In Islamic teachings, we are told not to make fun of people and their problems; God might put us in their shoes someday somehow. And although I've experienced such lessons that God has taught me over my life in several occasions, still, I slip from the straight path at times.
One of the bad habits I've carried over from Iran is teasing sons of clergymen over their religiosity. I'm not the only one with that habit. And I assume it not to be limited just to Iran. You know, when somebody is a man of God (whatever brand of religion he belongs to), people expect him to be not only an exemplar of what he teaches and preaches, but also to be successful in bringing up his children that way. So basically, those people and their children are under scrutiny. Everywhere in the world. You expect the son to be a chip off the old block.
And when you see symptoms to the contrary, you may be tempted to tease the poor guy. Surely, that expectation is unrealistic. Just think of the prophets who have had far-from-perfect sons. But anyway. That temptation to tease exists.
I had a friend here who was the son of a well-known evangelical pastor. Last spring, he was extremely busy working on his thesis and PhD application essays. Trivially, he didn't have time for anything else.
After I returned from my church visits on Good Friday, I casually asked him about his church visit for the day. He told me he had not visited any (and understandably so). We were good friends poking fun at each other like brothers. And then think about the lines above about the temptation. And you know. I told him "I'm a better Christian than you; I've visited FOUR churches for Good Friday and you've not been to any". Although he was familiar with my sense of humor and although he knew that I was talking tongue in cheek, he gave me a tired look and said nothing. Knowing well about his stressed out days, I immediately regretted my silly joke. And now, God has put me in the same situation.
Joking aside, I don't know why people associate faith and religiosity only with visiting churches. And as a sociologist, I hate it to see almost all so-called research papers on religion limiting their measure of religiosity mainly to church attendance. And this false assumption is not limited to secular scholars who have no understanding of religion; people, those who acclaim to be religious (or those boasting lack of it) aren't any better. All are equally obsessed with religion as merely attending a place of worship. Whether what they do there is true worship (or worship at all) is another story.
True, one of the most important pillars of any religion is worshiping the Creator and people cannot consider themselves true believers without praying and showing their humility to their Lord. But is that all? What about religion in our actions? In our daily life? When we're not in a place of worship?
Equally, self-acclaimed religious people are conceited about their worship (or what they think is worship) and their non-religious (or sometimes Godless) counterparts are happy about not being one of those hypocrite fool guys visiting places of worship.
Anyway, it didn't take long for me to be put in my friend's shoes. Nowadays, I can hardly spare time to visit any church, even once a week. One night at the beginning of the semester, I saw Pastor Bill in my dream. He was unhappy that I'd stopped visiting them regularly. Hope Lutheran was the first church I visited when I arrived in Toledo. And my second post in the US was a brief description about my visit. Although the post is very succinct, I had such a good time and I made my first Toledoan friends in there. And as it was very close to the campus and as I felt myself at home there, I used to visit Hope almost every week. So, there's no surprise that as I got busy, I missed the church and its pastors and (at least in my dream) their senior pastor missed me.
After that dream, I was thinking to myself kiddingly, "now, you are not a good Christian". I visited the church over the weekend for Sunday service and had a good a time visiting Pastor Bill and Pastor Tom after such a long time. And when they inquired about my being away, I mentioned about my dream and joked that I had not been a good Christian. A joke that Pastor Tom found very funny, but I assume Pastor Bill didn't enjoy it that much; he told me: "of course, you are a good Muslim".
Last Christmas, as I had arrived here before the semester began, I had nothing to do but street walking, sightseeing and church visiting. I visited four churches for Christmas, traversing a distance of about five miles on foot. My Iranian friends panicked when I told them how much I had walked over those desolate streets at that late hour. Later on, I discovered that some of the places that I'd walked around were not so safe. But, I didn't feel scared at all. For the night, I was a guest of Jesus in a foreign country on the other side of the planet so far away from my family and friends. So, I took for granted that he would protect me as his guest over this silent night.
Grace Lutheran was one of the churches that I visited on Christmas Eve. This was another place where I felt at home (and more so). It didn't take long that I started visiting them too on a regular basis (for their contemporary worship though). My fascination with Grace (as a traditional old-fashioned guy) could be seen by the number of posts I've written about them. I've given briefs or details about my observations at Grace here, here, here, here, here and here. And there was another thing that made Grace stand out for me.
