I'm much, much, much better with self-control than I used to be. I can effectively step back, calm down, and talk about it later. That's not to say that there aren't things that make me, shall we say, irrationally angry. I feel my heart beat a little faster. I need to talk, even if it's only to the air (usually it's a text message). It's a sort of negotiation with self that usually lands in a pretty healthy place.
Most recently, it happened when reading a book that several friends and colleagues have enjoyed. It falls into the realm of Christian writing about how you can follow Jesus better. I totally confess that I'm more into the sort of Christian writing that helps me think about Jesus in new ways. That's what makes me come alive, even though I know that faith requires far more than intellectual assent. But I digress. Let me tell you why this book set me off in the manner it did. There was a line that I shall not quote directly but roughly was, "I'm a Christian! I know about all these things so I'm a Christian!" And the list of what the author knew about was a slew of evangelical Christian conferences.
No, actually, knowing about those things doesn't make you a Christian. It marks you as a specific sort of Christian, or at least identifying with that culture. At the end of the day, knowing about those things makes you a Christian just as much as being in a garage makes you a car. That's not the point either, though.
The point is too many of us have a narrow view of church. We live in our own congregations, in our own denominations, in particular traditions, and assume that's what it means to be Christian. Everyone on the Christian spectrum is guilty of it. I almost murdered one of my seminary roommates a few times for failing to see beyond the United Methodist Church. (I worked a few times to state the problem without profanity as I usually do.)
In our culture of church-shopping, we're used to approaching church as another product. We like it, for the most part. We have brand loyalty, for a few of us. There is value, though, in hanging out at a church that is neither the brand you normally enjoy or a church you don't enjoy. Maybe, just maybe, that's not the point.
Go to a Roman Catholic community and enjoy the mass. If it's your first time, you probably won't be able to follow along, but that's ok. Go to the megachurch down the road and see what it's all about. Find churches with electric guitars and others with acoustic guitars. Find churches with old white guys as pastors and young women as pastors and head to a church where you'll be the only person with your skin color there. Go to churches that break into a sweat if the service goes for 61minutes and churches that are worried that Spirit has abandoned them if they can't measure the worship time in hours. Go to everything in between all those parameters, too.
You don't have to make this your new mission and spend a year visiting all the churches you can find. You should absolutely be rooted in a single faith community. This is one of those occasional things. This is one of those things you do because the love of Christ compels you.
It won't be easy. You'll likely find your blood boiling at some point, be bored stiff at some point, be terrified at another and, again, everything in between. You'll find a vast array of not only worship styles but theology. You'll find a vast array of people who, like it or not, are your family, too.
And you'll find out that no matter where you normally worship, if you let it be, your Church is actually really, really big.
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