Originally published on my Geocities website “Kent’s Rants.” Technically my first blog post.
I am trying to find a church. I moved to Scotts Valley for school, my home church is all the way back in Vacaville, and Christians are not supposed to go it alone. (That’s how cults start.) So I need a local place of worship.
I realize that, by confessing this, I’ve opened myself up to a lot of emails from well-meaning Christians who think their church is the greatest ever so I should go there. I appreciate the kindness, but there’s no guarantee that I’m going to agree with you once I get to your church. See, I’m looking for a certain thing; one that’s lacking in a lot of Christians, and therefore lacking from a lot of churches. I’m looking for a friendly church.
I haven’t found one yet because I keep going to churches with college students in them. Hang on; I’ll explain this statement soon. But first you should understand that statistically young adults aren’t friendly. They haven’t learned how to be friendly yet. They will someday, when they’re older. But currently they’re growing up, and they’re self-focused and self-centered, and heavily insulated with friends. So instead of being friendly with new people, they’re busy talking with their friends, and I don’t happen to be one of their friends, so I can go to hell for all they care.
Go ahead and protest that you’re not one of these people. You think you’re a friendly person because you sometimes say “Hi” to people you don’t know, and trade some superficial bits of information with them. But once any degree of uncomfortable silence kicks in, you turn to the closest nearby friend and strike up a conversation—figuring that if you’re both facing the new person at a comfortable 75-degree angle, it’ll make them feel included. (It doesn’t. They’re even more uncomfortable because now they’re eavesdropping—and they only partially understand your conversation because you’re not talking about an experience you’ve all shared.)
Many young people are also clueless about this point of view because they’ve always gone to their home church. For that matter, they’ve seldom been in a situation where they didn’t know someone. If they have, that uncomfortable feeling is quickly forgotten… when it should become an experience we can use to relate to uncomfortable people.
When I lived in Grass Valley (after I spent a month mixing up “Grass” and “Scotts” regularly) I found such a church. They had no young adults; I don’t know if that was a factor in their friendliness, but the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to think so. They had no Young Adult Group to lump me together with, no Singles Ministry to shunt me off to, so they had to deal with me as I was—a young, twenty-something, single adult. They did a great job. I was never made to feel unwelcome, even though my Rants were regularly in the local paper and I actually dared to disagree with the pastor’s views on tribulation. Didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter, either.
So when I attend a church, that is what I am looking for: friendly Christians. The Master said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
PS—I should mention: I don’t count the pastor. Pastors know better, and do what they can to be friendly in spite of the standoffishness of their flock. I hope they don’t take it personally if I never return to their church, because it’s not them. I’ve seen some very good preachers and some losers in my hunt for a church. I’ve heard great and not-so-great worship music. I’m still looking for people who obviously fulfill Jesus’s commandment to love.
Maybe I need to stop going to church with college students.