Why It’s Okay if My Church Isn’t Hip
It’s a Sunday morning moment I’ve come to expect like the certainty of the rising sun.
I look forward to it, really.
She charges through the double doors from the foyer into the the sanctuary thrashing her walker. Though it’s designed to aid her steps, it seems no more than a pesky obstruction to the day’s Mission: Critical.
“Helllooo,” she calls once she’s barely past the threshold.
“Good morning to you,” I shout back, though we’re nearly arm’s length away. I made the mistake one morning of not responding, lost as I was in my work in the media booth. I thought she’d spoken to someone else.
She hadn’t.
She let me know.
I haven’t missed a Sunday morning greeting since.
Now, when she comes in before the rest of the Sunday School crowd and makes her way to the library to reload her books for the week, I always stop dropping images and text into their boxes and turn to visit. And I make sure I have my poker face firmly in place. Because I never know what’s coming next.
A few weeks ago, it went something like this:
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“It’s me, Lyla. Just like always,” I smiled.
“Oh. Well. It’s just that you look so . . . strange.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll get a haircut this week.”
And then the next week:
“Who are you?”
“It’s me, Lyla, just like always.”
“Always? Are you always here? What time do you come here?”
“Usually around 7:30 or so.”
“Why? What do you do in that little space so early in the morning?”
“I’m getting the slides ready for the music and Pastor’s sermon this morning.”
“Oh. Well. It’s just that you look so . . . strange.”
“I know. I’m working on that haircut.”
By last week, I’d worked out the haircut thing and didn’t have to introduce myself. She stopped her march to the library abruptly, pausing to look at the screen where I still had a slide hanging to remind parents to pick up a devotional booklet for their young kids.
“Oh dear. I’m afraid I haven’t read mine lately,” she said, shaking her head. “You know, I can’t seem to do it.”
“Well,” I said, “it seems to me that you have it all right where you need it.” And I tapped my chest.
She leaned her frailty hard into the walker and hung her head. “Oh, I just don’t know anymore.”
::
I watched her shoulders slump, and remembered this sweet but feisty character. Once when I was on the church’s staff she recruited me as her co-conspirator to break into the pastor’s office to retrieve a telephone number she was sure he had. She pressed me when I reported back after my covert operation that I’d glanced at his desk and didn’t see it.
“Well, did you look in his desk drawers then?”
“No, I didn’t think I should,” I said.
“Good. I wouldn’t have either. But I wanted to know if you would.”
And I thought back to the time we brought her apples from our tree because I didn’t know what to do with them and baking brought her so much joy.
We had no idea she’d be calling hours later insisting that we come to her apartment right now to pick up those nine pies because she needed her cooling racks for the next nine, and how soon could we pick up that next batch because she had things to do you know?
She’s preached me Jesus more times than I can count.
And I’m pretty sure I’ve felt the earth tremble under my feet when she’s asked God to move.
She’s a rock. The last standing of a generation of her family that piled stones together as the foundation of my church.
::
To hear her exhale resignation there at the library door, held up by an apparatus she despises, my heart may have paused for a beat.
“Hey,” I said, “You listen to me. It’s here. Right here.” I made a fist and rapped my chest hard this time. “You know that.”
She looked back up, met me with weary eyes and said, “Yes, well, maybe it is still in my heart.”
And with that, she rolled the walker into the library.
I turned back to the keyboard and continued typing where I’d left off.
Be still, my soul:
thy God doth undertake
To guide the future,
as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence
let nothing shake;
All now mysterious
shall be bright at last.
I looked out at the congregation that morning, my perch giving me a rare view of the lot of them from the back. I saw silver hair and no hair, pony tails and buzz cuts, blue jeans and t-shirts, dresses and suits, walkers, canes and sippy cups.
And I remembered how much I love my church, a family with whom I’ve walked through fire and flood. We’re small, and we’re regular folks, a mix of farmer and doctor, educator and businessman, stay-at-home and work-away.
We still have pews, though they’re padded. Our praise team is fledgling, staffed with teenagers and retirees and amateur musicians who just love to worship their King. We have one service, and it’s still on Sunday morning. My pastor wears a tie instead of ripped jeans and a v-neck. And we start every service from the hymnal.
We’re not hip.
And that’s okay.
Because if my church were hip, I know one humble servant I’d never see on a Sunday morning.
