{"id":3001,"date":"2014-04-18T07:41:51","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T13:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=3001"},"modified":"2014-04-18T07:41:51","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T13:41:51","slug":"good-and-bad-news-for-christmas-easter-christians-a-little-friday-funny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2014\/04\/good-and-bad-news-for-christmas-easter-christians-a-little-friday-funny.html","title":{"rendered":"Good and Bad News for Christmas & Easter Christians: A Little Friday Funny"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe>So I found a neologism as yet unknown to me:\u00a0Chreastians<\/em>. It\u2019s a mash-up of Christmas, Easter, and Christian meant to refer to the folks who only come around on Christmas and Easter. It\u2019s a bad word both aesthetically and in it\u2019s derogatory intention. Apparently there\u2019s also the word Chreasters (Christmas and Easter) \u2013 equally troublesome. To be honest, these days I\u2019m glad when anybody shows up to worship no matter what day it is \u2013 so the good news<\/strong> for our Christmas and Easter friends is that we won\u2019t be doing a Bible trivia test to see who gets a seat this Easter (although this is a hilarious scene from Rev., season 1).<\/p>\nThe bad news<\/strong> is, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s even possible to \u201cbe a Christian\u201d and not go to church, or perhaps only go twice a year. Obviously this gets into all kinds of questions about what it means to be a Christian. Some say right beliefs. Some say right actions (baptism, communion, even morality or baptism by the Holy Spirit). My honest opinion is\u2014barring some sort of prohibitive limitation or a special calling to something like solitude or hermitage or a place with no churches at all (and in these kind of calling there is usually a significant connect to and identification with a church, even if not attending)\u2014it\u2019s pretty much impossible to be a Christian without being a part of a church.<\/p>\nThe reason I believe this is that being a Christian isn\u2019t about having the right set of doctrinal beliefs, or behaviors. And it\u2019s not just about me & Jesus. Beliefs are really important, as is a personal connection with God. (Although we need to remember that many struggle for years without any experience of a \u00a0personal connection with God, which can be extremely painful\u2026 see Mother Teresa). But we have to keep in mind that to be a Christian names, at least in large part, our willingness to identify with the body of Christ\u2026 the church.<\/p>\n_______________________________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201c\u2026we have to keep in mind that to be a Christian names, at least in large part, our willingness to identify with the body of Christ\u2026 the church.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n_______________________________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\nIt\u2019s hip to talk about being spiritual but not religious, and many a book or seminar talk tries to explain how it\u2019s possible to be a Christian without going to church. The problem is I\u2019ve never seen it happen\u2014at least not for a sustained period of time. The shelf-life is pretty short for lone-wolf Christians, and for alternative Christian communities that are disconnected from the traditions of the faith. The reason, I believe, is that corporate worship is an indispensable part of what it means to be a Christian.<\/p>\nI am as troubled as anyone that so many in our culture are leaving church. But leading churches isn\u2019t about keeping up our market share. It\u2019s only about faithfulness<\/em>. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever heard a Christian defense of disconnecting from the church that wasn\u2019t rooted in individualism or selfishness.\u00a0We cannot cater to individualism and baptize it with new ideas about what it means to be a Christian, or new models for being the church. We have to just be the church in our place and our time, and let the chips fall where they may in terms of the numbers.<\/p>\nThis is from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2014\/02\/donald-millers-worship-critique-subsequent-rant.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">an earlier post on this subject<\/a>. I still believe it:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\u201c\u2026I don\u2019t see any way to identify with Christ without identifying with the church, without living in fidelity to the church for our entire lives.<\/em>\u00a0Except in cases of abusive churches or church leadership, those who distance themselves from the church on the grounds that it doesn\u2019t\u00a0do anything<\/em>\u00a0for them are plagued by the pervasive egotism of our culture. The self-absorbed, \u201cI don\u2019t do the church thing every week, but I\u2019m fine\u2026 really my soul\u2019s good,\u201d is becoming such a tired script.<\/p>\nThe hard work of slogging to church every single Sunday morning so that we can worship with people who are different from us, is at least in part, necessary so that we don\u2019t fall into the egocentric patterns of our society. We need to worship with people, preferably with those who are vulnerable and marginalized, because the hard work of learning how to worship together will teach us what it means to be human. Worship isn\u2019t about my finding meaning in worship, it\u2019s about learning how to glorify God alongside people who tend to drive me crazy, and\u00a0vice versa.<\/em>\u00a0That\u2019s worship. How I feel about it, or even worse,\u00a0what I get out of worship<\/em>\u00a0is really beside the point. Those are questions we only ask if we have been more fully formed by a consumerist individualist culture than by the gospel. If we must talk about what I get out of worship, then we need to know that its impact is only measured in decades, not by what happened today, and in regard to an emotional response (or lack thereof), to the current song or teaching.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div>\u00a0Yes? No?<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So I found a neologism as yet unknown to me:\u00a0Chreastians. It\u2019s a mash-up of Christmas, Easter, and Christian meant to refer to the folks who only come around on Christmas and Easter. It\u2019s a bad word both aesthetically and in it\u2019s derogatory intention. Apparently there\u2019s also the word Chreasters (Christmas and Easter) \u2013 equally troublesome. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[989,988,318,987,516,927,928,791],"class_list":["post-3001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chreasters","tag-chreastians","tag-christmas","tag-easter","tag-easter-sunday","tag-rev","tag-tom-hollander","tag-worship"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Good and Bad News for Christmas & Easter Christians: A Little Friday Funny<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So I found a neologism as yet unknown to me:\u00a0Chreastians. 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