Change.

WARNING: This is long-winded. Skip to #2 for an easier read.


1. I went to church today. I haven't made this a usual habit for awhile, but I thought I would give it a try and see how it went. I'm friends with a guy who used to pastor in this area and he said that this church was the best one of this denomination, so I gave it a whirl. Actually, it was a second whirl. We gave it a whirl about a year and a half ago when I was visiting h-town before we moved here and to be honest, we were not impressed. It was predictable, monotonous, and void of anything to hold my interest. So we didn't go back.

I didn't hold much hope for this visit back to be honest, but I more went for the kiddo because she enjoys the kids programs so much and it gives her something to do.

The pastor got up on the stage, had prayer, and then announced that the "young people" were going to be doing the service today. Well, this at least might be interesting. It's always entertaining to watch someone try out public speaking for the first time. *giggle giggle (I'm that mature, yes)* Three speakers were on the program. Two boys and a girl and they were all speaking about "The Great Commission" i.e. taking the gospel into the world, etc., etc.

The first "young person"got up and started preaching.

Let me just stop here and say that I don't know what it is that makes a preacher good at what they do. This guy would make a great preacher. He looked like he was 12, (although he was probably more like 16 but just of short stature), but he sure could speak. I mean, there was no entertainment like I thought there would be. He was preaching as good as any black southern pastor out there. The only problem for me is that, even though his style was powerful and confident, what he was saying was void of anything of interest or meaning. He was talking about serving God and how we needed to get out there and serve God like Jesus asked us to. Then he says, "While you all are sitting in your pews here (derogatory sounding too I might add), there are people at this very moment serving the Lord!!" Initially it sounded like he was going to get these sleepers off of their booties and out doing some good for the world, but then he followed it up with, "See that man in the back...the one running the sound...he's serving the Lord! and those people in the foyer greeting...serving the Lord! The people in the kitchen cleaning up the mess....they are serving the Lord while you all just sit here!" This is where he lost me.

I guess I have spent so much time around people who have thought that serving the Lord is in between four walls and keep the program going smoothly in between those four walls and that if you are not involved in the leadership of that, then you are in need of being 'saved.' Serving the lord without having to hang out with people who don't think like you think is the nice and clean way to think about it I suppose. Don't want to taint your mind by actually conversing and interacting with people who don't think the same way you think.

So serving the Lord are the people who paste on a fake smile every weekend to shake your hand, pass you a program, and open a door for you? I'm not trying to be judgmental of people here for doing what they believe they should be doing, I just find it all so very interesting. I've been duped into those church leadership positions for these very same reasons, because it's our duty to "serve" the Lord...even if you hate every minute of it.

Speaker #2 got up and preached basically the same thing. To be honest I started to tune him out by this point and just hoping that Pete would wake up screaming so that I would have a good excuse to leave, but Pete is a sound sleeper through church and would have nothing of it. So I sat there in a church induced coma waiting for the second speaker to finish.

Finally Speaker #3 got up front. She was interesting. Young, a senior in highschool, but she had an edge to her that I liked. I was hoping for something fresh. She started speaking talking about where The Great Commission starts. It starts with us. Changing the world around us, starts with us. We can't be responsible to change anybody except ourselves. Then she paused and said, "Some of you aren't going to like this, but..." Yes, finally someone saying what needs to be said, what people don't like to hear. "...we spend so much time sending our kids to (this demoninations) private schools, sheltering them from the world, teaching them about Jesus and how to act, but it's all wrong. If we really want to make a difference in the world, we can't just coup ourselves up behind these four walls once every week and hide our kids in our schools. We won't make a difference in anyone's life if we hide from the world." She went on to say that she had attended that church for 11 years and gone to their school for one year and it was only when she stepped outside of it all that she realized the impact that she could have on the world. You don't change the world by preaching to the choir. I'm sure some old lady had a coronary right there in the pew, but it was so nice to hear someone have something new to say from the front of a church. She went on to say that so many people think that they have to talk about God or speak his name in order to make a difference in someone's life. Believe me, I have known these people who at the end of the day when they come home at night and start crying (literally *trigirl82 you-know-who here) like a little baby because they have tremendous guilt because they didn't say the name of Jesus 42 times during the day. How annoying are they? Does anyone else ever get annoyed with Forced Christianity? The always cheesey cheery God-Bless-You faker who seems to know all of the answers and how to get to the pearly gates on the trialed and tumultuous troubled road that that they must travel? Gag me. I can't hardly stand it. Just be a real person. If you are really a Christian you shouldn't have to mention the name of Jesus 20 thousand times in a conversation to make a difference in someone's life. Words don't have as much impact as actions do in any realm of life.

I guess I don't have a real point here other than just rambling. Whether you believe in God or not, what the world needs are REAL people. People who are genuine and sincere. I would rather have someone tell me something that it hard to hear to make me a better person, than have some cheesy car salesman 'Christian' tell me that Jesus Loves You! any day of the week. It's fake. It's forced. It's unwanted rooftop evangelism. Just be a real person. Change starts with you.

2. On the not so serious side of visiting this church today, there were SO many obese people there. Honestly. I notice stuff like this. I don't know why, but I do. There were so many, that I started counting. Then I decided my time would be better spent counting the people that weren't obese. Out of all of the parents in the children's church area, I counted three that were not in the overweight to obese range. Just eyeballing it, I would say that one was in the 25 to 30 BMI range, making her just overweight, and then there were some clearly in the 30-40 range, making them class I, II, and even III in obesity. SO large! I just don't understand how people can even function down here being so big. It's so stinking hot and humid here, you would think if they left their air conditioned couch for even five minutes they would die! Perhaps they don't leave their air conditioned couch and that is how they got to this point.

I sat down in a pew behind a family who was the classic redneck southern family. They stood out in the crowd. She was a large, balding, stringy haired lady with a husband who had the belt buckle get-up, blond and balding ponytail, and a kid with coke bottle glasses, in need of a shower, and some good discipline outside of yelling at him and the likely spanking behind the barn when they got really fed up. He was a real gem.

The pastor had us kneel for prayer and I caught myself with my eyes open during prayer just staring at this lady who was still sitting on the pew. She was still sitting there because she was too large to kneel. The sides of her backend stuck out literally about 12 inches (I measured) when she was sitting down making a nice little ledge for her undisciplined child to rest his angry head on. The worst part of it all was that they had a small child...wait a minute....a child...a baby I suppose, I almost asked how old he was as he couldn't have been more than a few months, but he was HUGE! I mean, on his way to childhood obesity. Right when I walked in the lady was shaking up a bottle of formula and then propping it up on the kid in his car seat while he guzzled it down until it dropped from his mouth and formula went spilling all over his face and clothing which never got cleaned up. It was so gross. Poor kid. It makes me wonder why the government hasn't implemented a basic life skills class or health education class for people who do want to procreate. Why is it that people who have horrible health habits have to create people to pass their horrible habits on to? How hard is it to get your kids outside to play or to stop shoving fast food and sugar covered goodies down their screaming little throats? Ugg. Stuff like this bothers me. Poor kids just grow up living what they were taught and then the cycle just continues.

Change starts with you. Make good decisions. Little eyes are watching.