This is how it went down.

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

I decided recently that I need more friends. Now, maybe this sounds like some latent desire that everyone probably has or is at least open to, but for me this represents a significant sea change. After graduating from college, I had a lot of friends that dispersed, and of course I missed them, but for the most part, I was content because it took so much time staying in touch with everyone through phone calls, facebook, cards, and e-mails, that my schedule felt full. But then, I was living in Houston and making no friends there and it hit me, one night, that you can have friends that you love all over the globe, but if you have no one to go see a movie with, it's no good.

Flash forward to Buffalo, where friends abound! to the point that I am again not in the market, and am, in fact, making friends against my will. But, for the most part, these are tango friends, work friends, theatre friends, or coffee date friends. They are glorious, remarkable human beings, and I feel delighted to have the opportunity to get to know them, but. They are all older than me, and busy with careers and weddings and familys and not the kind of folks you can call up out of the blue on a Saturday night. Combine that with the fact that some of my own friends, my bedrock buds, the people that I would call up on a Saturday night and drink with and dance with and most certainly take to the movies, are moving away from Buffalo. It's surprising what even a small reduction does to your sense of community. You go from feeling established with an embarrassment of riches to feeling shaky, unstable, and wondering.

The thing that one finds in post-college life, or at least that I've found, is that you don't just stumble upon interesting, intelligent, engaging people under every rock. There used to be so many of them! Where did they go!?! Rather than spend thousands of dollars on a grad school education that I don't really want, I've decided to turn to another social hub: churches. Yes, I go to a Lutheran church, which I am actually quite fond of, but there are no, and I mean NO young people there. There are probably less than 10 people who regularly attend church and are under the age of 35. So, I'm...gulp...church shopping. I hate it, but what's a girl to do? All of a sudden I have a very different set of criteria for what I am looking for in a church, and it's a short list, sadly enough. I think it's worth it to make a switch. I think it is.

I started a couple weeks ago by investigating a church which...shall remain nameless. Suffice it to say, it's the urban outreach of a very large, suburban church, held in what looks like the shell of an old, unhip church that probably ran out of money and went under a while ago. I walked in on Sunday morning and was stopped just inside the door by someone asking me, "Are you new?" I admitted, with hesitation, that I was, and was taken over to the new people table, where I was informed that, "if I filled out a visitor's card, I would get to take home my choice of book and a prize." Feeling like I was playing a carnival game instead of attending church, I reluctantly put down my contact information and was given the choice of blah blah blah, by Max Lucado, something or other Every Man's Battle, blah Book Cover Showing Woman With Arms Flung Wide in Field. Realizing that I cared very little about my choice, I just grabbed a book and my charming little giftbag and moved on.

I was ushered to a seat at one of the church's many round, cafeteria style tables, where people were sitting in groups. At my table was an older couple, an older woman holding somebody else's baby, and a woman who looked like she was in her mid-thirties, alone. I had missed what was probably the bulk of the worship and we seemed to be in the midst of announcements? The pastor told us, "We know that God doesn't sleep, but, if he did, what would be the last thing he thinks about before going to be? Also, when he wakes up, although we know from the Scripture that he doesn't wake up because he doesn't sleep, but if he did, what would be the first thing he would think about when he woke up? Discuss it right now, at your tables." What followed was a very awkward 40 seconds where we looked around at each other nervously until the pastor interrupted and said, "Now what were your answers, shout them out," which was responded to with cries of "Love," "Us," and "Salvation."

"Those are all good answers," the pastor said. He went on, but I drifted away, lost in trying to figure out what was going on (was this the sermon? why was the worship band just standing around and waiting?) The next group activity we were asked to do was for us all to share a "win" from the week, some thing that we had done that was uniquely great because we were Christian. "I got a hug from a woman because I tied her shoe for her when her hands were full," said the woman with the borrowed baby. We talked about this and about the school that she worked at and how many days left till summer break for another thirty seconds till the pastor interrupted again. Then we were all supposed to pray together, outloud, at our tables. I felt uncomfortable.

After that, they played what must have been the final song in their worship set. It was something someone at the church had written, I think, I had never heard it before. It made full use of the stage full of electric guitars and drums. The stage itself looked like what would be the set if they turned Les Mis into a rock opera. There were two makeshift altars on either side of the church, festooned with candles. One said "Love" and the other said "Home," both in old, rusty letters. The powerpoint slide backgrounds were animated. I had a hard time focusing.

After the song, we all settled in for the sermon. It was purportedly about singleness, but instead the majority of the time was spent talking about how to date God's way. Not too much physical contact right up front. Don't start talking about "the m word" (marriage) too soon. Guard your heart. Etc. When the sermon was over and we said the final prayer, I slipped out the back.

The upside? There were tons of young people.

Is this what it's come to? That in order to go to a church with other twenty-somethings they have to be, candle-lighting, incense smoking, song-writing, take-communion-anytime-you-feel-led, emergent flaky people? That is a soap box I could speak from for days, but I won't. Suffice it to say, I don't know that I would go back there. It felt so uncomfortable on so many different levels. I...feel defeated. But! I can't give up after just one church! So, stay tuned for the ongoing adventures of...The Church Chronicles!

(yeesh. wish me luck.)
S.