I recently attended a service at Faith Chapel with a friend who is new to Billings. Why, you ask? For starters, I talk a lot of crap about things I hear about Faith, but I had never actually been. Second, Jenn mentioned that she knows many seemingly progressive folks who attend there as do I. Jenn is kind of church shopping in Billings, so I told her I’d check it out with her. Also, mega churches scare me. Something about a 10,000 member congregation makes it seem impossible to have a sense of true community. Right or wrong, my church life (at Grace United Methodist, in case you’re curious) is way more about community than probably anything else.
When we arrived (of course I was late) there was a video being projected onto two huge screens on either side of the stage, and we had to wait to be seated until the lights came up. The video primarily flashed a bunch of random images. Images of minority-owned businesses that had been vandalized, images of half-naked young (I believe they were mostly young) people in a forrest apparently with a web of white string/rope that became blood stained near the end of the video, and very graphic images of “Jesus,” looking as Norwegian as ever, hanging on the cross. There was no discussion or analysis of the video throughout the entire service, though. Bizarre.
Then the stage lit up and a rock band started singing hymns (I’m assuming they were Four Square hymns anyway), and eventually the congregation was asked to stand and join in the singing while the words were projected on the big ass screens where we had just watched the bizarre video footage.
And then there was the sermon, from a visiting pastor. I don’t remember his name, but I believe he was from Spokane. The entire sermon was about how Jesus calls us to “bear our cross and die.” There was a lot of talk about how Jesus said being Christian means you will have to suffer and will be persecuted. The message that I heard was, “If you’re not suffering, you’re not doing it right.” But then the pastor kept saying that this wasn’t about guilt. There was no discussion about the historical context in which the Bible was written, or the fact that Christianity may have changed over the past two thousand years. Furthermore, to use Jenn’s idea, I really felt like a message was sent to congregation that if Kayla and Jenn tell you you’re wrong for hating homosexuals it’s only because they’re persecuting you for being Christian, even though I somewhat identify as Christian. At the end of the sermon the pastor asked people to join in song and to move toward to the front of the room as a symbol of accepting Jesus. Jenn and I escaped before we could see anymore.
I’m tempted to check it out again to learn more about the gay hating and the fact that there are no women in leadership. But I don’t want to get sucked in, and I feel kind of skeezy if I go just to “spy.” By the way, nice multimillion dollar building, Faith. Do you see how many homeless people are the Hub every day while you’re busy buying new electric guitars?
I will share some more thoughts on this adventure later. I just thought I’d get an entry up because it’s been a while. I’m hoping to get my schedule together to blog more regularly.
