Today I went to Rock City Church for the second time, but this
time I went with James. We had agreed that he'd go to my service in the
afternoon and then we'd go to his mass at night. Today's message at Rock City
was titled "What about the many Christians who look nothing like your
Christ?" The pastor shared his own story about when he was in 9th
grade and brought a friend with him to church. For the sake of this story,
let's call the friend Luke. Luke wasn't very popular and didn't have a lot of
other friends so the pastor felt sorry for him which is why he invited him out
to church. At the end of service one Sunday, Luke went up to the pastor and
told him he had something to tell him, but said if he told him it would change
their friendship. The pastor told Luke that he could tell him what he needed to
tell him and that it wouldn't change anything. Then, Luke told him he was gay
and the pastor said, "That changes everything."
According to the sermon, there are three
main moments when it becomes easy for a Christian to become a barrier for those
in pursuit of Christ: 1) When we forget who we were before Christ 2) When we
reason that it's our job to change the world and 3) When the central focus of
our lives is anything but Christ. All of these points stood out to me, but the
second point resonated with me the most. When Christians feel that it's our
responsibility to change the world, we justify violence/hatred against others.
We think it's in our power to change the heart of others when the reality is
that only God has the power to do that.
The pastor ended the sermon by emphasizing
the importance of loving everyone regardless of their identities, backgrounds,
experiences, etc. to be honest, hearing this was incredibly refreshing. I know
that Christians don't have the best reputations. I mean, we carry signs that
say people are going to hell because of their sexual orientation and other
"sinful identities." I believe that the most important message in the
bible is for us to love everyone. Unfortunately that message tends to get lost
in the Christian community so I sincerely appreciated the pastor's message.
The service was held in one of the movie
theaters at the Lennox so James and I grabbed lunch at Johnny Rockets and then
watched Looper. I’d like to point out that it started raining and the weather
channel app on my phone did not say anything about rain. Stupid Ohio weather! Anyway,
my brain still hurts a little bit after watching Looper, but not as much as it
did after inception. Looper was AMAZING! I don't want to give anything away,
but there's so much more to the movie than the previews. I also might be a bit
biased because I love any movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt :D after the movie we
went to the Buck-I-Serv Winter kick off. I met the students who will be going
on my trip, did the typical name learning icebreakers (did I mention that
despite being in grad school for student affairs, I don't like icebreakers),
watched a short film about Buck-I-Serv, and created a Buck-I-Serv contract for
our group. Although I still don't really know what's going on with this
trip, I know it's going to be great and I’m super excited! James and I had an
hour to kill before the 9pm mass so we went to Kroger and ended up buying more
than just pita bread, which was the only thing we actually needed to get.
The mass was at the Newman Center which
just so happens to be right across the street from Taylor which was very
convenient. Also, I’d just like to point out that I hadn't been to a Catholic
mass since I was in elementary school and even then, I think it was like an
informal Friday service. Luckily, James gave me the rundown and guided me
through the service. It was different from what I'm used to. It was more
"traditional," there were memorized responses/gestures that I didn't
know, and the songs that were sung were not as upbeat. They were very minor
things, but I was slightly self-conscious that people would notice that I
wasn't saying any of the responses or doing any of the gestures. I really
enjoyed the message because the priest talked about how God created man and
woman in Genesis and they were complimentary. Therefore, they are equal. Just
because god created man first doesn't mean that man has power over woman. In
all of my years of going to church, no one has ever talked about that story in
terms of the equality between men and women and I loved hearing it that way. So
Catholic churches have communion every Sunday, which was fine because I had
taken communion before multiple times. However, there were responses/gestures that
went along with this too. James tried to explain it to me a few minutes before
communion started and I started to get a little bit of anxiety so I decided to
just stay in my seat, which was definitely the smart thing to do.
I don't think I've ever gone to two
services in one day, especially two services at two different churches. Although
the structures of the services were different, I loved the messages I received
from both churches, and at the end of the day, the sermons that are preached
are what matter the most to me.
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