The Hunt Begins

Last Sunday we started the hunt for a new church in our new city, Saint Paul. Actually, I had been doing a bit of research prior, but last Sunday was the first time we physically went to check things out. In Hobart we were part of an excellent Presbyterian Church, with great teaching, approachable teachers, a welcoming community, an earnest concern for the people of Hobart and an enthusiasm for the things of God. I don't like to define individual Churches by the denomination they belong to, because I know each Church will have it's individual quirks, strengths, weaknesses, flaws, emphases and foci. And I knew that American Churches would be vastly different to Aussie Churches. So we were willing to give most churches a chance, provided they had no obvious contradictions with the Bible.

We decided to visit a Lutheran Church, close to our new apartment. I've not had much to do with Lutherans before, but Martin Luther was pretty awesome, so we were happy to give it a go. That was a mistake. We arrived on time, perhaps slightly early, but as we entered the building, the 'welcomers' moved rapidly from the foyer into the main building, as if they had just remembered something important they had to do. They eventually gave us a bulletin, but there was no recognition that we were new, no directions on where we could hang our heavy Minnesotan coats, no offers to introduce us to a regular. Nothing. Just a bulletin. And it must have been fairly obvious we were new, because there were only about 40 people there.

But we stayed anyway. We reasoned that just because they weren't very good at welcoming, doesn't mean their not good people; it doesn't mean that this is a bad Church. We took seats towards the back. After the opening preamble, the band struck up, and the singing was OK; a bit too 'Hillsongy' for my taste, but not all bad. The weird and annoying thing was that the songs all ended rather abruptly, leaving a newcomer wondering if something had gone wrong and if there was to be another verse.

Nevertheless, we persevered. Then came the preaching. The passage was John 12:1-11, where Mary anoints Jesus with expensive perfume. The preacher's main point was something about extravagance. God's extravagant love for us or something, which is quite a poor exegesis of this passage. At one point she was asking the rhetorical question, why did Mary do this? Why did Mary pour perfume on Jesus feet and then wipe them with her hair? She offered up several possibilities (none of which were taken from the text) and then concluded that 'we don't really know why she did this'. But if this preacher had actually bothered to read the passage carefully, she would know that Mary did this to anoint Jesus for his burial (v7). It would have been really helpful to everyone, including me, if she had noted this and then unpacked what it actually means, instead of focusing exclusively on her chosen them: the extravagance of God's love. God's love is extravagant, but I don't think it''s a prominent theme in this passage.

We'd heard enough, and we left before the end of the service.

I know not all Lutherans Churches are like this. Surely they can't be. And I know there must be some good Churches in America. But this one wasn't one of them.

However, I think I now understand a little better  how difficult it is for new people to come to a church meeting. If it was difficult and weird for us, how much more for a non-Christian! It's so different from everything else we do in life and we as Christians should bend over backwards to make it easier for the newbies.