This is part of a series of post where I try to take a fresh look at a variety of topics. You can see more about the idea for the series, and links to the other topics here. This week’s topic is “The rite of communion”.

So I am currently a member of a Church of Christ church, where we take communion every Sunday.  Which is nice, because it happens often, and I really like traditions and rituals and liturgy and things with meaning behind them.  In a past life, perhaps, I would have been Catholic.

Our communion is an open one – at a church where “joining” the church is as simple as signing the member side of the attendance card instead of the guest side, it would be hard to have it otherwise.  And I like that, too.  I’ve never been a fan of the idea that you had the have signed on to a specific congregation to take communion with them – I just can’t find scriptural basis for it, really, since denominations are to some extent a modern thing.

I always feel a little odd, though, when I’m at a new church for communion.  I have to spend a few minutes figuring out how they do it, to make sure I’m not going to somehow mess it up.  At our church, the bread is a giant cracker (matzos, really), and everyone breaks off a tiny, tiny piece.  And takes it immediately.   The cup is grape juice in little communion cups, which for some reason at our church we take immediately and put the empty cup back in the little whole it came from.  Which freaked me out a little the first time.  Back home, everyone waiting until everyone was served, and then we all ate the bread together, then served the wine and took it – all together. At the Wesley, when we took communion, it was by intinction – we dipped pieces of actual bread into a cup of grape juice.  At Aldersgate, my church in Starkville, everyone knelt at the front of the church for communion.  One church I went to growing up used real wine (um, yeah.  That was a surprise). There are so many variations on the theme, it just takes me minute sometimes to get my bearings.

There was a disagreement at my current church a while back about how communion should be taken – should there be two separate prayers, one for the bread and one for the cup? Or would one prayer work? Should the congregation sing during communion? Or sit in (relative) silence? And people got kind of upset – I mean, communion is one of those things you just don’t mess with.  But here’s the thing.  It never says in the bible exactly how it should be done – or how often.  “As often as you do this”… So, every time we break bread together in a group?  Every time we eat?

In the early church, communion was more like a meal that everyone ate together – no little plastic communion cups, no stale crackers, a meal.  Maybe we would all be better off remembering that – and remembering Christ each time we eat, together or no – than arguing over the finer details of a ritual that, while it still has great meaning, is more traditional than biblical.

This is part of a series of post where I try to take a fresh look at a variety of topics. You can see more about the idea for the series, and links to the other topics here. This week’s topic is “Foreign missionaries”.

So this one was interesting to write, as I initially thought that I had no opinion on the subject.  I mean, yeah, sure, “go ye into all the word”, right?  Foreign missionaries certainly fall into that.  So sure, they are good, End of thought process, end of story.  But as I thought about it more, I realized I do actually have feelings on the issue.

To start, I think that one of my mom’s biggest disappointments in life is that I didn’t grow up to be a missionary in Papua New Guinea.  When I was a kid, I saw a video at church about these missionaries there, and I remember thinking that that must be the highest calling in the word.  I mean, these people ate worms – just so they would be able to tell other people about God.  And so I decided that when I grew up, that’s what I would do (not the worms part, though).  And I stuck with that idea for years.

And then.  Then my dad became a “local” missionary.  He worked full-time for a ministry in town, and had to raise support and all that.  And I absolutely believe he was called to do it.  But the money never really showed up. And there was a lot of nasty politics involved – church politics to the n-th degree, as it were.  And he left the ministry, and went back to full-time work doing what he had been doing part-time to support us the whole time he was working full-time in the ministry. And that was that.

But I got to see a lot of the ugly side of ministry. The politics, the gossip, the “you kids had better act right at this church, because your dad is asking them for support” lectures, the pressure to be perfect… and when it ended, the people who shook their heads and said either “oh, he must not have really been where God wanted him” or “He just must not have had enough faith” or whatever.  And trust me, it was ugly.  And it’s something I still harbor some grudges over, more than 10 year later.

So, going into college, I was a little jaded towards ministry as a career.  I took plenty of missions trips – “service” trips, really – to different parts of Mississippi, where I ministered by building Habitat houses and serving soup to homeless people and whatever the project of the moment was.  I ministered to the people around me (with varying degrees of success) by providing a listening ear, a shoulder when needed, and food.  And I chose my (original) major, thinking that it might suit me if I decided to look into full-time missions.

But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that full-time missions wasn’t really my calling.  Not in the US, and not outside of it – my calling, I feel, is to work in my church, to minister to my friends, and to be a wife and mommy.  And there are just a lot of things about foreign missions that I don’t agree with.

Most foreign missionaries send their kids to boarding school.  Which seems so backwards to me – shouldn’t you teach your kids, your family, before you invest time in others?  But instead, these kids get shipped off to school where someone else can teach them, and their parents con concentrate on the much more important task of missionarying.

