When church membership is more like country club membership

When I became a member of this church (so I could work at my alma mater if I ever had the chance), the folks interviewing me seemed very anxious to tell me that they didn't have any expectations that I would serve within the church just because I was a member.  Most people spent their time supporting ministries outside of the church, and that was just fine with the church, they assured me anxiously, like they thought I would leave if I was actually expected to DO SOMETHING (in addition to all the work I had to do to get to that point).  They sold it like a benefit to get a candidate to take a job when there was another comparable offer being made elsewhere.  It made me pretty uncomfortable, to be honest.  What church lets people join and says, "We don't expect you to take your membership seriously or, like, do anything biblical or anything"?

After I expressed my frustration about this recently, a friend who has had lots of struggles with church people said maybe the church wasn't where my ministry would be.  I had pretty much reached that conclusion myself.  I've got two really attractive options I've been looking at for a while.  I made one last try at my church, and apparently there are no orphans, widows, or single parent families (which frankly seems to be the modern equivalent) in my church who need my gifts.  You know what?  That's a lie.  I call shenanigans.  I know there are people who could use my help, my gifts, my talents.  I just have no way of connecting with them, and the church leadership apparently does not consider them a priority.  (No lie, the leadership decided that they wanted to put all their efforts and money into nuclear family ministries, so tough noogies for singles, couples with no children, poor people, single-parent families, and everyone else outside of that particular group.)

Is it really so wild for me to feel like my church should be doing things for the orphans and widows who attend?  Like actively seeking out the members and knowing them and knowing their needs and doing something to help since the Bible is pretty clear about our responsibilities to these groups of people in our midst as the church.  I mean, is it really outrageous to think it should be standard for a church to do biblically commanded things like take care of their orphans and widows?  Or am I being silly and stubborn and unrealistic by demanding this happen in/through the church when I could just as easily go to a place where these needs are addressed by civil bodies?

I want to do the right thing, but it seems like my church just isn't interested.  Obviously, this means I'm in the wrong church.  (I'm looking for other options.)  I'm just so disappointed that these fallible humans have failed me again.  : )  Is this like the fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, or is that really too cynical?  I know we are strangers and pilgrims not of this world, people just passing through, but it hurts when the church only intensifies that feeling.

Maybe I just need to think of it as getting side-tracked on a quest and needing to get back out on the road in search of other opportunities.  Maybe that can keep me going for a while.

I think it's finally time to go church-hunting again (for real).

I read this parable and finally decided I'm really going to find a new church. 

"It's an unprecedented cultural moment for Christians, to see if we can act less like individual consumers of spirituality and more like the family of God." - a CT editorial

What does it mean to be part of a/the "church"?  What sort of participation is required of/beneficial to believers?  What is (most) important when looking for a church body to join?  I thought I'd get the easy questions out of the way.

"This is just a church service. Church is actually about caring for one another, and serving one another, and speaking truth to one another in love. Don't get the two confused." - don't discount everything he said just because he's heretical in one belief

My last church had wonky doctrine/theology.  My current church most resembles a benevolent country club with great theological theory but what seems like few opportunities to practice dentistry.  (See above). 

"I was reminded of churches where people are nice, reasonably polite, and cooperative. But with some regularity, one learns that underneath this appearance of religious composure, this person or that one is hurting terribly: firings, divorces, personal failures, doubt, addictions, sexual identity issues … the list is long. But no one speaks: neither the person in trouble nor the ones who know of the trouble. Why? Because that would threaten the fantasy that everyone's fine. This kind of church culture starts with the idea that everyone is presumed fine until they prove differently." - Gordon MacDonald from Leadership Journal

I would like a church in a community I belong to (where I live or work).  I know neighbors are anyone we come in contact with, but I think maybe I should also be getting involved with the people who live near where I live or work.  I know that I need doctrine I can nod my head to, but I think I also need chances to disciple/mentor and be discipled/mentored.  I would like to find a church body that needs my gifts but won't suck the life and energy completely out of me (not much energy to suck, honestly).  I would like a community of believers who are (at least sometimes) honest with each other, who speak truth to each other, who are like a family (with the good and bad that comes with that status). 

