By now it's getting on to about nine o'clock, and I'm still thinking of heading off for church,so I sift through the bag of clean laundry for something presentable to wear. It's a clear enough day, but with a cold biting wind, even though the actual temperature is not that cold. But it's the kind of wind that tends to blow a lot of trash around here in Calgary, so maybe I'll wait and go to church tonight. Center Street Church has two morning services, and I've still got time to make the first one if I hurry. I look out my bedroom window and see the snow swirling around.In the far back part of the yard,a jackrabbit is nibbling at little sprigs of yellow grass, and I think I can see the start of brown fur growing in on his back. Early spring? Spring is never much here on the prairies it seems.It can go from twenty below one day to thirty degrees Celsius the next,and that will be the only transition at all. Sometimes it stays cold well into May. I don't mind the deep winter, but not getting much of a spring before the heat descends has always bothered me.
As I'm watching the rabbit, and a pack of noisy magpies,I decide to lay back down on the bed for a bit, and it's not long before I'm dozing. I don't really sleep much, but by the time my eyes open up again, it's too late for the first service at Center Street Church.So I roll over, and with the TV remote,switch to the channel listings.My TV is normally on whenever I'm home, day or night. After watching all the listings scroll past on the screen, I find that The Daytona 500 is on.I guess that settles the issue of church until tonight. In truth, I've gotten a bit ambivalent about church attendance of late.But, I tell myself it's alright, because I still believe and I don't really need to attend church to live a Christian Life. But in my heart, I know that's not quite true.
Finding a church in Calgary was not really easy. Not like in Edmonton, when I just walked into a church and knew it was going to be home as soon as I did.I started out going to The Full Gospel Church in Mount Royal, more or less as soon as I arrived in town, and it was a very good church.I was also attending a small assembly of Evangelicals that met in a United Church basement just a few blocks from Janet's place. Janet worked until five o'clock on Sundays, so that's usually where we would attend together right after she got home. In truth, I never really felt like I fit in there.I would also go to Bible study with Janet on Wednesday nights, at the house of one of the pastors from that church. Eventually after Janet and I got to the point where we were arguing most of the time,she asked me not to continue going to Bible study. I told her I didn't really want to be somewhere I wasn't welcome...especially if that place was Bible study.I didn't think the whole concept of Bible study lent itself to proclaiming certain people as being unwelcome, but that's what Janet claimed I was. Later, I was told she had had her eye on one of the other men attending that Bible study. I guess that would have explained things, had I bothered to ask, but by then Janet and I were just about finished for a host of other reasons.
Shortly after I moved into my old apartment,I began attending a Baptist Church in Bridgeland, just across the river from downtown. It was quite a walk, though I could get there on the Ctrain in just a few minutes. Usually,though, I walked. In the beginning, it seemed like a really good church, but I soon found out that there seemed to be some rather unchristian things going on there, and that I was the center of some rather unholy attentions.
There was this woman in that church named Beth, and she was one of the first people to greet me on the first day I came. She welcomed me warmly, but by the time service was over, she was hugging me, and I felt rather uncomfortable with that, as I'd only known her for an hour.I didn't bother to say a thing about it though. I continued attending that church for a few months, and thought it a reasonably decent place to worship.Except for Beth, who was rather a clingy type. I even considered becoming a church member, until I was talking to one of the other people going there one day just before services started. That person told me, straight out that Beth had set her eyes on me, and that moreover, it wasn't the first time she'd done that in the last few years. I became instantly rather queasy,to the point that I really wanted to just leave. First, I had no interest in Beth at all, except as a Christian sister, and, given what I'd just heard, I wasn't really sure she was even that. There was the possibility that the person telling me this was doing so for motives of her own, but that raised even more questions. Still, I'd come to see Beth's behavior for myself, and thought it really inappropriate. But the gossip was a concern too, something else that really shouldn't be happening in church. I didn't want to deal with Beth, having just come out of a bad relationship, and I hardly had any more inclination to put up with other supposed Christians calling her a tart.So I simply stopped attending that church.There were, after all a lot of churches I could attend. Somehow,though, I hadn't really seen that churches are in fact institutions filled with deeply flawed people.I naively expected a higher standard of conduct from church people, than what I encountered the rest of the week.
