Why do people go to church? Is it to worship their God? Is it to feel better about themselves? Is it to gain business contacts? Probably a little of each. I do get certain business mailings from a church members who I know got my address from the church mailing list. “Off to the circular file,” I told his secretary (who also goes to my church). Recently we got new church directories. I know this businessman is salivating just so he can send more of his junk mail to fellow church members.
Lately folks at my church has been on a crusade to defeat the lottery referendum. Not that I would loose sleep if it was passed. Lotteries are taxes on stupid people. And there are plenty of stupid people who would vote to be able to buy a lottery ticket. There are several people in Tennessee who drive up to Kentucky each week just to buy lottery tickets. We need better state budgeting so we wouldn’t have to use the lottery as an excuse. Sooner or later we’ll have a lottery. Just like we eventually have liquor by the drink in Mt. Juliet – a concept I never fully understood. I mean the local grocery store sold packaged beer, but for some odd reason they couldn’t sell beer in a glass. People could still get drunk. They just had to open the bottle themselves. It was a silly law. Either be a dry county, or wet. It is as simple as that.
Church was good today. I felt really good for a young friend of mine who read scripture for the first time publically in church. Beforehand he had asked me when exactly in the service he was supposed to do it. I guess not having done it before, he hadn’t paid attention on when it was his time to go. He did a great job. I meant to tell him that afterwards, but I never got to. I know how it is to get up in front of people at church with your voice trembling….wondering if your friends will laugh at you afterwards if you stumble….. It’s all a big deal when you are a middle schooler. I still get slightly nervous. Maybe its the subtle fear that I might say something inappropriate in a public prayer….like praying for someone who already is dead. You stand a good chance of offending a bunch of people if you say the wrong things in a public prayer. I think it was just a few years ago when I realized that people in the congregation really don’t want to see anyone stumble in a prayer. They will still like you even if you mess up a Bible reading or prayer.
At church we do have a training program for middle schoolers who want to serve publically at church. They teach them who to lead public prayer, lead singing, and read scripture. This is so they won’t look stupid when going up there cold without any practice at all. We didn’t have this at all when I was growing up. And it showed from my short stance leading awful prayers during my junior high years.