Passion In The Church

Oh Christmas...

I had an interesting and refreshing conversation last night. My husband and I are involved in the Christmas thing that our church puts on every year, and are quite excited to have the opportunity since we have been officially been attending this church for only about a month. Rehearsals are every Wednesday night, and in December they will be on Wednesday and Saturday. It's been a really great opportunity to meet other musicians and some people who have been attending the church for a long time. There are a lot of people who are well connected to the rest of the community, so we really feel as if we are quickly finding our place in the body.

When we got to the rehearsal last night, I wasn't in the best of moods. My tooth hurt, I had a headache, I was tired, and generally not a happy person. People would ask me "hey, how are you" and every time I responded I started with "well, I was at the dentist today". Luckily, they immediately understood why I was having an off night. By the end of the rehersal, my spirits had been lifted. I am part of a five or six voice ensemble, doing a couple solos here and there and the girls that I sing with are lovely. They have beautiful voices, soft hearts, and it's great. If you are at all musically inclined, then I'm sure that you can relate; after and hour and a half of singing, my heart was lighter, the pain didn't seem so sharp, and I was happy.

While people were leaving, one of the girls sat with me and we started talking. She asked excellent questions. She asked when we moved and why, and I told her a bit about the history leading up to our move. There were a lot of factors that contributed to the final decision, but ultimately it was for a few key reasons. I had confronted my father on his abuse and he rejected me three times. He refused to take responsibility, so I cut off the relationship, and suddenly we had one less tie to Edmonton. Then, I had a falling out with a good friend, which then led to a falling out with a ministry at our home church that I was heavily involved in, and had been involved in for years. There are other great reasons, like the fact that all our best friends live in Calgary and we are more connected to the music scene out here, but when I chatted with this girl last night we focused on the church aspect.

She had recently moved with her family to Calgary for a similar reason. God spoke to her and her husband about the discord in their church, and they felt led to move here and so they did. They did a lot of work prior to leaving, though. They hired counsellors to mediate conversations and healing, and stuck it out until it was finished. She said it took about a year. My story is similar, but quite different. We didn't stick around, we didn't converse a lot with the leaders of the ministry about the hurts caused by both us and them. For us, God opened some really key doors much earlier, so we didn't think we needed to stay. And honestly, I'm not ready to talk with them. Maybe one day I will be, we will be, but that day is not today.

It was so refreshing to find someone who had in some way been there. Things get so messy and hurtful when ministry is added to the equation. I have seen so many churches and church leaders take advantage of their people and then get upset when you aren't interested in being used anymore. That is not right! This girl said last night that she read a book that basically said that church used to be about passion. We were passionate to get up in the morning, passionate about seeking God's face and meeting Him, passionate about serving, and passionate about the community. But people get weary of being in church when passion is replaced by obligation. When the heart is no longer involved, and church becomes a list of duties, then we lose interest. I agree wholly.

I need to be passionate to grow and at my old church I wasn't passionate. I was used and then thrown away when I wanted different. I was growing, yes, because there were other areas of my life that I was passionately learning about and changing. That may be my saving grace. If I didn't have that, I may not have grown much at all. I am glad to have a passionate community to be part of now.

-SP