Wonderstuff: Three Short Tales of Consternation

It has been a long, long time since I have posted. Rest assured, faithful readers (all three of you), I am not giving up on the activity of blogging. On the contrary, here on this blog is where I find the freedom to express, even if just to myself, the deepest wonderings of my mind. Unfortunately, the frequent movement and relocation in my life of late has made it nearly impossible to sit down and do just that, express. Thankfully, I sit now in a coffee shop in West Houston, with simply a few moments to sit, think, and share but a few glimpses of my life over the past few months, and the ponderings that such experiences summon forth.
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Consternation #1: The Job Search

Simply stated, it has not gone well. I struggle to find the place, but have been afforded fewer interviews than fingers on my right hand. Such failure dredges up a desire in me to want to react against the American church, Baptists and other specific denominations, and Truett Seminary itself. Many churches that I feel very qualified for reject me without so much as a phone call or a questionairre via e-mail, leaving me to wonder if it is because I am affiliated with Truett and the CBF, or because I am not yet ordained (though I hope to be eventually, when I find the right community in which to undergo the process). Other churches flatly turn me down for even an initial interview based on the flimsy excuse that I have no larger church experience. When I inquire how one obtains larger church experience, they all say I must work on a larger church staff. They have no real answer to my subsequent question: how do I work on a larger church staff when no larger church staff will hire me because I have not yet worked on a larger church staff?

I have fallen into some brief spells of depression, anger, and tearful sorrow, as it seems the search is wearing very thin, time is running out, and it appears I may have to do the one thing I do not want to do - teach high school. But I always assumed there would be a church, there would be a position. I suppose there is still much naivity in me.

Some people incredulously rebuke me for my frustration because they say I am not being open to God's leading. They tell me that looking only in the greater Houston area is limiting God's providence. I am not sure how I feel about that. I believe that God has led me to Leigh, the love of my life, and that he has a plan for me in the Houston area. Calvinism and Armenianism notwithstanding, I don't believe I can thwart the plans of God. However, my present circumstances seem more in favor of those who tell me that I can.

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Consternation #2: Negative, Cynical Me

I am a cynical person. I do not blame Truett for making me this, but I do recognize that it was not until I came through seminary that I began examining the Church in a much more serious, careful light. This has caused me to reject a lot of shallowness that I see in the Church, especially in evangelical circles, specifically in the area of worship. I can become very negative about some churches and their services, but I am even more negative toward myself. I hate how cynical I am, and how much humility I lack.

This past Sunday, I attended Grace Bible Church in Houston with Leigh and her sister. This is a two-year old church that presently gathers in a large movie theater downtown (a stone's throw from Lakewood); it is an "off-shoot" of Second Baptist Church in Houston. I could not worship in this place ... and I promise that I tried. I simply could not. All the songs were led by a band in typical (almost "traditional" these days) praise and worship style. All the songs were popular ones: God of Wonders, Here is Our King, Beautiful One, King Eternal, Unchanging, etc. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with these songs. In fact, they are all good, and I have sung whole-heartedly to each one in the past, but when they are played the exact same way, back to back to back, and separated by quick prayers (all similar), a quick offering and then a sermon (another long one, timing out at around 40 minutes, which is better than last Tuesday's Austin Metro service, where the speaker preached five sermons in one over the course of an hour and fifteen minutes), forgive me, but I think something is missing.
Is this the future of the American evangelical church? Have we shredded eras of worship heritage, and created a much more succinct patchwork of liturgy, free of anything resembling ritual, meditation, beauty? As I said to Leigh, "I need more." I do not want to change Grace Bible Church, but I certainly would not want to worship there. For some people, P&W songs and a long, conversational sermon is all they need. For some people, that is worship. Not for me. I must have more.

There is no right way.

And one of the curses of going to seminary is that, whenever you share your opinion on such things, you are immediately (if not before the question) seen as either a snob or a cynical jerk. "Oh, you just say that because you went to seminary and you think you know everything about how it should be." I thought studying such things in seminary would help me speak to the condition of the church, but, ironically, because I studied such things my opinion is not desired. We fear change, I suppose. I fear change.

The long and the short of it is, I am wrong. I am cynical. I am not humble. Grace Bible Church is more right than I am. But even this understanding does not help the restlessness I feel with the present state of worship in the modern Church, and it doesn't keep me from despising myself for my attitude.

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Consternation #3: The Subtle Drift

Last night, Leigh, her sister, and I went to see Superman Returns (see farther below on sidebar for my grade). At one point, Lois (Kate Bosworth) and the Man of Steel (Brandon Routh) lift off into the sky on a romantic flight high over Metropolis. It is a tender moment, and whether or not it is a bit boring to watch means nothing regarding this observation. Lois, remembering her earlier days of gliding through the atmosphere with Superman, remarks as she draws closer to him, "I forgot how warm you are."

Almost the entire audience snickered. It was a suppressed, devious laugh exactly like the way one laughs at a sexual innuendo or misspoken euphemism. Granted, the line can indeed be taken two ways, but why does every one these days take the statement as "dirty." Why do our minds immediately call up something "naughty" rather than the memory of a comfortable, warm embrace. I believe that is what the line was originally meant to accomplish. I guess it should have been placed in a movie twenty years ago or so. Such a line is only crass comedy today, amidst America's subtle drift into perversion. Hmm, I sound like a fundamentalist ... Maybe I am.

But, if so, why aren't more churches interested in hiring me?

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Images From the Last Two Months