I was at the Help's church this Sunday and they've been having communion every Sunday for Lent. Before it was just for Advent. And from now on they will be having it every week.
Good for them.
Lucky me I'm used to passing the plate of saltines and individual servings of wine/grape juice and it helps that we sit with a group who know I'm Catholic. I honestly don't want to confuse anyone, but I'm not participating. So I will avoid sitting next to the person who asked why I wasn't Christian. Nice person, but....
There are other things I don't participate in at the Help's church, like the praise songs. One, there are no music notes for me to read for the praise songs. Can I read music? Not really but I know a half note from a quarter note, and it helps to see that my voice is supposed to go higher on this part. Secondly, I don't buy or listen to these hippy-dippy Jesus is my girlfriend songs on the radio. They are absolutely foreign to me. Lastly, I don't trust those songs. To me the theology is a little wobbly on some of those lines or something is just plain wrong. Most of the time I can't put my finger on it.
Showing posts with label PCA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PCA. Show all posts
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Still Catholic and Republican
I'll be happy when the primary rolls around so I can vote for a guy who has a snowball's chance in Hell of winning the nomination. I am going to buy into the notion that my vote on national matters don't mean a hill of beans, all politics is local, which has it's level of crazy. But it is local so there is a chance of confronting my local Councilman, in person.
Today, after a nice nap we went to church and engaged in the low impact aerobics that is Mass. The priest is still male and I'm pretty okay with that. If female priestly leadership was ever a main concern of mine, then I would have remained in the Episcopal church. But I found I really like a male presence in the church and my criticisms of the Help's conservative PCA church is the music can be too feminine. The male leadership is one of the few things keeping it from breaking out in to all out girlishness. Those praise songs are sung in a key that is too high. First it starts out with the girlie music and then before you know it you'll have church dancing and an overwhelming female congregation and female leadership. Okay, I'm making that up, I just despise the praise songs.
On the radio and other media the Left is claiming women will leave the church and the Republican party. Nope. No plans on leaving. I left the party once, mainly because it was on a RHINO witch hunt and you know, I didn't need that crap. This, some radio loudmouth and Republican candidates supporting "traditional family" (soon you're gonna tell me the Pope is Catholic) does not shake my preference for the GOP. Not leaving the Holy Roman Catholic Church anytime soon either. Of course if Fr. Watkins starts giving long and mind-numbing homilies I might start shopping around for another Roman Catholic Church.
I like CS Lewis' the Great Divorce and listen to the audiobook often. In Lewis' Heaven, there are no 'rights'. We do not have a right to anything the Lord grants us. Heaven is not a democracy and the Triune G-d is not elected by the citizens. There is no difference between Greek or Jew, slave or free, male or female, but I don't think this means "equality" as we have been defining it. It doesn't mean we're interchangeable. It means, to me, that it does not make a difference in his love for us. His love is for all.
Today, after a nice nap we went to church and engaged in the low impact aerobics that is Mass. The priest is still male and I'm pretty okay with that. If female priestly leadership was ever a main concern of mine, then I would have remained in the Episcopal church. But I found I really like a male presence in the church and my criticisms of the Help's conservative PCA church is the music can be too feminine. The male leadership is one of the few things keeping it from breaking out in to all out girlishness. Those praise songs are sung in a key that is too high. First it starts out with the girlie music and then before you know it you'll have church dancing and an overwhelming female congregation and female leadership. Okay, I'm making that up, I just despise the praise songs.
On the radio and other media the Left is claiming women will leave the church and the Republican party. Nope. No plans on leaving. I left the party once, mainly because it was on a RHINO witch hunt and you know, I didn't need that crap. This, some radio loudmouth and Republican candidates supporting "traditional family" (soon you're gonna tell me the Pope is Catholic) does not shake my preference for the GOP. Not leaving the Holy Roman Catholic Church anytime soon either. Of course if Fr. Watkins starts giving long and mind-numbing homilies I might start shopping around for another Roman Catholic Church.
I like CS Lewis' the Great Divorce and listen to the audiobook often. In Lewis' Heaven, there are no 'rights'. We do not have a right to anything the Lord grants us. Heaven is not a democracy and the Triune G-d is not elected by the citizens. There is no difference between Greek or Jew, slave or free, male or female, but I don't think this means "equality" as we have been defining it. It doesn't mean we're interchangeable. It means, to me, that it does not make a difference in his love for us. His love is for all.
Friday, June 04, 2010
Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Agnostic
Those are my choices.
