The Journey

No. Ugh! No! Nooooooo. It's raining. It's kind of icy. It's sooooo cold. Moo. Blarg. Noooooo. I'm not going. I don't wanna. I don't want to freaking go to church. Church is booooooring. This church thing is stupid. I want Chinese food. I want a coke and Chinese food. I smell like campfire. So stinky. Man, now I have to take a shower. Ugh. My life is so hard.


After a very late night of drinking, fire watching and stranger meeting, I woke up bursting with life and energy ready to continue my incredible exploration of organized religion. Brimming with anticipation, I forced myself to shower, made a feeble attempt at concealing my dark circles with make-up and like a zombie grunting and moaning threw on something colorful and comfortable. This was a special morning, so I decided to make myself an extra special breakfast of cold taco meat and lots and lots of water. Hooray! It's time for church!

Due to yucky weather and the knowledge that I would most likely be somewhat "tired" this Sunday I planned to attend a neighborhood church just down the street called The Journey. I parked on the street about two blocks away from the church and me and my red hooded raincoat and rainbow rainboots got to take a little stroll. My grouchy mood lifted within seconds of my rain walk. There is something magical about walking in a certain kind of rain. It reminded me of living in London and all the rain soaked adventures I had there. Now here I am in St. Louis getting ready to have another.

The service before mine (I went to the 11:30am service for obvious reasons) was just getting out. The sidewalk was crowded with people, making it feel even more like London. As I lifted my head, I noticed a few strange things. All the people were young. Like early 20's young. Also, a significant portion of them were Asian. And EVERYONE was carrying a Bible. This sounds bad, but I felt scared. I'm not sure why, but the band of young Asians marching through the rain holding tight to their Bibles totally freaked me out. What is this church?

The Journey is one of those non-denominational church places that doesn't have pews or large paintings of Jesus at the last supper. Instead, they have chairs and a funky modern symbolic backdrop (various old windows hanging from the ceiling), an updated neutral color scheme, giant TV screens and a coffee bar. It's a "franchise" church. Meaning they have various locations offering the same/similar sermon at whichever one you choose. They have about 7 different services to choose from including Saturday and Sunday evening services.

The other churches I attended were mostly filled with old people and there wasn't any diversity. Remember at the other churches how I kind of stood out? Yeah, not here. Facial piercing - check. Tattoos - check. Colorful funky outfit - check. Plastic glasses (which I had way before they were cool) - check. Oh yes, here I looked just like everyone else. The Journey was like a rainbow of young people. Asians, Hispanics, African Americans and Caucasians all mingling together in youthful Christian harmony. The median age of the congregation couldn't have been over 25. I felt proud to be a resident of the racially and ethnically diverse South City St. Louis. Then I felt ashamed of my reaction to the large group of Christian Asians and decided I needed to set aside some time to figure out what that prejudice/fear is all about.

The lights dimmed. The show/service was starting. Cue the band. Everybody stood. A very talented and ridiculously attractive black man lead the congregation in, "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee." I was ecstatic. Not because of the cute boy, but because I freaking love contemporary Christian worship songs. That's right. I said it. I'm not ashamed. I'll say it again. I don't care. I freaking love contemporary Christian worship songs! My legs started bouncing. My hips started swaying. My eyes brightened. My lips burst into song. See, I grew up with these tunes. These were the songs of my childhood. They are old friends. I have great memories of singing "Lean On Me" and doing all the ridiculous motions with my bestest friends in the whole world - my church friends. So I sang. Loudly and joyfully. People were looking at me because I looked like I was on fire for Jesus, but really I was just enjoying some nostalgia. It's the same way I feel when I watch The Muppets. It was awesome. I wish there had been more singing.

