“How greeeeeaaaat is our Goooood. Sing with meeee…”
pastor Good dashes up the middle aisle, taps a gentleman on the shoulder and whispers in his ear. The man follows him out the side door
“Howw greeeeeat is our Gooooood. And all will seeee….”
he dashes in again, tapping a different gentleman on the shoulder and he also proceeds with the pastor out the side door
“How greeeeeaat….how greaaaat…. is our Goooood…”
There is DEFINITELY a problem outside, though by now I know when I’m up front leading, the best thing to do is press ahead and trust things are being handled. This is a bit unusual, though. Flashing emergency vehicle lights join the sunlight streaming through the stained glass at the side of the sparsely filled room.
Uh oh.
I lead the congregation in prayer while Pastor Good approaches the front, looking like he swallowed something rancid.
I hand off the service to him, and he awkwardly tells us our pianist has passed away of heart failure. She literally played the opening, walked out, and dropped dead. It’s a sad day for all of us, and a stark reminder to me how precious and short this life is, one life snuffed out while another life is growing inside of me. I am still wondering what the hell we are going to do about our situation.
The latest issue with this particular situation is the seminary DH chose. At the time he picked it out, we had seen so much crazy in the Charismatic movement that we fled the opposite direction, the proudly anti-signs ‘n wonders Master’s Seminary. The founder went so far as to write a book titled Charismatic Chaos. These are NOT people who would ever believe God spoke to them through burn marks on their toast that resemble Jesus, or insist Mother Mary spoke to them through a cardinal showing up on their grandma’s birthday, or EBay a potato chip in the shape of the Vatican.
A few months into DH’s classes, we at last have time to visit the legendary church associated with the seminary.
The first time we go to John MacArthur’s church, I am VERY excited!! We had read several of his books and we had been listening to his radio show for some time. He was doctrinally so deliciously solid, man let me tell you if we thought we knew the Bible in the UPC, now it was going under a microscope.
Doctrine, doctrine, doctrine.
Like so many twentysomething idealists before us, we had pursued The Truth at any cost, and once again, we were sure we had found it, and it was sealed up, locked and loaded… ready to go for the rest of our lives. Mission accomplished, boy were we ever smart for figuring out the answers of life so young.
We enter the church John MacArthur founded. I smell cookie-cutter immediately. Everyone is wearing that irritation called “business casual” (Who the hell invented khakis anyway? Do they look good on anyone?) and has these kinda phony grins.
Ohh boy…
We enter the worship service.
Oh. My. GOD.
The worship team stands in a structured formation, all dressed in matchy-matchy everything, looking stuffier than a couch at a Country Club.
The music is TER. RI. BLE.
Oh, it’s technically correct, but these people have painted-on fake toothy grins as if you handed out Halloween teeth before the music started. It is unbelievably stiff and stilted, and in my professional opinion, this music was DOA. Completely devoid of true passion and feeling, in their effort to make everything doctrinally perfect, they had censored the life right out of it. Their worship team evoked memories of the laughably outdated Lawrence Welk show, like all of the happy is just staged. (A’wondafull, a’wondafull. If you got that, you’re older than me.) This is an abomination down to my core. I HATE it. My love for music comes from deep in my soul. I started writing songs as a bullied tween in tears at the piano, angsty songs emoting what was going on in my life, expressing the heart of a too-deep twelve-year old. It is my survival skill. To me, music is a freedom, a passion, a true story told, an unrestrained authenticity straight from the inner being, you know when it’s real. It moves the spirit and speaks to the soul. And you clap on two and four. But there is no passion in the music at this Karen convention.
I try out a ladies meeting, led by the founder’s wife. I’m excited to see what wisdom she has to share, and discover more about leadership and spiritual growth, but it is waylaid by recipes and instruction on proper care and feeding of your husband. She instructs us it is imperative to provide our husbands with a hot meal every morning. Wait, lady, I don’t recall seeing THAT in the Bible. They are all dressed in a style I will call less-edgy librarian, and she preaches at length about the importance of modesty. You must check yourself out in the mirror carefully, front and back, before you leave the house, so you don’t have a stray piece of skin that’s going to make some man’s pants fall off. Oops, I slept with a guy. ‘Cause that’s how it works, right??
This is all reminescent of my time in UPC, and it’s making me nauseous. Actually, it’s even stricter in some ways. UPC at least ordains women and has female evangelists and pastors, and though I am allowed pants and a haircut at this church, I can’t lead shit except for women and children, totally not in my wheelhouse. I would have loved to take classes and learn as well, but women are not allowed to study at the Master’s seminary, it is an all-male student body and they do not ordain women. This is not the first time 1 Timothy 2:12 will become a thorn in my side, the verse reading NKJV: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.” I’m screwed. My leadership ability and absolutely un-quiet personality is not going to work here, and once again I find myself dulling a lot of my personality in order to fit in. Unbeknownst to me, someday this verse will take away my career…
At the Master’s Seminary, the only degree I have the hope of achieving is the PhT, AKA the Putting hubby Through certificate, because of course, I am the one working my ass off so he can do this, full-time plus at the Burbank mall.
In the “social” time following (no alcohol, of course), the ladies (I have heard it preached repeatedly that it is offensive to call us ‘women’… I’m still in the dark as to why.) are chatting vacantly about recipes, knitting, shopping, and I am losing my damn mind over here because I am interested in absolutely zero of this. I don’t want a Pampered Chef party, I don’t want to talk about that cute top you saw, or how you can crochet a coozy for your dish detergent, or the latest method of freezing 30 days of meals… PLEASE GIVE ME THE RED PILL AND GET ME THE HELL OUT!!!
There’s a problem here… all of this obsession with doctrine, the splitting of hairs, the obsession with being perfectly RIGHT… dismantles the freedom, the love, the ability to understand that no single human being has all of their shit together and DAMMIT we need to stop expecting this perfection of others because NO ONE has it 100% together. This was the Achilles heel at MacArthur’s church, at the Master’s Seminary, and even at the Baptist church we were working at.
These people were obsessed with knowledge and doctrine and endless study, yet did know how to simply love.
That fateful worship service at MacArthur’s church was the beginning of the end of L.A. for us. DH was getting increasingly disillusioned each day he attended the seminary, and I was as well. Week after week, we slogged through leading contemporary worship at a church who largely wanted traditional hymns, the congregation divided and angry about this matter as I have seen so many times. Boy, if you want some dissenting opinions, just start asking about music, especially in the church.
In the meantime, my belly keeps growing, and we are running out of money…
Worship Leader Gone Wild 