Joe and Mary

Joe and Mary really didn’t know what to do about church. Joe’s parents were members of a church when he was born, and they baptized him into their church as an infant. He was educated in the church’s schools and even served at the altar during the rituals of the church.

Joe remembers attending, as a young person, all his church activities and he does have fond memories of some of these experiences. But when he evaluates his total experience at the end of it all, he feels that control and manipulation were the main objective of his parent’s church.

Joe speaks about the steady spiritual diet he was served at home, at school and at church: guilt lavishly ladled upon a bed of rules and regulations. Sermon after sermon, week after week, and year after year – the same old thing. “When you live by the rules, God loves you. When you break the rules, it separates you from Him.”

Joe did well enough in school to satisfy his parents, his pastor and his church teachers, but he became convinced that he would never be good enough for God.

In his late teens, Joe met Mary who was what some people called “unchurched”. Love blossomed and Mary joined Joe’s church to become one with him in marriage.

When Joe decided to leave his old, established church, Mary left with him because her ties were not strong there. When Joe and Mary visited his parents, sometimes he would give in and attend his old church with his parents, but he could hardly stand it. Joe did not talk religion with his parents anymore. He was burned out with his parents’ hell fire and brimstone, our-way-or-the-highway, no nonsense church.

After a few years of no-church recovery from burnout, Joe discovered a church that was heavy on prophecy and futurist teaching which Joe himself had always been interested in. Joe and Mary attended this church for quite a few years until a disillusionment set in – too much hell fire and brimstone along with more rules and regulations and immorality within church hierarchy.

Again, Joe and Mary became “unchurched”. They still considered themselves “Christian” and they still read their Bibles to stay close to God.

Some years later one of Mary’s friends invited her to a mega-church. It had been several years since Joe and Mary had set foot in any church. They felt like “some church” wouldn’t hurt them, so off they trudged with little idea of the kind of church they would visit. After two visits, they once again became disenchanted. It was a prosperity gospel church. This church spent most of the time telling its members that God wanted them to be healthy and wealthy, but as Joe and Mary checked out the hundreds of cars in the parking lot it seemed that the only ones getting rich were the pastor and his staff.

After bailing out of this think-and-grow-rich church, Joe and Mary started to feel like religious skeptics and cynics. Their friends kept saying that they were too critical, finding something wrong with every church they visited. And they started to think that their friends might be right.

They saw an advertisement for a church that sponsored revivals, so they decided that such a church might give them the spiritual kick-start they needed. The next weekend Joe and Mary found themselves in a church they now jokingly refer to as the “Heebie-Jeebie Church”. As Joe and Mary looked for a seat, people were running up and down the aisles. They stepped over two people who seemed to have passed out in the aisle, except their arms and legs occasionally twitched. Joe and Mary were later told that these people had been “slain in the spirit”. In the middle of the service a few people started to laugh uncontrollably, even though the pastor didn’t say anything Joe and Mary found remotely humorous. They later found out that such an activity is called “holy laughter”. A few of the people transitioned directly from hilarious laughter to barking like a dog. Joe and Mary left before the collection.

After that little “shot in the arm”, Joe and Mary gave up on what they called organized religion for several more years. They studied the Bible and decided to not give up searching, but they agreed to be extremely careful about church visits.

Then they were invited to attend the baptism of a relative at another mega-church. They did so and even came back for a weekend service invitation. They liked the surroundings and the worship music, but they especially liked the pastor’s sermon on the topic, “Jesus Christ Lives In You”. Joe had been discovering this very fact in his private Bible study and the concept had been changing his whole perspective on what’s important in Christianity.

It seems to Joe and Mary that this church they now attend and have joined as members is on the right track with its teaching, and that it is not involved in some wild theological or experiential goose chase. It is a church that insists upon grace over human works, and that emphasis comforts them. But they have been burned so often that they will keep a wary eye on this church which, for now, is their church home.

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