Money. Money. Money. (I heart ABBA) Tithing came up several times throughout the service. There were advertisements for the church's 3 month tithing challenge on the TV screens and on flyers in the lobby. One of the pastors (there are several) got up and said there was a money back guarantee on your tithes. Seriously. Give 10% of your income to the church for 3 full months with an open and joyful heart and God will do amazing things in your life OR your money back. I'm not kidding. But I guess I kind of understand. Coffee bars don't pay for themselves, right? It was the idea that you had to give money to God through the church and then God would do wonderful things for your in return that didn't sit well with me. Hmmm...God's blessings are for sale?

A very charismatic pastor got up and said a few words about today's lesson/sermon - "Freedom from Self-Centerednesss". Then this man stepped off stage and a preacher on a video came up on the television screens hanging above the sanctuary. No one was being filmed on stage, because no one was on stage. It was a prerecorded video. I went to church and watched a video sermon.

I was so distracted by this whole video sermon concept that I barely listened to a single thing the preacher was saying. It was mostly globodyglook. It sounded a lot like the teacher from Peanuts cartoons. Wah wah wah wah Jesus. Wah wah wah wah community. He was one of those contemporary pastors with a funky haircut and stylish jeans that were, oh, maybe just a wee bit too tight. He did a lot of those common preachery things like breaking down words to their greek/latin roots, using large hand gestures and repeating key things for emphasis.

Example: (spoken normally) Jesus said, "Go out into the world." (Pause)  (with gusto) JESUS said, "GO! OUT! into the WORLD! (whispered seriousness) Go out into the world. That's. What. Jesus. Said.

I did tune in to a few things. He talked about how Christianity is the only religion that fosters a community with God. There was a brief "bashing" of other religions. Then we broke down this whole notion of community and what God really wants from us. Turns out it's the basics - don't covet or be envious, don't judge people, help people - even when it's hard, take care of yourself, etc. There was more stuff. I don't remember everything that went into being a good community for God. I only remember thinking "Yep, I'm awesome at that. Nailed it" after every thing he said. Then I reflected on how much I really liked the black sparkly nail polish I was rocking that Sunday. I usually hate nail polish, so it was a special moment. Clearly, the sermon didn't speak to me. Maybe because it was just a video.

Communion Time!

A real life non-video pastor got up and talked about The Last Supper - what it means and why they honor the ritual. I do not partake in communion, because I don't believe in Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. End of story. I've never felt weird about it. I've had 14 years of attending Christmas Eve services with my family to get used to saying "no thank you". It's just not my deal and I'm cool with that. I kind of feel the same way about Jesus that I do cocaine. I'm sure it makes you feel great. It's looks like you are having an amazing time dancing around and sweating. You know, it's just not for me. I'm cool man. I'm just going to be over here chilling. You do what you gotta do, but don't guilt me or make me feel bad because I don't feel like snorting your cocaine. Back off friend.

"Followers of Christ, please celebrate communion with us
by breaking off the bread and dipping it in the cup"

The pastor gave a rather odd spiel about those of us who should not partake in the communion. "You know what's in your heart. Don't just follow the crowd. If you are not right with Jesus this is a good time to sit and reflect (on your sin). We are always here to talk with you after service." The TV screen advised you how to properly execute communion and the path your section of the church was to follow. The believers walked their specified path and received their bread dipped in juice then passed by the godless souls who remained seated in sin. Several sitters were crying or bowing their heads. I don't care for this method of bringing people to Jesus. It felt like public shaming, although I wasn't ashamed. I did however want some wine. Real bad like. Luckily, my local grocery store serves everyone, even non-believers.

I don't know. I had several thoughts about God and Jesus and Jesus being a man but also God and maybe how that was really meant to be a message to us that God is part of man and cannot be seperated, but instead we turned it into THIS ONE GUY JESUS was man and God and he should be worshiped for all eternity and if you don't worship him you will starve in the bread and wine free gallows of hell. Then I thought - So many people believe in Jesus. How can so many people be wrong? Then I thought about Lance Armstrong and how lots of people thought that guy was some kind of God blessed miracle and he turned out to be a lying prick. Then my brain was tired and required rest.

I'm burning out on this Jesus stuff. Time for something different....