{"id":4187,"date":"2013-05-15T11:24:09","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T11:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=4187"},"modified":"2018-07-17T21:54:50","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T21:54:50","slug":"renaissance-fair-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2013\/05\/renaissance-fair-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Renaissance Fair Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The following reflections conclude my presentation for the hip Presbyterian Women of Clairmont Presbyterian Church. (The full, multi-media presentation, titled “Losing Our Religion: A Church for Restless Souls?,” is available upon request.):<\/em><\/p>\n

Stand-up comedian David Cross does a routine in which he pokes fun at the experience of being at a Renaissance fair. For those of you who don\u2019t know what a Renaissance fair is, a Renaissance fair is a re-enactment of medieval times. Usually a lot of people show up in period costume. There\u2019s food, beer, jousting. I\u2019ve never actually been to a Renaissance festival, but apparently it\u2019s supposed to be a fun, rowdy, even bawdy time.<\/p>\n

And Cross jokes about how almost always when you go to the Renaissance festival as just an ordinary participant in the crowd, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, you end up being secretly glad that you\u2019re not one of the people wearing a heavy costume, sweating like crazy, and doing the entertaining; because the real fun is just showing up to watch all the silliness, and maybe to enjoy a beer as you stroll through the grounds. To paraphrase Cross, the Renaissance festival is one of those parties where the people throwing the party seem to be having a lot less fun than the people who show up to see what the party is all about.<\/p>\n

We Christians celebrate a God who is the life of the party. We celebrate a God who is \u201cThe Life\u201d itself. Yet so often I wonder if we as \u201cchurch\u201d aren\u2019t those people with the heavy costumes on: we\u2019ve been sweating way too much than we have to, while looking a bit ridiculous and putting on an act, and not truly enjoying the party.<\/p>\n

And the world is watching to see if The Life we\u2019re celebrating is real. The world is watching to see if we\u2019re more than an act; the world is watching to see whether we\u2019re really ourselves<\/i> at the party rather than pretending to be someone we\u2019re not; the world is watching to see whether we\u2019re truly able to relax and enjoy the festivities, or…whether we\u2019re just putting on a show that at the end of the day will conclude with our taking our costumes off and breathing a sigh of relief that the day is over and we won\u2019t have to do that again for at least another year.<\/p>\n

I hope not. I hope that we as a people are seeking and finding our lives in Jesus and celebrating The Life of the party without getting in Its way. Because God\u2019s life, thankfully, really doesn\u2019t depend on us or on our best gimmicks. God\u2019s life is contagious apart from anything we do or don\u2019t do. God\u2019s life doesn\u2019t require that we pretend to be someone we\u2019re not or to put on a great, big, laborious show.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s life just happens apart from anything we can do to generate it.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I hope you can hear that tonight as good news. Really good news. You see, you, \u201cthe church,\u201d don\u2019t have to be the life of the party. You don\u2019t have to do the entertaining. Jesus, The Life, is already at work in your lives and in the lives of those around you outside these walls. All you have to do is show up and witness to how Jesus is already at work. And, that\u2019s not burdensome. You don\u2019t have to bring Jesus with you: that would be like wearing a ridiculously heavy costume at a Renaissance fair.<\/p>\n

All you need to do is be there with people, alongside them, ready to share your life and the life of Jesus in you, ready to point to how Jesus is already at work in your life and in the lives of the people out there. And so tonight, that\u2019s my challenge to you: my challenge to you is to go out and live your life to its fullest, in the open, with honesty, asking questions in search of more purpose, more truth and more life while being engaged in the world around you; and then celebrate how Jesus shows up along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following reflections conclude my presentation for the hip Presbyterian Women of Clairmont Presbyterian Church. (The full, multi-media presentation, titled “Losing Our Religion: A Church for Restless Souls?,” is available upon request.): Stand-up comedian David Cross does a routine in which he pokes fun at the experience of being at a Renaissance fair. For those…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,119,43,25],"tags":[177,1721,516,178,1758],"class_list":["post-4187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-and-culture","category-church","category-humor","category-jesus","tag-church-growth","tag-david-cross","tag-evangelism","tag-missional-church","tag-renaissance-fair"],"yoast_head":"\nRenaissance Fair Church - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners<\/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\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2013\/05\/renaissance-fair-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Renaissance Fair Church - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following reflections conclude my presentation for the hip Presbyterian Women of Clairmont Presbyterian Church. 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