Affiliation: Lutheran
Why We Picked This One: It was a safety net.
Sermon: Beware Idols
First Church With: Role-playing
Rundown: I don't really get the differences between Christian religions. I don't understand - and, honestly, have never really tried to understand - the difference between the Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian, and Lutheran religions (other than Catholicism seems to be a bit more conservative than the others).
This week, Val suggested to me, "Let's go to the Greek Orthodox Church." I was all about it, until I started having second thoughts about that word - Orthodox. I did some poking around online, and discovered that some of those Greek Orthodoxers take things pretty seriously - what you should wear, what you're allowed to do in the church (no crossing your legs!), etc. Before I was ready to jump into a situation like that, I felt I needed to do a little research, so as to not make an ass of myself.
So, last minute, I called an audible and decided on a Lutheran Church for no other reason than we hadn't done Lutheran yet and I was pretty sure they'd be pretty cool with us crossing our legs.
Sure enough, the Lutheran church was very similar to the Protestant(ish) church I'd attended for a couple years - it was like sliding into a comfy pair of shoes.
There's something to be said for comfortability. On one level, it's nice to know what's coming, and that there are no surprises in store. It's nice to feel confident in what's coming next, and have a firm grasp of the rituals.
But, I think, we need to be wary of this comfort - which leads to the ever-dangerous complacency. Many of us have been in relationships where we've taken things for granted, and suddenly we realize she doesn't feel appreciated anymore. We get too comfortable in our jobs and start making stupid mistakes because we don't take the time to do things thoroughly. We start drifting off the road because we're so cocky, we figure we can answer our phone and program our GPS while driving.
What happens when you become too comfortable with your religion? Do you start slacking on the commandments and figure it's okay to miss a week here or there? Does your mind start drifting off in the middle of the service? Do you start mailing it in? Last week, we learned that we should attach ourselves to one church. But this week, I wonder if that's always the best option.
Things that were different: There was something of a script for a decent chunk of the service. The lector or pastor would recite a prayer or passage, and the response - sometimes a full paragraph - would appear on the screen for all of us to recite back like a class full of third-graders reading a comprehension paragraph. Also, the kids had a brief in-service demonstration. The entire congregation met in the middle of the church, and the Sunday School teacher parted us like the Red Sea. Then we all re-converged on the "soldiers" that were chasing them. Pretty cool.
Address: 1570 Niagara Falls Boulevard, Tonawanda, NY
Website: firsttrinity.com
Attendees: ~150
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