This banner, from in front of the First Central Congregational Church[1], was quite popular on Reddit[2] last week. So that's where I attended this week.
The guy in the special robes, often known as a preacher, started the service by saying theirs is a congregation where everyone is welcome.
He went on to say that every member is a minister, so people with questions can ask anyone. They're very eager to make newcomers feel welcome and it felt much more genuine than my previous trips to similarly sized churches[3].
I was a little thrown off when the kids came up without any instruction from the front, but that was how they did every transition. People just knew when it was their turn.
He asked the kids what they did for Easter and then segued into asking for some tips about helping the environment. Focus on nature & care for the environment is their theme for the Easter season. This is when I learned that there's an Easter season, which begins on Easter and ends on a holiday I hadn't known about, Pentecost[4].
They're serious enough about the environmentalism, it's even in their prayers.
Part of this Easter Season campaign is encouragement to donate to their "Mission For One Earth" & "One Great Hour of Sharing", their charitable efforts they say have brought fresh water, food, and medicine to impoverished people and helped respond to disasters like the Japan Earthquake and drought & famine in East Africa.
It also includes sending letters to elected officials and media outlets to affect change and bring attention to the issue. It's borderline illegal for a church to encourage lobbying for specific policy changes (depending on the details of how they're doing it). I guess if the haters are going to do it to fight marriage equality and women's rights, at least these people are doing it for a positive goal.
The communion was interesting because of how it was presented with all the violent bits left out. He referenced that Jesus was betrayed but said nothing about what happened next. He referred to Jesus "blessing" the wine & bread, calling them "his life" instead of blood & flesh. As an added bonus, they had a gluten free option for the communion bread.
It's too bad that none of that made the ritual of communion any less creepy to me.
After the service, they held a short meeting. The purpose was to discuss details of their plan to build a columbarium[5], a place for the ashes of the deceased to be stored. Even as an atheist, and more importantly, as a cheapskate, the nearly $30,000 they want to raise before beginning to build it seems reasonable. People of all kinds suffer grief.
I would prefer they did all this stuff without the appeals to a non-existent god, but I guess I'll take what I can get. But it is still quite a source of conflict for me.
These people are preaching love for the environment and for their fellow man, but they are still putting a book filled with violence & hate in their pews.
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The guy in the special robes, often known as a preacher, started the service by saying theirs is a congregation where everyone is welcome.
 |
| The back of a card in the pews |
I was a little thrown off when the kids came up without any instruction from the front, but that was how they did every transition. People just knew when it was their turn.
He asked the kids what they did for Easter and then segued into asking for some tips about helping the environment. Focus on nature & care for the environment is their theme for the Easter season. This is when I learned that there's an Easter season, which begins on Easter and ends on a holiday I hadn't known about, Pentecost[4].
They're serious enough about the environmentalism, it's even in their prayers.
Part of this Easter Season campaign is encouragement to donate to their "Mission For One Earth" & "One Great Hour of Sharing", their charitable efforts they say have brought fresh water, food, and medicine to impoverished people and helped respond to disasters like the Japan Earthquake and drought & famine in East Africa.
It also includes sending letters to elected officials and media outlets to affect change and bring attention to the issue. It's borderline illegal for a church to encourage lobbying for specific policy changes (depending on the details of how they're doing it). I guess if the haters are going to do it to fight marriage equality and women's rights, at least these people are doing it for a positive goal.
The communion was interesting because of how it was presented with all the violent bits left out. He referenced that Jesus was betrayed but said nothing about what happened next. He referred to Jesus "blessing" the wine & bread, calling them "his life" instead of blood & flesh. As an added bonus, they had a gluten free option for the communion bread.
It's too bad that none of that made the ritual of communion any less creepy to me.
After the service, they held a short meeting. The purpose was to discuss details of their plan to build a columbarium[5], a place for the ashes of the deceased to be stored. Even as an atheist, and more importantly, as a cheapskate, the nearly $30,000 they want to raise before beginning to build it seems reasonable. People of all kinds suffer grief.
I would prefer they did all this stuff without the appeals to a non-existent god, but I guess I'll take what I can get. But it is still quite a source of conflict for me.
These people are preaching love for the environment and for their fellow man, but they are still putting a book filled with violence & hate in their pews.
1. http://firstcentral.org/
2. http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1bcaaw/omaha_christians_doing_it_correctly/
3. http://allthesepiouspeople.blogspot.com/2012/08/divine-prevention.html
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecost
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbarium
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