Red Bricks of Righteousness

I grew up in a small town in East Texas that was typical of so many small towns in 1970s America. Segregated by unofficial boundary lines, the black folks lived in their section of town and the white folks lived in the other sections of town. Common ground was the small main street where the local businesses were established where people could go and buy there food at the local affiliated food store, fabric for sewing at the department store and whatever tools you needed at the hardware store.

The other common thing was that the two main churches in town, the United Methodist Church and the First Baptist Church, were deadset in the middle of the town. On the same block. Side by side. This, as they say, is the other segregation in small towns. Denominationalism. Though the black folks had their churches and the white folks had theirs, these two churches represented the mainstream of the town. Folks that Monday through Saturday were friends and neighbors and coworkers, found themselves filing into two different buildings on the same block of land each Sunday morning for worship, then filing back out at noon...eyeballing each other as if to say "what in the world are ya'll doing over there?".

And I was struck by the mere construction of these two building standing side by side. The Methodist Church had orange colored bricks and the Baptist Church had Red Bricks. Over the years as I drive through small towns I notice this pattern is duplicated. Red Bricks for Baptist Churches and Orange colored bricks for Methodist Churches.

Most of the town went to the Baptist Church. We did not. We attended the United Methodist Church. As a child I really didn't know what the difference was nor why some went next door while some went where I did. Or make that where my parents made me go. All I can really recall is that the long awaited vacation bible school week each summer seemed to divide us even further. While we sang songs about peace and love and made nifty little crafts out of penny's, peacock feathers and broken glass, the Baptists next door would have a snow cone machine and a clown and promises of salvation. Later in life I found out that my mother would try to work it out with that church to schedule our VBS on different weeks so that folks could attend both. But after she would tell them what week ours was planned, they would plan theirs the same week. Competition. They had the truth so they would put their money where their mouths were and it worked. Children would rather go where there is a snow cone machine and a clown instead of where there were peace songs about a loving God and craft projects. My youngest sister attended some function there as a child with her friend, and later we received a call that she had "gotten saved" and they wanted to know if she could start coming to sunday school. My parents were pissed.

Later, in my high school days, I dated a girl that attended the church next door. My first major crush. I was the president of our youth group (sometimes that group consisted of me, sometimes it had a few more) and I had a job at the local grocery store where I worked after school and weekends to pay for my car, which of course was a cool car with loud pipes and big tires in back with raised white letter tires and after market wheels. My hair was a little long and I always wore glasses that were tinted, so, uh, I would look cool. yes thats it. And I recall picking her up one day after church and going to lunch and there was a young man/adult standing beside her who gave me a disapproving look, said something to her, then walked away. She informed me that was her youth pastor who had asked her why she wanted to date a scumbag. I was floored. I had never up until that day been judged by someone who knew nothing about me except for what he perceived from a distance. And it left a bad taste in my mouth that lasts even today. And I started noticing the differences in those who attended the two churches. Words like judgemental, hypocritical and holier-than-thou now reside side by side with the term Baptist in my mind, forever etched. For you see I began paying attention to what they were doing Monday through Saturday then observing them on Sundays, and it didn't match up.

Many years has passed now since that occurred, but my opinion of those type folks has not. And its not all
Baptists (but they are in the lead according to my tally sheet). I know that people make mistakes in their own faith journey (lord knows I have - pun intended), and we can really do some stupid things as christians. We try to give advice that we think is Godly but in reality is actually hurtful. We say things like "well he is in a better place now", "God needed a little angel" or "I guess it was God's Will" after someone dies. We say things like "If you just had more faith", "Prayed harder" or "was a better person this wouldn't have happened to you". We try to save the cute little blonde girls in our youth group by telling them their date is a scumbag, though we do not know them. We caste stones from glass houses and point out specks in other's eyes.

Here's a bit of advice. Shut the hell up. yes. Seriously. If thats the best you have to offer then just keep it to yourself. But if you really want to help, just be there. You don't have to do anything. Say anything. Just love on folks. They are hurting enough as it is. St Francis said "preach the gospel at all times using words only if necessary". Bro. Lawrence wrote a book called "practicing the presence". Maybe model Jesus. Try those approaches. We have enough pharisees already.

The world looks a lot different outside the walls of those Red Bricks of Righteousness.

~npp

a day in the life of the prophet

So I'm camping yesterday with my lubberly lil' family at one of the State Parks when my eyeglass frames break. Fun times. I am officially a dork now with one ear piece missing and the glasses perched upon my nose held only in place by the other ear piece.

