those sermons<\/a> you see on YouTube) and that means that I go to a different church every Sunday to preach a sermon as a sort of \u201csubstitute pastor\u201d. I made it to church on Easter because it was a sunrise service at 6am and it gave me time to be at a tiny chapel in Cheapside at 11 to preside over Easter for the ten people there. But there is more to my inattendance than that\u2026<\/p>\nEven when I\u2019m not on pulpit supply, like this summer when I was doing Hospital Chaplaincy, I just don\u2019t make a very good church member. I\u2019m too critical, I don\u2019t follow instructions well, I know too much about what goes on behind the curtain. My girlfriend and I tried to stick to a Church this summer near her place down south (since I was in San Antonio). By the tenth week I was pulling my hair out over how much differently I would have done things.<\/p>\n
We actually addressed this in seminary (I\u2019ll paraphrase it as best I can). \u201cThere comes a time\u201d said my professor \u201cWhen you realize that you know too much you have crossed the point of no return, and you can no longer abide to sit quietly in a pew. Every Reference to the Old Testament is now cross referenced in your brain against your education in Biblical Hebrew and the pastors theology includes a telltale sign of that heresy you learned about in Christian History. You can try at this point to not be a pastor, but you can never again be just a congregant\u201d he concluded for the semester with \u201cYou might as well face it you are addicted to church\u201d<\/p>\n
And it is an addiction. It\u2019s a compulsion. Something I can\u2019t not do even if I want to or bad stuff will happen. It\u2019s often frustrating, and overwhelming, and all-consuming, but I have no choice. I have to preach, I have to write, I have to engage big ideas with little people. It\u2019s who I am, it\u2019s what I\u2019m about. I feel sorry for those of you who just have to sit there and watch me have all the fun.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I get asked this question a lot as I meet Christians from various groups and programs I interact with. The answer is that I\u2019m a member at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Austin\u2026 But the reality I sometimes leave out is that I haven\u2019t been there for service since Easter last year. I work Pulpit Supply…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[591,594,228,597,600,603],"class_list":["post-2542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-addiction","tag-attendance","tag-church","tag-membership","tag-passion","tag-preaching"],"yoast_head":"\n
Where Do You Go to Church, Ryan? - A Fear of Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2015\/11\/where.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Where Do You Go to Church, Ryan? - A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I get asked this question a lot as I meet Christians from various groups and programs I interact with. The answer is that I\u2019m a member at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Austin\u2026 But the reality I sometimes leave out is that I haven\u2019t been there for service since Easter last year. 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<\/a>I work Pulpit Supply (which is where I preach those sermons<\/a> you see on YouTube) and that means that I go to a different church every Sunday to preach a sermon as a sort of \u201csubstitute pastor\u201d. I made it to church on Easter because it was a sunrise service at 6am and it gave me time to be at a tiny chapel in Cheapside at 11 to preside over Easter for the ten people there. But there is more to my inattendance than that\u2026<\/p>\n