The following letter was sent by a university student to her home congregation. We feel it has a great deal to say to many main-line congregations, and are sharing it with her permission. Names have been changed to protect anonymity.
Every time I sit through a church service in my home congregation I wonder why am I here. Why am I putting myself through this? Why do I keep thinking it will be better this time? The trouble is it doesn't get better. Every hymn seems to drag on with less and less spirit.
I don't mean to blast everything that happens. I respect the traditions of the church and am sure that it works for some people. The problem is unless something changes this church is going to die. Twenty minutes into the service I'm looking at my watch and wishing it was over.
Meeting my needs
If I were to move back permanently I would not attend this church. It doesn't serve my needs. So what are my needs? That is a tough question and one that I have been thinking about a lot lately.
I honestly could not tell you the message of any sermon that I have heard in the last month since I got back. They never seem to be relevant to my life. I can remember distinctly three sermons in the past five years that have been extremely valuable time and my life. I have never heard anything like any one of them at our church.
When I was in grade nine or ten we went to visit my great-aunt in Regina over Easter and visited her United Church. I distinctly remember what the pastor talked about that day. He related the Easter story, and talked about how the disciples had to rollback the stone on Jesus' tomb to reveal the gift inside. Then he talked about how each of us needs to do this same thing in our own lives - roll back the stone from the entrance to our hearts and reveal the gifts we all hold inside. We need to let our feelings and the love we have to offer out. To me this was very pertinent. It was something I could try and do. And it was something that everyone could understand and relate to, no matter what level their faith was at.
One day at a United Church in the city where I attend university, the ministers were away for some reason or another and a lay person was giving the sermon. He was a veterinarian and talked about how he had struggled with the relation between science and religion - a question for me. He presented the results of several scientifically controlled studies which showed the power of prayer. He talked about science and religion in the same sentence. If this man who obviously believed in science could also believe so strongly in his faith, why couldn't I?
The third sermon I heard just a few months ago at a Baptist church. The senior pastor talked about how to worship in your every day life. He talked about how to pray, about the many ways there are to worship God. This might sound mundane to many, but it was the very first time I had heard such a thing. Through Sunday School, church and confirmation classes, you would think that at some point somebody would have discussed worship. But they never did. Everyone tells you to pray, but nobody ever seems to talk about what praying means, what it entails, or how to incorporate prayer into daily life.
Looking for a Church
While at university I attend church regularly. At the beginning there were four of us, all from different denominations who rotated churches each week. We went to the United Church, the Baptist Church, the Lutheran Church and the Catholic Church. This last year we have settled on the one that suits us, and attend there regularly. We attend the contemporary service. The pertinent question again here is why? What does this particular church do that makes us want to stay there?
There are occasionally sermons that I can't accept, but usually the messages are pertinent - I can relate to them. They are about ways to put religion and faith and God in your life. The pastors are animated. They are passionate. They care about what they are talking about and about every single person in the church. I'm not trying to say that the ministers here at home don't, because I'm sure that they do, but their passion does not show.
The major strength of the church is the music. The hymns are truly inspirational. They are upbeat songs of praise. Time flies when we are singing. Here our hymns are downers. They need to be uppers.
There are other things. They have a strong youth and young adult ministry. Every service is unique and feels like it was made just for me. The staff are personal. When not speaking they sit in the pews with the rest of the congregation. They are one of us. I enjoy the services and take something valuable home out of each and every one.
Why I Go to Church
People often ask me why I go to church. For the longest time I could not answer. I have been thinking about this a lot lately and have come up with three reasons.
I want to enjoy myself, to be entertained. To many people this many not seem like an appropriate thing, but in today's world a church has to be entertaining. With all the demands I have on my time between school, curling, friends and volunteer work, I am not going to add one more thing into my schedule if I do not enjoy it, even if it is church. It has to be fun.
The next reason - I am searching for something I can believe in. I am searching for a way to believe. I go to church because I want to hear something or see something that makes me understand, that makes me believe. I want something to grasp onto that will hopefully one day let me believe in God, in religion, and in faith.
The final reason I go to church is very simple. For the hour or two that I am there I can sit and just be. My mind stops racing about all the things that have to be done, about what school work is due soon, and about all the things that I wish I had time for. For that time I just am. I am there, I enjoy the company, the music, and hope to learn something along the way. In my hectic university student life a value can't be placed on this. In those few hours I can relax without feeling guilty about it. I can enjoy myself, take a deep breath, and just be human.
The church is like a theater. There is an audience, and if that audience is not pleased with what they see they will not keep coming back. The audience needs to enjoy themselves. They need to appreciate what they see and hear. They need to be entertained. Any good theatre production creates characters that the audience can connect to. They need to be able to relate the characters to their own daily lives. They need to feel as though they and the characters have traits in common. And when the show is over, the audience needs to come away with something - they need to have learned something pertinent about life in the course of the show.
I hope that this little rant is valuable to you. It has been valuable to me. It has allowed me to put down in words the questions I have been contemplating and struggling with in life lately. I hope that these same questions will help to move my home church down the road of transformation and into the future.
Congregational News February 2007 Vol. 13 No. 3