Church In A Hat, by Mick Shaffer

Published: March 10, 2010Posted in: Mick Shaffer
Church In A Hat, by Mick Shaffer

I believe in God.

I believe in the Bible.  Minus the crazy Old Testament verses telling you to stone everybody.

I believe Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

I also believe Jesus had a wacky best friend named Buddy who was always screwing things up.  No wait, that was Charles in Charge.

I believe Jesus is OK with a random Willie Aames joke at his expense.

I believe that, even if Jesus is not OK with 80’s sitcom comparisons, there is a place where I can apologize/explain myself/ask for forgiveness/maybe even get my Nicole Eggert poster excused.

I believe in church.

Church is the great community shower of life, a chance to wash away a week’s worth of original sin plus the sins you knew were sins when you committed them but committed them anyway because you knew church was coming in three days.  For example, I’m sure you were very remorseful on Sunday about last Wednesday when you called the guy in the Pontiac Solstice a “shit-stained bag of dicks” because he cut you off in traffic.  But, come on, next Tuesday when the bitch in the Kia Rondo is going 58 mph in the left lane, I doubt your middle finger will stay on the steering wheel.  No, you’ll fly that bird proudly because you have church, the magical road rage eraser.

Until recently, this warped view of religion seemed to be justified by the sheer insipidness of church, by the fight to stay awake during the sermon while repelling thoughts of the upcoming Dancing with the Stars lineup.  By suffering through songs like “How Great Thou Art,” and by trying to figure out what the damn King James Version is saying, after all.  And to do it all in uncomfortable clothes.  It was an hour-and-15-minute test of regretful endurance.  If you passed this test, you were rewarded with six more days of debauchery.

Anymore, that test is open book.

Mine, I’m sure, is a familiar childhood church-going tale, complete with a choir director mother and a deacon father accompanying (sometimes dragging) my brother and me to church.  Counting Sunday School, youth group, church lock-ins, church camp, pot-luck dinners, cantatas, and lectern duty, church was as much a part of my life as not-talking-to-girls was a part of my life.  In fact, the time I spent not talking to girls was spent at church.  But then I went off to college, started talking to girls, even married one and, all of a sudden, Sunday mornings were devoted to sleeping off hangovers instead of taking communion.  The money I might have put in the offering plate had already been spent on a round of shots the night before.  However, once kids entered the picture it was time to grow up.  The wife and I figured they needed to learn that Jesus Christ was more than a name they heard every time I failed to open impenetrable toy packaging.

So we go to church.  But church is starting to resemble the rest of the week.

These days, my church is not boring; in fact, it’s disgustingly enjoyable.  I’m encouraged to wear whatever I want.  “How Great Thou Art” has given way to praise songs performed by an electric guitar strumming rock band beating a trap-set over a state-of-the-art surround sound system.  I can follow the preacher, sifting through my own Bible if I so choose; otherwise I can gaze up at the two giant projection screens already spelling out Isaiah 44:9:

“Those who fashion a graven image are all of them futile, and their precious things are of no profit.”

My new church still has long sermons, but before the sermon a troupe of church-goers acts out a short play highlighting the bullet points of the upcoming message.  In short, we have a skit.  A Cliff’s Notes version summing up the entire presentation.  Works good for Sportscenter’s Top 10 Plays, but in church it looks more like a sermon for the ADD crowd. 

After the service, the kitchen doors open for everyone to feast on free donuts.  Chocolate donuts.  Cake donuts.  Glazed.  For once, communion is just an appetizer.  I would try to complain about the donuts, but it would be hard.

New church is different from old church.  My new church sanctuary also doubles as a basketball gym.  I’m not kidding.  And it’s not like the founders discovered an old, abandoned building that they turned into a church.  No, they set out to construct a church for church purposes to be used by church people going to church…and to the rim, apparently.  God, I feel like I’m interrupting a pick-up game.  Don’t let one of those praise songs compel you to raise your head to the heavens because all you’ll see is a Gorilla Goal suspended from the rafters.  My wife and I usually sit at the near-court elbow, by the way.

