By Sarah Davis | Echo
Church criticism is a stylish thing for Christian millennials. Many Taylor students come from strong Christian backgrounds, and from churches they've attended for years. We are equipped to discern truth, and now in college we are excited to decide on a church independently. Of course we are capable of making wise decisions and thoughtfully choosing places to serve.
But service is not always a priority. Sometimes this highly regarded church criticism is a disguise for selfishness and consumerism.
We like churches to serve us. We like to have coffee and sit with our friends and sing familiar songs. We like to be warm, comfortable and convicted to just the right degree. We like occasional opportunities to serve, but not so many that we feel guilty for not participating. We are just generous enough to feel good about ourselves.
There are so many kinds of churches to visit around Taylor. So we go, and we line up their worship services and ministries with our preferences. We are quick to dismiss churches for trivial things, often because it's easier to criticize than to commit. Thus we have the term "church-hopping"-looking less for a worshipful body to contribute to and more for a comfortable church to consume.
I'm not saying we should choose churches we don't agree with just for the sake of being uncomfortable. But I do think discomfort can be worthwhile.
A couple of Sundays ago, I went to my first Roman Catholic Mass. And at 8 a.m. at Holy Family Catholic Church in Gas City, I experienced three things.
1. Being the minority. Walking into the ornate sanctuary and sitting quietly in the back, I felt out of place. As an evangelical pastor's daughter, feeling out of place in a church was very new to me. There was a communion I wasn't allowed to partake in, kneeling benches I didn't know what to do with and liturgy I didn't have memorized. Despite my anxiety about Catholic traditions, I tried to hold on to my uneasiness. I thought about the new people that visit my church and how easily I dismiss them-happy to remain with my friends in my familiar pew.
Experiencing marginalization gave me greater awareness for the outsider and a compassion that comes from experience. Whether it's a Catholic Mass, a church filled predominantly with a different race or a trendy non-denominational service, I think engaging with discomfort can help us to think less about our personal preferences.
2. Being reverent. The Catholic Church has maintained a beauty, a holiness and an atmosphere of worship that many contemporary Protestant churches have lost. The Catholic worshippers around me quietly participated in liturgy-some people seeming solemn. At first it seemed wrong to me; what about joy in the Lord? But there is a difference between melancholy and reverence that I think we've stopped trying to understand.
In an effort to attract, include and never offend, we've given up the sacredness the House of the Lord deserves. Of course the Lord is relational, and of course we want to bring others to the knowledge of him through our joy. And if modern churches have to incorporate certain music or teaching styles to do that, then I believe it is worth it. But I think for comfortable believers, who know food as fellowship, Hillsong as religion and coffee as absolute truth, a greater awareness of reverence could be meaningful and refreshing.
3. Focusing on God only. My entire Mass experience was not about me. The sanctuary was cold and many people, including myself, kept their coats on. The pews were hard and uncomfortable. The music was led by an older woman on an ancient organ. There was no food or coffee. It was a quiet 45 minutes dedicated only to the worship of the Lord. Even the quick hello's and how-are-you's were replaced with a simple exchange of peace. Nothing was for us; it was all about him.
I am not converting to Catholicism any time soon, but I did leave that little service with a conviction. Since I do disagree with some things, Catholicism is still uncomfortable for me. But I think this discomfort is valuable and worth at least thinking about.