For awhile, the line between church and work got a bit blurred. That all started on Palm Sunday of 2001, when I attended a church up on The North Hill, not far from where I live now. This was not an ordinary kind of church at all.In fact, it could have been right at home in the backwoods of Kentucky, or West Virginia, or maybe even New Brunswick.About the only thing missing were the snakes, and by the time the service was half over,I began to wonder if they might be appearing at any moment.I was rather comfortable with many Pentecostal churches, though I don't hold with all Pentecostals in terms of doctrine. But this place was way over the top, with half the congregation running about talking in tongues, and even barking like dogs, supposedly possessed by The Holy Spirit.It seemed very disorderly to me, undignified even, more about charisma than about scriptural substance, and by the time I left, I was sure I wouldn't be back.
On Monday morning, I went into the day labor office, and was immediately sent out to a place that processes linens and floor mats.I wasn't really paying close attention to the fact that other people in the office had already refused to be placed there.I thought that they were just lazy, but I wanted to get out to work, So I signed up and went. What it turned out that they wanted to avoid was that there were a number of people working there, and even some of the managers, who were deeply involved in that church I'd just attended the day before. Moreover, they were not the least bit shy about suggesting that I should go visit that church.
I never made any declaration of my religion when I got to that job placement.In fact, I never do.I try to follow a simple rule in the workplace.It's that old adage that anyone who has ever taken a creative writing class would know: "Show me, don't tell me." So I just went about my work and, at the end of the week, the place offered me a full time position, which I eagerly accepted, having just come off of a seven month long temporary job at a grocery warehouse, and being unemployed for all of about two days. In retrospect, it turned out to be the most toxic work environment I'd ever been in.I don't even really want to think about it right now. But being uninclined to attend the same church as management did, I just never seemed to fit in there, and was never convinced that it was not because of that tendency. In fact, I'd likely have fit in better if I'd not been going to any church at all.On top of all that, it was a unionized shop, and I wasn't willing to accept the union as my church either, insisting instead on thinking about workplace matters using my own intellect rather than being led around by the nose by a shop steward. So I really didn't fit into that side of the equation either.In all, it was a rough eighteen month stretch, and I was nothing so much as extremely relieved when it came to an end.
The whole concept of church shopping had never been a part of my experience until I came to Calgary.My mother always attended her own church, one as close as she could find to where we lived.And she almost never attended any other church.I think she thinks that it's up to the people in the church to make things work, and she never gave any thought to not doing so. Then ,in Edmonton, I just happened to walk into a church after I became a Christian, and that church became an almost perfect fit. But by the time I got to Calgary, it was just a real challenge finding a good church.In fact, it never really crossed my mind that this was likely closer to what happens to most people looking for a church, either for the first time, or when coming to a new town. So I just set aside the actual attendance of services for awhile. And as of today,mid February 2006, that's where I find myself.Really, I guess it's just a convenient excuse for not trying to fit in better.
As I'm watching the rabbit, and a pack of noisy magpies,I decide to lay back down on the bed for a bit, and it's not long before I'm dozing. I don't really sleep much, but by the time my eyes open up again, it's too late for the first service at Center Street Church.So I roll over, and with the TV remote,switch to the channel listings.My TV is normally on whenever I'm home, day or night. After watching all the listings scroll past on the screen, I find that The Daytona 500 is on.I guess that settles the issue of church until tonight. In truth, I've gotten a bit ambivalent about church attendance of late.But, I tell myself it's alright, because I still believe and I don't really need to attend church to live a Christian Life. But in my heart, I know that's not quite true.
Finding a church in Calgary was not really easy. Not like in Edmonton, when I just walked into a church and knew it was going to be home as soon as I did.I started out going to The Full Gospel Church in Mount Royal, more or less as soon as I arrived in town, and it was a very good church.I was also attending a small assembly of Evangelicals that met in a United Church basement just a few blocks from Janet's place. Janet worked until five o'clock on Sundays, so that's usually where we would attend together right after she got home. In truth, I never really felt like I fit in there.I would also go to Bible study with Janet on Wednesday nights, at the house of one of the pastors from that church. Eventually after Janet and I got to the point where we were arguing most of the time,she asked me not to continue going to Bible study. I told her I didn't really want to be somewhere I wasn't welcome...especially if that place was Bible study.I didn't think the whole concept of Bible study lent itself to proclaiming certain people as being unwelcome, but that's what Janet claimed I was. Later, I was told she had had her eye on one of the other men attending that Bible study. I guess that would have explained things, had I bothered to ask, but by then Janet and I were just about finished for a host of other reasons.
