Crotchety Before My Time

So I've been sort of crotchety about church and churches lately, and the service I went to this Sunday didn't help. I went to a reformed church, Church of the Chimes. The real preacher, Dwight wasn't there, but instead there was this guy from a new church called the Mall Church. The idea is that they're planting this new church in a mall...The mall church has been started by another church here, The Journey. So the idea for the Mall Church, according to the guy who talked about it, is that it'll be where the people are...and that it's where Jesus would've been.

When he first started talking I was very annoyed. For one thing, he started talking about "someone who was looking for Jesus," and he did this audience participation thing where he had a 12ish year old girl get on her dad's shoulders. At that point I knew it would be Zaccheus. And somehow, I feel like I've heard 4 or 5 sermons on Zaccheus this year, and I was just not looking forward to it. The sermon turned out to be okay, but the whole idea of the Mall Church grates on me somehow. Partly, his sermon was about "who are you" in the Zaccheus story. Basically, you're either Zaccheus (feeling judged by the people), Jesus (um, yeah, not us), or the pharisees and tax collectors (the judgers).

I just totally reject that--that everyone in the church, and all churches, are judgemental of those not in the church. And this seems to be a fundamental belief of most of the emergent churches, although that group is somewhat nebulous too.

At the root, I can't yet articulate what really bothers me about these new churches, but I can articulate some of the details. First, I think it's sad and wrong that whole generations of Christians will grow up never having heard the hymns and creeds that have been part of church life for hundreds of years. It's like they're denying the church through history.

These next two maybe go together: First, it seems as though many of the emergent churches are just not as deep in their theology as many traditional churches. Second, the fact that pastors are always joking and making lighthearted comments on the Bible seems in some ways like an apology. Like they don't want to handle truth in its real forms, so they make jokes and it irritates me.

To be a little balanced, I do appreciate churches that try to be both relevant and rooted in tradition. I've really enjoyed services at Vintage Faith in Santa Cruz. But yet, it feels like something's missing. I guess until I can really express what that is, I'll just have to go on being crotchety about it.