Its Rick Steves’ Fault
Blame it on Rick Steves, he got me thinking about it again about the institution of the church, and what happens to the people who pass through its doors. Maybe its not entirely his fault, my home church, the one from which I answered my call to ministry, has closed its doors after 101 years. It is a sad moment for many, but for me this was the one place I knew I could always go home to, and always be loved and accepted, and now it is gone. Well, not completely gone, the buildings are still there, soon they will be Trinity United Methodist’s.
Long time member Charlie Lancaster (who was my Walk to Emmaus sponsor) reminds me that the church is not a building, nor its pastors, but the particular assembly of people who gather to worship God in that place, and while the assembly known as Hyde Park United Methodist Church will not gather at 40th and Speedway
He said this the same week my sister-in-law Mary ran across an interview with Rick Steves in The Christian Century. Steves hosts a travel program on PBS. In the article he says travel should be a “spiritual thing,” and how he tries “to create an environment in which people will feel free to consider the effects that travel has on their spirituality.” I think it’s a fine goal for the church too, not traveling through the church building per se, but the actual affect of being in the midst of an assembly that has gathered to worship God. Could that be the goal of the worship leaders? To create an environment where people will feel free to consider the effects that worship will have on their spirituality? In other words to help worshippers be open to the possibility that they might be changed by their worship experience?
Tourists, Travelers & Pilgrims
Rick Steves writes about the difference between Tourist and Travelers. He says:
You could go to Africa and take in all the finest golf courses and come home having learned nothing. Or you could go to Africa and drink tea with local people, help them out in different ways and gain empathy for them. You'd come home changed. That's being a traveler. Travelers and pilgrims are people who are connecting, learning, challenging themselves and not doing what's predictable.[1]
A few years ago I took a cruise ship down the Nile . It was an amazing cruise, we saw so much and from such comfort but it was nothing like riding the train, or taking a taxi, or walking the streets of Cairo
"When the Church becomes a Cruise Ship...
God mourns....
He designed it to be a Lifeboat."
The Church has the possibility of being its very best when its leadership understands what type of boat they are commanding: Cruise Ship or Lifeboat. The Cruise Ship’s only mission is those already on board, and for their comfort and entertainment. The Lifeboat's only mission is to get people in danger to safety. I remember the lifeboats on our cruise ship and it looked like they had not been used in a very long time (a good sign) and painted to the ship under many layers (a bad sign).
So I’ve decided to name my St. Philip’s blog: Tourist, Traveler & Pilgrim. I guess I could have named it Cruise Ship or Lifeboat, but it seems to me there is something missing between those two extremes, and that is my hope for this blog, as together we explore the being Tourists, Travelers & Pilgrims on this ship called St. Philip’s United Methodist Church.
