Ruined

Church Bible Classes
Ever since I began to study and consider the Bible more seriously, responsibly, thoroughly—and, yes, academically—every church Bible class seems vacuous.  Some of them start out just fine, once I get past the logistics, nonsense, and prayer lists that I’m not connected to.  The classes are mostly filled with courteous, nice people.  But they degenerate into so much Christianese jargon, personal opinion, and unwarranted, careless jumps from text to text.  Sometimes I do genuinely appreciate the efforts, but I cannot get anything from most of these “studies.”  When I try to participate (usually after some internal battle . . . will I seem like an intruder? someone with an unwelcome opinion?  are we on such different pages that it won’t be worth it for any of us?), I typically feel it was a lost cause.

There is so little Bible study in church Bible studies.  I’m afraid I’m ruined for all of them.

Church Music
I’m also ruined for most church music (a cappella, accompanied, or solo/”special”¹).  I am not able to hear marginal or poor singing or playing and think, “Well, how nice that was.”  I can’t ponder how well it “prepared my heart to worship the Lord.”  I’m sorry, but no.  It just sounded bad.  It was shrill, and/or the pitches were
sharp, or un-expressive, or overplayed, or mousey and poorly declaimed, or badly phrased—and those things became worse when the sound involved poor mic use or was equalized badly.  Bad sounds cannot prepare my heart for worship.  They cannot.  They just distract me.

My insides simply do not, and cannot, do anything more than accept mediocre stuff as well-intended obstacles.  Poor-quality sound may well be sincerely offered—and I don’t doubt that it is, most of the time—but that doesn’t make it okay or helpful to some of us.  “But not everyone has your ears, Brian.”  “Not everyone can play chords like you, etc.”  Yes, you’re right, and I do know that.  Two responses:  1) sometimes there are people sitting right between the leader and me who can indeed do better, and the church should not honor history, big donors, or family connections more than quality and competence; (2) when there are no better options within a congregation, I can accept that for them and wish them godpseed, but that doesn’t change the reality of the moment for me.

I’m not critiquing others’ hearts or intentions here; I’m expressing personal struggles with objective realities.  I’m ruined when it comes to sounds.

Corporate Worship
I am ruined for corporate worship.  I had too much blessed experience in my younger years ever to be lastingly edified by what passes for worship in many churches today.

Incidentally, “church music” does not equate to “worship,” and this fact seems to be lost on many these days.  I had many high-quality, engaged, engaging experiences in congregational worship in my teens, twenties, and thirties.  Congregational esprit de corps would stay with me for hours, even days.  There was depth, and even volume, when appropriate.  It was meaningful.

It’s been a long time, though.  Wherever I am on Sundays these days, there are worthwhile spots of five or ten minute . . . yet the congregational ethos seems largely lost, and the very concept of what worship is, and can be, seems to have escaped out of church consciousness.

Because of the richness of my upbringing, I’m ruined for would-be congregational worship today.  Regardless of significant personal effort, I can only rarely worship in an assembly.

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Postscript.  A counselor in the past would smile and castigate me good-naturedly for using an extreme word when a more moderate one would do.  I persist, quite possibly because of one of my long-felt syndromes:  for whatever reasons, and for better or worse, too many people don’t hear me and acknowledge what I’ve said.  Why not title this blogpost “Affected,” “Damaged,” or merely “Changed for the Worse”?  Because I feel like being extreme, and I want the depth of the effect to come across.  That’s why it’s titled “Ruined.”  I’m ruined for poor-quality Bible studies, poor-quality church music, and corporate worship that doesn’t.

– B. Casey, June 8-23, 2023

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¹ All music is “special” in my book, but that designation can point up that the rest is thereby, duly congregational. 

MWM: special songs