I'll Tell Ya' Honey...
El Paso Church #1: Strike 1
And so commences El Paso Church Hunt 2010.
I've been trying to get out to church for the last 3 Sundays. The first Sunday I woke up and didn't want to go. I'd just finished moving and was exhausted so I went back to bed. My fault, I know.
Last weekend, I got up, got ready, drove around for about an hour and crossed state lines again before giving up. The directions I had were technically correct, but I had to look at a map to realize I needed to take the I-10 frontage road. So I didn't go last week either.
But I had done some more driving around El Paso and had drove myself over to the church so I would know where it was so I could actually go today. From the outside it looks kind of like a "super church" but I've been to those before and I like to keep an open mind about a new place. I never expect to find a church that has everything I like or believe exactly what I believe, especially since I have such radical ideas about certain things. I got there right on time, took my seat in the back, near the door (in case I needed to make a quick exit) and began reading the program.
The worship starts up and a woman's leading; she kept going sharp or sliding up to every note, little things that drive me and my years of training insane. But it's really not a huge deal and worship varies week to week so I was thinking I'd give it another chance. I got a laugh out of a lady who came in late and pulled a tambourine out of her bag to play along. I had a flashback to when my family first moved to Phoenix and we went to a church where half way through the service almost the entire congregation pulled instruments out from under their seats and got up and started marching around the room. Good times.
Then a man got up to do prayer, but the worship lady wasn't finished singing yet and I started to laugh because he had started to talk and she launched into another chorus. Awesome. But he finally got his chance and he started to pray. And he kept going. Kept...praying. Finally he said "amen" and followed it with a "oh, we're not done praying yet!" And he told a story about something and then started to pray again. And kept going. And then he was finished, again, and again said, "oh, we're not done praying yet!" COME ON! I love to talk to God too, but wow! It was the kind of prayers that allowed him to pray over whatever he could think of at the time, like he'd start praying because a family just found out their 10-year old has cancer and ended with "God bless all the ants in the anthills." All I could think, which is horrible I know, was please don't be the pastor.
But alas.
So the service itself started at 11. By the time the 4 song worship, prayer, and video announcements were finished it was 11:50. I don't mind services that last, I love being in church but I wasn't loving this one so I was ready to be done. But I also believe in practicing patience and that I can learn from anyone so I stuck it out.
The pastor is a man who's about 90 years old and he's got a solid Southern accent and says things like, "if you get mad and you curse a blue streak..." and "I'll tell ya honey..." to the whole congregation and when he gets all riled up about his point he turns into what I imagine Richard Nixon would be if he had been a pastor.
Unfortunately, one of the members of the church had died on Thursday while working in the church's food pantry, but fortunately for us this pastor knew how it happened and was able to give us a play by play of this poor guy's massive heart attack. And during his amazingly disjointed sermon he made the statement I hate to hear from the church in that people who die young, who are struck by illnesses (including, I would imagine, sudden heart attacks) didn't have enough faith or were living their lives in a way God saw as unfit. I have never and will never believe that. There are plenty of good people who are sick or die young and there are a lot of unpleasant old people (all joking aside it's a B.S. way to coerce people to behave). And while I've heard it at almost every church I've ever been to, in one form or another, it was the nail in the coffin of this church and my search will continue.
I couldn't stick around for, what I can only assume was, a 2 hour altar call. As I was leaving, the pastor asked for no one to leave so we could all pray in the new believers but I couldn't do it. The worship lady was back, singing behind the pastor who was still speaking (???) and after having experience prayer hour, I was done.
It was great to be back in church since it's been ages since I've gone, but I will be marking this one off the list of potential church homes. It's tricky because I want a place with a college and career group, not Catholic, in English; harder to come by on the border of Mexico than you'd think.
But God is faithful. He has a spot for me and I'll get there. Maybe next week...
And so commences El Paso Church Hunt 2010.
