The Church of the Upper Class

Somebody looked around First Church and realized that there aren't any poor people here. Well, the truth is we've got a few "token" poor people, but no "real" poor people here. This is a white collar church - and it seems like those are the only kind of people who come here.

Sigh...

I just had a conversation with another pastor. He had a call from a woman who was asking really strange questions about church. "Do I have to make a reservation to come?" "Where will I sit?" "What if I don't have any money to put in the plate?" "Do I have to come every Sunday?"

She had no idea what church is.

Most days I have no idea what church SHOULD be. No, that's not true - I know what it should be, but I can't see it. We play a lot of church games, we do a lot of church stuff, but when was the last time we really WERE the church?

I see it sometimes when there's a tragedy - a death (funerals are notorious for bringing out the best AND the worst in people - but I've really seen the church at some funeral services), 9/11, a family is burned out of their home and people pull together and open themselves up to each other.

Unless they're really poor, maybe. Or annoying. Or not as smart as the rest of us. Or rude. Yeah, rude is bad...

Sigh...

I'm in a bad mood today. We spent four hours supposedly talking about shared ministry in Warren - without making one real decision, without drawing a single conclusion or even a single idea of what we really CAN do. Except that we neet to meet again in a few weeks.


Sigh...

You know, Maya Angelou would be SO welcome here - as long as she sat quietly in her pew - but she better not speak out. That would never fly...

Sadly, that's true in most churches. And I, too, don't think she'd be interested at all in attending most churches...