photo courtesy of here. not actually a picture of the place i am talking about...So, there I was. Well, if you don't know why I was there, read the post before the last one. If you don't know where I was, the answer was...another anonymous church. I don't want to be traced. They advertised a "Single Adults Ministry" that met on Thursday nights. It sounded interesting, so I decided to check it out. Let's start by saying that this church was out in the middle of East Bumblyberg, by which I mean the sticks, the boonies, the middle of the proverbial Nowhere. It took a solid half hour of driving from my house to make it out there, not a point in its favor. But once I saw the place, I understood why. They needed the room. A sprawling sea of asphalt surrounded a building as large as...time out for a second. I have no spatial reasoning skills. I could not even slightly guess at the actual square footage of this thing. And, in metaphorical terms, I tend to exaggerate (It was as large as four football fields, end to end!). I cannot give you a comparable estimate. Suffice it to say, it was a very, very, very large church. That large church you have in your mind now? No, bigger.
So, I pulled into the enormous parking lot, and drove a good 40 seconds before I was on the side of the church where all the other cars were parked, which I presumed to be the entrance. I saw a number of older adult women as I pulled through the lot, maybe 40 or 50, heading for the church, giving me funny looks. I assumed they had an aversion to Patsy Cline, who was crooning through my speakers at the time, and decided not to hold it against them and move on. I parked, walked in, successfully maneuvered away from the welcome table, made my way through the inevitable in-church Starbucks doppelganger, and walked into the doors of the worship space.
Right off the bat, MORE ROUND TABLES! Okay, timeout again for a second here. I realize that you want to be hip, emergent, and "build community." But I am a first time guest, I am your Holy Grail, your Golden Haired Woman, your Maltese Falcon. I am who you're trying to build community with. And let me tell you, I am deeply turned off by round tables. This is a CHURCH! I want to sit in a ROW, a PEW, or some other in-straight-lines configuration that doesn't launch me into the most uncomfortable part of the experience (making-eye-contact-and-small-talk) right off the bat. PLEASE!
Ahem. Moving on. I walk in the door and there is the inevitable Hillsong worship, projected on the inevitable dizzying powerpoint projecter, with the inevitable gotee-ed pastor and...What image does "single adults ministry" of a large, suburban church conjure up for you? Go ahead. Ponder a moment. Let me tell you what struck mine eye as soon as I walked through the door. ALL OLD PEOPLE! Like, there was one person in the entire room that was under the age of 40, and he was running the sound board. This was just so far from my wildest imaginings of what I would face. This was the whole point of me moving away from my much enjoyed Lutheran church. Have we already talked about how I have nothing against old people, I just have a surfeit of them in my life at the moment and no new friends my own age! And then, to come to the "Single Adults Ministry" and find that, you know, I don't feel I was misled. These were probably single adults. I just couldn't believe that, in the whole group, which I spent time surveying from the back of the room, I couldn't find a single other person in their 20s. Am I the only 20 something in Buffalo, for crying out loud!!!!
And, then I left. Yes, that's right, did not stay for the rest of the worship time, did not stay for the message, just turned around, visited the ladies room as a diversion, and then left through a different set of doors than the ones I came in (there were many). It was, to be sure, a great defeat. Although, I have said consolingly to myself, I don't know that I could have ever seriously considered a church with such a large parking lot. I have currently retired to lick my wounds for a while and look for new leads on young churches. A couple are forthcoming. We'll see what happens next in The Church Chronicles!!! (Bum bum baaaaaaah!! Echoey voice, animated graphic of two giant stone doors slamming shut, with THE CHURCH CHRONICLES engraved on the outside. This is my tv show. Didn't you know that?)
Until next time,
S.
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