Now maybe this is the Ideal Church, the one that can't really exist in a fallen world.  Maybe I am a big silly dreamer who needs to have more realistic expectations.  Don't hold back if you think I should adjust my aim.  Let me know what YOU think is important on a search like this.

(You may have noticed I don't mention worship style.  I've found great joy and communion in high church-type worship and in contemporary worship.  That part I don't really care as much about as the other things that are more important.)

So what advice can you give me about the proper way to go about this search for a new branch of the family to join?  Let my fingers do the walking first to check out doctrine and churches in my area?  Just start going to random services?  Going back if I get a good feeling?

It doesn't seem very spiritual, but I think I may need to start another spreadsheet . . .

What are your experiences with this process?  How did you come to find your current church body?  Why is it a great place for you to be?  What wisdom can you share with this seeker?

Is asexuality getting popular? (No, really.)

I have discovered that I apparently have a label.  There are even graphics one can post to proclaim one's proud membership to this group.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.  Maybe now that they've taken my term, I'll have to switch to another.  I'd hate to be painted guilty by association. 

One might wonder how that would happen.  Well, you see, apparently, this category is part of a new term people are trying to popularize.  Back when I was in college, the GLBT acronym was thought to span the spectrum (outside of straight folks, who don't count because they're in the majority I guess).  Now there's this new-fangled one I ran across while reading up on a controversy in the Young Adult novel world: QUILTBAG.

(I would hereby like to suggest that this acronym be made plural to include straight folks in the name of the diversity the folks who came up with the term claim to value.)

"Nurul says: September 13, 2011 at 10:19 am

"Ooh, is that A in your QUILTBAG stands for asexual? Because if yes then thank goodness, someone remembers us! It seems like the world refuses to acknowledge that we exist."

And have a Facebook group to prove it.  So what are other folks in this strange group like?  Feel free to check out some of their sites.

"S.O. says: September 13, 2011 at 2:36 pm

"there’s a few discussion communities on this topic:
http://group-x.dreamwidth.org/
http://asexual-fandom.dreamwidth.org/
http://asexuality.dreamwidth.org/"

So I'm part of an acronym that also contains labels for behaviors I do not condone.  What's a Christian girl to do?

I sometimes joke that the only thing worse than Christian young adults telling their parents that they're homosexual seems to be telling their parents that they're asexual.  In our culture (even in the church), being asexual is a kind of perversion reserved for the crazies and/or the most holy (monks, mystics, martyrs, and suchlike).  Mad people wired for self-sacrifice or self-destruction.  It's threatening to believers and non-believers alike for someone to look and say, "You know, this game you all play so intently holds no interest for me, so I'm just going to go do something else with my time and energy."

I'm not sure what I think about being in a QUILTBAG category.  In the church, we're taught that this lack of sexual desire is a spiritual gift, but spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit to the Church to help us serve others, so where do a bunch of "secular" asexuals leave my theology?

Your thoughts?

More Dreams and Nightmares and Longing

.
Why would I look to a job that will be full of roadblocks, irritation, and the prospect of failure when I have what is most likely a steady, rewarding job right now?

I am 

• starting to pay off my tremendous debt (so slowly) (collected compliments of the OWCP).
• respected by my co-workers.  
• appreciated by my supervisor.  
• challenged but not too much.
• able to balance things enough to maintain hobbies, ministry, and a part time teaching gig on the side.  

Why on earth would I possibly even think of giving that up to work in a place where Big Brother will be watching, and I would be hemmed in and repressed and have my integrity challenged, my freedom in Christ squashed by legalism and politics, and many things I believe in opposed?  What could possibly be worth that? 