I refer to both Grace and Hope as my churches. And oddly enough, although Grace is mostly a blue-collar church and Hope is clearly a white-collar one, and although I supposedly belong to the latter category (as an engineer coming from a white-collar family), I feel more comfortable at Grace. And I wonder why.
At Hope, I felt at home; especially, given the fact that I was literally homeless over my first week and their kindness was very warming over those first cold lonely days that I had to stay at dorm. At Grace however, I not only felt at home, but also among my family. And I miss my original family in Iran so much. People at Grace could fill the vacuum somehow. And interestingly enough, although they are a traditional (more or less) conservative church, my frequent participation in their various religious practices would reveal another point: they are quite open to welcome a Muslim who obviously has no intention to become a church member at any time. And they treat me like a member, not a guest.
Nowadays, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of the work I have to do and I don't have time to visit so many churches this Christmas. And it is very regrettable. Last year, when I arrived here, I didn't have the knowledge that I have now about contemporary worship and how it is different from traditional worship and what those changes mean. Especially, Christmas is the time that all churches do their best to show what and who they are. So, this is the best time of the year to study church services, their styles and their meaning within the ecclesial context of the church body. And now, I have a much better knowledge compared to last year and I have many friends in many churches, but I don't have time to attend any. Well, that's life. You cannot enjoy all the good things at the same time.
But despite being very busy, I felt some sort of obligation to visit at least Hope and Grace, my churches. So, I visited both. And by sheer chance I ended up attending their traditional service at both places. And it was a very interesting experience.
Last Christmas, I had attended the 11 pm service at Hope which was their contemporary one (and had much to amuse me). This year, I visited them at 7 pm and found the service very different and to a degree, solemn. Not that I expect Christmas service to have much fanfare (and I have to admit that I'm used to such attractions at Hope). But compared to last year, this service felt very short and modest to me. There was almost no music, or as Pastor Tom referred to it, special music. But the message was deep.
Pastor Tom is usually very restrained (yet friendly). And he gives his sermons in an eloquent but not very humorous way. But tonight he had adopted some of Pastor Bill's preaching practices. Still remaining more or less serious, He based his sermon on a deep theological movie, Talladega Nights and its not-so-intelligent main character, Ricky Bobby (played by Will Ferrel) who was a race car driver. Before a very important race, he started praying to baby Jesus calling to his tiny little hands, his tiny little face, etc. His wife, who was marginally sharper than him, asked him why he prayed to the little Jesus as he didn't remain a tiny little baby all his life; so he should pray to the grown-up Jesus. Ricky Bobby answered, "I prefer to pray to the little tiny Jesus. This is the Jesus I like". The sermon could be heard here. The rest of the sermons are available here.
Then, Pastor Tom concluded how we replace the real Jesus with the one we want him to be; the tiny little Jesus who doesn't put any demands (or responsibility) on us; the part-time Jesus whom we remember when we need him; the story-book Jesus who amuses us; nevertheless, not the real Jesus.
My experience at Grace was not so different though. It was the same traditional church I was used to with hymns, prayers and sermon. And the message was about how to practice being like Jesus, not merely celebrating his birth.
Before the service began, I met Pastor Jacobs and gave him a draft of my research design and analysis that I had prepared for my Advanced Research Methods course. It was not specifically focused on Grace and dealt generally with the issue of contemporary vs. traditional worship from a cultural perspective (although I come from a background of numbers and math, I hate quantification of religion). But still, a good chunk of the material in it was on Grace (as my case study). When I had given him my first research report on Grace last semester, both he and his wife found my account of the light-loving toddler mentioned in this post, the most interesting part of it. He received my research design and analysis with interest to read it later.
While I was wandering around the hallways and reading bulletin boards to see what's new in my church since my last visit 3 months ago, he emerged from his study with a big cake and told me he had baked it himself. A pastor-made cake? Quite a Christmas Eve gift, although I had not hung any stockings and my visit was unannounced.