::
Photo: Lonely Soul by Wendy Swallis via Stock.xchng Be Still My Soul, Katharina Von Schlegel, Public Domain
I loved this, Lyla. I think your church and mine are very much alike in some ways.
2010/07/16 at 1:53 PM
loved this, Lyla.
and the you , who you are. here. for people that find you.
2010/07/16 at 4:21 PM
this one just brought tears – you keep pursuing her heart. she sounds wonderful.
2010/07/16 at 5:42 PM
Thanks you three. You give me reason to smile tonight.
2010/07/16 at 10:24 PM
Having spent the last 23 years as part of larger church (450 to 500) at Sunday worship, your church (a church that we know well) is, in my view, a lot more hip (with God) than ours perhaps, because yours has community. We have programs.
A wag once commented, “God must really love poor people, he made so many of them”. I think that same God also loves small churches. He has made a lot of them and they continue to impact their spiritual community and the community at large. We’ve been told by those who know, that you and Lane are an important part of what makes your church hip.
Dad
2010/07/17 at 10:39 AM
This one leaves me in tears. And I don’t know why. Well, maybe I do …
I think some of it has to do with the fact that my church looks a lot like yours, so I can relate.
The second part is picturing you, tapping your chest to remind her what she’s got … and what she’s given to you.
Thank you for this. THANK YOU.
2010/07/17 at 12:15 PM
Jennifer, these are the times it has to come back, we have to see what we’ve got. Her whole life, she’s been tucking it away. Pondering in her heart like Mary might. Now’s the time, it has to come back.
Your small country church, yeah, I think I feel some of us in a place like that.
2010/07/17 at 7:34 PM
This brings to mind the beauty of a tapestry, with threads of such rich colors. I think, perhaps, it is the greatest tragedy of homogeneous churches.
2010/07/17 at 12:50 PM
This phrase, “just love to worship their King”, because that is what church is all about. This is a beautiful picture of being the church. Thank you!
2010/07/17 at 4:21 PM
As the world’s foremost authority on small churches, and perhaps being one of the reason mine is small, I’m inclined to think that the Lord doesn’t mind if his Church isn’t hip either. I’ve been in some pretty large churches that were pretty small, filled with lots of people who were few in spirit. When we are small, He is big, when we are few He is many. Somewhere there is a verse that says, Nothing is more unhip than trying to be hip. Too much hype makes too little hip.
2010/07/17 at 5:30 PM
I thought it was too much donut makes too much hip. But maybe that was my book of proverbs.
And Dave, you’re hip. There’s never been a doubt.
2010/07/17 at 7:26 PM
Dad, I really used to miss my big church when we moved back out here. I’ve gotten over it. God works through them, absolutely. But He also works small, one at a time. I wonder sometimes if He has less to work around if we don’t get so big. But I tend to just be biased towards whatever I have at a time I think.
Cheryl, nice to see you here. Because of our geography in many ways we are not diverse, so I treasure the diversity we can have generationally instead. Tapestry is a great image.
Nancy, yes and thanks. Exactly what it’s all about.
2010/07/17 at 7:33 PM
Lyla, I come here from Talk at the Table, and am awed by your wording… it’s beautiful, this way you write. I will come back. I loved this story. e.
2010/07/17 at 11:08 PM
Beautiful! How often the older generation is left behind…yet despite the battle of health, age and unhipness they show us strength, fortitude and spirit. Blessings….
2010/07/18 at 2:51 PM
Emily, from Deb’s you come? You humble me.
Annie, most of ‘em have better hips than I do. Brand new ones…
2010/07/18 at 7:08 PM
Lyla, You’re funny. (re: hips)
2010/07/18 at 8:57 PM
Loved, loved this one–I see so much of my grandma in this image. I was encouraged by it, though–a woman who was a mentor, who loved and shared Jesus STILL had a down day when she wondered if she was right with God. I have those days, too. They’re more rare than they once were, but that nagging “what if” question still comes.
2010/07/18 at 9:45 PM
I love your article.
It reminded me of the value of remaining in my “small” church. Many in my generation have left our church to attend today’s version of a mega church.
The reason I have remained is because I like getting to know people and multi-generational aspect of the congregation. A small church members really get to know their members and the truth is you become like a family both the good and the bad. In today’s busy world its nice to find rest in a place where people actually know your name.
2010/07/20 at 8:16 AM