Questions that have been on my mind:

• what is the purpose of church?  is it the same or different from the purpose of Christ?  
• what does it mean, I mean, REALLY MEAN, to serve?
• what is, really, salvation?  Is it possible to, as many churches would have you believe and do, save other people?  This prospect makes me uncomfortable, as I tend to think that is God’s job alone, but what is our role as fellow human beings?  What shape does salvation take in a life?  Is it feeling loved and wanted by others and by God?
• How does one truly love one’s neighbor?

So this summer has been cruising along at a hellish blast out here in philly at BSM.  I have found myself quite comfortable in this funky church.  The people who work here all care deeply about what it means to live and be a church in Philly, and it definitely shows–in the friendliness of those who come here, in the posture of openness of not only the staff but also many who come here for meals and worship and fellowship.  And it has been quite a bit of work as well, but I have liked it.

One thing that has also been nice about BSM has been that worship is in the evenings, which means that I have had the opportunity to both work at a church and explore other church communities in the area.  So far I have attended 4 other Presbyterian Churches in the area, and while I haven’t felt quite at home at any of them, my experiences at each have left me mulling over some interesting questions about what it means to steward a church and to be a church in a city like this.

One that has come up most sharply relates to an experience that I had at a church this past week.  The church was a sort of wacky mix of traditional and contemporary, with a praise band and an organ, and a whole lot of “Lord Father God” language.  Their pastor, a supply pastor, was extremely exuberant and unabashedly Reformed, which meant there was a whole lot of things like “we come here not to receive, but to give gratitude and worship god” being said, and a whole lot about depravity and sinfulness as related to our inability to see and worship God being implied.

I didn’t mind all that so much.  In fact, I was sort of interested in the church because other than BSM they are the only PCUSA-ish church I know of  that has communion every week.  I happen to think frequent communion is a beautiful thing, so I was excited.  So we get to communion, and the pastor gets up and does the invitation, which goes something like this: “we welcom to the table all those gathered here among us today who have been baptized into the faith.  If you have been baptized, please come forward now to receive communion.”

Did I hear that right?  Did he just say that communion is only for you if you have had water sprinkled on you by a minister?  Did he MEAN it?  They aren’t going to police that, are they?  I was caught between surprise and anger by what I had heard.  I mean, what is communion for?  Everything this church said indicated it believed that communion was a feast for believers to pat themselves on the back and celebrate their gratitude to God… but what about everyone else?  Jesus’ memorable meal was one shared with the “everyone else,” the prideful, broken, sinful, young, unprepared clan of young men and probably some women who had  been rejected by everyone but Christ, who unlike anyone else gathered them in and welcomed them to a table where they were filled and provided for.  It was radically inclusive, as I read it, nothing like the closed table of this church.  In contrast to Jesus’ meal, this church seemed guaranteed to leave anyone who took communion illicitly feeling deceitful and probably guilty for nothing more than seeking to be fed by Christ.

So those are my thoughts, but seriously, what is communion for?  Is it right to close a table?  What does it mean for a community to choose to close a table to outsiders?  Is it necessary that it always be open?  I imagine anyone reading this knows my thoughts, but I wonder what others might think?  What would it mean to offer communion to anyone who comes to the table?  What is at stake?  What is the risk?  What might be gained from a completely open table?

Yesterday morning I suckered my ‘rents and my bro into driving up to San Francisco with me to scope out Mission Bay Community Church (I billed it as an “excellent family bonding opportunity” in “sunny SF,” which was incidentally far enough away from the Santa Cruz fires that the air didn’t smell like a campfire or make one’s eyes tear up).

So we piled in the car around 9:45 and chugged up the 101 (yes, I went to undergrad in SoCal and YES I picked up and have held onto that nasty habit of adding an article to freeway numbers).  We got there early, or at least got off the freeway early… only we had a bit of trouble at first finding the church.  Actually, what happened was that we blew past the church altogether, missing the sign which was shaded by some trees on the side of an industrial looking building.  I should have known better than to look for something blatantly “churchy” but obviously not.  Anyways, my dad spotted the sign, we snagged a parking space and skipped on in (at least I did) in time with the sound system with 5 minutes to spare.  

