Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 December 2006 23:30:28
In the last few months, I have come to realise many things. In the last few minutes, I have come to realise another one. Namely - I don't get denominations and movements within the church.
Now when I say this, I don't mean that I don't understand the concept, or why people start to think that their way of doing church is The Right Way. I just literally mean that when people talk about different denominations and church styles, I have no idea what any of them are. I couldn't tell an evangelical from a post-evangelical, or a Methodist from a seventh day adventist, or a pentecostal from a whatever-other-denomination-or-movement-I've-missed. Quite simply, I don't know which one of these, if any, I am, because I don't really know what any of them are.
I suppose some of this is down to growing up in an ecumenical church which was equal parts Baptist, C of E, Methodist, URC and Quaker. The way it was all done, the different denominations' practises were kind of amalgamated into the general worship style that evolved from that partnership, which was great. The only thing is that now, other than "a Christian", I couldn't tell you what I am. I recently filled in a survey which asked me what denomination or church I belonged to. There was no "just a Christian, thanks" option, and no "I'm not entirely sure, but it's probably one of these" option either. So I just left that bit blank in the end, and was quite relieved that I wasn't then forced to provide an answer.
So what am I then? In a word: confused. In the last few months I've been increasingly encountering people who know which type of church setting they belong to and (not necessarily always in a bad way) vocalise aspects of that with great pride. Meanwhile, I sit in a corner thinking, "what's wrong with just being a Christian?" I wonder if all our problems with disunity in the church wouldn't be a lot less significant if we just thought of ourselves primarily as Christians and stopped trying to define ourselves by what type of Christian we are...
Sorry to ramble, just in an "externally processing" kind of mood tonight. I may come back tomorrow and wonder what on earth I was going on about, so don't worry too much about it.