The Help invited me to a bible study with some people from his church and I had a good time but a minor, very minor issue was the fact I was Catholic and everybody else was Presbyterian. At one point during the eating/meal part of the gathering one fellow was telling how his father led others to Christ and how the people of the town were not Christian. The people were Catholic and engaging in some odd little patron saint thing, which I guess was to illustrate their idolatry. I wasn't offended, as so much, I don't know. I decided to interpret it as the people being wrapped up in a cultural activity that had very little to do with the Gospels. The job of the saints is to point us to Christ, apparently this saint wasn't doing his job.
The more I think of it I know well in my heart I am not a Presbyterian, nor will I ever be. For one, I can only take the worship services in occasional bites. The sermons are too long to me. If you can't make your point in 10-20 minutes, you're droning. That's what drove me from the Baptist church. The sermons were long and at times didn't seem to have a point. They lost me. Thank G-d, literally, he manged to sweep me up into the crowd going to St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Gainesville, when I was on a mission to go to Burger King. It was either my freshmen or sophomore year (as I was still living in the dorms) and by that time, not going to church. When I was living with my parents, I kinda went to church, but I remember there was a point when I stopped going altogether. College, didn't go at all, until that weekend when I got swept into St. Augustines.
I did RCIA but didn't take the plunge. I was also checking out Grace Episcopal in G'ville. And come to think it is amazing I stuck with the Episcopal church then because my first encounter was with huggy hippies at the Episcopal student center across the street from campus. Ewww, hippies. My desire was to get the F*ck away from them when I saw their idea of the peace. I'm older now, now, I'd be firmer with extending my hand. Grace was cool. Grace was downtown, away from the campus. I liked them and got something out of it. I alternated between Catholic and Episcopal during my undergrad and my grad programs.
During my second grad program I didn't get to church often. I tried St. Andrew's in College Park, but didn't care for it, and didn't find it worth dealing with the metrobus in PG County nor the hills of Hyattsville to keep going. I tried to make it to St. George's in Virginia Sq, where I had been going prior to grad school, but Sunday's on a fractured green line, was a no go. So I really didn't go to church much those two years. I wasn't thinking much about theological issues much either.
After grad school I moved closer to a metro rail line. St. Andrew's was still uninteresting and I think, I'm not sure, returned to St. Georges. I can't remember when I returned to St. Georges. It might have been when I moved into DC, when going from the green to the orange lines on a Sunday morning was less a pain in the ass. But still a pain.
Somewhere in there I met up with Roland who then pointed me to the Church of the Really, Really Blond People and the Church of the Gay Lawyer (which upon last visit seemed to be getting more hetro). Though longer than I'd like, I did enjoy the CotGL, but the CotRRBP was a straight shot from the house on bike, had the best coffee hour, a kick-ass adult forum and a cool soup kitchen.
My appearances at Baptist churches pretty much came down to weddings, funerals, and instances where I had no choice (see, relatives). There are things about the Baptist Church that I enjoy, but my interest in the Lord, falls asleep, like the rest of me would if it weren't for dumb mind games I play to stay awake during the sermon. Sadly I found myself doing the same at the Help's church.
At Anglican/Episcopal and Roman Catholic churches I feel myself growing closer to G-d and I genuinely enjoy worship, even when the music is crap. At the black Baptist churches of my family, the music is good. If someone died, so is the food. The sermons are 'eh' and remind me why I left. At my grandmother's funeral (the mean one) I stayed interested in the sermon by picking out everything that was wrong. The pastor saying that she not saying one unkind word to anyone was the biggest lie. A kind lie, but a lie none the less. Note, she was the mean one.
And with the Baptist church I have all sorts of familial ties that make it a choice over any other protestant denomination outside of Anglicanism (and maybe the Lutheran church on a good day). My favorite uncle is the deacon of the baptist church where my grandfather served as deacon. My half-sister's husband is the pastor at some small baptist church in Florida. My father, just recently turning his life over to the Lord, serves on the men's choir and some church board at the baptist church where I was baptized. It is the same church that it seems many of our family has attended for decades (dare I say 100 years?). My mother serves on the usher board at another baptist church. Closer to here my aunts belong to a baptist church about 5 blocks from my home, and in helping one aunt with church activities, I've been dragged to that church and other baptist churches in DC ever since I was a teenager visiting. If it weren't for falling asleep and loosing interest, I might have remained a Baptist. If it weren't for the draw and the utter joy I feel in participating in the mass or the holy Eucharist in the RC and Anglican church I might have become an agnostic. But there is nothing (short of my struggling love of the Help) that would have drawn me to the Presbyterian Church.
The Help invited me to a bible study with some people from his church and I had a good time but a minor, very minor issue was the fact I was Catholic and everybody else was Presbyterian. At one point during the eating/meal part of the gathering one fellow was telling how his father led others to Christ and how the people of the town were not Christian. The people were Catholic and engaging in some odd little patron saint thing, which I guess was to illustrate their idolatry. I wasn't offended, as so much, I don't know. I decided to interpret it as the people being wrapped up in a cultural activity that had very little to do with the Gospels. The job of the saints is to point us to Christ, apparently this saint wasn't doing his job.
