This is a picture of the entryway to my church. I was leaving with a friend as we were on our way to the Metro. She turned around to take a photo and I automatically took one as well. If I don’t take photos I think I’m going to forget about my time here, and at times it has become an automatic reflex. It sounds silly, but it’s actually true. I completely forget most things that I do, day to day, and sometimes I am only reminded of what I have done recently when I sift through old photos on my phone. How did people remember their lives before photos? Are we just that much more busy now? Are we consumed by images so often that our brains are flooded? It could be my inconsistent schedule or cultural immersion related oversaturated brain. It’s a mystery!
Anyway, even though I took this photo out of a weird automatic millennial tendency to document everything around me, I’m glad I have this one. I like what it stands for. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. The street is under construction, there’s a small sign signifying what is inside, but the sign isn’t even marking the name of my church, but rather the larger organization name of the building.
You have to experience the church to get to know it. When you get inside, it feels intimate. This can be uncomfortable at first because no one is overlooked and the new people are recognized right away. It’s not a fine tuned machine like some churches; rather it’s flexible, maturing and personal. My favorite reason I have heard yet about why someone decided to go to our church was that it was the un-sexiest church they knew of. Our head pastor took it as the compliment that it was intended to be, even after the extended emphasis on how truly un-sexy this church really is. Not all churches are the same, that’s not the goal. Unity is beautiful and important, but sameness is not a prerequisite to unity. This church is filled with thinkers, conversationalists, musicians, accountants, teachers, researchers, psychologists, apologists, English and Hungarian speakers, and people from all ages. When everyone is together, it comes to life and I’d say its outside appearance even adds to the charm.
On Monday night there was a game night at the church. Earlier that day, construction workers had torn the street up, so there was a meter deep trench in front of the door without a plank walkway of any kind. So, someone went first, climbed out of the trench and opened the door. Everyone helped each other get over the trench to get inside for game night. Sometimes I feel like there’s a trench in front of ministry opportunities. I don’t want to have to climb out of a ditch to get to a ministry opportunity, but there’s usually a game night on the other side.