Religious Ruminations

I enjoy going to church.  I really do.  I don’t go because of the fear of divine retribution, nor do I go because I feel like I HAVE to go.  I place myself in the “Christian” category with a subset of Protestant.  This is because of my own set of circumstances.  It’s a matter of my birth, my geographical circumstances and worship preferences.  I also believe that any religious practice has merit as long as it brings no harm and celebrates family and “loving your neighbor.”  It is my belief that there are many roads into heaven and as long as one practices the “do no harm” edict that’s just fine.  I do NOT believe that any one path takes precedence over the other.  I know that many of you who read this disagree with that belief, but that is just the way I see it and I am comfortable with it. 

      Now that I have that out of the way, let me get to the subject at hand.  Diane and I brought up our girls in a lower valley Methodist church here in El Paso.  We chose this church for the usual reasons.  First of all, we were married in this church.  Familiarity.    Next, we knew people there.  Socialization.  The church had an excellent and active children’s program.  Parental responsibility.  The music program in this church was probably one of the best in the city.  Creative outlet.  The preachers were friendly and very caring.  They visited you in the hospital, came to your home during crisis times and served as confidantes.  Nurture.

     Our church life was good during our years there.  The girls grew up with great friends and there were excellent role models in the church.  Diane and I were very involved and found ourselves at the church several days a week.  We didn’t mind and enjoyed the outlet.  The girls grew up and after they left we began to back away from being so totally immersed.  We passed the torch and for a period of time that worked just fine. 

     Then it began to happen.  Times began to change.  One of the first things that happened was in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s the “charismatic” movement started in the church.  There began a division among the congregation as to style of worship and theology.  Several families left in order to find a more literal style of worship.  As I stated earlier I do not condemn any difference in style, but resist it when it begins to be foisted on me.  That tempest died down after a while and the outcome wound up being the beginning of the nondenominational churches.  Again, do no harm, love one another and I am all for it.   However, this began the death knell for many mainstream protestant churches.  The giant sucking sound we began to hear were these churches drawing from the mainstream churches. 

     Here in El Paso demographics began to heavily impact the lower valley community.  Our lower valley Methodist church began to lose membership due to families moving out of the neighborhoods.  Children were growing up and not being replaced by young families.  The protestant migration began out of the valley and was being replaced by traditional Roman Catholic families.  At that time there were two Methodist churches in the valley.  One decided to relocate and asked our church to join them.  Diane and I favored this idea, but the old remaining families resisted it.  Now, most of these families have passed and this once thriving church is gone.  It was absorbed as a “campus” for another Methodist church across town.  Sad.

     That is the history of that one church.  Before I continue, let me put out some facts.  In 2010 a survey of people attending church in El Paso showed this:  74.85% attended Catholic churches, 8.6 % attended nondenominational churches, 5.7% attended Baptist churches, 2.7% attended LDS churches and 1.3% attended Methodist churches.  The remaining attended various other denominations or are Jewish or some other religion. 

I realize that El Paso is a unique border city and this does not reflect other cities.  However, statistics do show that there is a definite loss in membership in mainstream churches to this day.   One writer even went so far as to say that mainline churches are on the path of extinction.

     After all this sound and fury we perhaps need to step back and examine why this is happening.  We can spend days discussing such things as break down of the family, lack of parental supervision and other such things.  What I want to do is to bring it down to a very personal level and share with you what I am observing.  I am a member of a dying church.  I very carefully chose this church after Diane passed away by using my own personal rubric, what I needed.  It had a friendly open feel to it and the pastor was very engaging.  The music program was good and satisfied that personal need.  I was in an atmosphere of new friends who did not know me as  (1) a poor old widower, (2) Diane’s husband, (3) Melissa and Pam Parks’ father, or (4) retired high school counselor.  It gave me a fresh start.  Things rocked along and then I began to notice the signs.  People started moving away.  The congregation median age became older and older.  There has been very little effort to bring in new members and, quite frankly, no reason for anyone to want to join.  The signs are all there.  The pastor was reassigned and the new one is young and inexperienced.  Money has become a huge issue.  The “old timers” began to stop attending and I could see very little visitation going on.  The choir program is struggling along and seems, at this point, to remain the bright spot of the church. 

     OK, what’s the point, Ronnie?  I have always espoused that in order to build up a church it needs a great PR program.  “There’s no business like soul business!”  There is an old show business adage that states, “You gotta have a gimmick.”  In order to save souls you need butts in the pews.  If I were king of the Methodists this would be my first move in this particular situation.  In this part of the city there are four Methodist churches within about a twelve mile area.  Each church is suffering from the same malaise.  There is a lack of congregants and each is struggling along.  Take a lesson from the small school districts.  Consolidate!  Find a central location and merge!  St. Whoever Consolidated Eastside United Methodist Church!  Examine the ministerial rolls and pull in the most powerful and charismatic pastor and assistant pastor you can find.  Get a professional and scintillating music director AND accompanist and a youth minister who will have the kids clamoring at the door.  Start a school program.  Do dramatic presentations!  Host concerts!  Get the powerful United Methodist Women and Men going!  Have Sunday schools for any age group and special interest.  Get a singles group going.  Have grief groups, young parent groups, college student groups….ad infinitum.  Encourage our conference leaders to get with the program, come into the 21^st century and settle the LGBT issue and reach out to that demographic. 

     The point is that in my little piece of the world there are not a whole lot of Methodists around.  Let’s put what’s out there together and try to get something done.  I realize that this is a radical proposal.  I also realize that I will probably never see this happen, but it would be a nice start.  I would also propose that other mainstream churches consider this approach. 

     In the meantime, back to me.  I will continue to rock along for a while where I am.  I fear that there will be a point when I have to make a decision.  I’ve got about six or seven good active years left and know that soon I will have to make a life change.  However, it would do my heart good to see positive strides forward. 

God bless us all.

       

Conversational Tennis

Good conversation is akin to a tennis match.  It is a matter of lobbing the topic and observations back and forth.  It is not a handball court whereby the observation is lobbed out and then merely bounces back without any human contact.  That is a speech, not a conversation.  In my advanced years I have begun to notice we have more orators than conversationalists.  That’s a sad thing. 

I have also noticed that it often very difficult to get someone to initiate the conversational serve.  That is frustrating and at times the game falters and the verbal ball just sort of dribbles away.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Oh, OK.”

“Anything interesting going on?”

“Not really.”

(silence)

“Oh, all right.  Nice talking to you.” 

Sad.

Another scenario is when people grab on to the ball and don’t hit it back.  You become relegated to an occasional “uh-huh” or a “is that right.” 

Frustrating.

At another time we often hit the “one up” person. 

“Drove over to the next town and had a great Italian dinner!”

“ How well I remember the meal we had in Florence.”

Good grief!

Game over.

I try very hard to be engaging in any conversation.  I am genuinely, yes, GENUINELY, interested in learning some one else’s story.  The largest compliment I can receive is when someone is genuinely, yes, GENUINELY, interested in my story. 

I have many, many friends with whom I can pick up a conversational thread immediately.  There are no awkward pauses and no orations.  It’s a wonderful tennis game with both being the winner. 

In my dotage I realize that I often repeat a story.  I’m sorry about that.  However, in a really good conversational game your partner just looks across the net, smiles and nods and allows you that little slip.  In true Parks fashion I might embroider it a little more and make it even more listenable! 

Therefore, this little rant is a reminder not only for the reader, but for me as well.  Eye contact, non verbal responses, genuine interest are gifts that we can all impart to others.