Over the years relatives have shared church bulletins with us, thinking that we might find what the churches are doing of interest.\u00a0 That\u2019s understandable, considerate, and sometimes we do find them interesting.\u00a0 There are other times when they are just crazy-making.<\/p>\n
For example, my wife\u2019s parents sent us a bulletin from their church in Exeter, New Hampshire announcing a new fall film festival.\u00a0 The subject matter?<\/p>\n
\u201cFresh\u201d\u2026.according to the bulletin \u201cFresh\u201d celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system\u2026.Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and planet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBotany of Desire\u201d is the second film on offer and \u201cpresents case studies that mirror five types of human desires that are reflected in the way we selectively grow, breed, and genetically engineer our plants.\u00a0 The apple<\/span> reflects the desire of sweetness, the tulip<\/span> beauty, marijuana<\/span> intoxication and the potato<\/span> control.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, the fall series concludes with a film devoted to the \u201cNatural History of the Chicken.\u201d\u00a0 The bulletin reads: \u201cMost people best know the chicken from their dinner plates \u2014 whether as thigh, wing or drumstick.\u00a0 Consumers barely pause a moment to consider the bird\u2019s many virtues.\u201d\u00a0 In response, the film promises to expand \u201cthe frontiers of popular awareness and delightfully reveals that this small, common and seemingly simple animal is as complex and grand as any of Earth\u2019s creatures.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, isn\u2019t that special.\u00a0 Just reading this bulletin made me want chicken potpie.\u00a0 But I wasn\u2019t looking for a plane ticket to New Hampshire.<\/p>\n Why not?<\/p>\n First \u2014 this has nothing to do with the mission of the church.\u00a0 The purpose of the church is to form Christians.\u00a0 Its mission is not about improving the reputation of the chicken.<\/p>\n And far from advancing the work of the church programming of this kind trivializes its role rendering it the one place where you can have grave, serious, unfocused conversations about anything, but its mission.<\/p>\n It also completely confuses people who might be asking themselves why they should go to church.\u00a0 It\u2019s true, based on what I have heard in pulpits around the country, it is not clear that clergy know anything.\u00a0 But presumably, they were taught something about biblical studies, systematic and historical theology, church history, spiritual formation, and pastoral care.\u00a0 Why would I waste my time learning about farming, botany, and chickens from the church?\u00a0 When clergy offer up programs of this kind what I hear is this:\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019t know why we are here.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t interested in talking about what you would think we talk about.\u00a0 So, we thought we would talk about chickens.\u201d<\/p>\n But there is something more profoundly amiss here.\u00a0 People once died to be Christians and own the name of Jesus.\u00a0 They still do in many parts of the world.\u00a0 Is our grasp of the faith and its significance so feeble that we are prepared to turn the church into little more than a curator of quaint conversations?\u00a0 Did the martyrs of the faith, past and present, die in order to make the world safe for conversations about chicken potpie?\u00a0 If so, we should not be surprised to find that churches of this kind are attended by shrinking numbers of the aging alumni of Woodstock.<\/p>\n Just because you can, doesn\u2019t mean you should.\u00a0 Unless you just don\u2019t have anything worth talking about anymore.\u00a0 But remember\u2026if that\u2019s all we have left to offer as a church, then there isn\u2019t anything here people couldn\u2019t get more comfortably and pleasantly through Netflicks.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the years relatives have shared church bulletins with us, thinking that we might find what the churches are doing of interest.\u00a0 That\u2019s understandable, considerate, and sometimes we do find them interesting.\u00a0 There are other times when they are just crazy-making. For example, my wife\u2019s parents sent us a bulletin from their church in Exeter, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church"],"yoast_head":"\n