Sometimes people will ask my why am i so angry with, or why do i hate church? The simple answer is that i do not “hate” church, or pastors, or Christians (i am one)! The thing i hate, the thing that makes me angry and frustrated and upset is what some in the church pass off to the world as Christian. One example here may suffice.
A couple months or maybe a little longer now we had a “informational” meeting at our church. The meeting was meant to allow for people to open up about their concerns about the church. One of the concerns involved people drinking coffee during the service. This person felt that it was disrepectful to God. Now that is all well and good and if that person felt that she was disrespecting God then she probably shouldn’t drink coffee in the service.
Well move ahead a week….I had just finishing polluting the minds of the young adults i teach in Sunday School with liberal theology and was headed for the “sanctuary” for the service, in my hand was a large cup of coffee (the elixir of life, i fondly call it). I pull open the door and suddenly feel a hand in my shoulder. Imagine my surprize when, rather than receiving the canned “good morning, how are you today?” usher speak, the usher told me that i could not take my coffee into the church.
“What!?!!?!?!?” was my incredulous response. Mind you my large coffee was only a quarter gone!
“We are not allowing coffee into the santuary any longer,” His eyes boring into my soul, “out of respect for God!”
“i don’t think Jesus cares if i drink coffee in the service, besides He created it!” Was the only thing I could think to say. But he was unrelenting. I went off to the library to finish my devils brew. I few minutes later i was joined by a young mother with two little kids in tow, she too had been banned, but she was clearly embarrassed. That is when i could feel anger rising inside. i thought to myself, ‘ i think that God is more concerned about we treat people in church rather than what we sip on during the message”.
It is things like this that infuriate me about “church”. We spend so much time making sure that the members are happy that we forget that we are dealing with people coming into churches that have no idea how to speak “Christianize”….and they should not have to.
Church, should be a place where broken, dirty, weak, sinful, lonely people can come and find something so incredibly different…unconditional love and acceptence because of Christ. Many churches here in America are places where the self justified, self righteous sinner comes to condemn, belittle, and judge any that do not fit their idea of the Christian mold.
The church can and should be so much more.
Oh, and it may come as a shock to these individuals that Jesus didn’t fit the mold either and He would fail their test.
Musings of a "not so good" Christian 
My old church used to keep you from re entering the sanctuary if you left to use the restroom during service. You’d have to listen to the rest of the service from the hallway.
all i can say to you is that i am sorry for the way you were treated…it is a great injustice to the gospel to treat people as a hinderance rather than a deeply loved child of God.
That poor lady who is afraid God is disrespected by drinking coffee in the sanctuary probably was never allowed to eat or drink in her own living room. What bondage! I guess we have not got the message that God is not willing to allow anything–sin or coffee–stand between us and Him. If God can forgive a liar, a cheat, a murderer, a gossip, do we not think he will over look the coffee stain in row four? But it is a symptom of loving buildings and rooms more than people. I think Jesus had a cure for that–over turning the tables of the moneychangers.
The ushers would have Him wait in the back so He didn’t distract those worshipping their idea of Him.
Just keep thinking that you’d love what goes on at our church. The pastor is the guy with the jeans and a t-shirt, AND sipping from his cup of coffee at the pulpit.
clearly your pastor is a heretic!
Somewhere the link between coffee cups and the greatest story ever told has seemed to become strangely blurred. As if to say that a paper cup of boiled bean-water can somehow infringe on the glory of the source of the universe itself, this is something that I have trouble grasping. The mere insignificance of the human condition, when entering into the presence of the Divine Himself, that is where you should be as you are, totally revealed. How can any physical attribute of your being play any role in anything aside from what you truly are? How did we get from the Israelites tying a rope around the leg of the priest in the temple to drag him out in case he was struck dead by the sheer magnitude and glory of the presence of God to a roomful of people sneering at each other with contempt for what they hold in their hands? I’m not saying break out the incense and candles or anything (this isn’t college, you know), but to quote one of my favored musical groups (Orange County Supertones), “If your eyes are on the Lord you can’t see nobody’s hair” (or coffee, in this case).
It is obvious that you get what so many in the church do not. My question is how do you continue to escape the great indoctrination and assimilation?
To me it seems elementary. Salvation is not found in climbing the backs of others. Besides, I don’t really do well with being told what to do. It all works out.
Mark…you need to tag this post “coffee” and in the future when you discuss other assinine policies you can tag it as such…