I went to a church last weekend called the Myrtle Beach Community Church or, simply, the "beach church." It was slick. The child care was superb. We signed a little sheet of paper, deposited our baby with a kindly old woman with lots of makeup whom I instantly trusted, and walked away with a pager attached to my belt. Before going into the sanctuary, Courtney, Christy, and I perused the church bookstore selling everything from Joel Osteen (bad) to Rob Bell (good). We then entered the sanctuary to be greeting by three large screens, stadium seating, and a full band. The pastor of celebrative arts or some pansy named position came out with a slick greeting and soothed us with slick songs. The transitions were flawless, the music was professional, the preaching was nice and cute, and the logo for their new series couldn't have been more appealing if it had been designed by the Coca-cola company. And as I sat there and absorbed it all, I had two thoughts: First, I thanked God for the hard work of the clergy in that church who were obviously attempting to give God a flawless and well-planned worship set for the sake of reaching those Americans who would never darken the doorstep of a church without being given a show as fluid as a Walt Disney movie. Second, I realized that I didn't want to devote my life to an institution like that. I'm not writing this to knock it. I'm really not. I could knock the Beach Church if I wanted to. In fact, Courtney and I joked after the service about how what they really need to get is a roller coaster so that every parishioner can strap themselves in and get a free roller coaster ride which ends up in the sanctuary just in time for the service. But no, I'm not going to go down that often trodden path. Instead, I am earnestly asking God to deliver me from my judgment and to enable me to simply celebrate the fact that somewhere underneath that whole deal there is probably something (albeit ever so small) that really, truly pleases God. Rather my purpose is to write about what I WANT to be a part of and not what I don't want to be a part of. So here goes:
1) I'd like to be a part of a movement -- something firey, edgey, and radical. Something that will piss a lot of people off. Something that will especially piss of the pharisees of this world.
2) I'd like to not have much personal glory and not to be in the spotlight 'cause I don't think my ego could take it. I think if I stood in front of hundreds of people every week with them all hanging on my every word as if they were directly from the mouth of God, I would most certainly end up being cast into hell. I need to be part of something that reminds me how small and dispensable I am.
3) I want to really know and love poor people, drug addicts, battered women, foreigners, perverts, prostitutes, nerds, retards, the physically deformed, the dull, the uninteresting, the annoying, and the difficult.
4) I want to piss off a bunch of religious people because I just love homosexuals so much.
5) I want to be led by the Spirit of God rather than an institution. I want to be a part of something organic, something that fits in the normal rhythms of my life. I want to abolish the sacred/secular divide. I want to have eucharist in my potluck and baptism in my showers. I want my bathroom to become the Holy of Holies. I want God to be found in my fondue, fingernails, farts, flapjacks, and froglegs. I want the trees to be my priests, the tennis court to be my altar, and my Pepsi to be holy water. I want the radically eminent God who dwells in every atom and fills my capillaries.
6) I want to be a follower of the Way and not a follower of the book.
7) I want to love everyone without judgment being convinced that I am the worst of all sinners.
8) I want to stop hyper-spiritualizing the gospel and start doing it with my fingers.
9) I want to know that I can worship God and glorify him even if I am a parking attendant for the rest of my life. I want God to subvert my ambitions and make them ridiculous.
10) I want to be a part of a group of people who serve others without expecting anything in return. I want to feed people without preaching at them. I want to sweat for others without asking them to come to my church (and without even wanting them to come to my church). I want to give pointlessly. And I don't want to do it to make myself feel good about myself. I want to forget for a moment that I even exist.
I don't really know what all this means for my future profession. I don't know if all of this qualifies as a vocation. All I know is that as I sat in Beach Church and listened to the preacher, I realized that I didn't envy him and I didn't want to be him. I'm not called to that. I think I'm called to be somewhat more irrelevant than him. He can have his church. It's all fine and dandy. I just want something else if that's okay with you, God.
