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A church’s temperature
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Every church has a temperature. It is the subtlest of things. A church’s temperature is not identical to its doctrine, its creeds, or even the sermons or the hymns — which may be biblical enough. Neither is it articulated outright, but is nevertheless somehow well understood. It is, I would say, a silently collective agreement about the degree to which God is who he says he is; an unspoken consensus of what it is we really believe around here. And it is, for all its tacitness, remarkably specific.
I liken it to the way a child learns language. The outsider to that language group will observe it best perhaps — the way the mastery of a person’s mother tongue is not some general mastery but a mimicry perfected to the most infinitesimally precise imitation of inflection.
So with a church’s or denomination’s culture. We in any given culture have discerned from a thousand subtle cues how much to believe in Jesus and how much not to. That is, how far to go, and how much farther would be fanatical. We imagine all the while that we are holding to the whole counsel of God. But in fact, we have our chosen texts, verses, and emphases that we carefully stay within and keep recycling.
For instance, our church’s woman’s Bible study once did the book of James. When we came to chapter 5, we taught on verses 1 through 13 but skipped over 14 and 15 before completing the rest. No one noticed. It was not a conspiratorial thing, nor a cynical omission. Just a temperature, I would say.
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Soul searching
This drove me absolutely nuts when I was in a S. Baptist church. We used the same SS material for years, and every year it was the same verses.
I felt cheated of an education. I’d been to church almost every Sunday of my life, but still didn’t know things one ought to know about the Bible, and didn’t know anything at all about apologetics, philosophy, other denominations, or much less, any other religion.
This is an amazingly perceptive leadin, and I thank Andree Seu’ for bringing this up.
And to be clear, all of these temperatures as discussed are Christian, even though they may differ in many ways some of which will be very obvious to an outsider.
But while the temperature in the church is generally self-selected and modestly consistent since a church is by its nature a social entity and the social norms will apply and be enforced, WMB is not such a self-selected entitity. We see regularly many people with many different “temperatures” regarding Christianity, and some with a complete “coldness” towards Christianity.
And unless or until WMB makes a policy of supporting only one viewpoint on Christianity and enforcing it with some form of litmus test and blog security, we will all have to realize that there will be others with “temperatures” very different from ours and we will of necessity have to understand that and, if we are creative, learn from it.
I usually read Andree’s posts, but only because others have chimed in to say how great a writer she is. For some reason I usually don’t get much out of her posts, but this one was different.
I found her to have great insight on this topic. My wife and I have recently started attending a new church due to a geographical move and we are slowly learning a new dialect of christianese. We are acclimating ourselves to the temperature. It makes me wonder about my own temperature and dialect and how much of the gospel has failed to penetrate because of personal nuances.
To be honest, I don’t know how church hoppers can tolerate all of the disequilibration that accompanies a church change.
I was shocked to find out that too much believing in Jesus would made you a fanatic. Is this too much Jesus belief mainstreamed? Does being a fanatic make you hot? or untouchable hot or will you just burst into flames spontaneously?
I don’t think any of my insurance covers me for Fanatical Jesus Believer Spontaneously Combusting Syndrome and I wouldn’t get to close to Jesus if yours doesn’t cover you either
This is a good example of why many, including my own church, use the term “church family”.
Families also have a sense, usually unspoken, of how the land lies. Family members know which subjects are taboo & which can be entered with no fear.
The most open families & church families allow free discussion of even the tough subjects. I’m pretty sure my church is like that. (One couple was attracted to our church because they were allowed to question the pastor about things.)
We. . . have discerned from a thousand subtle cues how much to believe in Jesus and how much not to. . . . [W]e have our chosen texts, verses, and emphases that we carefully stay within and keep recycling.
ouch.
If this came from an outsider I’d be defensive. But, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend. . .”
Thanks, Andree.
luke warm
The verses that Andree said they skipped over were…
“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
We anoint the sick with oil & pray for healing in our church. Do any of your churches also do this?
Karen O,
I haven’t been a member of any churches that practice this regularly (both anointing with oil and praying, that is - every church I’ve ever been to prays for the sick), but none of them would skip over the verses either, and most if not all would be willing to anoint a sick member with oil if requested. They generally point to the phrase “let him call” and take that to mean that the sick person should initiate this, rather than the church leaders offering this to anyone who might be present at a church service to come forward and receive it.
At his first church, my husband included a time for this as part of a lenten midweek Bible study on spiritual disciplines, perhaps in conjunction with teaching on prayer (this was several years ago, I don’t remember details). There were several who requested to be anointed and prayed over (he had let everyone know about it a week ahead of time so they could think about it), including my husband, who was having severe back trouble. As I was one of the elders (this is PCUSA, where the elders include women), he had me do the anointing and praying for him. He said that the pain did seem to decrease when I did so. (I don’t remember if any of the others mentioned any physical improvement.)