Shortly after I moved into my old apartment,I began attending a Baptist Church in Bridgeland, just across the river from downtown. It was quite a walk, though I could get there on the Ctrain in just a few minutes. Usually,though, I walked. In the beginning, it seemed like a really good church, but I soon found out that there seemed to be some rather unchristian things going on there, and that I was the center of some rather unholy attentions.
There was this woman in that church named Beth, and she was one of the first people to greet me on the first day I came. She welcomed me warmly, but by the time service was over, she was hugging me, and I felt rather uncomfortable with that, as I'd only known her for an hour.I didn't bother to say a thing about it though. I continued attending that church for a few months, and thought it a reasonably decent place to worship.Except for Beth, who was rather a clingy type. I even considered becoming a church member, until I was talking to one of the other people going there one day just before services started. That person told me, straight out that Beth had set her eyes on me, and that moreover, it wasn't the first time she'd done that in the last few years. I became instantly rather queasy,to the point that I really wanted to just leave. First, I had no interest in Beth at all, except as a Christian sister, and, given what I'd just heard, I wasn't really sure she was even that. There was the possibility that the person telling me this was doing so for motives of her own, but that raised even more questions. Still, I'd come to see Beth's behavior for myself, and thought it really inappropriate. But the gossip was a concern too, something else that really shouldn't be happening in church. I didn't want to deal with Beth, having just come out of a bad relationship, and I hardly had any more inclination to put up with other supposed Christians calling her a tart.So I simply stopped attending that church.There were, after all a lot of churches I could attend. Somehow,though, I hadn't really seen that churches are in fact institutions filled with deeply flawed people.I naively expected a higher standard of conduct from church people, than what I encountered the rest of the week.
For awhile, the line between church and work got a bit blurred. That all started on Palm Sunday of 2001, when I attended a church up on The North Hill, not far from where I live now. This was not an ordinary kind of church at all.In fact, it could have been right at home in the backwoods of Kentucky, or West Virginia, or maybe even New Brunswick.About the only thing missing were the snakes, and by the time the service was half over,I began to wonder if they might be appearing at any moment.I was rather comfortable with many Pentecostal churches, though I don't hold with all Pentecostals in terms of doctrine. But this place was way over the top, with half the congregation running about talking in tongues, and even barking like dogs, supposedly possessed by The Holy Spirit.It seemed very disorderly to me, undignified even, more about charisma than about scriptural substance, and by the time I left, I was sure I wouldn't be back.
On Monday morning, I went into the day labor office, and was immediately sent out to a place that processes linens and floor mats.I wasn't really paying close attention to the fact that other people in the office had already refused to be placed there.I thought that they were just lazy, but I wanted to get out to work, So I signed up and went. What it turned out that they wanted to avoid was that there were a number of people working there, and even some of the managers, who were deeply involved in that church I'd just attended the day before. Moreover, they were not the least bit shy about suggesting that I should go visit that church.
I never made any declaration of my religion when I got to that job placement.In fact, I never do.I try to follow a simple rule in the workplace.It's that old adage that anyone who has ever taken a creative writing class would know: "Show me, don't tell me." So I just went about my work and, at the end of the week, the place offered me a full time position, which I eagerly accepted, having just come off of a seven month long temporary job at a grocery warehouse, and being unemployed for all of about two days. In retrospect, it turned out to be the most toxic work environment I'd ever been in.I don't even really want to think about it right now. But being uninclined to attend the same church as management did, I just never seemed to fit in there, and was never convinced that it was not because of that tendency. In fact, I'd likely have fit in better if I'd not been going to any church at all.On top of all that, it was a unionized shop, and I wasn't willing to accept the union as my church either, insisting instead on thinking about workplace matters using my own intellect rather than being led around by the nose by a shop steward. So I really didn't fit into that side of the equation either.In all, it was a rough eighteen month stretch, and I was nothing so much as extremely relieved when it came to an end.
The whole concept of church shopping had never been a part of my experience until I came to Calgary.My mother always attended her own church, one as close as she could find to where we lived.And she almost never attended any other church.I think she thinks that it's up to the people in the church to make things work, and she never gave any thought to not doing so. Then ,in Edmonton, I just happened to walk into a church after I became a Christian, and that church became an almost perfect fit. But by the time I got to Calgary, it was just a real challenge finding a good church.In fact, it never really crossed my mind that this was likely closer to what happens to most people looking for a church, either for the first time, or when coming to a new town. So I just set aside the actual attendance of services for awhile. And as of today,mid February 2006, that's where I find myself.Really, I guess it's just a convenient excuse for not trying to fit in better.
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