blog.michaelcosta.net

What Did Jesus Really Look Like?

From a wedding a while back, when I was sitting in a Sunday School room waiting for the bride to get dressed.

Chelsea & Kris

Alex & Jeremy

One of the highlights of our time in Tampa so far has been meeting a lot of great new friends in the Tampa Bay Clemson Club. It’s there that we have gotten to know Alex and Jeremy—two of the friendliest and warmest people Rita and I have ever met. Jeremy played football at Clemson and Alex was a swimmer. Jeremy coaches high school football in Tampa, and we’ve gone to see him coach his team (who only lost like two games this year by the way). Their wedding in Clemson next fall is going to be epic, and we can’t wait to shoot it.

List of Eponymous Laws

On the Dumbing-Down of Spirituality (or the Search for Substance)

As much as Rita and I have enjoyed the last 5 months in Tampa, there is one aspect of settling in that we’ve found especially difficult: finding a church community that we are content with. I know that it’s never easy finding the best place, because nowhere is going to meet all the factors we are considering. Simply put, there is no perfect place, and we have to accept that. But our church tour of Tampa is revealing more to me than just our spiritual pickiness. I’ve been continually disappointed with the depth of messages we’ve been hearing; it makes me wonder if we have just had bad luck, or if the simplistic, lightweight theme I am weary of has grown so popular that’s hard to find a church with some balls anymore.

We have tried Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and non-denominational (Southern Baptists in disguise). We’ve heard electric guitars, acoustic guitars, trumpets, banjos, organs, choirs, old lady soloists, and a black gospel a cappella group (which was by far my favorite music). No matter what the style of worship, they all shared an overwhelmingly “dumbed down” feel to them. The lyrics to the songs and the messages from the speakers seemed like they were geared toward high schoolers—yet the crowds around us were all ages of people, full of glazed-over eyes and visually predictable reactions. 

Rita put it best when she said, “I want to hear a preacher discuss spiritual questions that don’t have clear answers.” That sums up our desire so well. We are adults, and we want messages and ideas that challenge us. We want to learn. I can’t sit in a service that only sings about falling on knees and only discusses issues in a black or white, right or wrong format where the speaker makes clear the side of an issue you should be on if you want to go to heaven. It’s simply not real life. 

In college, I started going to FCA my freshman year. I went pretty regularly that year, but there came a point when it dawned on me that I was hearing the same simple message over and over again. And the worst part was, I didn’t even agree with most of it. The speakers were delivering shallow messages on simple topics, and making clear what he or she wanted you to believe, word for word. I realized that Christianity isn’t easy, you don’t automatically have that hole in your life filled when you become a Christian, and you aren’t set for life if you just recite some words while people you don’t know are putting their hands on your shoulders. I became so uncomfortable with that atmosphere that I still—to this day—have trouble enjoying worship if there is even an electric guitar sitting on the stage. I needed a community that wasn’t trying to be cool in front of each other. I began searching out richer messages, with speakers that explored ideas humbly, with respect to the fact that we don’t have all the answers and we never will.

Wise words can set you free by leaving you with more questions than you previously had. I love feeling blown away by a new stance on an issue I have never considered. I love driving to work and wrestling with something I heard the morning before that I disagreed with. I love to hear a minister admit that he’s human and he might be wrong, but he’s going to give it a shot because he is passionate about it.

To be clear however, I really do want there to be environments that cater to people that aren’t as familiar with what church is about. I want there to be places where someone can start from the beginning and learn simply how to grow their faith. But it scares me that it seems like this dumbed down message is spreading to churches that used to have more depth and courage. And it scares me even more to think that this is maybe part of a larger dumbing down of American society—and the church pulpits are one strand of the cheaper, faster, easier, mass-produced, low quality way of life that has been sweeping over us. Instead of a well-built foundation, we throw something together that’s shoddy and won’t last. 

This all sounds incredibly picky, and it probably is. But frankly, I am not going to waste valuable time and money somewhere that I don’t get my return on investment (philosophically, spiritually, and emotionally speaking). There have to be people out there who desire the same experience we do. And we’ll find them. For now, it’s back to the search…next Sunday, we’ll hit another church on our list.

One More From Italy

One more that I forgot to post. Woman in Sienna.