Our Non-External Participation, Don’t Take it Personally
You may have noticed, at the church you attend, there are a group of
young folks who probably sit at the back of your assembly, or
sanctuary, or whatever the case may be, and they don’t look impressed
by what is transpiring. The size of this group may vary from church to
church, but most sunday groupings have such a clan.
At
my church we sit in the back left hand corner and we cross our arms,
and wear dark clothing, and we might not stand up during the worship
music. You may have asked yourselves why we even show up, if we are
just going to insist on being so very disenfranchised. In fact, if we
were bold enough to have a chant, it might be: "We’re here, we’re
extremely cynical, get used to it!" Forgive my presumption as I attempt
you give some answers for this.
For a vast myriad of reasons we’ve become jaded. Some have been wounded
by the church, others have rebelled against what they’ve perceived to
be a hypocritical institution, still others have listened to too much
angst-ridden music. Despite all of this and more, small handfuls of us
still show up at your congregations and try to be as invisible as
possible.
We want something, and in some cases our notion of what that something is may be quite vague.
We may appear childish in our list of unspoken demands; to feel
welcomed without necessarily having to engage in conversation (Don’t
take it personally), to feel like a part of the church family without
getting bogged down by traps, like committing to help out in some
fashion (Don’t take it personally), and to be able to sit quietly at
the back, as far away from the Holy rations as possible. We think we
want to consume what’s being offered, but we’re paranoid that it could
be poisonous (Don’t take it personally).
However, we’ve made the huge effort to show up (and I’m not kidding, it
is a huge effort), and despite all of our fears we desire the
intangible, we want to taste of the Lord and see that He is good. A
glimmer of hope remains in our greenish jaded pupils, that God is who
you’ve been telling us He is, that the church is a loving community,
that we will be healed of our sicknesses, most often of the soul. That
the sun will come up again tomorrow and change this dark world into a
bright and beautiful place.
We have one more demand: be patient with us. We may never end up
looking the way you look, or worshipping God the way you worship Him,
but maybe we will still manage to please Him.
So if you’ve read this article and you see me walk into your church, please don’t nod at me knowingly, just smile, and maybe I’ll eventually come over and shake your hand.