Tag: Religion

Thoughts on

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I went to church twice on Easter. Once in the morning to my mom’s Community Mennonite Evangelical church and later in the evening to our Emergent Post-Evangelical church. They were two VERY different experiences.

In the morning service they started with the typical call to worship song, welcome, regular worship, and message, which of course ends with an application to your life. I don’t think it is to much of a secret that I have some issues with the manipulation that is often found in a typical worship service but I’ll leave that one alone. The message is what I was focused on. I must admit that I was greatly lost during the the bulk of the message, mainly because the pastor’s preaching style is not my cup of tea, but the application part was what really threw me for a loop. It was basically a call to ask what you might have to give up in order to follow Christ. He had a whole list of things you might have to choose between like Christ or certain friends; Christ or certain family members; Christ or a job promotion; etc…  Personally, I found this so damaging for the hundreds of people there, a lot of whom were probably guests. Why on earth are churches teaching that if you are a “good Christian” (whatever that is) means you have to lose friends and family? Doesn’t it make sense that if you are doing it right you won’t be alienating anyone?… except for maybe those people who think they are “good Christians” and believe they are “called” to make people feel alienated because of their “sin”. Didn’t Jesus alienate himself from only the pharisees?
The other thing that struck me in the morning service was the child dedication. Personally, I’m not a fan of these. We do blessings for us as parents, our child and our family as a unit. It never quite made sense to me how we can dedicate a child to God who is so obviously a gift from Him anyway. Each to their own though. What got to me was the congregations involvement. Their were five different families dedicating their children before the church. At the end the congregation, who consisted of a lot of guests like me, were asked to stand and affirm that we would support these families in raising their children to be followers of Christ. Aside from not going to church very often, aside from not knowing all but one of the family, the family I did know I don’t think should be allowed to procreate! (I never said I was a “good Christian”). I’m not going to essentially vow to support them in raising their child! I was super uncomfortable being asked to affirm them. Isn’t that something that is reserved for the families personal community of family and friends? Maybe that community includes everyone in the church for some people. It definitely does not include all the guests their on an Easter Sunday and the family and friends of four other families.

Later on that day we went to Nexus, our home church, and had a very different experience. The bulk of the message was about whether there is Hell or not. Not your typical Easter Sunday service. A part of the service that really touched me was when Chris Janzen, (Yes, the Chris Janzen is now part of Nexus… my mom was pretty surprised) did a cover of a Ron Sexsmith song, God Loves Everyone. It was beautiful, challenging and so true. I think it speaks for itself. Here are the lyrics…

God Loves Everyone

God loves everyone
Like a mother loves her son

No strings at all
Unconditional
Never one to judge
Would never hold a grudge
‘Bout what’s been done
God loves everyone

There are no gates in heaven

Everyone gets in

Queer or straight

Souls of every faith

Hell is in our minds

Hell is in this life

But when it’s gone

God takes everyone

Its love is like a womb

It’s like the air from room to room

It surrounds us all

The living and the dead

May we never lose the thread

That bound us all

The killer in his cell

The atheist as well

The pure of heart

And the wild at heart

Are all worthy of its grace

It’s written in the face

Of everyone

God loves everyone

There’s no need to be saved

No need to be afraid

Cause when it’s done

God takes everyone

God loves everyone

Easter 2011

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Good Friday marked the end of my lent. My family celebrated Easter then because it was the only day our schedules worked together. I was not about to pass up my Easter celebration just because it came two days early.

Lent held successes and failures for me. I doubt that is the right word to explain it but I can’t think of anything else right now. I concentrated a lot on the self-denial part. I had given up all meat, except for seafood, and sugary foods. It was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. I would get cravings every once in a while, more in the later weeks, but it was very manageable. The thing that actually got me through it was thinking of Sofie. She doesn’t have proper nutrition, why should I get to eat meat and sweets?

