Ok, today was slightly better. The girls are getting into routine and feeling less homesick. The spiders and I have decided to give each other space, so we are cohabiting in peace. We had Salisbury steak for lunch and riblets for dinner (funny, huh?) and there is no shortage of dessert items. Tomorrow we head to Crystal Lake for a water slide and picnic.I wish I could say the teaching was better, and let me preface my comments by saying that there are wonderful people here who truly love kids and want them to grow and learn.
BUT….
Today I heard that “chapel was the most important part of the day because it’s where we get to spend time with God.” I also heard, “When we sing our songs we are worshipping.” Both comments made me nuts.
I refuse to be party to raising another generation of people who think that the church is a building and that worship is going to that building and singing. It drives me crazy when I drive by churches with signs that say, “Worship service 9:30 am” as if God is hanging around in the empty pews waiting for us to arrive on Sunday.
God was on our walk to the bonfire tonight. God was in the line for the dining hall. God is even in the crappola bathrooms. When Jesus walked on earth, He chose to hang around with some questionable characters, and I suspect that’s where God still is, waiting for us to join in and help Him restore the world. THAT is an act of worship.
In the 1960s, Hans Hoekendijk declared:
“The church cannot be more than a sign. She points away from herself to the Kingdom; she lets herself be used for and through the Kingdom in the oikoumene [the whole inhabited earth]. There is nothing that the church can demand for herself and can possess for herself (not an ecclesiology either). God has placed her in a living relationship to the Kingdom and to the oikoumene. The church exists only in actu, in the execution of the apostolate, i.e., in the proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom to the world.”
Some may find that extreme, but I suspect that the pendulum has swung so far the other way, that a little dose of the extreme might be a good thing.
Of course, we may not have time to think through these things (let alone BE them). We just may be too busy in church.
3 comments:
I remember helping a friend get thru her nasty divorce (6 kids, cheating husband) by helping her fix up her house and garden. She was so appreciative; she used to call us the 'hands and feet of Christ' (humbling thought) but one Sunday, the only day we could get together with a group to do some work, we were admonished by another friend that we should be in church. I felt guilty for about 2 seconds....my worship is in taking care of others, it's what I do...it's about all I'm good at. I find God in my garden, in my children, in a friend who lends us an RV while our son is in the hospital, in my husbands kindness, sometimes I even find him in church. I find him when I take the time to look for him.
ps. and when I was a kid, they told us in CCD (Sunday school for Catholics) that Heaven was like church - only 24hrs. a day. Kind of made me wonder what Hell was like...I wanted to explore my options :)
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