I go to most likely one of the “coolest” churches around. It’s in a nightclub with a shark tank. Worship is sorta like a U2 concert and then one of the many under-40 pastors comes up to speak. It’s always relevant and usually challenging. After he finishes there is another 20 min of music. Where you can sing-a-long or sit, meditate and pray. The majority of the attendees are 18-24 and the crowd looks like they could be the same people in line from the night before. If your a college age Christian looking to get married and you don’t go to my church, your in the wrong place.
My wife and I ride our beach cruisers to church and then meet friends at an outdoor health food cafe called “The Gypsy Den”. This is usually followed by a short shopping trip at “The Lab” coined the anti-mall (though it’s owned by the same people who own the mall). The Lab is the den of hipsters of all kinds. I think the most inexpensive store there is Urban Outfitters (which isn’t saying much). So why am I saying all this? To show how cool I am? No.
I recently visited NYC with my wife (still not bragging) and while walking the streets we ran into St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I’d been there before but I thought she should see it, so we went in. It was basically just another attraction to visit on our tour of the city. Until I stepped inside. I was doing the usual tourist stuff (touching things, taking pictures) and then I started to notice people sitting the pews, heads bowed, some in silence while others whispered prayers. I stopped taking pictures and just stood there for a second, trying to “get” whatever those people were getting from this place. There was something more to this building than beautiful architecture or painstakingly crafted stained glass. It wasn’t simply the mood lighting or vaulted ceilings. I made up a history in mind, how this cathedral was built out of devotion for a holy God. The sculptors worshiped that God with their attention to detail. A feeling suddenly came over me that I don’t actually feel that often. Reverence. My thought process went like this:
There is an amazing God who crafted this earth and the least we can do is create beauty in it to praise him. Not for our fame or fortune. Simply because he is God and deserves it.
It was a pretty powerful and enlightening feeling. Not that I don’t try to have some type of communion with God regularly, but its usually on a different level. My communications are structured. I have three different topics that all get covered in bed before I go to sleep: Give, Protect, Thank You. This “feeling” feeling didn’t fit anywhere in my categories.
A.J. Jacobs, the author of The Year of Living Biblically has this same sort of revelation while visiting Israel
I have my head bowed and my eyes closed. I’m trying to pray, but my mind is wandering. I can’t settle it down. it wanders over to an Esquire article I just wrote. It wasn’t half bad…And then I am hit with a realization. And hit is the right word…Here I am being prideful about creating an article in a mid-size American magazine. But God -if He exists- He created the world. He created flamings and supernovas and geysers and beetles and the stones for these steps I’m sitting on.
“Praise the Lord.” I say out loud.
This is one of the authors first real connections with worship. For the first couple hundred pages, he follows commandments and does his religious “duties” but there in Israel he comprehends reverence.
The truth is, that cathedral was built as a seat for the bishop. Thats what the word cathedral really means. It was a seat of power. This doesn’t ruin it for me because I got a taste of something there.
Yes, I love the relevance of my church and my “version” of Christian life, but I definitely could use some reverence.
