Of Going to Church

You have heard me say it many times…. and I heard it again just yesterday: “I’m not into the church thing, but if I were, I would go to All Saints.”Oh, if I had a nickle for every time I heard that. And then there are those who say, “I’m spiritual but not religious… that I can believe in God without the onus of belonging to a church.” I realize I’m preaching to the proverbial choir here, but allow me to make the case for “church.”

Richard Rohr, noted writer and theologian says that the life of faith is not about searching for God… as if God were out there somewhere, but that the life of faith is the practice of being aware that God is everywhere. That, in short, is what church is about, particularly a liturgical church. The sole purpose of liturgy is to lead us into imaginative awareness; to remind us as a gathered community why we are here on this earth in the first place. I would argue that one can’t effectively find awareness alone. There is something enlightening about the collective expression of gratitude, of prayer and praise, of engaging scripture, of breaking bread and sharing a ritual meal. Church is much more than a place to believe. Belief is an evolving and speculative process. Much more, it is a place wherein we are immersed into awareness through our aesthetic sensibilities. We in the Episcopal Church believe that worship is informing and transforming, beauty the catalyst. That is why we take it so seriously here.

I have found over the years that what has held me in the church is not our creeds and catechism; our diverse theology; it is the beauty of our worship. My life has evolved and changed radically since my youth; and that process has been in no small way shaped by my life in the church…. by the “beauty of holiness” if you will…. and that holiness that we envision and enact Sunday after Sunday leads us into the awareness that God is not hidden, but common among us; that God is present in the mere Love of neighbor, in the sharing of a meal, in the mundane commerce of humanity. Our liturgy, at its best, should make visible such things in a way that speaks to the deepest recesses of our souls, the imaginative heart of our being. Perhaps the simple truth is that God is best known amid our praise.

We all know people who would love being at All Saints; people who would grow and flourish… if they only knew what we are about… So ask them to come, even if they’re not really into the “church thing.”