Chapter 32: Running With Scissors

Green slime oozes long drips from the eaves of the church building.

And I am absolutely not kidding. Pastor Almost and I plan messages together in a series, about 4-6 weeks long, dealing with various aspects of the same theme. Then, we flesh it out, often using secular music, various visual arts, and even dance to get the point across.

This particular series is called Toxic Faith. We definitely raised eyebrows in the community. Church #3 was on a fairly well traveled road in the town of Tiny, and we had decked out the eaves in long drips of green slime, wood cut into three-foot curves painted sickly Mr. Yuk green nailed to the fascia of the building. Joining the drips were three massive metal drums previously used to hold a mysterious something that were reassigned to being painted the same neon-green with a toxic waste symbol painted on the front. These were in a pyramid in front, closer to the road. TOXIC FAITH, a sign shouted in front, along with the dates the series was running.

You may recall I had said there were friends who stood with us, and stand with us they did. A good number of members from Pastor Jock’s flock flew the coop and joined our nest, including several of the best musicians from the worship team. Their worship team was effectively annihilated overnight, many of them abruptly switched over, and the professional musicians we knew who we occasionally called in refused to play there once we were fired. The ever-prolific small town grapevine informed us that, shortly after we were excised, Pastor Jock fired the entire 40-member worship team. Yep, I can’t make this shit up. He replaced the entire worship team with one twentysomething guy who played guitar, then after a few months Pastor Jock fired him, too. He also fired the youth pastor he had hired himself. This guy was on a roll, hatchet in hand, better not step out of line or you’re next! Being fired sucked, but it felt great to no longer have to walk on eggshells in fear that we weren’t compliant with his view of How Things Should Be, TM.

While he was busy at Church #2 burning shit down, we were busy rebuilding our lives across town with this series about how churches can be toxic. I mean, it’s not like the messages were all about what had happened at Pastor Jock’s church specifically, but what had just happened most definitely fit under the category of Toxic Faith. Between us and Pastor Almost, we had three lifetimes full of firsthand experience of what can go wrong at church. It was cathartic to finally see these things called out.

DH starts a blog, I don’t recall exactly what it was called, but, having nothing to lose, he tells a lot of our side of what happened. It gets pretty popular. The leadership at Church #2 is NOT happy, but what can they do? It’s not much, but at least some people become aware of what really happened.

Months later, my phone buzzes with a text from one of the elder’s wives from Jock’s church. Wouldn’t I please get together for coffee and chat? I used to spent a significant amount of time with this woman, we were close friends back then. I messaged back informing her that if she couldn’t be there for us during the time we were left alone in the dust after being fired, why the hell would I want to talk to her now? Their thinly veiled attempt at damage control is foiled, and I don’t hear from her again.

But, as vengeance always is, the steam eventually dissipates…we are never getting our position back at Pastor Jock’s church, hell, we wouldn’t even want it now. It’s like being exiled from your home country and then it burns to the ground, you miss it, but don’t want to go back because it’s not what it once was anyway. They are STILL a much more conservative church than under Pastor Real, it never got the fire back that we had in the glory days. Today, it’s a tribute to the mediocrity that happens when you have too many rules. Freedom feeds the arts. Tough to sing He set me free when you’re in chains.

At the moment, however, we are running amok, Pastor Almost knows that there is deep meaning in secular music as well as sacred, and we use both profusely. Musicians draw musicians, and freedom feeds music, and the worship team grows and expands to 22, mostly instrumentalists, mostly professionals. This music is stupidly amazing for a church that runs around 80.

We have a pro drummer who brings in a twelve thousand dollar Pearl set. as well as two good backup drummers.

We have a killer bass player.

We have a pro guitar player who can peel off things like Eruption in his sleep. He’s also a pro sound guy, and installs a sound system that would have been appropriate in a stadium.

We have a pro flautist, as in one who has a degree in flute.

DH is pro piano, and we also have a second keys player, also professional.

We have two dancers, a matched pair who are majoring in dance at college, and both of whom are proficient on pointe (that cool ballet technique where you dance on your toes)

And this is just seven of the 22 we have, and they’re all auditioned, and they’re all really good.

We… are spoiled.

We construct a float for the community parade and throw the entire band on a trailer, playing “Good Times” with a four foot mirrored disco ball looming over us. We do an entire series based on Pink Floyd music, and build a wall in the church, enough bricks removed so the worship team is peeking out the middle. I find unusual worship music with odd meters. We do every style you can imagine, including Latin and classical. Our flautist can absolutely nail very difficult passages, it’s amazing to be able to open a service with Debussy. We do Welcome To My Nightmare, Ghostbusters, and Thriller in October. We do California Dreaming, complete with the flute part, of course. We do Loves Me Like A Rock. We do Ain’t Nothing Wrong With That. We do Sly and the Family Stone.

And the worship music. We do Magnificent by U2. We play Jesus Is Just All Right. I scour the corners of the earth for sophisticated and unusual worship music, and sometimes just write my own.

In our Christmas services, we hire in a cellist friend, and we do excerpts from the Nutcracker suite, a matching set of beautiful ballerinas in traditional pristine white tutus on toe shoes dancing the hell out of the Sugar Plum Fairy while the ethereal strings and bells are being played live behind them, a masterpiece lit under thousands of white Christmas lights encased in gossamer netting, afront a forest of sparkling branches. I still remember my young niece in the front row wide-eyed in wonder, watching the magic unfold. By the time the service is over, we have worked our way up to a frenzy of Trans-Siberian Orchestra music, fronted by the dueling electric guitars just about anyone recognizes. We do a Gospel version of the Hallelujah chorus, as well as Gospel versions of other Christmas songs, with sophisticated jazz-based harmonies. I lived to create magical moments and create them we did.

We do a Christmas series based on the Island of Misfit Toys. We make four eight-foot tall wooden models of the characters to place out front including Dolly and the Abominable Snowman. It’s one of my favorite series we did, I think all of us feel like misfit toys at times. We are having an incredible time with all of this.

So, are you wondering yet why he’s called Pastor Almost?