I Don't Sing in Church

 

Stewardship Committee,

      I heard you were looking for nice stories or thoughts about stewardship. I am sorry this isn’t one of them.

 

 

 I Don’t Sing in Church     

    
     I joined a church here about fifteen years ago. I joined it to bring an understanding of God and religion to my children and meet a larger circle of people who might be friends.  I was a grower of flowers. I grew the very best flowers ever seen here. I wanted to put a couple of hanging baskets of white flowering begonias on the flower stands near the alter, to celebrate my wife and my wedding anniversary. I was told that my flowers weren’t protocol. The Church uses only flowers from a certain florist. The Pastor being sympathetic to our family and bought our flowers. He didn’t need to. My flowers would never enter the church building.

 

     The Pastor needed a planting done for the bell tower courtyard. No one wanted to do it for years, until I came along. I designed a garden that from the air was the shape of a bell.  It had a central lawn surrounded by flowering perennials and benches. The garden would look out toward lake. I wasn’t long before the criticism began. People who did nothing for the church were the first to complain. Every Sunday when I attended church, persons posing as church elders would make it their point to tell me about what a bad idea this planting was. An interesting note: two other church members helped me with installing the benches. One of the members operated the bobcat that broke one of the bench’s legs. That man sat down, and bawled his eyes out. He thought that the church membership would look at him with disdain. Both of these members had since moved away. If you look hard enough, you will find that one bench. I told them to repaired it with cement and say nothing.

 

     The Pastor invited me to sit on the church council. Mainly because then Pastor had trouble filling it. People would argue about any small matter that would mean nothing. I would wait until everyone else spoke before I would give my comment. Very few members on the council liked my Liberal thinking. I was the only one to challenged their money making scheme. I thought it was improper for a church to use the funds from the profits of a cigarette maker.

 

     The council had many problems with lawn maintenance. I suggested many things, and council members were horrified by the suggestions. At the time, I had over twenty years of horticulture experience. “We never did that before, and no one would agree to do that,” was the other council members’ motto. A Philosophy that I coined as “Manitowoc Disease.” A philosophy that was prevalent not only at church, but also at work and in town, I found out later that that philosophy is prevalent all over this state.

 

     On lawn care, I told them that they could save about 20 to 25 per cent per year in time and energies. After four years, I was not invited back.

 

     A man, in whom I had much respect for, was quitting teaching the 7, 8, and 9 grade Sunday School. Students were not showing up. In my mind, it wasn’t hard to understand what chased the students away. The middle-school students were being treated like second graders. I proposed a new method of teaching Sunday School. The Pastor loved it. I taught real life, and how the students might deal with it. I had above average attendance.  The people in charge of the Sunday School Program didn’t like it. I was told that I had a complain against me and yelled that fact down the hallways for any to hear. It sounded like an alarm about child molestation, but it wasn’t. I should have quit the whole church right then and there. They were complaining that the teaching of cars had nothing to do about God’s law. This was at a time when scores of young people were dying in auto accidents. I taught for only one year. One bright moment though, a wife of an inter pastor thought I taught the Gospel without mentioning the Gospel, a better strategy for older students.

    

     The Pastor was leaving, and the church needed a group of people to help find a replacement. I volunteered for that, only to find out that some in the group hated anything I believed. We picked a new Pastor. There were people in church who will walk by me and not talk or look at me just because of that. I was wondering why I bothered staying there.

 

     The last thing I was participated in Church was a committee about allowing Gays and Lesbians to be married in Church and to be ordain as ministers. I wanted to see how other people react to this divisive issue. At the time, I was writing a book that had this issue in it. In our several week meeting, some members voiced support for the idea. But the majority members wrapped themselves in the American flag and antiquated Old Testament Laws. I wrote a resolution to the issue in my novel, believable but not in our society.

 

     They say that people come to church to find God. I go to church to find God in people and am disappointed. I don’t need a church to find God. God is everywhere if you know where you are. I believe that God is merciful to all, and there is a before this life and an after this life. Faith is simple and personal.

 

     Our new Pastor is nice enough guy. He tries hard to keep everyone pleased. He asked me once why don’t sing for the choir, they need more male voices. That’s the one thing, I know that I don’t do well. I told him that I don’t sing in church.

 

     Why don’t I just quit? Maybe I will. I wrote parts of this in an on going journal to memorialize ideas and thoughts. Would this article be useful to you or will you blame the messenger? 

 

This is not the 95 Thesis.

Just the experience of a single soul.

Your decision: learn from the mistakes of the past or

recycle said paper.