And there's something I like about Grace; their dedication to teach worshipers in any opportunity in any possible way. The pastors believe education and learning to be a full-time job, not limited just to Sunday school. In their worship, they follow the Lutheran tradition as much as they can, according to the Lutheran Book of Worship. Sometimes the pastor, while leading the service, refers people to certain pages in the book where liturgy is described step by step and it could be easily seen that the rituals and procedures are followed precisely. This would also serve education purposes for the congregants (on-the-job training I'd say). Tonight, Pastor Lauman was explaining before Communion that if you prefer the pastor to put the bread in your mouth, hold your hands together in front of you like this (and he showed how). So, even if people are new and unfamiliar with rituals and traditions, they won't feel awkward in this church.
Before visiting Grace, I checked Kroger to do some grocery shopping. To my surprise, I found it closed for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Last year, I found all stores open even on Christmas Day and I took it for granted as a result of dominant consumer culture in the US. But those people who work in those stores (typically for a low hourly wage) are human too. They are entitled to celebrate Christmas, even if not on religious grounds, even if they celebrate it just as a holiday. They too have families and loved ones and prefer to spend their time with them. Consumerism should not deprive these people of their rights. And when I saw the notice on Kroger entrance, although it sounded like a little bit of inconvenience to me, I felt happy at heart.
I had noticed over Thanksgiving Day too that all stores were closed, even Burger King and Arby's that are open till late after midnight. And as I had no frame of reference, I assumed it was a practice for Thanksgiving Day only. Now, I find that things have changed this year. And if these store closures do not come at the price of their hourly wage, it feels good to me.
Speaking of Thanksgiving and shopping, it reminded of Black Friday that I'd written about in my Happy Thanksgiving post. And I found the following in E-Words of Grace for December:
It was on Black Friday, Nov. 23, that 9 Grace members met at 3:30 a.m. to grace some 200 people with free coffee and hot chocolate. Best Buy, next door to the church, would open at 5 a.m. to these eager shoppers who stood outside all night with temperatures in the mid 20's. The hot drinks were given with a card that read "A token of God's Grace," as well as the name, address and times of worship and Sunday School at Grace. Since God's Grace is a free gift, any donations that were offered were lovingly declined.
Well, this is some sort of marketing (read evangelism). But still, done in a graceful way. Things like this make me feel Grace is my church.
One of the bad habits I've carried over from Iran is teasing sons of clergymen over their religiosity. I'm not the only one with that habit. And I assume it not to be limited just to Iran. You know, when somebody is a man of God (whatever brand of religion he belongs to), people expect him to be not only an exemplar of what he teaches and preaches, but also to be successful in bringing up his children that way. So basically, those people and their children are under scrutiny. Everywhere in the world. You expect the son to be a chip off the old block.
And when you see symptoms to the contrary, you may be tempted to tease the poor guy. Surely, that expectation is unrealistic. Just think of the prophets who have had far-from-perfect sons. But anyway. That temptation to tease exists.
I had a friend here who was the son of a well-known evangelical pastor. Last spring, he was extremely busy working on his thesis and PhD application essays. Trivially, he didn't have time for anything else.
After I returned from my church visits on Good Friday, I casually asked him about his church visit for the day. He told me he had not visited any (and understandably so). We were good friends poking fun at each other like brothers. And then think about the lines above about the temptation. And you know. I told him "I'm a better Christian than you; I've visited FOUR churches for Good Friday and you've not been to any". Although he was familiar with my sense of humor and although he knew that I was talking tongue in cheek, he gave me a tired look and said nothing. Knowing well about his stressed out days, I immediately regretted my silly joke. And now, God has put me in the same situation.
Joking aside, I don't know why people associate faith and religiosity only with visiting churches. And as a sociologist, I hate it to see almost all so-called research papers on religion limiting their measure of religiosity mainly to church attendance. And this false assumption is not limited to secular scholars who have no understanding of religion; people, those who acclaim to be religious (or those boasting lack of it) aren't any better. All are equally obsessed with religion as merely attending a place of worship. Whether what they do there is true worship (or worship at all) is another story.
True, one of the most important pillars of any religion is worshiping the Creator and people cannot consider themselves true believers without praying and showing their humility to their Lord. But is that all? What about religion in our actions? In our daily life? When we're not in a place of worship?
