Look at me being all topical ...

Or rather, the NYTimes being all topical, with this story about the Hispanic experience of coming to the United States and at the same time, going to church less.  The whole article is pretty good, and reflects many of the same themes that we discussed as a church this morning.

This quote struck me as the most interesting part of the story:

"As a child in Guatemala, Mr. Chilín attended Mass every Sunday. But after immigrating to the United States 25 years ago, he and his family lost the churchgoing habit. “We pray to God when we feel the need to,” he said, “but when we come here to America we don’t feel the need.”"

Without getting too in depth on the state of American culture, it is telling that in our affluent and materialistic society, we often don't feel the need to depend on God, and therefore easily lose touch with religion.  We might also want to look at this as an answer to Bruce's question, "why do you go to church?"  Personally, I identified with parts of Jeff, Katherine and Robin's answers to that question.  Like Jeff, I started going to church because my significant other had such a positive experience there, and I was intrigued.  Like Katherine's experience of being accepted for her artistic nature, part of what kept me going to our church back in Chicago was all the great music, which allowed me to relate to people on a level that I already appreciated and somewhat understood.

Finally, and most relevant here, like Robin mentioned, one big reason I go to church now is so that I don't forget the place that God has in my life.  It is all too easy to live out most of my week while blissfully ignoring God.  In part, that is cultural, because it's not always comfortable to talk about church.  In part, that's my own sinful nature, because doing what God wants me to do is often hard, and doing what I want to do is usually pretty easy.  Often, I "don't feel the need." 

Not that I think "feeling the need" is the solution.  Going to church or praying because we "feel the need" is not a whole lot more rightous than just going out of habit or a sense of duty.  Going to church each week is not supposed to be about making myself happy or satisfying some desire for spirituality that have (though it usually does that too).  That's just a selfish reason, disguised in religious language.  Ideally, I would go to church each week as an expression of my relationship with God and with the Church, which is all of you folks.  That's the goal for me at least.  Good thing we have grace. :)

Comments

[Bruce Reyes-Chow]

Thanks for the reflection. You comment, "Without getting too in depth on the state of American culture" may be exactly what might be most scary about looking at the impact of our faith today.

[mlj]

Erik, thanks for this thought-provoking post. My family also abandoned the Catholic church when we moved here from the Philippines almost 27 years ago. It wasn’t because we became more secular, but because we started going to a Pentecostal church of our Dad’s choosing. He was the only one who drove, so we went with him.

I have found this to be true that when I least “feel the need” to be with God, that’s when I need God most. Many times, I have tried to abandon my faith and the church. Really. But God has not let go of me. Thankfully. I confess that sometimes I have to force myself to go to church. And to my surprise, I am blessed. So, I like the idea of disciplined churchgoing, not to make room for God (sounds kind of arrogant), but to be in the presence of God among others in the community. When at church, sometimes my attitude is like Jacob's, wrestling with the angel and refusing to let go until God blesses me. Sometimes I feel like Jonah—runnning away from God and being swallowed by a leviathan and spit up on the shores of Nineveh. Sometimes I feel like that old REM song…“that’s me in the corner losing my religion.” Thank God that God is more faithful to me than I am to Him (no human-assigned gender connotation and baggage attached).