Showing Off Church

Two weeks ago, the day after Iris' wedding, I brought some of my NJ friends to Knox for Sunday Service. I had long planned to bring them to Knox that day but only told them the night before, so I was grateful that they all woke up early to get ready for church. We all checked out, fit all of our luggage in the cars and hopped in, ready to go. Because I knew where I was going, I told Eric I would lead our two-car caravan, but I still put Knox's address into my GPS, just in case. My GPS had an estimated arrival time of 9:35, which would make us five minutes late, but that was no biggie in my mind. By now, the kind people at Knox must have gotten used to large groups of Asians arriving at church just a few minutes late.

[Skip this paragraph if you have a short attention span or do not know Michigan roads.] We drove down from the hotel, and my GPS told me to take 23 South instead of 23 North, which is how we got to Knox the day before. I thought that maybe the GPS knew a faster way to church, so I decided to go with my GPS and take 23 South. After all, I had it set to "fastest route", so it must be true, right? Turns out, it was leading us to take 94 and get off the Ann Arbor-Saline exit, which does make sense, as it isn't a far drive from that exit to Scio Church. However, what my stupid Nokia Drive GPS app didn't know was that there was a section of 94 that was closed, and that it was actually impossible to get onto to the Ann Arbor-Saline exit. So after looping around a few times, we just ended up going back and taking 23 North and getting off by Carpenter Street, which is what I would have done had I not listened to my stupid GPS.

All this is to say that we got to church 30 minutes late. The entire time while driving as the clock kept ticking and the estimated arrival time kept getting pushed back, I was getting more and more frustrated. I was pissed off that everyone had made the effort to get up early, only to have that all dashed to pieces by my poor navigational decision-making. I was thinking about the things that we were going to miss at church and the embarrassingly strange looks we might get arriving half an hour early.

We arrived at church in time for the end of the last song of the worship set, and took a seat inside during the announcements time. Sitting in the pew, I found myself still upset and frustrated, and I felt the God-to-Jonah-like question prodding my heart, "Why are you so angry?". After a little bit of thinking, I realized that I was upset because I wanted my friends to experience what I believe is a great Sunday service. I wanted them to enjoy the awesome traditional/contemporary worship, to see the music director use his head to direct the brass players while playing the organ, and I was disappointed that we had arrived too late and had missed most of the worship, including the congregational and personal favorites "Be Thou My Vision" and "Christ Has Conquered All." I wanted them to be blown away be the preaching, and I was secretly disappointed that Pastor Chuck wasn't going to be speaking this Sunday. I wanted them to be impressed with the church service as they had been impressed with the university campus. I was showing off church. And it wasn't simply out of vanity or selfishness that I desired all of these things - I wanted my friends to share in a central part of my spiritual development, and I wanted them to be blessed by it.

As I continued to think about these things while ignoring the announcements, I realized how warped my thinking was. To me that morning, church was about spiritually pleasing my friends, when in fact Sunday worship is actually about pleasing God. In my self-disappointment, I was reassured that just being there, even half an hour late, is an act of worship to God. And I was reminded that ultimately, it wasn't up to me, the worship director, or the speaker to create a genuinely awesome worship experience for my friends - it was up to God. And so with divine help, I laid it all down, freeing me to enjoy and participate in the worship service without being burdened by the anxiety of gaining the approval of my friends.

I think that we as Christians often fall into the trap that I fell into that Sunday morning - when we invite friends, both Christians and non-Christians, to our Christian events, we're often so concerned with their approval and enjoyment that we ourselves lose sight of the true purpose and Provider for these events. We steal glances at our visitors, seeing if they are weirded out by the singing and are interested and attentive during the message. We internally critique the sermon, cringing at every awkward or possibly offensive statement and laboriously taking mental note of the funny or insightful remarks for future discussion. As a result, we don't truly participate in the service, insincerely singing the worship songs and allowing the words of the sermon to go in one ear and out the other. Our anxiety blinds us, causing us to forget that it is God who draws and glorifies Himself. And in worrying so much about whether or not God will work in someone else's life through the service, we actually lose the opportunity to allow God to work in us. This attitude sucks the joy out of serving God, making ministry burdensome and sharing our faith excessively emotionally taxing, eventually completely burning us out.

So the moral of the story is this: Chill out, seek to please God, and trust that He'll take care of the rest. Also, the Nokia Drive app sucks.