Jesus Christ!

So I usually avoid being serious on here, and actually try to avoid being serious in real life too, but something has been weighing on me and I think if I type it out it might help. It's a hard thing to talk about to people, because it is overall very boring. So you should really just stop reading now unless you need a sleep aid.

I'm having a crisis of faith.

Very dramatic. I don't know if I'd really call it a crisis of faith per se, but I'm going for dramatic affect (effect?), so it is some kind of crisis. Or maybe a Christis. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I am cracking myself up over here. And it really has nothing to do with my faith because I'm still a believer, (but never a Belieber unfortunately), but I am having a hell of a time finding a church that I like.

I was raised Presbyterian with a splash of ELCA Lutheran thrown in at the end, and it was all good. Presbyterians are about as close as you can get to feeling like you're not at church without actually not going to church, and ELCA Lutherans are nice an liberal, which is how I like my religions. I was very involved in my Presbyterian youth group growing up, mildly involved in the Lutheran youth group, made great friends, went on great trips, talked a little bit about Jesus occasionally...it was all good. Me and the Lord were like the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy- we were together, but no one asked and I certainly wasn't going around wearing a WWJD bracelet or telling people about it. We were casually dating.

So now, I have kids (did you know I have kids? I have two.), and I want them to have the exact same wonderfully casual, super fun trip-taking, lifelong friendship-making, church experience, and I am having a hard time finding what I want. A really hard time. I found an ELCA Lutheran church that I liked a whole lot, but it didn't have a very big children's program. So that's out. Which sucks, because ELCA people are my people, I love the hymn-singing and the peace-passing, and the stand up sit down, and the weekly communion- it's all great. But church isn't just about me anymore (is anything just about me anymore?), so I marched onward like a Christian soldier to find a place with a solid program for kids.

Which led me to where I've been going the last two years. It's a non-denominational church that my mom has been going to for probably five years or so. They have an awesome children's program (there's about 15 preschoolers in H and P's Sunday School), they have an Awana's program during the week, they have a middle school and high school youth group that goes to camp (I have many fond memories of church camp...mostly inappropriate), VBS... all that good stuff. They also do a lot of things that the church of my youth used to do; after-church lunches, church picnics, Christmas programs, etc. Good stuff. And did I mention my mom goes there? And we typically go to her house for lunch after church, my niece and nephew are there...what's not too love?

Well, since you asked... the first thing that I don't love is that for the first half hour of church they play Christian rock music. As like an actual band with one or more singers sing songs taken directly from 99 Joy FM. I cannot stand Christian rock music. I thought after two years it would start growing on me, but no, not growing on me in the slightest. It is terrible. I am always reminded of the South Park episode where Cartman starts a Christian rock band by taking love songs and just replacing the word baby with Jesus. I honestly do most of my praying for the week during this half hour because I am repeating "Dear God, this has got to be the last one, PLEASE in the name of all that is holy let this be the last horrible Christan rock song." But God smites me for about 28 minutes and then he finally listens and it's the last one. And during this time, people are standing, dancing, clapping, singing, waving their hands in the air, getting the holy spirit or whatever the hell goes on at a Christan rock concert, and I am visibly cringing and praying for Jesus to open my heart to his preferred method of Rocking, but it just isn't happening. I DESPERATELY miss singing hymns.

My other beef with this particular church is that I just have this feeling that if I were to stand up in the middle of the service and say 'I am a Gay American' ($10 to whomever can tell me who I stole that quote from), that they would all look at me funny and probably with frowny faces. And I'm pretty sure our views on the creation story, abortion, a woman's role in the church and all that hippie liberal goodness that I love, wouldn't align. And I just don't think I can bring my kids up in a church like that. Now, that being said, I have sat through many sermons for the last two years and I have yet to hear anything that has made me want to get up and walk out, but I just always feel like it's coming. And I haven't asked either pastor about it directly because I'm pretty sure I know what they're going to say, and then I would be forced to admit to myself that this church is not the church for me or my kids, even though I honestly do get a lot out of the sermons and enjoy them, and my mom goes there and that is so very convenient and nice.

But then.

But then I think about all my friends who are Catholic (and being a lifelong St. Louisan, there are a lot of them), and the ridiculous amount of shit they put up with, but stay in their church because it is just part of who they are. They can go to mass every Sunday and still vote for Obama, and still be pro-choice and pro-marriage, and they seem cool with it. And I could probably be cool with it too. (Not being Catholic, I could never be Catholic, but maybe being non-denominational.)

But then.

But then I know that I'm lying to myself. I could never be cool with it. And I certainly wouldn't want to give the idea to my kids that I'm cool with what the leaders or the majority of the church believed, even if we didn't personally believe it in our family, because I just think that is sort of fucked up. (No offense to anyone, seriously. You do what works for you, I just don't think it would work for me.) So this leads me back to the search for the perfect church that doesn't exist, because the perfect church is the church of my childhood and that is long gone.

Sigh.

So this is what has been keeping me up late at night lately. Now who has a church recommendation for me?