• EPK
  • Blog: ideas and updates.
  • Music services.
    • Live.
    • Video.
  • Photography services.
  • EPK Spark
JEFFREY NORDSTROM

Easter services.

3/27/2016

0 Comments

 
http://jeffnords.tumblr.com/post/141777472451/newyorker-an-easter-cartoon-by-paul-noth
It's Easter morning at my parents' house. I'm a little anxious as they get ready for the day. Later on, my children will run around and collect Easter eggs in the back yard. Right now I'm kind-of waiting for them to go to church.

There are very few things I miss about attending church. I didn't like most of the people; I didn't like putting on a show; I didn't like the gossip-in-the-name-of-spiritual-health. However, I miss getting to play music to an audience every week; I miss having a place to meet people and make friends; I miss spontaneous getogethers started from some church service or activity. Overall, I'm glad to have left it behind me.

But here,  this morning, I'm getting an important reminder of why I've been glad to leave church behind me: time. Church took an enormous amount of time out of my day, out of my weekends, out of my Sundays. It sure feels good to get to use my Sundays as I wish.

Church is an odd beast because it is treated like the pinnicle of spiritual devotion, as the most obvious sign that you're on the right track, or at least trying, to be a good Christian. Even if your life is a mess, as long as people see your face in their community every Sunday, they'll be able to believe that you're on their team.

However, church is boring and artificial. It's easy to attend church when you're not really into it. It's easy to hold on to a community even when you have nothing in common with them. And as an artificial entity full of people putting on a show, it needs to maintain itself.

That's where "para-church" organizations—summer camps, youth groups, college Christian clubs—come in. They're often created under the guise that they will bring people into the faith or keep people involved when they're away from home. I took part in oodles of them growing up: Young Life, IVCF, a summer camp. They were certainly a force that helped keep me connected with "the fold." They did their job. Sort-of.

The problem with these para-church organizations is that they are far more organic and effective than church itself is. The summer camp where I worked from 1996-2001 regularly reminded us to make sure we told campers that church wasn't as fun as camp, but it was very important; when I was part of IVCF at UVic 2001-2003, we were regularly told that we were there to "support the local churches" and that people shouldn't treat IVCF as a church replacement. However, the Christianity at camp made sense at camp, but didn't really make sense in the real world; the Christianity at IVCF was a group based around peers of activity (students) and age bracket, so it was far more relevant than any church service could be. 

Perhaps it might have been different if I was ever a large-church attendee. But apart from attending The Place, which took place on Sunday nights, I was always a small-church person. I felt comfortable in small churches because I could be both cagey and private. Perhaps if I attended a larger church, I would have been surrounded by more beautiful women or more fun people. But I didn't, so church could never hold a candle to the joys of para-church activities with my bona fide peers.

Not to mention, these organizations always had activities that were far more convenient than any sort of church service. They took place on Friday nights... like at times when you might go on a date, and they'd end early enough to go do other things. But a Sunday morning service? No way. You have to get up on Sunday morning, wait for the service to start, and by the time you get home, half your day is done.

At least that's how it felt to me.

When I moved out on my own, it was easy to skip church because I lost most of my contact with those organizations. And since the local churches were filled with people who were "not my people," their pulls' artificiality hit harder than it had before.

As I see people getting ready for church, it reminds me of how much I didn't fit in to that context, how much time I tried to spend being a good Christian when really I was something else. I was an unawares agnostic who simply hadn't the guts to admit to his atheism.

​And I'm sure glad to get to choose what to do with my Sunday mornings now. And I can skip the tedious special services, like the Easter service, which was invariably the same as any other Easter service. Sure feels good.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Musician.
    Teacher.
    ​Photographer.

     jeffnords ONLINE:
    Bandcamp
    Facebook
    Instagram
    ​SoundCloud
    YouTube: Music+

    jeffnords PLACEHOLDERS:
    (infrequent haunts)
    Amazon | DailyMotion
    DeviantArt | Duolingo | Flickr | FVRL | Kik
    LinkedIn | MeetUp | MySpace | Pinterest |
    ​
    Playstation | Reddit | ​Snapchat
    Spotify | The Internet Archive
    ​Tinder | Tumblr | Twitter | Vimeo | VK | WattPad
    WeChat 

    Archives

    January 2023
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    June 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    Categories

    All
    Academics
    Acting
    Activism
    Adulthood
    Agency
    Albums
    Animals
    Animated Films
    Atheism
    Books
    Camping
    Canadiana
    Christian Culture
    Comics
    Community
    Community Theatre
    Concerts
    Covers
    Creativity
    Critical Thinking
    Current Events
    Daily Grind
    Demos
    Depression
    Digital Life
    Dogs
    Driving
    Education
    Effect Pedals
    Effects
    Empathy
    Energy
    Environment
    Events
    Exploring
    Family
    Feminism
    Film Photography
    Fitness
    Food
    Friendship
    Frivolous
    Gadgets
    Games
    Gigs
    Guitar
    Guitar Effects
    Hexanon
    Hockey
    Home
    Ideas
    Ideology
    Influence
    Jam Session
    Langauge
    Leadership
    Lectures
    Lenses
    Links
    Literature
    Live Action Films
    Live Music
    Long Term Planning
    Magnetic Poetry
    Mental Health
    Mobile Phone
    Money
    Music
    Musicians
    Music Videos
    Networking
    Nostalgia
    Objectification
    Once And Over Again
    Parenting
    Performance
    Photography
    Photos
    Podcasts
    Poetry
    Policy
    Politics
    Pop Culture
    Puppets
    Quirks
    Rants
    Recording
    Reflections
    Relationships
    Religion
    Reviews
    Rhodes
    Ruins
    Running
    Science
    Self Help
    Selfies
    Serendipity
    Sexuality
    Shakespeare
    Short Films
    Skeptihumanism
    Social Media
    Songwriting
    Spirituality
    Stage
    Stories
    Studio Recordings
    Subcultures
    Teaching
    Technology
    Theatre
    Travel
    University
    Updates
    Urban Life
    Video
    Visual
    Wildlife
    Workshops
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Contact Jeffrey

Photos used under Creative Commons from Brett Jordan, b r e n t
  • EPK
  • Blog: ideas and updates.
  • Music services.
    • Live.
    • Video.
  • Photography services.
  • EPK Spark