more on that.......

thank God above its the weekend, the past couple of days have been murder; but at least its basically over. there's a part of me that cannot wait to be done with this "job" over here....oh, did i say that?

anyway, let me try and give you an example of what i was saying in my last post about Brand Loyalty, and thus a business mentallity, in the church. a few weeks ago i had a conversation with one of the staff at the Ascension, Althea, and she told me about a lunch meeting she had with one of the other staff at the church months earlier. they went out because he had something to tell Althea and judging from his behavior, something really big and/or bad; due to the fact that he was visibly nervous. they got through most of the lunch without him bringing it up, but getting more nervous. she was wondering what it was he had to tell her, was his fiancee pregnant? does he have cancer? did he kill someone? finally, near the end of the lunch he told her, and this is what the big news was: he was planning on going back to school to pursue graphic design this next fall and he would have to quit his job at the end of the summer. wow, why was he so nervous about saying that, i thought, then it occurred to me. due to the sense of lotaly that is demanded of congragants and staff at churches these days, he was afraid that the leadership at the church would see his pursuing of a carreer that wasn't the church as a lack of loyalty to them. as if he worked for a company that demanded nothing less than total loyalty to the job, like he had signed a contract and, by leaving and pursuing a passion, he was breaking it to the uttermost penalty.

when i told the Ascension that i was cutting my year short, they responded with nearly accusational disbelief. then, as well intentioned as they were, they tried to scare me into staying the rest of my time, saying that if i cut my year short, there would be no way that i would be able to benefit from my experience here in London. what a crock of non-sense. they reacted as if i had broken trust with them, as if i was working at KFC and had shared the Colonel's Secret Recipe with the world. the same is sometimes true of people that deicde to go to a different church. i have sometimes seen people like that treated by people at their prior church as if they had left the faith, "no longer could they be serving/loving the Lord if they don't do it at our church" they think to themselves. maybe i'm reading something into all these examples, but i don't think i am. its just one more adverse result of seeing the church as a business and not as a family of messed up people who are all on the path toward heaven. there is little or no grace in the business world, and i surely, a lot of the time, don't see much grace in the church either..... how sad we have become. may God help us.