I've been trying to get out to church for the last 3 Sundays. The first Sunday I woke up and didn't want to go. I'd just finished moving and was exhausted so I went back to bed. My fault, I know.
Last weekend, I got up, got ready, drove around for about an hour and crossed state lines again before giving up. The directions I had were technically correct, but I had to look at a map to realize I needed to take the I-10 frontage road. So I didn't go last week either.
But I had done some more driving around El Paso and had drove myself over to the church so I would know where it was so I could actually go today. From the outside it looks kind of like a "super church" but I've been to those before and I like to keep an open mind about a new place. I never expect to find a church that has everything I like or believe exactly what I believe, especially since I have such radical ideas about certain things. I got there right on time, took my seat in the back, near the door (in case I needed to make a quick exit) and began reading the program.
The worship starts up and a woman's leading; she kept going sharp or sliding up to every note, little things that drive me and my years of training insane. But it's really not a huge deal and worship varies week to week so I was thinking I'd give it another chance. I got a laugh out of a lady who came in late and pulled a tambourine out of her bag to play along. I had a flashback to when my family first moved to Phoenix and we went to a church where half way through the service almost the entire congregation pulled instruments out from under their seats and got up and started marching around the room. Good times.
Then a man got up to do prayer, but the worship lady wasn't finished singing yet and I started to laugh because he had started to talk and she launched into another chorus. Awesome. But he finally got his chance and he started to pray. And he kept going. Kept...praying. Finally he said "amen" and followed it with a "oh, we're not done praying yet!" And he told a story about something and then started to pray again. And kept going. And then he was finished, again, and again said, "oh, we're not done praying yet!" COME ON! I love to talk to God too, but wow! It was the kind of prayers that allowed him to pray over whatever he could think of at the time, like he'd start praying because a family just found out their 10-year old has cancer and ended with "God bless all the ants in the anthills." All I could think, which is horrible I know, was please don't be the pastor.
But alas.
So the service itself started at 11. By the time the 4 song worship, prayer, and video announcements were finished it was 11:50. I don't mind services that last, I love being in church but I wasn't loving this one so I was ready to be done. But I also believe in practicing patience and that I can learn from anyone so I stuck it out.
The pastor is a man who's about 90 years old and he's got a solid Southern accent and says things like, "if you get mad and you curse a blue streak..." and "I'll tell ya honey..." to the whole congregation and when he gets all riled up about his point he turns into what I imagine Richard Nixon would be if he had been a pastor.
Unfortunately, one of the members of the church had died on Thursday while working in the church's food pantry, but fortunately for us this pastor knew how it happened and was able to give us a play by play of this poor guy's massive heart attack. And during his amazingly disjointed sermon he made the statement I hate to hear from the church in that people who die young, who are struck by illnesses (including, I would imagine, sudden heart attacks) didn't have enough faith or were living their lives in a way God saw as unfit. I have never and will never believe that. There are plenty of good people who are sick or die young and there are a lot of unpleasant old people (all joking aside it's a B.S. way to coerce people to behave). And while I've heard it at almost every church I've ever been to, in one form or another, it was the nail in the coffin of this church and my search will continue.
I couldn't stick around for, what I can only assume was, a 2 hour altar call. As I was leaving, the pastor asked for no one to leave so we could all pray in the new believers but I couldn't do it. The worship lady was back, singing behind the pastor who was still speaking (???) and after having experience prayer hour, I was done.
It was great to be back in church since it's been ages since I've gone, but I will be marking this one off the list of potential church homes. It's tricky because I want a place with a college and career group, not Catholic, in English; harder to come by on the border of Mexico than you'd think.
But God is faithful. He has a spot for me and I'll get there. Maybe next week...
I'm sure there's an LDS ward you could go to! There's even an LDS institute at UTEP! Just putting it out there.
ReplyDeleteI know I've seen it, it's right at the entrance to the campus. I'm thinking I might just go on a religions of the world tour and try every church in El Paso so I'll keep the Mormons on my list :)
ReplyDelete