@Deanna
Being a guitarist is so weird. On one side, you get people putting you on a pedestal and paying you awkwardly pious compliments (i.e. “You have been anointed by God to play guitar”), and on the other you have people treating you like a commodity and auto-committing you to the Sunday rotation, special services, out-of-town events, and whatever else comes up that might possibly benefit from a stringed instrument.

At the last church I was going to semi-regularly, I kept the whole musician thing under wraps to avoid something like you described happening, and I felt like I was lying about myself. It really is a no-win situation (unless you have the time/energy/desire to join the band, of course).

Deanna – Nice to meet you! McGookey sent me to your blog, and I’ve read the first three posts where you talk about your experience. It makes me miss my yearly chat with the Barna people who called my parents’ house.

The follow up questions are killer. Some of them, I won’t have a good answer for; some, I’m just trying to figure out a polite way to say, “No, this specific doctrine is asinine and you’d have to be a sociopath to believe it.” Mostly, I just don’t like being part of a group that feels the need to ask all of those questions to begin with. Someone once described this as, “reducing faith to a series of propositions,” and I love that description. It’s like filling out a scantron in that only one answer is correct and there is no room for nuance. Incredibly frustrating.

Deanna – Nice to meet you! McGookey sent me to your blog, and I’ve read the first three posts where you talk about your experience. It makes me miss my yearly chat with the Barna people who called my parents’ house.

The follow up questions are killer. Some of them, I won’t have a good answer for; some, I’m just trying to figure out a polite way to say, “No, this specific doctrine is asinine and you’d have to be a sociopath to believe it.” Mostly, I just don’t like being part of a group that feels the need to ask all of those questions to begin with. Someone once described this as, “reducing faith to a series of propositions,” and I love that description. It’s like filling out a scantron in that only one answer is correct and there is no room for nuance. Incredibly frustrating.

While I understand that they are trying to “get people involved in the church community”… It seems like there’s something missing. The most recent church we went to, when they found out my husband played guitar, without even getting to know him they took his email address and set him up on the schedule for the worship team.

The college thing was huge too. I remember our parents being so concerned when we indicated that we wanted to go to a “secular school”. The professors would surely sway us from our faith and clearly all we wanted to do was party, because, why else would you ever want to go to a non-Christian school?

Guiltguiltguilt.

After writing about my own experiences with church, I had a few people ask about where I am now and where I’m going to church. I pretty much came up with the same feeling. I can answer the questions for the most part, but I’m not ready for all the follow up questions.

The church my husband and I formerly attended closed its doors after running out of money. When we went to the place where most of our friends had migrated, I felt that same palpable dread barrelling back in. It was sort of calmed, but man, I didn’t realize how I felt about it until I actually tried to go somewhere else.

I can’t wait to hear your story and how you separate all the pieces.

P.S. I’m a fellow Plexian! McGookey sent me to your blog.

What did you do to your wrist to make it hurt?