Journey into the future

The movie theater looks different when the lights are up--the seats cracked and faded, the floor stained, the armrests sticky. Turning up the lights transforms the endless cavern of adventure and romance into a tired, dingy room, and not a very big one at that.

Which is a good thing because the whole place has to be cleaned before the service starts. I arrive early to hear my son practice with the worship band but church members have been there for more than an hour already posting signs, setting up equipment, and cleaning floors. I don't sit down until they finish swiping each sticky armrest with a Clorox wipe.

The Journey Church is very different from my normal worship experience. Our little country churches rely on recorded music or an elderly piano player plinking out traditional hymns; at Journey, a live band very ably leads the congregation through thumping choruses. I am generally among the younger worshipers at our country churches (unless someone's grandchild shows up), but at Journey, I'm old enough to be the mother of more than half of the worshipers--including the pastor.

Casual clothes rule around here even on Sunday morning so it's no surprise to see jeans and shorts, and it's kind of cute when the ushers passing the communion elements wear matching bright orange Journey Church T-shirts. The pastor wears hip black jeans and a white shirt (untucked, no hint of a tie), and while he exudes a casual, regular-guy vibe, he clearly knows his stuff, exegetically and hermeneutically speaking. 

He tackles a complex issue that has tripped up theologians through the centuries--the meaning of suffering--while explicating the question in the book of John, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" He throws his whole body into the sermon, exuding authority even while admitting the limits of understanding, and his careful, orderly explication opens doors and lets light stream in.

I enjoy attending my son's church for a change not just because it's a different kind of experience but because I can be a different kind of person there. In our country churches, I am inescapably The Pastor's Wife. No matter how much I want to be just little old ordinary me, everything I say or do is weighed against the congregation's expectations for how The Pastor's Wife should act or what The Pastor's Wife should say.

At Journey, I'm introduced as Steve's Mom, a role I'm happy to play because all it requires is that I beam proudly when people tell me how much they appreciate him. I'm not expected to offer an opinion on the latest denominational hi-jinks, nor am I expected to get up and play the piano (which is a good thing for all concerned).

I can't go to my son's church every Sunday because a Pastor's Wife has to do what a Pastor's Wife has to do, but it feels good to take a break from the usual and experience worship from a different perspective--from a theater seat instead of a pew. One of our country churches is furnished with pews assembled more than a century ago by people long dead using hand-made square-head nails that still hold up; I can look out the window and see the cemetery and remind myself of the many people who poured their lives and talents into that church over the years. Our country churches thrive on their connection to the past.

At Journey, I see the future in the children scurrying toward the nursery and the young people carrying equipment, playing instruments, and cleaning floors. This is not your father's worship service--but it may well be your son's.