I'm not really that religious...

So last night Laura and I went to the church we've been visiting for a month now to a "coffee with the pastor" gathering. I guess they do this once a month or once a quarter or something so that anyone interested in joining the church can talk to the pastor directly and hear him talk about what it means to be part of the church.

There's a lot more to it than I thought, and that's actually kinda neat.

He was talking about the five "commitments" one has to make to the church in order to be a member. (He also said he's absolutely fine with people not being members too - there are a lot of people who come to the church for years without being members, and there's nothing wrong with that).

1. Worship - This is pretty self explanatory. Come to church every Sunday, even if it's a challenge to do so (of course there will be exceptions, but the more exceptions you make, the easier it will be to make them in the future). I pretty much expected this, and it makes perfect sense.

2. Growing - A big part of the church community is what they call Small Groups. When I first heard about them, I have to admit I wasn't too keen on them. Bible study never really sat well with me, but after hearing them talk more about them, I became more interested. The community part of it for me isn't that big a draw (though Laura, I think, really liked the idea of a small group that you grow close to). What I liked was that they continually start them up with new curriculum's of things to learn. For example, they're starting a new one in a few weeks about Lent and Easter and the meaning behind it all, and they've had some in the past that dealt with other religions and other periods of time. I like the idea of learning more about religion this way.

3. Serving - Volunteering, basically. Whether it's as a greater at the door when people walk in, or an usher to help people find seats, or a reader during the service, or a teacher for children, they want you to do more with the church than just show up and worship. The nice thing about this is they literally have just about anything you could want to do. Laura was immediately set upon when they found out that she liked plays and directing and all that - evidently they have a theatre group that's struggling because they don't have much to go with it. For myself, I know I could find something. Reading at service could be fun, or even donating an evening a week to help them with their bookkeeping. They had a survey for us each to take to find out where our strengths in the church might be. I was Administrative/Leadership/Helping. Evidently I'm not very Compassionate or Caring. Who knew?

4. Sharing - This is one of the parts of the church I had a little trouble with, mostly because I'm a much more reserved person than most. It's basically the idea of talking to other people about your relationship with Christ and your personal relgious path that got you there. It was presented to avoid being the pushy person that gives a lot of Christians a bad name, but rather to just have it a conversation, and accept whatever the outcome is without passing judgement or anything like that. My mother is great at this - she spent her entire life, I think, doing this with me. She always wanted me to join a church, but she never pushed me to do so. All she did was insert comments when appropriate about her outlooks on religion.

5. Giving - The last one comes down to tithing. Pretty standard - the church wants you to donate to them. No big surprise there.

At the end of the night, Laura signed up to join the church in February. I didn't. I'll continue to go to the church, and maybe in the future, I will join them. I have a few things I need to investigate first. I'm enjoying the church now, but I want to make sure it lasts beyond a month or two. I also want to learn more about what it means when I was baptized Catholic and will be joining a Methodist church. I know they will accept me (several people there last night talking to us were also baptized Catholic), but I'm more worried about what this will mean for Mary Kate and Peyton, my two god-daughters (well, soon Peyton). I don't want the Catholic church to tell me I am no longer fit to be their god-father if I am a member of a Methodist church. If that's the case, I'll likely remain a visitor and hopefully be able to participate in some of the other things the church provides (small groups, volunteering, etc.). We'll see...

Oh, and we also met the woman who may be marrying Laura and me while we were there too. She's a very nice woman - reminds me a lot of my mother. We should hear in a week or so whether she'll be able to perform the ceremony.

All in all, an interesting experience last night.