I want to say the Apostle’s Creed regularly in church.

It starts like this:  “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth…”  I know the whole thing, but it’s not that brief and I’m trying to make a point here.  I want to sing the “Gloria Patri,” a little song that goes, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen, Amen.” 

I want to say the Nicene Creed.  I like saying the Lord’s Prayer.   I want to sing the Doxology, the traditional melody.

In short, I miss the ritual at church, the kind of ritual I grew up with.  I find it really, really comforting to say words that were woven into the fabric of my life as a kid.  My own kids, in contrast, don’t know these creeds, because they aren’t said regularly in our church.  I’m not sure why, but I suspect it is because somebody, somewhere, decided they might scare people away.

A lot of churches are not doing well, and as they try to fix what they perceive to be the problem, they may actually be making it worse.  They try hard to be relevant, to reach out to millennials with “contemporary” worship.

As Gimli said in the Fellowship of the Ring, “If anyone was to ask for my opinion, which I note they’re not, I’d say we were taking the long way round.” 

There’s big money in consulting, and churches have paid many thousands of dollars to experts who told them how to make the service more hip, accessible, and cool.  Coolness hasn’t really brought in millennials, or anyone, in the hoped-for numbers.  

You know what’s catchy?  Hymns.  You know where they have a lot of great hymns?  The hymnal.   Already printed up and everything.  You know what’s great?  Beautiful liturgical language, like the Episcopalians have in the Book of Common Prayer, and Methodists have in the hymnal.

I’m not alone.  Do a Google search on “millennials looking for traditional church,” and prepare to be amazed.  I got “about 536,000 results in 0.61 seconds.”  A lot of people have written about this, and some of what they have to say is pretty painful.

Rachel Held Evans, in a much-cited opinion piece in the Washington Post, said:  “Bass reverberates through the auditorium floor as a heavily bearded worship leader pauses to invite the congregation, bathed in the light of two giant screens, to tweet using #JesusLives. … At the end of the service, someone will win an iPad.  This, in the view of many churches, is what millennials like me want.” She goes on to say, “You’re just as likely to hear the words ‘market share’ and branding’ in church staff meetings these days as you are in any corporate office. … Increasingly, churches offer sermon series on iTunes and concert-style worship services with names like ‘Vine’ or ‘Gather.’ … Still, attendance among young people remains flat.”

A lot of people say they have left the church because they didn’t feel welcome there, and there’s no excuse for that. 

Everybody should feel welcome in a church because although Jesus had some wealthy and high-ranking followers, he had many more followers who were nobodies, outcasts, sinners.  We’re all sinners, but some people don’t know it and make a big show of their piety when really all they are is judgmental.  It didn’t impress Jesus.   Instead, he told some of those people to stop looking at the splinter in someone else’s eye and to worry about the big old plank of wood in their own.   

So, nonnegotiable, a church should be welcoming to everyone.   But we don’t need to throw out the proverbial (or any) baby with the baptismal water just to make a church a friendly place to worship. 

Research by the Pew Foundation and other groups has helped shed some light on why people, especially in that coveted 18-35-year-old bracket, have left the church.  One report by the Barna Group determined that more than 40 percent of young people in one study “have a desire for a more traditional faith, rather than a hip version of Christianity.”  They don’t want to be pandered to. 

Evans left the church but came back when she found one that met her needs,  “where every week I find myself, at age 33, kneeling next to a gray-haired lady to my left and a gay couple to my right as I confess my sins and recite the Lord’s Prayer…  No one’s desperately trying to make the Gospel hip or relevant or cool. They’re just joining me in proclaiming the great mystery of the faith — that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again — which, in spite of my persistent doubts and knee-jerk cynicism, I still believe most days.”

The internet has a lot of pretty interesting stuff, including an open letter to the church from Jonathan Aigner, who describes himself as “one of those millennials you can’t figure out.”  Aigner puts it right out there:  “Don’t expect a ‘worship style’ to do your dirty work,” he says.  “Contemporary worship hasn’t worked.  The longer we extend the life of this failed experiment, the more we see the results. In my experience, contemporary worship brings in three groups. Baby boomers who are still stuck in their rebellion against the establishment, parents who mistakenly think that contemporary worship is the only way for their kids to connect to the church, and a small percentage of young adults who’ve never left and who never knew anything other than contemporary worship… 

“Don’t give us entertainment, give us liturgy.  We don’t want to be entertained in church, and frankly, the church’s attempt at entertainment is pathetic.  Enough with the theatrics. … Follow that simple yet profound formula that’s worked for the entire history of the church.  Entrance, proclamation, thanksgiving, sending out.  Gathering, preaching, breaking bread, going forth in service.  Give us a script to follow, give us songs to sing, give us the tradition of the church, give us Holy Scripture to read.  Give us sacraments, not life groups, to grow and strengthen us.”