The more I think of it I know well in my heart I am not a Presbyterian, nor will I ever be. For one, I can only take the worship services in occasional bites. The sermons are too long to me. If you can't make your point in 10-20 minutes, you're droning. That's what drove me from the Baptist church. The sermons were long and at times didn't seem to have a point. They lost me. Thank G-d, literally, he manged to sweep me up into the crowd going to St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Gainesville, when I was on a mission to go to Burger King. It was either my freshmen or sophomore year (as I was still living in the dorms) and by that time, not going to church. When I was living with my parents, I kinda went to church, but I remember there was a point when I stopped going altogether. College, didn't go at all, until that weekend when I got swept into St. Augustines.
I did RCIA but didn't take the plunge. I was also checking out Grace Episcopal in G'ville. And come to think it is amazing I stuck with the Episcopal church then because my first encounter was with huggy hippies at the Episcopal student center across the street from campus. Ewww, hippies. My desire was to get the F*ck away from them when I saw their idea of the peace. I'm older now, now, I'd be firmer with extending my hand. Grace was cool. Grace was downtown, away from the campus. I liked them and got something out of it. I alternated between Catholic and Episcopal during my undergrad and my grad programs.
During my second grad program I didn't get to church often. I tried St. Andrew's in College Park, but didn't care for it, and didn't find it worth dealing with the metrobus in PG County nor the hills of Hyattsville to keep going. I tried to make it to St. George's in Virginia Sq, where I had been going prior to grad school, but Sunday's on a fractured green line, was a no go. So I really didn't go to church much those two years. I wasn't thinking much about theological issues much either.
After grad school I moved closer to a metro rail line. St. Andrew's was still uninteresting and I think, I'm not sure, returned to St. Georges. I can't remember when I returned to St. Georges. It might have been when I moved into DC, when going from the green to the orange lines on a Sunday morning was less a pain in the ass. But still a pain.
Somewhere in there I met up with Roland who then pointed me to the Church of the Really, Really Blond People and the Church of the Gay Lawyer (which upon last visit seemed to be getting more hetro). Though longer than I'd like, I did enjoy the CotGL, but the CotRRBP was a straight shot from the house on bike, had the best coffee hour, a kick-ass adult forum and a cool soup kitchen.
My appearances at Baptist churches pretty much came down to weddings, funerals, and instances where I had no choice (see, relatives). There are things about the Baptist Church that I enjoy, but my interest in the Lord, falls asleep, like the rest of me would if it weren't for dumb mind games I play to stay awake during the sermon. Sadly I found myself doing the same at the Help's church.
At Anglican/Episcopal and Roman Catholic churches I feel myself growing closer to G-d and I genuinely enjoy worship, even when the music is crap. At the black Baptist churches of my family, the music is good. If someone died, so is the food. The sermons are 'eh' and remind me why I left. At my grandmother's funeral (the mean one) I stayed interested in the sermon by picking out everything that was wrong. The pastor saying that she not saying one unkind word to anyone was the biggest lie. A kind lie, but a lie none the less. Note, she was the mean one.
And with the Baptist church I have all sorts of familial ties that make it a choice over any other protestant denomination outside of Anglicanism (and maybe the Lutheran church on a good day). My favorite uncle is the deacon of the baptist church where my grandfather served as deacon. My half-sister's husband is the pastor at some small baptist church in Florida. My father, just recently turning his life over to the Lord, serves on the men's choir and some church board at the baptist church where I was baptized. It is the same church that it seems many of our family has attended for decades (dare I say 100 years?). My mother serves on the usher board at another baptist church. Closer to here my aunts belong to a baptist church about 5 blocks from my home, and in helping one aunt with church activities, I've been dragged to that church and other baptist churches in DC ever since I was a teenager visiting. If it weren't for falling asleep and loosing interest, I might have remained a Baptist. If it weren't for the draw and the utter joy I feel in participating in the mass or the holy Eucharist in the RC and Anglican church I might have become an agnostic. But there is nothing (short of my struggling love of the Help) that would have drawn me to the Presbyterian Church.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Another thing- race
Okay I made fun of the Help for clapping like a white guy, and I guess that's the one racial thing mentioned in the last post. But there was another observation about the Grace PCA church I want to mention, it was comfortably diverse.
Though the church was predominately white (and under drinking age) it was not all white. I've been in all white churches or mostly white churches where I am the only visible minority or I can count people of color on one hand. Grace was roughly 10% non-white, with a fair number of interracial couples. Two of the children who were baptized that night were bi-racial, half Asian and half white.
