Hypocrite School

I have fond memories of Sunday school from when I was little. I think I especially liked the teachers up through sixth grade. After that, I really started loosing interest in Sunday school. Occasionally, a good teacher came along, and I perked up a bit. Of course, they usually just substituted for a short period and then we were stuck with our regular teacher. I think the reason I liked Sunday school was primarily that it was one of the few things I was involved with as a child because I was home schooled.  And I guess  I did learn some from the earlier Sunday school classes. Not too long ago, however, I realized that I’ve come to absolutely hate Sunday school. I think there are many reasons for this. Mostly, I've grown up and can see exactly what's going on. I’m able to better analyze why Sunday school at my church doesn't seem to be effective.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Firstly, I think Sunday school teachers need to make sure kids stay interested. I got bored and stopped paying attention. Thus, even if they did say something useful or new, it wouldn’t have mattered because I wasn’t paying attention. Good teachers don't bore their students. I hate the prosaic presentations that have become the norm.

                                                                                                                                                                   If you can get past how boring Sunday school is, you might discover that kids tend to not apply the things they're taught to their lives. Isn’t that the whole point of Sunday school? To teach people how to live their lives? At my church, it seems like the real goal is to raise  Christian snobs rather than mature Christians. They fixate so much on teaching and less on practical applications, one of which, I think, should be outreach.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I think Sunday school, especially the High school class, should actually start doing things to help people who are truly in need, not just people from the church. I know there’s youth group for that, but, at my church, not everyone is allowed or able to be in the youth group for various reasons, and I don’t see the youth group doing that much anyway. What I’m saying is that whoever is in charge of the Sunday school classes needs to integrate a practical application unit  of how to live like a Christian to Sunday school classes. By doing this, they would capture a greater number of kids to do something truly meaningful. And, of course, the recipients of this practical application would be happy too. If true religion in the sight of God is comforting orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself unstained by the world, then I think church at all levels should devote itself more to that and less to academic teaching.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Which brings me to my next point: teachers have been intimidated in the past by the amount of Biblical knowledge that my church’s High school kids have. That should never be the case. If it is, then the most obvious solution is trying to help them apply all that knowledge. At one point, I think we had a teacher who really tried to help kids apply that knowledge. So much went wrong in that situation, though. It was obvious from the many stories he shared that he lived a Christian life. But when it came to the finer points of Theology, he was torn apart by the snobs in that class. I haven’t confirmed this, but I think that’s the primary reason he stopped teaching Sunday school. His experience with teaching made him feel inadequate, and I guess he was probably ashamed that kids knew so much more than him about the Bible. The truly disgusting part is that these snobs had fun tearing apart his presentations. I can’t say whether they knew what they were doing, but it was definitely wrong.

                                                                                                                                                                The irony is that these kids are supposed to be experts on the Bible, so they should know that attacking and humiliating their elders isn’t  acceptable. With this knowledge, they should realize that they are hypocrites for treating their elder so poorly. An environment that is supposed to teach kids how to live like Christians has ended up fostering hypocrites, reversing the desired effect of Sunday school.

Church Music

I feel that last Sunday’s church service at my church was most enlightening. It reflects the way the pastor feels about our church and the way the church members feel about the church and by extension themselves. It shows the condition of our church specifically in reference to music and our approach to music. Understand, now, that my church is very strict about music, as far as what kind of music is allowed and so forth.

                                                                                                                                                                 The former ruler of my church, my former pastor, was very specific about what kind of music was allowed in church. This meant that we really only sang songs from the hymnal. So, the new pastor has been very careful about making sure he doesn’t offend anyone when discussing music, which I suppose is a good thing . . . maybe.

                                                                                                                                                        However, I think the way he walks on egg shells around the people of the church is wrong. That may sound harsh, but let me explain: last Sunday’s service consisted, as usual, of about ten or fifteen minutes of singing. Then the pastor came up and told everyone that their singing was amazing. He even said that he was preaching to the choir. And he went on for about ten minutes discussing how amazing our church singing is and how great our church musicians are.

                                                                                                                                                                 At this point, I’m really feeling sorry for him. The pastor really shouldn’t have to worship the congregation to get them in the right mood for a sermon. So, eventually he did get around to talking about music and how a church should use it to glorify God. I tend to think many people didn’t get it because this is what I heard:

                                                                                                                                            Pastor: “Oh holy church, your singing is amazing. I don’t know why I’m here preaching to people who are already perfect, but I’m going to try. I know that I can’t offend anyone, or at least, not very many people, because I really need this job. So, I’m willing to make a fool of myself by worshiping you so that I can keep my job.  However, I really should say something meaningful, so I’m going mention that we’re supposed to use music to glorify God not ourselves and our talents, and I really hope no one is offended by that.”

Ok, so maybe those aren’t the exact words, but you get the point. The pastor feels limited in what he can do. He has pressures on him from the former pastor, who still attends our church, the elders, and the church musicians and of course various church members. That our former pastor is there at all is kind of strange and probably not healthy.

                                                                                                                                                                I consider his presence like that of a father in his son’s home. He wants to stay in the background (actually, I don’t know that; I kind of just assume) and let his son forge his own identity but he just can’t quite let himself do that. So now, our church really has two pastors.

                                                                                                                                                                  In my opinion, they have radically different views of music: the new pastor views music as a means of glorifying God, and I don’t think he’s very legalistic about what type of church music we sing; our former pastor views music as a means of glorifying God, but he seems to feel the need to dictate exactly what we sing. He saw a keyboard in the closet at church and was afraid that the new pastor was trying to sneak in some more contemporary christian music. I feel like the new pastor has no say in the matter of music. I think he should because he seems to understand the purpose of music better than many others, including, but certainly not limited to, our former pastor.

                                                                                                                                                                   I think the solution to this problem is getting rid of the former pastor. That may sound cruel and unnecessary but it really isn’t. His presence is hampering our current pastor’s ability to minister to the congregation because our current pastor has to constantly make sure he’s not offending the former pastor. How everyone seems so happy with this arrangement I don’t know. It’s not healthy for anyone.

                                                                                                                                                                The only solution I see is removing our former pastor from the church. That will probably never happen, but I see it as the only way for the new pastor to effectively minister to the congregation. What he’s doing now is just trying to keep everybody happy.