Sitting is another thing.  There are no pews, obviously, because they would get in the way of all the “‘ballers.”  Instead, we sit in chairs, regular chairs.  Chairs that look to be borrowed from the Holiday Inn banquet room.  Chairs that are set up Sunday morning and taken down Sunday afternoon.  Seems like quite the workload for the Sabbath, but, then again, I’m not making the rules. If I did have a say in the matter, new church would run a lot like old church.  I don’t know about you, but I grew up sitting on hard, hard, really hard pews.  You didn’t have the borders of a chair to protect you from your space being invaded by those practicing the Second Deadly Sin (gluttony).  We worshipped in an unsullied sanctuary complete with a gigantic cross nearly reaching the high, vaulted ceilings.  We had stained glass windows and no matter where you walked, those stained glass images were always watching you. 

My town couldn’t afford an automatic car wash but there were about nine pristine churches in business.  And you only entered them wearing the nicest of threads from your closet.

My new church preacher wears Wranglers and (the 8th Wonder of the World) a short sleeve dress shirt.  Yes, he could be preaching.  Or he could be at a cattle auction.  Doesn’t matter, as he still blends in with a congregation sporting jeans, shorts, and, often, jorts.  At times I can’t see the skit about “Religion in the Workplace” for all the baseball caps being worn in front of me.  And please don’t let there be a big Sunday Chiefs game (thankfully, there are few of those these days), because that’s when the Priest Holmes jerseys get dusted off, even though he hasn’t been on the team for two years.  NFL wear is bad enough, but I have actually received a collection plate from a 19-year-old kid wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt.  There’s some irony here, but I don’t know who to blame more for failing to recognize it, the kid or the church.

Sometimes when I’m feeling a bit squirrely I’ll wear a full suit in protest of Casual Sunday.  Because that’s what I know: traditional, old, dull, church.  That’s what it should be: a choir cloaked in hideous, oversized robes, not a Christian Three Doors Down knockoff in skinny jeans.  If it was easy, everybody would do it.  But now everybody does do it, because it is easy, leaving me nothing to do but judge others during church.  And, trust me, I did enough judging last week at Wal-Mart.  Again, that’s why I’m here!

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not Catholic.  I doubt the Catholics are showing up to Mass in flip-flops.  This is more of a Protestant issue.  I belong/have belonged to the Disciples of Christ Christian Church, which serves communion every week, allows women to serve that communion, and allows people who haven’t been baptized in the Christian Church to take our communion.  We’re laid-back.  We don’t do the Wednesday night church thing, the Lent thing, the genuflection thing, the Rosary beads thing, or the altar boy thing.  Catholics purchase the entire home security system; we just put a sign in the yard. 

But this nonchalance seems lax even for us.

Now, new church is being sold and the buyers dress like they’re going to the pool.  Sure, church is great with donuts and pop songs disguised as hymns thanks to a random “Hosanna” thrown in there.  But try church when you’re forced to hold in your pee for an hour or when the old lady who smells like feet stands up to list off her maladies as well as her relatives’ maladies to the preacher who immediately repeats that list in prayer.

The only time I remember having fun in old church was the yearly turn us lecterns took reading Galatians 5:21 to the congregation.  It started, “Envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like…” You can probably guess which word tripped up the unfortunate reader causing his junior high buddies to double over in quiet laughter up in the balcony.  Other than that, church was pious and strict and respectful and, oddly, how I liked it.

I now attend a church for people who wouldn’t normally go to church.  Many of these folks were likely fishing or playing in the yard on Sunday mornings growing up.  We used to call them Cheasters.  Or, people who only go to church on Christmas and Easter.  Now, they’re sitting next to us in tank tops.  It’s good to spread the word, I guess.  And donuts help.  If you’re all about the message, then I suppose it doesn’t matter if you catch it in slacks or in cargo shorts.  Amped up keyboards can play the same tunes as organs.

But, if you’re like me and if you’re all about the guilt, then church is clearly no longer the place to go.  Perhaps I should spend my Sunday mornings in a NICU.  I need the balance, the test, the opportunity to punish myself.  Fantastic material like Charles in Charge jokes are too good to resist, but still require some comeuppance.  I mean, if Sunday becomes more pleasurable, what’s next?  Do the other six days become more devout?

That’s just crazy Old Testament talk there.