A gross fact that kind of makes me want to stay off meat and sweets is that my body actually had to detox. I had the worst gas and bm’s of my life. Since having my first taste of paska (Easter bread) with my family’s incredible cream cheese spread earlier today, which are both very sugary, and maybe an once of ham with our dinner, the same symptoms have begun! So wrong! What am I/we putting in to my body? I’m definitely not ready to swear of meat or sugar but it definitely will be making me think more and cut back a lot!

The alms giving part of Lent also had a lot of progress for me. I finished some much needed paperwork for Chosen Children and have officially begun working with the designer to start the website. It will be a long process writing all the content but we are slowly progressing now!

I did not finish my Henri Nowen book. I really wanted to and still intend to in the future, but I did not get past the first chapter. Much to my husband and mother’s horror, I am not a reader and do not generally enjoy it very much. I also didn’t get very far with the penitence part. I didn’t have big hopes for this portion of Lent. I’m not ready to reconcile with the people in my life that come to mind here. Honestly, I’m not sure if reconciliation is an option on either side so I don’t know where to go with this part of Lent.

Good Friday was my baking day. I made a double batches of dinner crepe batter, dessert crepe batter and paska, plus a triple batch of cream cheese paska spread… a favorite for everyone 🙂 My side of the family decorated eggs and had a delicious dinner of crepes. Ham, broccoli and cheese crepes for dinner, fruit crepes and whip cream for dessert. Livi had a horrible fever all day, up to 101! She was my little angel though and was healthy by the next morning. Even with a fever she had a fun little Easter basket hunt and her Marmie and Oma gave her some really cute books to read and trace in. Her writing is really taking off!

 Concentrating on getting the color just right. 
 Fun times had by all!

 Putting the stickers on. She was really in to it. 
 The finished products! Marmee’s was the most creative. 
She thought out of the box to make her flue face and didn’t follow the pattern!

Books from Marmee and Oma 🙂
 Found her basket! 

By the way, how do you tell a 2 year old about Easter? I haven’t really introduced the idea of death to her yet. I like letting my daughter believe in the Easter bunny, tooth fairy and Santa Clause. I think it adds to the wonder and magic of childhood. I don’t know how to meld the Easter bunny with Jesus’ resurrection though. Basically, I ended up telling her the Easter Bunny brings chocolate because Jesus is alive. I know it doesn’t quite cut it. We’ll need to figure this out before next year 🙂 When do you tell a kid about death too?

Saturday, Jon and I went to a cousins wedding. Livi went for a sleepover to her Gramma’s. She doesn’t see her very often and Livi was SO EXCITED to go for a sleepover. We even bought her a little Tinkerbell suitcase of her own. She was outgrowing the diaper bag we had been using. Sunday we picked Livi up and had breakfast at Denny’s with Jon’s mom. Livi and I then joined my mom at her church. My views on that will be on another post. We got a long nap in the afternoon and even made it out to our own church!

On her way to Gramma’s house! 
Is it me or does she look way to grown up here?

Monday my immune system gave in to the flu that Livi fought off. Darn kids and their germs! I had planned to clean and make a yummy supper but I ended up sleeping and lazing about. Some out of town friends stopped in for a few minutes on their way home from a family Easter weekend. It was a nice relief from my self pity.

Anyway, Happy Easter!

What If…

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These questions have caused quite a stir on my Facebook status so I thought I’d post some of them here too, just to maybe get people to think a little bit. I’ll eventually get a post done about what my theology is around it all but for now I’ll just let you ponder these….
What if the church needed to change?

What if the parables of Jesus were speaking against religion?

What if Christianity was about the end of religion and score keeping and judging and shaming?

What if Christianity was not about morality at all?

What if instead of trying to make bad people good it was trying to reveal that good people are the same as bad people?

What if God was never disappointed in us?

What if the world wasn’t going to hell?

What if salvation included people outside of Christianity?

What if the church accepted everyone?

What if the church didn’t kick people out?

What if culture was to be embraced rather than avoided?

What if how people treated people was more important than what we believed?