Church of Ned

I've got to admit that from time to time, I do enjoy going to a church service. Mostly because it gives me those warm feelings which are reminiscent of when I was a child and life was simpler. Maybe not simpler, just childhood.

I went with Brian and Lynn to their church this morning. Does anyone ever claim ownership to such a thing? I sure wouldn't want to. Not even to the churches I may have donated money to in the past.

Well, this church is alright. The music is predictably low key and, dare I say, bad. However, they still do hymns, + 5 points, and they don't typically do anything with a copyright of 2000 or greater, which means, I know most of the songs, + 10 points.

The other major bonus of this church is that the meeting facilitator, aka pastor, is actually a good speaker. I quite enjoy listening to him. He's vibrant and lively and knows what he's talking about. So often, mediocre and downright horrible people are permitted to speak in public, and they just suck. No preparation, no validation, no interest. I think that if I were to make a list of the five things I constantly and consistently hear, from the pulpit, which cause me to reach for the iPod, are:

• I'm really sorry, but...
  

  ...I have a cold

  
  

  ...the kids/wife kept me up all night with their cold(s)

  
  

  ...I forgot I was speaking tonight, and I'm totally unprepared

  
  



• Bear with me, this is a long passage and some of it is irrelevant to my talk, but I've got to go through it all because you need to hear the context.


• I really felt God telling me to speak on [insert topic here]


• I'm not really a public speaker, and I'm really nervous.


• Does anybody know that story about that guy and the water? Who was that? Where can I find that in the Bible?

And if I don't have my iPod, I'll actually get up and leave. If I hear any of the above, that means that the speaker doesn't respect me enough to prepare. If he's not prepared to speak, why ought I be prepared to listen?

Church leaders (I'm speaking generically here) wonder why no one comes to church. Perhaps this is because your services are irrelevant to daily life because your speakers are so ill prepared. It's just a cascading reflection of the whole outfit.

Anyway, moving on, the speaker at the church this morning has never given me cause to get the iPod or to leave. But this morning, something did happen...

This particular church is quite large, and currently under renovation. As such, the main sanctuary is closed, and the services are held in the gym. For some reason, the city decided to shut off the power to the block the church is located on for some maintenance work. Kind of silly, if you ask me. But at least they had the decency to inform the church officials. It was announced at the beginning of the service that the power may be shut off. It finally was cut off, about half way through the sermon.

And that was when I took my chance to exit right. I needed a restroom break, and I thought I was going to explode.

I get into the hallway and walk around a bit trying to find the restrooms in the dark. I finally find the mens room, and then I realise: this is bad. The door to the mens room is open, and there's a clear view right into the gym and up onto the stage area!

I really have to go, and now it's dark, and there's no fan, and the door is open to let some light in, and also to let some noise and stink out.

I take the stall farthest from the door. I fumble with the latch and then I can't find a hook to hang my suit jacket on, so I hang it on the stall door latch. Then the door swings open. Then I fumble again, in the mostly darkness to maintain my jacket being hung on the door latch while the door remains latched.

Now, typically, when I've been holding something of that size for a long time, it's going to be noisy. And I tried real hard to make it quiet...but sometimes, it's just impossible.

Well, let me tell you, wiping in the dark is not as preferred as wiping in the light. And flushing and making sure that everything goes down is nearly impossible. I was squinting from the darkness and the fumes.

Okay, fine, wash my hands, get out into the hallway again, and the lights come back on. The pastor was in a fervent point, and I didn't want to re-enter the gym, making my way to the second row (which Brian picked for some stupid reason) from the front, on the aisle. So I chill back in the hallway.

A woman comes out of the gym and goes into the womens room. I can hear everything! Seat goes up, bum goes down, pee splashes in bowl, bum goes up, seat goes down, toilet is flushed.

Crap, crap, crap!!

How many people heard me?