Equally, self-acclaimed religious people are conceited about their worship (or what they think is worship) and their non-religious (or sometimes Godless) counterparts are happy about not being one of those hypocrite fool guys visiting places of worship.
Anyway, it didn't take long for me to be put in my friend's shoes. Nowadays, I can hardly spare time to visit any church, even once a week. One night at the beginning of the semester, I saw Pastor Bill in my dream. He was unhappy that I'd stopped visiting them regularly. Hope Lutheran was the first church I visited when I arrived in Toledo. And my second post in the US was a brief description about my visit. Although the post is very succinct, I had such a good time and I made my first Toledoan friends in there. And as it was very close to the campus and as I felt myself at home there, I used to visit Hope almost every week. So, there's no surprise that as I got busy, I missed the church and its pastors and (at least in my dream) their senior pastor missed me.
After that dream, I was thinking to myself kiddingly, "now, you are not a good Christian". I visited the church over the weekend for Sunday service and had a good a time visiting Pastor Bill and Pastor Tom after such a long time. And when they inquired about my being away, I mentioned about my dream and joked that I had not been a good Christian. A joke that Pastor Tom found very funny, but I assume Pastor Bill didn't enjoy it that much; he told me: "of course, you are a good Muslim".
Last Christmas, as I had arrived here before the semester began, I had nothing to do but street walking, sightseeing and church visiting. I visited four churches for Christmas, traversing a distance of about five miles on foot. My Iranian friends panicked when I told them how much I had walked over those desolate streets at that late hour. Later on, I discovered that some of the places that I'd walked around were not so safe. But, I didn't feel scared at all. For the night, I was a guest of Jesus in a foreign country on the other side of the planet so far away from my family and friends. So, I took for granted that he would protect me as his guest over this silent night.
Grace Lutheran was one of the churches that I visited on Christmas Eve. This was another place where I felt at home (and more so). It didn't take long that I started visiting them too on a regular basis (for their contemporary worship though). My fascination with Grace (as a traditional old-fashioned guy) could be seen by the number of posts I've written about them. I've given briefs or details about my observations at Grace here, here, here, here, here and here. And there was another thing that made Grace stand out for me.
I refer to both Grace and Hope as my churches. And oddly enough, although Grace is mostly a blue-collar church and Hope is clearly a white-collar one, and although I supposedly belong to the latter category (as an engineer coming from a white-collar family), I feel more comfortable at Grace. And I wonder why.
At Hope, I felt at home; especially, given the fact that I was literally homeless over my first week and their kindness was very warming over those first cold lonely days that I had to stay at dorm. At Grace however, I not only felt at home, but also among my family. And I miss my original family in Iran so much. People at Grace could fill the vacuum somehow. And interestingly enough, although they are a traditional (more or less) conservative church, my frequent participation in their various religious practices would reveal another point: they are quite open to welcome a Muslim who obviously has no intention to become a church member at any time. And they treat me like a member, not a guest.
Nowadays, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of the work I have to do and I don't have time to visit so many churches this Christmas. And it is very regrettable. Last year, when I arrived here, I didn't have the knowledge that I have now about contemporary worship and how it is different from traditional worship and what those changes mean. Especially, Christmas is the time that all churches do their best to show what and who they are. So, this is the best time of the year to study church services, their styles and their meaning within the ecclesial context of the church body. And now, I have a much better knowledge compared to last year and I have many friends in many churches, but I don't have time to attend any. Well, that's life. You cannot enjoy all the good things at the same time.
But despite being very busy, I felt some sort of obligation to visit at least Hope and Grace, my churches. So, I visited both. And by sheer chance I ended up attending their traditional service at both places. And it was a very interesting experience.
Last Christmas, I had attended the 11 pm service at Hope which was their contemporary one (and had much to amuse me). This year, I visited them at 7 pm and found the service very different and to a degree, solemn. Not that I expect Christmas service to have much fanfare (and I have to admit that I'm used to such attractions at Hope). But compared to last year, this service felt very short and modest to me. There was almost no music, or as Pastor Tom referred to it, special music. But the message was deep.