So off I go to the place where I purchased them to get another frame and we decide to go to the local chinese food place for lunch. I'm wearing my normal weekend camping attire, a pair of cargo shorts and a black t-shirt from my good friend's faith community (Journey IFC) and my gold chain with my United Methodist cross hanging from it. While I'm eating, an older fella with his company logo shirt comes in the door and our eyes meet. Somehow we seem to connect as we look at each other, and then he goes to another part of the restaurant. A little later on I'm interupted by the words, "Excuse me sir." Holding an egg roll in one hand and a mouth full of something that looks like chicken, I look up and its this same guy. He says to me, "Thank you for wearing that cross". I respond with something stupid I'm sure, like "Thanks" or "your welcome" or something, and he says, "I appreciate that". And its not the "politician smiling suck up way" of saying something, it was the "sincere somber I've got a story" way of saying something. So he turns and walks out of the restaurant. I resist the urge to follow him outside, due to my family being with me, but would really have loved to hear his story. To see where he is in his life. There was something there.

We leave and go to the place where I bought my glasses and they don't carry that frame anymore. I call the eye doctor and he loves me so much he works me in so I can get a new exam. We drive over and I walk in the lobby and have a seat. My family goes elsewhere. A lady in her 50s walks in and sets in the lobby as well. Just she and I. She looks over at me and asks, "Is that a United Methodist cross" and I replied yes. Thats all it took. She opened up like the flood gates of the Hoover Dam and begin telling me how her grandparents were the charter members of some baptist church in another community, how she had been a Baptist for 50 plus years of her life but is now going to one of the local United Methodist churches. I said "good for you" and she kept on... I was a Baptist for 50 plus years until I got a divorce. Then I was treated differently because I was divorced. This lady also had a story to tell and I listened. We talked about judgement of others and how different she now felt with a grace filled theology instead of the one she had grown up with. She said she wished she had known this earlier in her life because she actually liked to go to the casinos, have some wine and dance every now and then. I told her it was a beautiful thing that she was a recovering baptist and she replied "I'm recovered!". I tried to explain there was no such thing as a "recovered baptist", that its a process like AA, you are always in recovery, and she just laughed. She said she now teaches a sunday school class and thoroughly loves it. She wasn't allowed to at her Baptist church it sounded like.

She asked me if I had read "The Shack". Wow, yes I had read it and it was a good read. She said she was reading it now but some of her Baptist friends said it was heresy. We both agreed those folks would probably have a rude awakening when and if they actually met god. Then the lady who worked there spoke up and said she was reading it for the second time. It went on like this for a while until they called me into the exam room. I gave the lady the name of a book to read that lets her know its okay to be human, "Messy Spirituality" and she had me write it down on a piece of paper. I have no doubt she drove down the street to the book store and bought it. This lady, in her 50s, was all on fire with finally getting the chance to figure out who she is and what she believes and what God wants of her.

It was totally cool.

And this happens to me all the time. Another day in the life of the nonprofitprophet.

And that is cool as well.

Jesus loves me this I know...

Just what in the hell don't people understand about this preschool theology anyway? I am so irritated right now I could drink lite beer!

I allowed my daughter to attend a "function" sponsored by a coalition of Baptist churches in the area (mainly because her friends were going)and she just came home a few minutes ago. We had the typical parent/teenager conversation. Me - "how was it?". Her - "fine". So I had to ask, and I wish I hadn't. I ask "Say any prayers of salvation?" and she looks at me funny and asks what that is. I say its the little prayer where you accept Jesus into your heart...blah blah blah. She said "yes", like she was surprised I knew about this. I then ask "did you have to go down to the front" and she responds "we all did".
I am getting irritated at this point. I am irritated because I know all the play calls in this game. Right out of the Baptist handbook on how to save people in three easy lessons. She, of course, doesn't understand why I am asking and goes into teenage defense mode. I back off. But before I leave I ask her if the speaker said anything close to "do you know where you are going if you were to die tonight or get struck by lightening when you leave here..." and she looked at me like I was a reading her mind. She said sorta. She said he said something like that and then talked about his "friend" in college who just happened to accept Jesus one night at such a function and then got killed in a car accident coming home from it.
Coincidental! I think not.
Listen to the prophet: JESUS DOESN'T NEED TO SCARE YOU INTO A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM! YOU GOT THAT?!!!
The children's verse goes like this: Jesus loves me this I know... I love my children and they love me back. I don't scare them into it, its all relational and unconditional. I ain't gonna love them more or less if they fail to say the right thing to me.
And neither is God. God loves you regardless. Get over it. And if you were brought up with this fear factor theology approach to salvation, please get some help.
PS - you can't save anyone by the way. Jesus did that over 2000 years ago on a cross. If you can top that - good luck. ~npp