Forgive me, revrun, for ah have sinned.

The Baptist version of Penance

Last Sunday afternoon at a local family restaurant, I overheard an older man recapping the morning sermon to someone across the table from him. He said the minister was spinning plates on the platform. (I have no idea if he was Baptist, but in a Baptist church, the platform is where most of the action takes place during the service. The preaching, announcements, song leading, and often the choir, are all up there).

According to what I gleaned by my eavesdropping, the minister said everyone there was like one of those plates, and his job was to get them all spinning, but it wasn't his job to keep them spinning.

The pastor apparently went on to say that too many folks come to church expecting milk when they are ready for meat and should be feeding themselves. (There was a note of weariness and disappointment in his voice.)

I can appreciate a good motivational challenge as much as anyone else, but too often they sound just like this preacher, who'd rather grouse than encourage.

Part of my frustration is that I've been in lots of (Baptist) situations as an adult where I've seen this, so even though I didn't hear this particular event first-hand, I heard echoes of it just as if I'd been in the pew.

My comment to that pastor, if I were having coffee with him, would go something like this:

Some folks will live on milk their whole lives, will come to church every once in a awhile, say grace at dinner, sorta kinda believe in arks and floods and Egyptian plagues, and when it comes right down to it, the cross too, and heaven and angels and someone up there paying attention to what's going on down here. And they'll turn to you when they need to believe it the most, and in those moments, those once-in-a-while-folks will need you more than those that are there every week. Count yourself fortunate you have a role in which you can publicly mope a little and get away with it, because it's part of the Sunday guilt trip that cleanses the palate. For you it's catharsis. For them, it's the Baptist version of penance.

[2013-05-26]

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Click to enlarge: Dr Adrian Rogers was good at infusing a sense of spiritual need, ie, "You better listen to me, and if this is uncomfortable there's probably a good reason for that." I don't care for that approach, and when I hear it, I focus more on the rhetorical maneuvers than the content; he's pleasant enough to listen to, and sincere, but he leaves no room for deep differences of opinion. He shouts a lot too, which I don't care for. Well, shouted. He died a few years ago. Perhaps I'll take this topic up with him someday.

Many years ago, in the basement of a a GARB church that I attended as an adult, the adult Sunday school teacher, standing at the head of the class, gave an obviously frustrated plea for more involvement, dropped his bible on the podium with a loud leather thwak and dismissed us for refreshments.

(Yes, Baptists have Sunday school for adults, too.)

I was young, no family, quite busy, and wondered who he might be talking to, and if it was me, and what he might be expecting. Bring more cookies? Volunteer for chores around the church? Teach? Baptists don't like spelling things out, and I'm a terrible speller.

When Sunday becomes more work than worship, don't be surprised if people stop coming. Some of those folks that would rather not be there are just looking for an excuse not to come back.

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The gentlest pastor I ever knew was Pastor Andrus at Bethel. Dad told me (dad was a deacon) that Pastor Andrus always felt exhausted after a sermon on the devil and believed he was under attack during these times. Whether that duress was psychological or spiritual, it certainly was real.

Pastor Andrus never spun plates, nor made anyone feel bad if milk was all they could manage to get down.

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