before. Then, seeing what actually happens leads me to question why they do it, what’s important to them, and whether it’s also important to me. And, again being me, of course I’m always looking at how well things are done or communicated. Or even what is actually being communicated, whether it’s intended or not.

Kailey: If I happened to wonder what Beck was thinking about while we're there, it would definately be something like, "Oh, Dear God, don't let Kailey stand up when they ask to meet the visitors again..."