Dar came over this morning.  It's been about 3 months since she's been here.  I had posted on FB that I woke up with my right eye lid swollen and I couldn't see very well.  She came over because, she said, "I wanted to make sure you hadn't had a stroke."

Okay.

We chatted--rather she chatted, I sat and listened.  Then I asked why she hadn't gone to church and she told me she left that church.

She had been going for about 5 months and decided she wanted to join.  She took the membership classes.  For the next three Sunday's, the Pastor would call up to the altar new members, so the congregation could greet them.  He never called Dar up.

She finally asked him why and he sort of hemmed and hawed.  She said, "Is it because of my father, I can't be away from home much, so I can't take part in helping the church.  Work in the nursery.  Help with funeral dinners?"

The Pastor just smiled, so she said, "Okay.  I get it."  and walked out and never went back.
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I felt so bad for her that I got tears in my eyes.  "That must have hurt." I said.

"It did." she said as she teared up.

I went on to explain or try and figure out why she had been denied membership.

In our church, if you want to become a member, yes you take membership classes.  These explain the doctrine of the church, it's beliefs and such.  No where are you told you have to join the choir, or work the nursery or anything like that.  It asks if you will support the church, but that could mean a lot of things.  I know they would appreciate it if we tithed, because every year, at their "conference", each church has to pay $60.00 for each member on their rolls.

I'm a Methodist, so...... well ya know, we let anyone become a member if they want. We think it shows they have made a commitment to God and the doctrines our church upholds.

Then she said, "The "board" wouldn't approve me, I guess."

"You have to be approved by a........................"

"The board and the congregation have to accept me as a member," she said.

"Wow!  That's rather exclusionary and biased and......snooty," I said.

"I would have been an asset to that church too.  I often helped the Pastor there.  One Sunday he was preaching from the book of Matthew and he didn't explain to the congregation that the last two chapters of Matthew, weren't written by Matthew.  They were added centuries later, by someone else with their own interpretation.  I told him after the sermon that I thought he should have informed the congregation of that and not let them think that was part of what Matthew wrote!"

Oh. oh.

"Another Sunday he mis-pronounced the names of two Greek cities.  I have been to both of those cities, so I told him the correct pronunciation." 

Hm-mm.  Now I understand what went on.

Dar got on her, "I know more about the scriptures than you do...high horse."

"Ah...have you ever thought that maybe you intimidated the Pastor and made him uncomfortable when he preached, because he knew, you know more about the Bible than he does?"

"Well, wouldn't he like that?  Wouldn't he like to have a member who could help him be a better teacher?"

Oh Dar--once again...it's all about you.

Did I say that?  Of course not!

"Well, I'm real sorry it didn't work out for you.  I know that you long to have a church."

"What I can't figure out," she said, "is why God would put me in that church, for so many months, only to take me out of it."

Perhaps God didn't put you in that church.  You saw it one day when you drove by.  You attended and thought, because it was a small church, you would have greater influence.

Did I say that?  Of course not!

"You just have to keep praying and asking God.  He will find you a church that is a perfect fit for you."  That's what I said.

Dar and I are quite different in our church needs.  She went to church with me one day and declared she didn't know why I even went to church.  "You go in, you sing, you listen to the sermon and then you leave.  Plus, I don't think your church is very spiritual."

Well, I never!!!! 

When Dar goes to church, she goes as much for the social interaction as the message from the pulpit.  She is gone at least two-three hours.  There is meeting people before the service and there is the social hour after church and then meetings with the Pastor or different "influential" people in the church.

She's right.  When I go to church, I enter the sanctuary, I sit down, I pray.  I do not talk to people in the pew in front or behind me.  I do not whisper.  We are all going to acknowledge each other later when the Preacher calls for the "greeting".  I love the songs, I love the choir anthem, I get what I can out of the sermon and then, as I leave, I shake the minister's hand and say Hi to people that greet me on my way out the door.  I have absolutely no interest in joining one of the Ladies groups.  I used to sing in the choir and loved that, but I never went to coffee hour after church.  I guess I'm odd.

In our Church, we don't have a lot of shouting, raising our hands upward, or people yelling out, "Yes."  "Tell it Brother", stuff like that.  We do get into an occasional Amen, but it isn't shouted out.  Like I said.  I'm a Methodist.  We don't get emotionally swept up too often.

Now Dar--she likes that sort of thing.  She has her hands up for most of the service.  She yells out.  She goes down to the altar every Sunday, after the sermon.  In our Church the only reason, other than for communion, anyone would go down to the altar is if they wanted to get "saved".  So, after she attended church with me that day and went through all her gyrations, which I must say startled my calm Methodist pew sitters, and she said, "I go down to the altar to show that I am a Christian."

Ah yes.  I think "show" is the operative word here.  It's all for show.  Oh, I shouldn't say that.  Maybe the spirit over takes her.  She has told me that she often speaks in tongues and when she does that, people will rush to lay hands on her.

Maybe they think she is in need of an exorcism?  Sorry--that was bad................................

All churches worship differently.  I guess it depends on the way you were raised.  My Mother taught me that when you enter the sanctuary, you are in the presence of God and you are to be quiet and in a prayerful mood.  My sister says, "What makes you think God is only in the sanctuary?  He's out in the hall...down in the basement."

It's just that I was raised in the older times in church and I have never quite gotten into the "charismatic movement."
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 I guess that's why I now enjoy watching church on TV.  There is no distraction.  I can center in on what the preacher is saying.  I can sing in my raggedity voice, all the while, sitting in my pajamas.  It's either that, or I have become a lazy bum.