Johnny Pewsitter

How strange it has been to sit in the congregations on Sunday mornings. It's not just that I'm used to being up front -- it's also that for me being in church on Sunday morning has been primarilly about community.

I attended the same church from the time I was dedicated until after I left for college. I was recognizable to many adults as the child of my mother and father, who were church musicians. Being at church was about the familiar, about knowing and being known. Before too long I was a church musician myself, and a leader in the youth group. During my high school years I HAD to be at church each Sunday to sell donuts after the service.

For most of my adult life I have been on staff at one church or another. Sunday morning was a time when there were so many people you wanted and needed to talk to, that it was a bit of an adrenaline rush. Sunday morning was a time when you were part of a team working to create and facilitate. On Sunday mornings I was sometimes envious of the parents and families who could talk and play together, who went out for lunch after the service. Now I understand how hard they worked to create that community for themselves.

In my new congregation, my son and I slip in the back as service is beginning. I feel like it's been a big day if I can figure out where to put my snow boots and where my nametag is. Attending regularly on the Sundays that we are in town and I don't have to preach at another congregation feels like a major commitment. I don't serve on a committee. I'm not working on any church projects.

I understand now that for the majority of the people sitting in pews on Sunday morning, the experience of listening to sermons and singing hymns is the totality of their relationship to church. They may not have a sense of connection to the other individuals in the pews, and they certainly don't have any business to conduct. When I was in seminary, the theory of church life was very community centered. This probably developed in response to a cultural articulation in the nation at large that people longed to participate in community, and felt it was something lacking in contemporary life. Now I understand that the congregation may be a primary community for those who are in leadership, for those who have attended for many years and been lucky enough to forge that connection, but for Johnny Pewsitter that one hour worship on Sunday morning is equal to church. The relevance, power and warmth of that service is primary. (I remember with some chagrin the times when I failed to protect that time from the creep of church polity and business.)

My son seems likewise adrift in his new church home. Being a PK (Preacher's Kid), he was practically a celebrity in the congregation I served since before he was born. He spent hours every week playing in the nursery or on the playground while I took care of church business. He was so comfortable in worship that he often joined in leading stories, or helping facilitate some aspect of the service, like passing out shaker eggs for a song. Church was a place where you knew people and they knew you. Church was a fun, safe, familiar place that stayed the same even when you changed schools or advanced to a new class. His church friends were the ones he dreamed of when the dream called for a companion. When we left, the artists there made him a quilt that now hangs on his bedroom wall. His new congregation cannot yet offer him anything to compare.

I have to reach deep to answer his question: "Why do we have to go to church?" Each Sunday I set the alarm clock and brave the cold I ask the same question. If you are not going to church because it's your job and your calling, why is it that we do this thing together each week?

Cold Bones

Part of the reason for our move was to try something new, to experience a different pace of life. We knew intellectually that any change takes energy, and proposes challenges, and we knew that we wouldn't really understand what that felt like until we were in it.

Now we are in it. The cold, the dark, the snow really do change the daily-ness of life. Living in Ithaca really is different: the cold, the different quality of light, the different texture of the air. I believe the days are even shorter because we are further north. The hills are different. The trees are different. The local economy is slower. On first glimpse the differences seem negligable, but as we move through the cycle of the year, the feeling tone of my days, the colors of my dreams have changed.

The cold and dark of winter here, the layers of snow on our neighborhood have drawn us indoors. Even leaving the house to buy groceries seems counter-intuitive. It has made us more introverted and home-centered. I am becoming a little hobbit, or other hole-dwelling archetype.

Cold Wimp

I finally got a set of gear together to get me through those morning runs. Some nice fleecy warm pants, gloves, ear-warmer, thermal top and an old IU sweatshirt. I had even warmer pants in reserve. Then winter turned it up a notch. I looked out at the 4" of snow coating the un-shoveled sidewalks, and the snowflakes swirling in the wind. I decided to join a gym.