Wallace (the Help's church) is fairly racially diverse too... and age diverse. A bit more so, with blacks, South Asians, East Asians, and Latinos dotting the chairs throughout the sanctuary. Racially, I'm at ease there. Liturgically, not so much.
Speaking of, I guess I can now say that I find Presbyterian sermons too damned long. About 2/3rd of the way through I'm thinking, 'wrap it up.' I appreciate the tradition in Anglican, Lutheran, and Catholic churches to keep the homily under 20 minutes.
Though the church was predominately white (and under drinking age) it was not all white. I've been in all white churches or mostly white churches where I am the only visible minority or I can count people of color on one hand. Grace was roughly 10% non-white, with a fair number of interracial couples. Two of the children who were baptized that night were bi-racial, half Asian and half white.
Wallace (the Help's church) is fairly racially diverse too... and age diverse. A bit more so, with blacks, South Asians, East Asians, and Latinos dotting the chairs throughout the sanctuary. Racially, I'm at ease there. Liturgically, not so much.
Speaking of, I guess I can now say that I find Presbyterian sermons too damned long. About 2/3rd of the way through I'm thinking, 'wrap it up.' I appreciate the tradition in Anglican, Lutheran, and Catholic churches to keep the homily under 20 minutes.
I feel so OLD
Yesterday the Help and I went to check out a PCA church closer to the house Grace Church over in Chinatown. Now Grace doesn't have it's own building and thus is housed in the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church and has services at 5pm.
We arrived about 15-10 minutes before service to do that very American thing of "getting a good seat." I was venturing towards the left side when the Help suggested the balcony. So we went up and I noticed it was an old building with old building/ little money for 'historic maintenance problems. As the church was filling up we noticed something. The kids filling the pews looked about college aged. It was like we were attending some college lecture. I swear the average age of the congregation was about 25, only because there were a handful of senior citizens. If the old people stayed home, I'd say the average age was about 22. As part of that evening's service there was a baptism of one of the elder's kids. The elder couldn't be more than 35. The pastor was 45. At least there was someone older than us who wasn't retired.
Besides feeling like the cougar and the old guy in the club the church was quite nice.
Oh there was one odd thing. The greeting, or in some traditions, the peace. Now I'm accustomed to the shaking of hands and saying , "G-d's peace," and moving on to the next person. For about 2-3 minutes this church turns into a college meet and greet. I had shaken hands and turned to the people on the other side of me, when I noticed they were quite involved in introducing themselves and giving the "who am I " spiel. So I turned back to the set of people I had introduced myself to and they were carrying on a conversation about who they were and what brought them to DC, blah, blah, blah. I turned to the Help and remarked that, "this is different."
The music was good. Jazzy. There were a few traditional hymns and a few 20th/21st Century ones, with one "Jesus is my girlfriend" P&W song. The closing hymn "I'll fly away" was great and we clapped. It has been so long since I've clapped along in church, it was great. However, the Help started clapping. Unfortunately the Help claps like a white guy. I had to grab his hands and stop him. Later he confessed that he clasps like a white guy because he is a white guy. He also confessed that he wanted the balcony seat to see any balding heads.
We arrived about 15-10 minutes before service to do that very American thing of "getting a good seat." I was venturing towards the left side when the Help suggested the balcony. So we went up and I noticed it was an old building with old building/ little money for 'historic maintenance problems. As the church was filling up we noticed something. The kids filling the pews looked about college aged. It was like we were attending some college lecture. I swear the average age of the congregation was about 25, only because there were a handful of senior citizens. If the old people stayed home, I'd say the average age was about 22. As part of that evening's service there was a baptism of one of the elder's kids. The elder couldn't be more than 35. The pastor was 45. At least there was someone older than us who wasn't retired.
Besides feeling like the cougar and the old guy in the club the church was quite nice.
Oh there was one odd thing. The greeting, or in some traditions, the peace. Now I'm accustomed to the shaking of hands and saying , "G-d's peace," and moving on to the next person. For about 2-3 minutes this church turns into a college meet and greet. I had shaken hands and turned to the people on the other side of me, when I noticed they were quite involved in introducing themselves and giving the "who am I " spiel. So I turned back to the set of people I had introduced myself to and they were carrying on a conversation about who they were and what brought them to DC, blah, blah, blah. I turned to the Help and remarked that, "this is different."
The music was good. Jazzy. There were a few traditional hymns and a few 20th/21st Century ones, with one "Jesus is my girlfriend" P&W song. The closing hymn "I'll fly away" was great and we clapped. It has been so long since I've clapped along in church, it was great. However, the Help started clapping. Unfortunately the Help claps like a white guy. I had to grab his hands and stop him. Later he confessed that he clasps like a white guy because he is a white guy. He also confessed that he wanted the balcony seat to see any balding heads.
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