And one more thing, Aigner says:  “Don’t target us.  In doing so, you’ve marketed and advertised yourself into oblivion. …  No wonder we’ve left.  Just be the church. Be yourself.  Use your regular old liturgy.  Offer your regular old sacraments. Sing your regular old songs.  Cast a wide net, and let whosoever will come. Trust me, we’re more likely to show up when we don’t feel like fish snapping up the bait.

“…We need to look into the faces of old and young, rich and poor, of different colors, races, and ethnic backgrounds, so we can learn to see Jesus in faces that don’t look like us.  So we can remember that the kingdom is bigger than our safe, suburban bubble.  That’s right, we need community, not bound together by age or economic status or skin color, but wrought with the hammering of nails on a wooden cross.  Our internet connectivity is just fine. The rest of our lives is a different story. We are hopelessly disconnected.  Church, you can be a powerful remedy if you stop posing as a Fortune 500 company scheming to sell a product.”

That’s me at worship rehearsal

I wonder what would happen if churches would try both – a contemporary service, and then one that’s more back-to-the-basics traditional? Maybe they’ll both be successful.

I love the people who go to my church.  I really do.  Our church is healthy and vital.  It is growing.  One of the most wonderful things about our church is that the people truly welcome everyone.  They don’t care who you are, they are just happy you’re there.  Still, I’m just saying, a little more ritual would not be unwelcome. 

I really like saying the old creeds every week, not just once or twice a year.  Singing the time-tested responses, saying the same beautiful prayers, like this one from St. Francis (below), which our minister used to say as a benediction at my church when I was a kid.  Having two Scriptural readings, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament.  Instead of modern creeds for social justice that seem lawyer-mandated, couldn’t we say something like this often enough that my kids would memorize it, and bank it for when they really need it, the way I did?

“Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

“O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.”

Now that’s beautiful.

P.S.  This is just my opinion.  I mean no offense to anyone.

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Topic of a recent sermon at our church:  Who’s welcome here?  Answer:  Everyone.  There should be no litmus test – skin color, sexual preference, etc. – because we all belong to God.

I wish it were that easy out in the rest of the world. 

I used to be a news junkie: I read newspapers, watched pundits arguing on TV, really got into it.  I don’t now; it’s too stressful.  I liked it a lot better when all the newspapers I read were actually on paper, and anyone who wanted to make a comment to a story had to write a letter and own up to it by putting his or her name and address.  For most people, this had something of a civilizing effect; it also offered that moment of restraint, of reflection – was that too much? Should I have said that?  Will this hurt anyone? – that has been sucked down the black hole of our think-and-click lives today. 

You think it, you click it.  And then it’s out there and you usually can’t get it back.  You don’t have to use your real name, and unfortunately, a lot of people don’t handle this anonymity very well.  It lets their bad selves out, the id-troll selves they probably make at least some effort to hold in check out in the real world. 

I have seen some very good discussions in the comments sections on the health pages of the New York Times.  I pretty much can’t read the comments after any political story in the Washington Post, because within a very few posts, they turn to personal insults, as people take offense at what somebody else said and decide to just vilify that person. 

It’s nasty, people.  Very unpleasant.  Even in my sweet little town, the comments on stories in our local newspaper tend to be equally polarizing.  Whatever happened to moderation?  Where did all this hate come from?  These probably know each other, but they don’t recognize the fake names.  I like the policy of one news website – it leans conservative, so go ahead and hate me for it if that’s all it takes to set you off – which is,  “It’s a salon, not a saloon.” If someone makes a comment that’s vulgar, demeaning, or otherwise inappropriate, that person can be banned from the site.   

Closer to home, it’s happening with some of my friends on Facebook.  Recently, I was very disturbed to find that I apparently can’t even “like” anything if it is too controversial. 

A friend I’ve known for a long time has taken offense at two things I have “liked.”  (If by some lucky happenstance you’re not familiar with Facebook, you can “post” things that you write, or stories or pictures that you find interesting, and you can “like” things that other people put up that show up in your News Feed.)

My friend sent me a FB message that just flabbergasted me. It said, “I know your politics, but please don’t just repost blindly.”  He mentioned a story that he thought I had posted – I actually had not, but I had liked it – and sent along a Snopes link to discredit it.  I wrote back: “I try never to post political things. I saw it in the News Feed of a guy from my former church,” and apparently clicked “like.”  I added:  “It seems to me I ought to be able to like something if I want to. I just can’t imagine telling someone else what to like.” 

He then went on to insult the guy, a good man I’ll call X, who had posted the offending thing – a meme, I think it was; I honestly don’t even remember now.  I wrote back: “You’re right, X is probably the operational definition of curmudgeon.  But he also spends many hours a week doing volunteer work with his wife,” and I talked briefly about that.  “So he’s a mixture of opinions you probably don’t like and acts of kindness that you most likely do like.  Honestly, though, I try not to post anything political.  You may know my politics, you may not.”

I went on:  “I remember back in the 70s and 80s, especially around the journalism schools where my dad taught, seeing bumper stickers that said something like, ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.’  I don’t see those anymore. 