• Tenure?  Hardly.  I won't even be considered for that unless I seek a pointless PhD, which I can't possibly do in my current haze of chronic pain and fatigue and reduced mental capacity.
• A full time, long-term teaching post with benefits at a small, Christian, liberal arts college?  Well, quite frankly, those don't grow on trees, and even with the connections I have, I can't really hope to even try any other ones until I've been working part time for 15 years.  And I don't think I can keep this two-job thing up for 15 years.
• A home closer to my family?  As you know, that's not really a consideration for me, cheerful loner that I am.  If I lived closer, I'd have to feel more guilty for still not visiting more than twice a year.
• Being able to say my dream came true, and I was able to leave work I was merely good at for work that I was good at and loved?

I actually blame my current dissatisfaction on how close I came in the process last year.  Because things looked so rosy, I slipped up and let myself think of what life could be like it my dream came true.

And that made it so much harder to come back to reality when the dreams got stomped.  I had to admit that the idea of working in my current job for longer than it takes to pay off my school loans was . . . unpleasant.  (Of course, at the rate I'm going, that will be at least 15 years anyway . . .)  It is not a bad job, at all.

• I indirectly help save lives.  
• I directly help bridge communication gaps.  
• I like my co-workers.  
• I believe that doing anything and everything for the glory of God is my calling on earth. 

But I can't help how much I love teaching and how much I love teaching comp and how much I love teaching comp to students at small, Christian, liberal arts colleges and how much I wish I could focus my full vocation time on it.

I don't believe in Teaching Composition as a Holy Calling, but I can't help but feel that I will have wasted my life if this present situation is all there is to it.  I can't help but know that there is more to life than this.  I can't help but long for that more, even if I'm physically incapable of really reaching out and grasping it.

Maybe I'm just
greedy.  When things were

bad, I was
content (often discouraged

but certainly content).  Now
that things are "better," am I just
selfishly wanting more?

Should I be straining? 
Or should I be settling? 

All for the glory of God. 
Harder in practice than
theory.  Amen.
.

Church/Business

A friend in need of a steady job applied for a seemingly providentially open music position in his church, but the church, like most modern US churches, decided to form a search committee to look for the best qualified candidate (in theory both inside and outside the church).  The search committee (as they most always do) ended up hiring one of these outside people  who is now moving here.  They just have to pray she works out.  They don't really know if she will because, you see, she's not an active member of their church body, and they've never lived alongside her.  Apparently it's an acceptable risk.  As a result, an active member of their church body who was equipped for that ministry is now once again trying to find a job to help support his family.

Some churches do this because they want to be taken seriously.  They want to show that they are seeking high quality.  They don't want to be tied just to their own small talent pools.  They want to bring in new blood and not just stagnate with the people they have on hand.  They want to be like businesses, more or less. 

I guess they don't know that this strategy often doesn't work in businesses either.  Many businesses say they promote internally, but most who say that still hire externally.  When they do, they hire people who take a ton of time to train up to speed when a competent, tested candidate already exists inside the business.  There's a lot of irritation and frustration in these situations, as there often are when upper management dictates policies that work poorly on the front lines.

What I can't understand is why the local church wants to act like a business anyway.  We're supposed to be a body of believers with a common purpose.  The Holy Spirit equips us all for ministry to each other and to the world.  I guess it just seems odd to me that we're so unwilling to trust that the Holy Spirit equips each church body to sustain itself.

It's not that I think local churches should never allow "outsiders" in.  However, don't you think the Holy Spirit brings in/provides who is needed to support the local body from within the local body itself?  Shouldn't the church look within to find who they can train and equip for necessary ministries?  If there is no one, then it would make sense to look out in the wider body. 

When we start acting like a business first, we lose sight of the fact that we are supposed to be first of all a community, a family of believers made up of many members who all function as a whole.  When we take matters into our own hands, it's like we don't trust God to get it right.  We end up leaving our own in need out in the cold when we had it within our power to help them by letting them use their gifts to benefit the body as a whole.  Isn't that what the church should be?  Why should we quench their use of that spiritual gift in our quest for "legitimacy" and "being taken seriously" by the world.  Is that right?  Is that where our focus should be?

