Faith Infiltration: Jefferson Hills Church

For those of you just joining us, Flimsy and I regularly “infiltrate” local churches and post our thoughts on the services from an atheist perspective. This is our 31^st infiltration. To see other Faith Infiltrations, click the “Faith Infiltration” label at the bottom of this post.

Recently, we’ve been on a billboard kick – we’ve been going to churches in the St. Louis area that are advertising themselves via billboards. The Jefferson Hills Church is one such church. For some reason, when churches in St. Louis decided to erect billboards, they erect the raciest billboards possible. This church has several interesting ones:

 

(P.S. According to their website, the one unforgivable sin is refusing to walk with Jesus… whoops.**)

Jefferson Hills Church holds services in the auditorium of Windsor High School. In the lobby, we picked up the church bulletin, entered into the auditorium and sat down in the center near the front. On stage sat a set of drums (sans the typical churchy drum shield), a bass and electric guitar, a keyboard, a rear projection screen with the words “tattooed” written on it in a hip script font, and a snaking tangle of wires leading to and from sound equipment.

Upon opening the bulletin, we discovered this:

Obviously, this church goes out of its way to appeal to a younger crowd, as evidenced by their bulletin. Not only do they have a “hard rock” section, but they listed off the addresses where one can find them on Facebook and Twitter. A paragraph in the bulletin proclaimed, “Our adult venue (meaning the service) is PG 13 which is geared for Teens and Adults Only”. On the back of the bulletin, they boldly listed the average weekly church attendance and amount they receive for weekly offerings. The auditorium and stage were devoid of Christian symbols. Several people walked around wearing shirts that said, “Tattooed” on them, in the same design as above. The congregation consisted of mostly families with middle-school or high-school children.

As services began, a man (who I believe was the lead pastor) came on stage along with the Church’s worship team/band and told the congregation that the mission of the church was to, “Love god with all our heart’s”. He then told his congregation that the offering would take place during the announcements. He said this in a rather dismissive sort of way, which is something I have come to appreciate. We’ve been to many churches that make a huge deal out of the offering, from playing special offering songs to practically building the entire church service around it.

The individual making announcements explained several things to his congregation: The reason people were wearing “tattooed” t-shirts was that those particular people were part of the church administrative team. This is part II of the “tattooed” series, and we could go online to view the first part. “Tattooed” really isn’t about getting ink injected just underneath your skin in pretty designs; it’s about “being marked by Jesus in a dark and depraved world”.

The band played three opening songs: One about god being all one needs, one about being the salt and light (lyrics here), and a third about being redeemed and free (lyrics here). The band sort of reminded me of an alt-rock garage band, except that the musicians were well-groomed and dressed wholesomely. I could almost imagine them practicing at the auditorium in the evenings during the week (Here’s the band’s myspace page so you can listen for yourself if you like).

While the band played, several groups of people really got into it, pumping their fists as though they were at a rock concert – except that they would intersperse fist pumping with raising their hands up in worship. Other people nodded in time with the music, while a few teens sat there silently, looking as though they didn’t exactly want to be there.

When the band finished, the teaching pastor (Ben) stepped onstage and began a very animated, charged sermon.

Ben’s basic message (and this is distilled from 6 pages of notes I took in my 7″X5″ notebook) is that all people who have accepted Jesus are special and beautiful because they have been marked by the “blood of the lamb”. He told his congregation that the people of Jesus are “set apart and distinct” from this depraved culture. Because of this, they really need to wake up and learn to “be holy”. People who have accepted Jesus cannot be holy because they have made the choice to be Christian, but have to be holy because by accepting Jesus, they have no choice – because the Christian god is holy. He explained to his congregation that god says he is “looking for people to be me in this world” and that god is not asking what the culture thinks.

Ben asked his congregation: where are the people of god preaching that one has to listen to Jesus in order to become blameless and pure? I found this kind of odd, as it seems to me that most churches and “people of god” are preaching this. They are everywhere. He went on to say that we’re living in a crooked and depraved generation in which the culture does not actively praise and seek out people who shine for Jesus.

Flimsy and I have encountered this at churches before – there is this feeling that people there think they are in the minority – that they are one of the few who have the way and the truth in a world of corruption and hostility. But given that 75% of the US is Christian, those who teach that one has to listen to Jesus in order to be blameless and pure seem to fall squarely into the majority.

Ben went on to explain that “shining” does not mean being a Bible-thumper and telling everyone else they are going to hell. It means “holding out the world of life”, making the word of god become essential in one’s life, and being imitators of god so that when people see you, they see god. However, he also reiterated that one is a shining light not because of what one does for god, but what god has done by marking our hearts with the blood of Jesus.

He spoke of the contrast to light – darkness, and explained to his church that everyone is in darkness until they accept Jesus and that they are dead in their sin until Jesus makes them alive. He told his congregation that they should have nothing to do with those people out there living in darkness (meaning non-Christians like Flimsy and I…) except to “show them the light”. As an example of being the light around dark dead people, he mentioned those skimming off their hours at work or those asking teenagers why they aren’t dating yet. By being sexually pure and morally honest, one can be the light for the people in the dark. He said that this was not an option, no matter what excuse people had. Even if they don’t want to “be a dork”, and even if they want to “understand the culture”, culture can grab you and find its way into you. Since you can’t play in both camps, and don’t have a choice but to be the light for God, obviously one has to wake up and admit that they owe it to their savior.

Ben went on to aim his (figurative) guns at some of the things in the culture he felt were corrupting and destroying Christians: being on drugs, having inappropriate pictures up on facebook, using Myspace to “hook up with a girl”, etc. It was fairly obvious that his intention was to make people feel as though they needed to repent for their sins and excuses. .

At this, the band returned to the stage and began to play slow, sorrowful music. While they did this, Ben offered up a very personal prayer of repentance for himself, saying that even as a preacher he is not worthy and needs to repent. Obviously, he wanted the congregation to know that this was the appropriate thing to do.

Communion at this church is more of a private than an openly public affair, with a communion station somewhere in the back of the church, out of sight. People were invited to partake of they chose. The band played two more songs: one about giving one’s life to Jesus (lyrics here), and another about finding love beyond all reason in Jesus (lyrics here).

It was a little difficult for me to ascertain what sorts of ethical and moral principles (beyond the obviously Christian) this church considered important, but I got the sense that the church was trying to present a sort of “classic” Christian message in a package that appealed to young people so that they would feel Christianity was relevant and perhaps even a little counterculture. A teen in the throes of constructing their own identity might find the “black sheep” undertones appealing.

**Flimsy and I refuse to walk Jesus all the time. Well, that’s not entirely true. We “refuse to walk with Jesus” in the same way that Christians “refuse to walk with Thor”. I guess we’re screwed.  It’s unforgivable, after all.