Work of the People

by Gideon Tsang

There are many things I loathe. Preaching with my fly exposed. Conversations with spinach in my teeth. Reality TV. The "meet and greet" during church services.

"Thanks for attending our church and please take a moment to greet your neighbor!"

There are several reasons why those words make me want to respond like a vampire ostrich. An overwhelming desire to dig a hole and stick my head into the ground consumes me. Unfortunately, I never have the foresight to bring with me a jackhammer to pre-dig my hole.

In my opinion, my repulsion for the "meet and greet" comes with valid reasons:

1. Germs. I admit it, I am a germaphobe. The moment I touch someone's hands I don't want to be their friend. I want chemicals that will annihilate their live bacterial armies off of my skin. Did he wash his hands after he used the restroom? Did she pick her nose at the last stoplight? What if he has deadskin on the bottom of his feet and did a little itchin' before his sockin'? If a hug occurs, I want to jump into a redneckin' above-ground swimming poolin' miracle bath of hand sanitizer. Let me first handle the meet, maybe then we'll greet.

2. Finite Memory. Have you ever played the game, memory? I play this often with my five year-old son. I don't want to brag but I've never lost. I have beaten every five year-old I've ever played. I am the Michael Jordan/Tiger Woods/Lance Armstrong of memory vs. five year-olds. The church meet and greet time is like a giant game of memory that never ends. For that reason, I avoid sitting next to the person I greeted two weeks ago. Did I turned them over on the bottom-right or the top-left?

3. The Misgreet. Have you ever tried to hug a high-five, shake a fist-bump, fist-bump a kiss, or worse, misjudge a high-five?

4. You cannot ATTEND church. Grammatically you cannot attend a church. You can be with a church community. You can gather as the church. The church is not a locale nor a physical place. It is a dynamic community of people living as the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

Surprisingly, there was one church "meet and greet" experience I did enjoy.

I heard those words uttered in the Middle East last year. To my shock, it was beautiful. Everyone I met was from a different region of the world. Everyone I hugged (What?!? Full hug? What, not side hug? What?!? What!?!?) was a beautiful expression of the church. For the first time, I thought nothing of germs, soap, ostriches or hand sanitation. I hypothesized these differences:

Work of the people. Their lives living as the church in the city was intense, sacrificial and beautiful. Liturgy means work of the people and their time together was a natural reflection of their work and struggle. In contrast, since our lives in America are not always as purposeful and intentional, we place the responsibility of the church on the programing and entertainment. Turn up the music and entertain me during the sermon so I can be feel better about myself as I attend the church. Maybe if our lives are crappy we should allow our liturgy to honestly reflect its "crappyness". Rather than fix our liturgy, let's fix our lives and allow our expression to be an honest representation.

No overhead. From what I could tell, it costs very little (if anything) to bring this community together. The church met in homes. There were no staff and therefore no overhead. Our churches cost millions more and it's debatable whether those dollars translate into greater kingdom impact. Their tithes can in turn be reallocated to schools, women's prisons, clean water.

This tiny Middle-Eastern church community was rebuilding their war-torn country brick by brick. The people they served experienced a living Christ in them and some longed to know and follow.

"We're glad that you're with our community this morning and please take a moment to greet your neighbor!"

It was an honor to meet and greet the hands and feet of Christ. After being with and experiencing the work of the people, I didn't even mind getting sick the week after.

Did I mention germs?

Comments

David White

I'm Lutheran by my family's heritage God's own by birth. I've alway's though of "Howdy Dudy Time" as my mom called it as one of the most uncomfortable religious experiences one could endure save a circumcision. I am by no means an introvert but have always thought of this exercise as a farce. It is a lovely attempt to make people feel welcome if you enjoy working as the door greeter at Wal-mart. As far as I'm concerned, I'd much rather sit with somebody new over a cup of coffee - after church and really get to know somebody new than play that game of "Hi -its so nice to see you" as a part of the church service.

It is so easy to avoid actually sharing and growing in Christ if we use these exercises and don't engage in the Walmartization of our churches and actually engage with each other!

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