Also, it seems like a lot of missionaries want to convert people not just to Christianity, but to Americanism.  Or Europeanism.  And these rich cultures get lost in Nike shoes and western clothes and eventually western values. People say “Look how much better they have it! Look how much the missionaries have done for them!” And while I agree that better medical care and hygiene is generally a good thing – there comes a point where the missionaries aren’t making things better, they are just making them different.   You can be absolutely just as good a christian in a hut, eating worms, barefoot, and wearing a loincloth as you can in a house with real walls, eating McDonalds and wearing sneakers and jeans.

What happened to the Hudson Taylor approach to missions?  Where we go an live as one of the people, adopting their culture (insomuch as it doesn’t impact our religion), and make friends with them?  Then try and talk to them about God – without equating salvation to prosperity or other modern western values.  I know this is still done some places, but it seems the exception when I think it should be the rule.

So, to summarize: while I in theory support missions.  And I pray for the missionaries I know, overseas and here in the US.  I don’t think it is always done the right way. And it’s not something I feel called to myself – there are plenty of things for me to do here, without traveling around the world, and eating worms.

I am so behind – in everything, it seems.  This is the story of my life, no?

1. You should have not one, but two Reconstruction posts coming here shortly.  So then I won’t be very behind… just a normal amount of behind.
2. Brianna might have finally cut her third tooth.  I say “might” because it’s still undetermined – she won’t let me really feel to see if it has cut through without biting my finger with her two (really sharp) bottom teeth.  So it’s still a maybe, until enough of it come out that I can see it.
3. Brianna has learned to “sing” the Itsy-Bitsy Spider and the Winnie-the-Pooh song.  Now, if you aren’t me or Chad, these songs might just sound like random syllables, and might almost be indistinguishable from each other.  But we know what she’s doing.   And the fact the Itsy-Bisty Spider has hand motions help, lol.
4. We’re gearing up for two more big trips before I stop traveling – one to Seattle, and one back home for a quick visit (and to go to my brother’s graduation).  After the middle of May, we’re pretty much going to be in Houston until… October.  Except we might take a trip to Dallas for Scarborough Faire over Memorial Day weekend – if I decide I want to brave the heat while being huge and pregnant.  If you’re interested in going, let us know!
5. Speaking of being pregnant – I’m 22 weeks or so now, and measuring two weeks ahead.  Which is interesting, as Brianna never measured ahead until the end, and was still 9 pounds.  So now I’m freaking out that I might have a huge baby, and the doctor is of course totally calm and not worried at all (but she tell me to watch my carbs a bit).  So yeah.  Other than being tired of being pregnant (already), and worrying about the big baby thing… I’m fine, and baby is fine, and all is good.  Less than 18 more weeks to go.  Hopefully, we’ll be picking a date here pretty soon, and I can start counting down the days.
6. Chad and I are planting a garden for the first time, um, ever, this weekend.  You might start praying for the plants – I am horrible at keeping things alive, lol. But yeah, it looks like we’ll be growing watermelon, tomatoes, and strawberries (how’s that for random?).
7. I’m taking my second-to-last cooking class tonight – from the set Chad bought me for Christmas.  I’m really enjoying them so far, and learning a lot.  The only problem?  I want to take more! And that will cost more money. *sigh*

Head over to Conversion Diary to read more Quick Takes and share your own!

This is part of a series of post where I try to take a fresh look at a variety of topics. You can see more about the idea for the series, and links to the other topics here. This week’s topic is “Your parents”.

My parents. Where do I even start? My relationship with my parents is odd. I mean, they took good care of me growing up.  And I have no complaints about how they raised me – I know they sacrificed a lot sometimes to give me what I needed or wanted.  But as an adult, it’s odd to try and relate to them as parents but also as fellow adults.  Sometimes I expect them to act certain ways, or to have certain beliefs – and they just don’t.  And I wonder where along the way we became so different…

My parents worry about me.  They worry that I’m too far away, that I’m trying to work and raise a family, and that I don’t get enough sleep (I don’t).  They worry about my health, and Chad’s health, and whether we’ll lose our jobs in a crazy economy.  And those are just hte things they tell me about…

I worry about my parents a lot.  I worry about their health, which is never good – but sometimes worse than others.  I worry about their finances, if they’ll have enough money to pay the current set of medical bills, or enough money to retire, if they would tell me if they had money problems, and what happens when they do run out of money. I worry about their relationships with my siblings – good, bad, and otherwise, their relationship with Brianna (it’s hard, we’re so far away), and so many other things… And I worry that someday, Mom and I will have a huge fight and stop speaking to each other, because that’s what women in my family do.

Despite all that worry – we don’t talk very often.  Mom and I probably average 1 or 2 phone calls a month, on a good month.  Generally, I talk to Dad whenever I talk to Mom.  I’m a little sad we don’t talk more often – it’s a combination of my schedule and Mom’s – but it’s working for us, with relatively little drama. So it is what it is, I suppose.

Being a parent has made me appreciate my parents a lot more.  I’ve learned a lot from them – both what to do, and – in some cases – what I’d like to try and avoid, lol.  And even given all our differences, I certainly wouldn’t trade them for anyone else’s parents.