Beware of falling cheese

Hey, blessed Easter to all in netland. I'm once again stranded in Texas for a weekend, being forced to relax, and by extension also blog. Indubitably, it's just downright swell outside, maybe 13° on a good temperture scale or 55° on a bad one. Thus, I have the window in the computer room open until my one of my parents finds out and complains, and they probably will pretty soon, as they've totally become southern panzies when it comes to temperatures. Funny.

So, we just got back from one of the weirder Easter services I've ever gone to. I woke up this morning honestly feeling joy about the resurrection, because hey, "If it's only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are above all men to be pitied." But then upon getting to church I started feeling something different entirely. I was greeted by hordes of well-dressed people with ridiculous smiles that were all trying as hard as possible to make sure I was completely comfortable as a visitor. And they were really failing at it pretty miserably. Invariably, people would say something like "Happy Easter!", and then we would introduce ourselves, and then we would realize that we didn't really want to hold a conversation with each other and awkwardly part ways. I was really happy when the service started.

For about 10 seconds that is. Then, the production started; the colored spotlights hit the stage, and like 6 different singers, which were all probably relatives of the guy from Office Space (the one with over thirty pieces of flair), unleashed a massive barrage of corny music on us. There was a severely mulleted band behind them, with more members than pre-plane crash Skynyrd. How could I possibly take them seriously? So, instead of clapping my hands nervously with the people around me, I ended up just crossing my arms and silently convicting them of lip service and insincerity. Anybody else see the irony here?

I, for one, have loved the movement toward authenticity, and it seems like more than a few churches have been trying to achieve that lately. How cool! But, woe is me if I come to take my own modus operandi of worship as the only right way to do it. Is it more effective to have a more mellow production that encourages reflection than to put on a show like you'd see inside the Magic Kingdom? Probably... but as the adage goes, form follows function, with regards to worship just like pretty much everything else. It all comes back to the gospel, and the good news is this, Christ died so that I can go and judge no more and worship him with my offensively cheesy Texan brothers and sisters for eternity. Amen.