Picking a Church

I'm really trying, for the benefit of my kids, to find a church to belong to, because my wife wants them to be able to go to Sunday School and go on church retreats and whatnot, which apparently is fun, even though to me it sounds about as enjoyable as watching a clown take a dump. Anyhow, I'm seriously vascillating on what kind of church I want to be a part of. As a man who was raised under the concept that the only thing you do religiously on Sunday is watch the Vikings, this has proven difficult for me. Here's why. Based on my experience, there appear to be two distinct types of churches

1.) Really boring churches

2.) Cults masking themselves as "non-denominational" churches

The really boring churches are your traditional Catholic and Lutheran churches. People dress nicely, they shuffle in every week, there is a boring sermon that tries to relate Jesus' plight to the rising cost of fuel, nobody pays attention to it, there are some hymns, some 16 year old reads bulletin board stuff, everybody does communion which takes forever, you awkwardly shake hands with everyone around you, you say the Lord's prayer and you shuffle out. Not particularly interesting, but you might see somebody you know and maybe he'll give you Twins tickets.

Then you have the cults. In my quest to be less bored at church, I suggested going to one of the many non-denominational churches around the area. I was hoping it was less boring. I was right about that, but be careful what you hope for, because you might just get it. When we first got in we were greeted by a bunch of really friendly people. Almost too friendly. They had no idea whether or not I was a serial child murderer or a Satanist, but I was still their best friend in 30 seconds. I got the feeling that something funny was going on. No matter. We took the kids to the daycare because this church filmed it's services and they apparently don't approve of screaming children drowning out the sermon. Screaming adults are apparently OK though. More on that later. Then we went into the chapel where I got my second funny feeling, like somebody was trying to fool me. They were playing rock music. Guitars and drums and strobelites and such. People were rockin' out in the stands. What concerned me was the lyrics of this rock music. It was just "praise God" over and over. This wasn't rock music, it was chanting. Then the music would get quiet, and some lady who bore a striking resemblance to Marie Osmond would say something like, "God, you are awesome!! You rule!! We are thankful that you love us Punk Ass bitches. You rock out with your cock out God!!" I'm paraphrasing there, but she was using new age lingo to talk to God. Trying to fool me again. Then she goes back to rock/chanting music.

By now, I'm uncomfortable, especially because people around me are raising their hands and shouting praises, like "OH YES GOD!!" It sounded like Skinemax. One guy was shaking and he rolled his eyes back in his head. Yikes. Then the pastor comes out and tells us to give a big round of applause to the rock group which consisted of the band and about 10 singers, and the only thing that pops into my head is which of the singers would I hump if I absolutely had to. (I picked #7 FYI). Then something really creepy makes me look back to see if they'd locked the doors on us. This crazy person comes up to describe what a great time everybody had at the youth camping extravagaza. She says, "2 people gave their souls to God! We had kids writhing and speaking in tongues and everything. It was great!!" I want to leave right now. My fight or flight response begins to kick in so I locate my nearest exit, and begin to plot the fastest way to incapacitate the usher (hard kick to the crotch) so I can escape. I have decided that speaking in tongues would be a decidedly un-great thing to happen to me or anybody on a camping trip.

Mercifully, I began to get sleepy during the sermon, which was about how your house in heaven is 1 square mile big (how does he know that) and it has more rooms in it than you'll ever be able to visit (I just want a pool table and a big TV.)Finally, it's over, after an hour and a half. As we rush to get our children I am nearly certain that they will be wearing white robes and have new names that have numbers in them, and that they'll call me "Former Daddy" or something. Fortunately, they just went to the park.

So the conclusion I've drawn is this: Old school churches may not be exciting, but nobody is going to scream at the Lord, or spew gibberish at me, and my kids will never be renamed Zyrton-13XBL. I guess that's about all I was hoping for in the first place.

P.S. If it turns out that this non denominational crazyfest is actually the "correct" religion, then I retract this entire post.