Women and the Church and Me

So I've been having some thoughts. I'm currently without church. I'm significantly more worried about this than most of my friends, who I tell this to and they immediately say, but you've got so much church around you all the time. Which is true. I am not without friends, support, etc. If I tried to become a monk or a Buddhist, no doubt there would be a line at my front door. It seems as though as much as I try, my church comes to me, not the other way around.

Therefore, since I am without church, I'm on a quest looking for church. I've tried many. But mostly I run into some main problems. One, women are not allowed to teach. (Hence, they probably won't be psyched that I'm going to seminary or psyched to help me grow into pastoring.) Two, they have some crazy beliefs. Like they think God wants us to be rich. Or they think women should read books like: "Biblical Womanhood In the Home." Hm, that's not very subtle. Are you sensing a theme here? I'm not sure what to do.

Was RockHarbor okay with women pastoring? I think so. And for some ways that they stuck to conservative interpretations on things like communion, that's a little hermeneutical leap they took on women. What with us being half the human race, I'm glad they jumped. A happy leap for me. But alas, I'm looking for some churches around here that will take the leap. And I'm afraid all I'll find is ones where I'm shamed for taking up a perfectly good spot a man could have in seminary. Boo.

Body by Jake or Body by God?

So today I stopped into my local Borders to find some new reading. I picked up three books from the fiction table and then wandered over to my favorite place in any big-box bookstore. The Christian Living/Religion/Christian Inspiration section. I paged through Jesus of Suburbia by Mike Erre before this title caught my eye: Body by God. I kid you not, it's the EXACT same cover as Body for Life (in case you don't know, it was a hit diet/exercise book circa 2003-2004. I only know because my roommate at the time bought it and it was always lying around. I think the big draw was something about 4-minute workouts.) Anyway, it's distinctive (ahem, rip-off) cover caught my attention, so I flipped over to the back and received this little gem:

"Your body is by God. God preprogrammed you to look great, have outrageous health and experience incredible happiness."

Seriously? Because I've actually read the Bible and I was immediately reminded of a couple of key verses from that important Book, such as:

He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. - Isaiah 53:2 (NIV)
(And that's the big J, JESUS we're talking about here, folks. Not just some hack like you or me. He was seriously not AT ALL good-looking, and definitely NOT preprogrammed to look great.)

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." -Exodus 20:4 (NIV)

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. -2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)

And although I know Jesus was resigned to going to the Cross for us, I don't think he would have gone so far as describing it as "incredible happiness."

Yeah, I was just pretty much floored. Because Mike Erre was right in his book, most people have apparently never actually read the Gospels...not only that, but I also enjoyed these other gems:

Stress Management - If you are stressed, it's hard to manage, but "Peace by God" is something you can experience by reprogramming the way you look at, and react to, the stress in your life.

(Last time I checked, I didn't see anything about "reprogramming" myself in that chapter about the peace that passes all understanding. I think it just said to pray and give God all my worries.)

Time Management - Double and even quadruple the amount of time you have in a week (it's a MIRACLE!!! Somebody call St. Thomas!) by learning how to "Schedule your life" (wow, did we really need air quotes for that? I think the term schedule your life is fairly ordinary these days) and how you can "Paint solid yellow lines around Time by God." (italics and bold sic)

Wow, I think God will really appreciate us painting those fierce yellow lines around "His" time. I don't know about you, but I drive over those yellow lines on the freeway on pretty much a weekly basis...oops, m-my bad.

You know I have been accused of being a mocker when it comes to cheesy Christian paraphernalia and cheesy Christian culture, and I am trying to love my brothers and sisters despite their penchant for stamping things with fishes, but some things are just screaming out to be mocked...

the family of GOD

I need a family that loves God. If there was one thing I could rewind my life and ask God for before I was born into this world, I would have asked for a family that loved God. That's it. Because I don't have one. And everyday I wake up and I still don't have one. And that means that I think of my spiritual family really as my family, except most of them have these great families (even when they're not even Christian families, sometimes) that they go home to after church and forget about me. But I don't forget about them. I am constantly thinking about them and needing relationship with them. But that's just not realistic to them, even though it is to me. And in that place of wanting it to be realistic, I feel very needy. I don't want to be this needy, but I just am. I need people behind and before me who love God, who hear Him and talk to Him and talk to me about Him. It's necessary to me like breathing. When I don't have it, I start to drown. It's not just that my family doesn't love God, it's that they hate Him. They hate everything about Him and they hate hearing about Him and they hate talking about Him and they hate people who love Him and they hate people who love talking about Him.

Tonight at Rockharbor, God spoke loudly to me. As we sang in response to the message, I couldn't hear the instruments anymore. All I could hear was the sound of all the voices as one, singing to God. And God said so loudly to me, This is the music of heaven for you. When you feel like you are all alone in choosing me, listen to the armies of heaven singing in unison; you have chosen what is better. Listen to the people of the church singing all together. They all know me. They all love me. You won't be alone in heaven.

I have given up a lot to love Jesus. I always say if I had known how hard it would be, I never would have become a Christian. If I had known the trouble I would see, I would have picked another religion. The person of Jesus is dangerous. But I can't deny the truth. When someone asked me, Do you believe this? I said Yes. It just made sense. I can't deny the truth; to do so would be to deny my own existence, my own destiny.