Vocation/Ministry?

I read or heard somewhere that the goal of Christians is to use their jobs as platforms for ministry. The indication was that good Christians either "witness constantly" or find some other way to bludgeon co-workers over the head with their faith, as if they are not being good Christians unless everyone they work with knows they are Christians, whatever that means.

This irked me.

When I was reading Just Do Something: How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc., one of the early chapters mentioned asking what older generations think about younger generational obsessing about wanting to know where God wanted them to work so they wouldn't choose wrong and thus be living out of God's will for the rest of their lives. Long sentence (fun book). Anyway, older generations don't understand this obsession at all; work is what you do to stay alive, earn your keep, support your family, etc. It's not necessarily a spiritual life-calling. People who sit around doing nothing and saying they're waiting for God's will while living rent-free in the basement of their parents' houses are being lazy and kind of dumb.

Is this demand that others see work as ministry even biblical, or is it just more pop-culture Christianity baggage? I have enough to feel guilty about; I really don't need well-meaning legalists pouring on more because I'm not proselytizing in the workplace. Am I just being crabby because I've been leaning anti-"evangelicalism" lately?

Well, let's look at the Bible. Sure, some people in the New Testament were into full time ministry. They were supported by the charity and sacrifice of the average joes working 9-5 (or sunup-sundown or however things were back then). In the gospels, if I'm remembering right, Jesus didn't tell people to change jobs when they believed; He just told them to be faithful.

I think Paul swung that way, too. He told people to be diligent and work hard as unto the Lord and be fair and just and treat others well, etc. I guess when I read the New Testament, I get the impression that they didn't believe that "full-time ministry" was a "higher calling" or anything. We're all part of the team, and we all work to support ourselves and our families and each other, and we all contribute our gifts in the kingdom, is the sort of feeling I get from it.  How do you read it?

I remember this one time when Paul was visiting a church full of people who apparently thought he was just lazy since he was preaching and teaching and being an apostle all the time, so he made sure to work while he was visiting them (he was a tentmaker, as I recall). He didn't seem to consider that work beneath him. Work is work. You do it to the best of your abilities. It's not all hyper-spiritualized. That's the kind of impression I get from him.

So do you think work has to be a ministry? Is that what God requires of us?

What if I don't want to?

According to the marketing copy on an extremely popular Christian self-help book, all women have a God-given longing to be loved, taken care of, and treated like princesses; they want a man to provide these things for them, and that's good and natural, so they get married. 

But what if it's not like that?  What if it's not absolute?  How does such an absolute statement affect people for whom it's not true?

Mostly, it just irritates me, to be honest.  I have no idea how it affects anyone else who it shuts out for whatever reasons. 

I suppose that since I love words and meanings, I just get a bit hot under the collar about absolutes that aren't true, especially when they're flung around by people who are invested in absolute truth.

I'm sure it's true that many women have these innate desires.  I guess I'm just not sure why we can't say it that way instead of insisting that something is true of all women.  Am I splitting hairs?  Just being surly and rebellious because I like defying absolutes?  I don't know.  Maybe.

Or maybe I'm just being honest about the power words have to hurt even (especially) if they're not true.  What this book seems to be telling me is that there is something wrong with me if this absolute does not apply to me.  I've been wondering if there was something wrong with me for years; I don't really need any encouragement to feel left out. 

I'm just glad I had already figured out what's "wrong" with me before I saw this book.  I guess those with the gift of celibacy will always be outside, in a way, and that is a blessing that sometimes feels like a curse.  I wonder what I can do to help the next generation of kids growing up feeling ostracized by the spiritual gift of celibacy to help them not overcompensate like I think a lot of them do.

Any thoughts?