Ponderings

As the mainline church struggles to be relevant in a post modern world, one of the challenges has been how to incorporate previously unchurched people into a church routine. Each Sunday for years I began the Lord’s Prayer by saying, “we pray the prayer we learned as children”. That’s a great phrase except that many of us did not learn this prayer, or any prayer, as children. One elder asked me why we don’t say the Apostle’s Creed in worship anymore and I was stumped; I honestly didn’t know that we ever did. I was one of those kids who was in college before I even heard the term “Maundy Thursday” - and much later until I understood it! (Ok, I’m still working on understanding). For most of our denomination’s history the majority of church members had been reared in the faith, raised with one of two common hymnals, learning the language of confirmation long before adulthood. Although there have always been some adoptions along the way, folks like myself (that grew up in homes where Sunday was a day to work in the yard), we were the minority. And usually before the adoption- into-church was final we had figured out how to ‘pass’. But something is shifting in our church and in many UCC churches which is at once both an incredible joy and a puzzle. More and more our church backgrounds (or lack there of) are diverse. Maybe this is a result of the successful Still Speaking initiative? Or poor Sponge Bob’s character assassination which allowed us to share our vision of inclusivity? Or maybe the spiritual questing is just a cultural longing of this new millenium? Whatever has moved us into the sanctuary, we are discovering with delight and confusion that we aren’t always speaking the same language. Some of us learned prayers from the Catholic tradition, some from Judaism, some from television, some none at all. And all of us come together each Sunday morning and try to find a common language to sing praise to God. Sometimes when we sing we’re a bit off-key and sometimes the melody line seems a bit elusive. But always the Spirit meets us as we gather and weaves our meager offerings into a rich and beautiful tapestry. I often wonder if I’m in tune, but I never wonder about the incredible blessing of sharing with such an exquisitely diverse community.