Honk If You Love Jesus

"Sitting in church every Sunday doesn't make you a Christian anymore than sitting in a garage makes you a car." - Joyce Meyer

Well I'll get right to it. My Christianity 101 class surpassed all my expectations. I really thought it might be quite dogmatic and glum. It was anything but, and one of the nicest and most interesting evenings out I'd had since Ragdoll's birthday dinner.

I arrived at St. Paul's just at 7:30 p.m. and I must admit I was somewhat puzzled. The minister with whom I had exchanged emails told me to go to the Peaker Room downstairs in the church. Now when I sang in the choir, we had to walk underneath the church and go up the stairs that brought us to the back so that we could sing our first hymn as we walked to the altar. The basement was quite cavernous and dark, with the original foundation stone showing and rusty pipes lining the ceiling.

It's now been completely transformed into administrative offices and meeting rooms. There is also a glass atrium being built that connects the main church to the side buildings. It's really something. In fact, St. Paul's is just majestic. There's simply no other word to describe it. I gasped a little when I first came in and saw the congregation area with all its stained glass, stone columns and ornately carved wood. I admit it. I'm shallow and vain and I expect nothing less in my place of worship. My church is duh-ressed y'all.

So off I trundled through the basement, the Peaker Room nowhere to be found. Just as I was about to turn around I heard someone laugh, went in that direction and ta da! The Peaker Room. Problem was my meeting had been moved and I had walked right by the room my meeting was in.

So I arrived, sat down and got my name tag. The minister, Jennifer, was talking about the purpose of the course, which was to give a basic introduction to Christianity's concepts. It doesn't focus on why Catholics do this and Anglicans do that and Baptists do something else. And she also said that no questions were off limits.

I really liked the structure of the course. Jennifer would speak for about 10 minutes on a given topic, and then we would discuss our thoughts about it in two separate groups. I thought the group would be full of newbies like myself, but it was the opposite. There were three senior citizens in the group, David and Christine, a lovely couple from Ajax and Frank, another fellow who lived close by. Funnily enough, they were all from England originally and had decided to take the course as a way of reconnecting with their faith. Then there were about four middle aged folks, Fred, Lisa, Monica and another lady whose name I can't remember. I think it was Stacy.

Monica had been introduced to the church early at Sunday school as a child and Stacy had worked for years on St. Paul's Out of the Cold program. Monica wanted to "go back to basics" as she put it and Stacy was really honest and admitted that her work on the Out of the Cold program had given her a case of compassion fatigue and she was trying to shake that.

Fred and Lisa were trying to get their heads around the concept of proof of God's existence and how they could see God in their everyday life. They are both very intellectual and analytical people who admitted they struggled with this, Lisa in particular.

Then there was Mark our group leader, who is studying at Wycliffe College to be a minister. We were the youngest people there, and I was certainly the only newbie. We got round the table introducing ourselves with nine minutes to spare. When Fred our timekeeper noted this, I said "Yah! Dream Team!" and everybody laughed. It broke the ice.

Our discussions through the evening covered such topics as: What is God? Are we here by chance or is there a purpose to our existence? Why would some people not be in a relationship with God? What is sin?

Actually this last question was my favourite part of the evening. I learned something very interesting, which was that in the Biblical context the concept of sin is not really about sinful acts per se. The Biblical concept of sin is primarily the idea of being away or apart from God. Acts of sin, lying, stealing etc. are indicative of a broken relationship with God. So it's like there's big S "Sin" which is a virus, and then there's small s "sin" or sinful acts, which are the symptoms.

Now those services I was in as a choir member make so much more sense. All that talk about, "we're sinners", "we're in sin". I remember thinking "Uh. Can we just lighten up a little here folks?" In this new context, it doesn't seem so morose frankly.

Another interesting topic for discussion was how people feel about God or the concept of God. Some of the reactions discussed were, hostility, indifference, fear and confusion. Mark asked if anyone would be brave enough to talk about if they had had any of these feelings. So I, who of course know no shame, said "Dude. I'm confused."

So Mark asked me why and I said "Because I feel as if God is with me and around me all the time but I don't have a way of really connecting. I've felt this same feeling in the middle of the forest or in a church and yet I feel as if I have no way of talking to God even though I know God, or at least some kind of larger, benovelent presence is there."

The group looked stunned and said nothing for a moment. Mark looked like he was contemplating asking me to marry him.

Then Lisa said something very interesting. She said that she was a social pyschologist and that in her world all feeling is pathologized. Bad feelings are problems to be fixed. She also said that her first introductions to religion were very negative so she has the opposite problem; how does she get the feeling of God? And then after that, how does she get to a point where she can trust her feelings even if there is nothing tangible for her to interact with? How can she trust that what she feels is enough?

"I really envy you." She said.

Monica noted that being with God can be like a road trip and sometimes you get lost. "Maybe" she said "you just need to enjoy the journey more and not worry so much about having the map right now."

Good point.

Then Frank said that he had struggled with a feeling of hostility towards God since his wife had died. You could see the lonliness in his eyes, and my heart just went out to him. It occurred to me that maybe he was trying to reconnect with the church to gain some fellowship and not feel so alone. Some people have some awful burdens to bear yet you wouldn't know to look at them. I always get a good reminder of this every once in awhile. Thursday night it was Frank.

Then we broke for tea, coffee and brownies. Brownies y'all.

Praise Jesus. Is this my church or what?

The evening was a smorgasbord of philosophy, history and debate. I really found it very interesting and stimulating. Jennifer then wrapped the evening up with a recounting of the Prodigal Son story and then we had a prayer to finish up. She asked God to give us all to have a safe trip home and a good night's sleep.

I got home in record time and slept like a rock.