Skipping Church.

We're wrangling with some church squickiness again.

And I have to work this afternoon.

And I have not been sleeping through the night.

And so, I didn't go to church this morning. I slept in, made scrambled eggs and coffee just like I like it.

I'm listening to Mumford and Sons and reading blogs. And writing in mine, apparently.

Church is hard. SO HARD! Why is it so hard? Les and I have been trying to figure this out, and the closest we can figure is that Church is a family, and sometimes your family drives you crazy, but you don't quit on your family so we are not going to quit on church. But we may be visiting yet more churches over the next few weeks.

Right now I'm struggling less with the "issues" we are having with our current church and more with the intensely obvious self-righteousness of it all. I mean, if you have a disagreement with your family, you should make it right, right? Humbly, admitting your own failings and inconsistencies. You don't just stand in the middle of the kitchen and point fingers and say "You should all think just like me! You all need to be doing X so that I can do X more easily!".

We could get down and dirty with needs in our community even if the church isn't doing it. We could be radically committed to simplicity, generosity, hospitality. Even if it doesn't look like the church as a whole is really into that. We could prayerfully look for ways to live in community with people who are not wealthy white protestants. We COULD do all of that without a church that preaches it. But you know what? We aren't. We want the church to do it so we can do it more easily. More programmatically, less painfully. More socially, less sacrificially.

Sure, it helps if you go to a church that is all about that stuff. It helps to have small groups who are committed to challenging life together. But maybe we're supposed to stay where we are and assume the role of Chief Rabble Rousers and Putting-Our-Money-Where-Our-Mouth-Is-ers.

Or maybe not.

What is the role of church? What is the role of doctrine and theology over practice and actual life? Are we better off going to a church that is radically "progressive" about loving people and social justice but has some wonky bits in their theology, or a church with people we like and who are "like us", and whose ducks are all in a neat doctrinal row but seems perfectly content inside it's Southern Living magazine WASP-o-Rama? Are we perfectly content inside a wasp-o-rama? Especially one whose social positions seem actually opposed to our own?

Community, community, my kingdom for some Kingdom Community!