Pastor Tom is usually very restrained (yet friendly). And he gives his sermons in an eloquent but not very humorous way. But tonight he had adopted some of Pastor Bill's preaching practices. Still remaining more or less serious, He based his sermon on a deep theological movie, Talladega Nights and its not-so-intelligent main character, Ricky Bobby (played by Will Ferrel) who was a race car driver. Before a very important race, he started praying to baby Jesus calling to his tiny little hands, his tiny little face, etc. His wife, who was marginally sharper than him, asked him why he prayed to the little Jesus as he didn't remain a tiny little baby all his life; so he should pray to the grown-up Jesus. Ricky Bobby answered, "I prefer to pray to the little tiny Jesus. This is the Jesus I like". The sermon could be heard here. The rest of the sermons are available here.
Then, Pastor Tom concluded how we replace the real Jesus with the one we want him to be; the tiny little Jesus who doesn't put any demands (or responsibility) on us; the part-time Jesus whom we remember when we need him; the story-book Jesus who amuses us; nevertheless, not the real Jesus.
My experience at Grace was not so different though. It was the same traditional church I was used to with hymns, prayers and sermon. And the message was about how to practice being like Jesus, not merely celebrating his birth.
Before the service began, I met Pastor Jacobs and gave him a draft of my research design and analysis that I had prepared for my Advanced Research Methods course. It was not specifically focused on Grace and dealt generally with the issue of contemporary vs. traditional worship from a cultural perspective (although I come from a background of numbers and math, I hate quantification of religion). But still, a good chunk of the material in it was on Grace (as my case study). When I had given him my first research report on Grace last semester, both he and his wife found my account of the light-loving toddler mentioned in this post, the most interesting part of it. He received my research design and analysis with interest to read it later.
While I was wandering around the hallways and reading bulletin boards to see what's new in my church since my last visit 3 months ago, he emerged from his study with a big cake and told me he had baked it himself. A pastor-made cake? Quite a Christmas Eve gift, although I had not hung any stockings and my visit was unannounced.
And there's something I like about Grace; their dedication to teach worshipers in any opportunity in any possible way. The pastors believe education and learning to be a full-time job, not limited just to Sunday school. In their worship, they follow the Lutheran tradition as much as they can, according to the Lutheran Book of Worship. Sometimes the pastor, while leading the service, refers people to certain pages in the book where liturgy is described step by step and it could be easily seen that the rituals and procedures are followed precisely. This would also serve education purposes for the congregants (on-the-job training I'd say). Tonight, Pastor Lauman was explaining before Communion that if you prefer the pastor to put the bread in your mouth, hold your hands together in front of you like this (and he showed how). So, even if people are new and unfamiliar with rituals and traditions, they won't feel awkward in this church.
Before visiting Grace, I checked Kroger to do some grocery shopping. To my surprise, I found it closed for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Last year, I found all stores open even on Christmas Day and I took it for granted as a result of dominant consumer culture in the US. But those people who work in those stores (typically for a low hourly wage) are human too. They are entitled to celebrate Christmas, even if not on religious grounds, even if they celebrate it just as a holiday. They too have families and loved ones and prefer to spend their time with them. Consumerism should not deprive these people of their rights. And when I saw the notice on Kroger entrance, although it sounded like a little bit of inconvenience to me, I felt happy at heart.
I had noticed over Thanksgiving Day too that all stores were closed, even Burger King and Arby's that are open till late after midnight. And as I had no frame of reference, I assumed it was a practice for Thanksgiving Day only. Now, I find that things have changed this year. And if these store closures do not come at the price of their hourly wage, it feels good to me.
Speaking of Thanksgiving and shopping, it reminded of Black Friday that I'd written about in my Happy Thanksgiving post. And I found the following in E-Words of Grace for December:
It was on Black Friday, Nov. 23, that 9 Grace members met at 3:30 a.m. to grace some 200 people with free coffee and hot chocolate. Best Buy, next door to the church, would open at 5 a.m. to these eager shoppers who stood outside all night with temperatures in the mid 20's. The hot drinks were given with a card that read "A token of God's Grace," as well as the name, address and times of worship and Sunday School at Grace. Since God's Grace is a free gift, any donations that were offered were lovingly declined.
Well, this is some sort of marketing (read evangelism). But still, done in a graceful way. Things like this make me feel Grace is my church.
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