My First “House Church”

So for various and sundry reasons, my wife and I went to a dinner put on by some friends of hers. To be fair, she did tell me to expect the unexpected.

Even with this warning, I was surprised. First we started with a sort of communion. Matzoh bread passed around with little bitsy cups of grape juice. Okay, I can do this. Then after dinner we moved into the “spiritual” part of the night. With over an hour long drum accompaniment, we heard a) speaking in tongues b) birthing of the spirit c) laughing in the spirit d) laying on of hands e) various “prophesies” f)breaking the chains holding us, various shouts of “ya ya, ya ya, ya ya”, exhortations of “by his stripes you are healed” , and “Jesus suffered pain and humiliation and death to take away your infirmaties”, and the occasional shofar blowing..

Oh, and various prophesies that several of the men there were destined to become great preachers of the word. Never a woman, but almost all the men were destined to do good things in preaching for the Lord.

Excuse my Episcopal conservatism. Excuse my wanting to at least think about the theology being espoused (oh, it’s just the Holy Spirit a talkin’ tonight, ain’t it)…. but I don’t picture Jesus exactly signing up for this sort of stuff. Color me a curmudgeon of the first order, but this stuff is pretty far from holy worship to me. Am I gonna go back anytime soon. I sure hope not. I’m afraid the next time they’ll passs out snakes for us to play with.

The East End of a West Bound Horse Must Look a Little Like This

These people really do want it both ways… You want the rest of the church to follow Windsor and you don’t think it applies to you? And talk of lack of charity… “Shove it?”… gee Phil whoever you are, get a grip, like it or not, we are all the Church, the Body of Christ, pledged to encourage each other to love generously, to uphold each other, and to see the Christ in each and everyone we meet (even virtually)… and yes, I do recognize the hypocrisy in what I just wrote.