The church was pretty neat, in terms of aesthetics.  BRC and Co. have created an awesome atmosphere that feels instantly welcoming (which was precisely what my dad pointed out when we sat down).  There were big couches interspersed with pews and folding chairs, some of which were organized around cafe tables.  There was an open kitchen in the back with coffee, tea, and donuts, and the mostly 20-30 something crowd was clustered about throughout the space engaged in conversation with one another.  It felt almost like a friendly, industrial coffee shop.  We snagged a table and some coffee and chatted with some of the people around us, who were also quite friendly.

Worship itself was, as I heard BRC say before, not all that different and yet different all at once.  There was a definite emphasis on music, which was a good mix of old and new led by a worship band, and a definite lack of emphasis on individualism or anything that moved people away from the communal aspect… so there were no hymnals to stare at or bulletins to get lost in, and everything was projected on the front on a screen.  Again, my dad seemed to like that a lot.  I felt as though, if you were looking for community, it was pretty hard to miss it there (gawd I sound like an ego-booster for BRC right now, I bet.).  Overall, the coolest for me was the rationale for why they encourage people to move around or engage the service however they feel comfortable, that being that they want to celebrate and affirm that people process information in different ways, and that it is important to facilitate an atmosphere that encourages people to see church as a home and not a place that asks that people deny who they are (at least, I think I got that right…)

Sermon was decent, I had a question or two, but then again that was welcome in the room as well.  Generally, it was a great experience and my brother, someone who would rather do almost anything rather than go to church, gave possibly the best compliment he could: “well, it wasn’t boring, thats for sure.”

So way to go, MBCC.  You failed to bore my bro, and my ‘rents loved it–all in all a success in my book.  It was fun, it was interesting, it was genuine.  I look forward to hearing about how things are going as this fun and welcoming church continues to grow and discover itself.

I have been reading more and more blogs lately that have a tendency to blast those who were born after 1981 as having no culture or no class or no sense of theology.  These bloggers call us the “Dissillusioned Generation,” or accuse us lacking any unique culture ” or of whining too much, or finally of being silent (not always a bad thing in this case, but the implication seems to be that we lack passion).  I can’t help but feel troubled by these accusations–I mean, we are a generation that has faced many challenges but also one that has grown up in a world extremely different from that of our parents.  

Mostly, I am still trying to sort out a coherent response to these blanket-statement claims regarding the twenty-somethings of my time period– but I can’t help but observe that, based on the line that is drawn by most (1981) we are only 27 tops, and it strikes me that the cultural contributions of most generations aren’t fully felt until we get OUT of our teens and out of school and into the world…. and besides, is it really fair for some 35 year old who has a vested interested in his or her own experiences to run around judging what a 15 year old finds meaningful?  Is it fair for the older folks to chastise an 18 year old for using the language of his or her generation to express a desire ”hang out with Jesus” without considering that language is so contextual to the group that uses it and that it might mean something different for that generation than for another?  Is it right for the adults whom my generation ought to be looking up to to simply write off everything we do as “not good enough” rather than seeking to journey along with and attempt to understand more fully the experiences of those younger than them?

Maybe my opinions will change, but it is my suspicion that this tendency to write off an entire generation as a failure is a bit premature….and unloving and unChristian and anti-community.  We ought to be using our energies to understand and uplift one another, not tear one another down just because we don’t like what they do.  Sure, reality television and most media culture bothers me, but that doesn’t strike me as a legitimate reason to write off an entire age group as useless… if I am right, in fact, it could be thrown back that it is the Generation Xers who are in fact ”producing” and “promoting” that junk, and that Generation Y folks are more consumers who have grown up in a pre-existing media culture that encourages their consumption.  Not that I would throw back… I’m just saying.

Anyways, my preliminary challenge, before I have had a lot of time to think this through, is that as people seeking to live in community and in faith with one another, we are called to journey with, not against, those beside us, particularly those who will be here long after we are gone.  Because like it or not, we are here to stay, and I think the world would be a whole lot better off if we could seek to uplift and love and understand and celebrate one another rather than looking for excuses to ignore or disparage our neighbors.  Just a thought.