“I don’t agree with all the stuff you put up, but you are my friend and I love you for many reasons, including your compassion, your wit, because you are a genuinely nice guy and so darn smart, much smarter than I am.  That’s good enough for me, and I’d rather have the things we share in common than worry about the things we don’t.” 

He agreed, and I thought everything was okay.  Then a couple of weeks ago, it happened again; he wrote a whole post about how one of his friends had posted something and it “made his blood boil.”  Again, it was not a post, but something a family member had put up and I had just liked it. 

I have begun to censor myself.  I went back and unliked it.  Then I did something I hardly ever do; put my friend on the “restricted” list, so he can’t see most of what I do on Facebook.  Which is not much these days.  Personally, I think it is kind of odd to see and get worked up over what other people like; I can barely keep up with what they post.  A lot of my friends like stuff that I don’t particularly care for; so what?      

So I have pulled back.  I’m barely on FB anymore, and when I do post something I try to be innocuous.  Fortunately, I have an endless stockpile of puns and I like to put up a daily joke.  Here’s one of them:  What would happen if Satan lost his hair? There would be hell toupée.  Here’s another:  I went to a restaurant and had the Wookie steak.  It was pretty Chewy.

Also, I’m the secretary of the middle school PTA and I put up stuff about that.  Pretty tame.  Who says we all have to agree on everything? That’s what makes the world an interesting place.

Back to the idea of a litmus test:  I truly don’t care about your sexual orientation.  I just don’t.  I’ve got enough problems without having to worry about judging you.  And I wish I had as much money as I don’t care about your politics.  I do not want to know what they are.

My only litmus test is, are you unable to lighten up?  That’s it.  Because anyone else, I’m pretty sure I can work with you.

© Janet Farrar Worthington

The darkest nights I’ve ever spent have been in a car, late at night, on a cold, lonely stretch of deserted highway.  Years ago, when my husband, Mark, was a resident at Johns Hopkins, we always spent Christmas with my family in South Carolina.  Mark didn’t get much time off, so we usually left at rush hour on December 23.  We spent almost all of the trip on roads that ended in “95” – first, the Baltimore Beltway, I-695, then I-95, then the D.C. Beltway, I-495, then back on I-95 all the way down to Florence, S.C., where we cut over onto a smaller highway to get to Columbia.

I-95 runs from Maine to Florida, and it’s one of those intense, stressful interstates.  If you’ve ever been on it, you know it can be a hellish racetrack, where you have to speed for your life just to avoid being flattened by an insane truck driver, where tailgating cars (oddly, almost always from New Jersey; no offense to New Jersey) flash their brights at you, and cars with Miami plates zip by at 90 mph, darting in and out of lanes in spaces you didn’t think a car could fit. 

And then, quicker than you can say, “Where’s my Zantac?” it can turn into a parking lot, where there are so many stopped cars ahead that by the time you start moving again, you don’t see any sign of a wreck.  From Baltimore heading south, the traffic doesn’t clear out until you get past Richmond, Virginia. 

But after that, on those long pre-Christmas drives, it wasn’t too bad, and as the evening grew later, we would start hitting some stretches of road where it was just us.  No other lights but our car.  Temperature in the 20s.  Dark, cold, and lonely out there on the highway. 

But every so often, we would see houses in the distance all decorated for Christmas.  Mostly little houses, with just a string of lights, or a homemade star with a flood light aimed at it, or a solitary decorated tree.  No fancy light shows, no inflatable snowmen or Grinches, no generators keeping snow falling in plastic snow globes.  We’re talking pretty humble stuff here. 

It made me so happy to see those lights.  They were isolated bright spots, beacons guiding us down the road toward my family, who always waited up.  My mom would have a pot of soup and some warm bread ready for us, and those good smells filled up the house.  The house would be decorated, all the lights on, and my dad and/or my brother might even be standing out on the front porch in their pajamas, watching for lights, too — our headlights.

I started thinking about those long, cold, mostly dark journeys when I was writing an Advent devotional for my church, and this is what I have figured out: 

Basically, every time you hang a Christmas light outside or even turn on a porch light, you are taking a stand to the outside world against the darkness.  You are sending out a little dot of cheer, spreading a little hope, maybe boosting someone’s courage just a little bit, too. 

Why do we light candles and sing “Silent Night” on Christmas Eve?  Why not just sing?  It’s a perfectly good song all by itself.  Christians around the world do it because it’s a visual – an “optic,” as the politicians might say:  To us, the lights are visible manifestations of our hope and faith that God can change a dark and cold world.  Has changed it.  Light means hope.   In the Bible, the book of John starts off by saying of Jesus: His life is the light that shines through the darkness—and the darkness can never extinguish it. 

I don’t know what you believe, but I hope you believe – because I do –that even in the darkest places, there is a glimmer of hope that can’t be killed.  That where there is evil, there is still good, and you can draw strength from it.  That even if love may not conquer all, it endures, long after hate does whatever it does – turns into a hard nugget and implodes, or disintegrates, or fades away. 

So – if you want to, that is, no pressure here — light up.  Send out a little dot of cheer, and take a stand against the darkness.

© Janet Farrar Worthington