I attend a church where the majority of the members are new believers. Many of them have never attended another evangelical church. This introduces some good elements and some bad to the church. On the good side, few of them have any real expectations or baggage that they bring from other churches. Every church has two or three people who are always saying, “Well that’s not how we did it at [insert previous church here]” and they are generally tough people to deal with. We don’t have a whole lot of those. On the other hand, these new believers don’t know or understand some basic church etiquette. For example, everybody knows that leaving a Bible on a seat (or pew) is the universal sign for “taken.” In most churches it is as effective as building a barbed wire fence around a seat. But when I leave a Bible on a seat in my church, it’s likely that when I return, some helpful person will have moved the Bible and sat in my seat. It is a horrifying breach of etiquette, is it not? And who will teach these people what is and is not acceptable?
I just rummaged through my closet to find some funeral-appropriate attire. Mike’s funeral is this afternoon and I’m guessing I shouldn’t wear the “I think therefore I blog” t-shirt I’ve got on at the moment. The problem is that I wear dressy clothes so seldom. And as we all know, the longer clothes hang in a closet, the smaller they get. I’m not exactly sure how this phenomenon occurs, yet it seems to be remarkably consistent. I eventually found a pants, shirt and tie combination that shouldn’t suffocate me over the course of the afternoon. Now I get to iron them all. Whee!
Anyways, I have got a lot to do before 4 PM when the funeral begins (or more correctly, before 3:30 PM when my ride gets here) so I am going to get busy. I’ll be back tomorrow with a new feature for the site and probably some reflections on what is bound to be an emotional funeral. God bless you as you enjoy the rest of your Lord’s day.
