Now, I’m trying as hard as I can to parse from this blog as much judgment as possible. Maybe there’s two Foothill Baptist Churches? Maybe that’s the pastor’s direct phone number and he’s hoping to receive calls from the needy in our community? I can only hope for the best, but instinctively, reactively – I’m bummed.
I caught this gem on the way home from the gym a week or two ago. At first, I wasn’t affected. It was Sunday after all, I’m glad to see a Church bus around town. “Maybe they’re picking up sweet old ladies who pay their bus fare in pastries and pies.” I thought. I’d seen this church around town, they have a school or something and I might remember sharing more than a few laughs at the commercials they’d run on local networks.
But why’s his name on the bus?
Probably my favorite part of church is the distinct “otherness” of it all. I call it the “not about you” factor, and I love everything about that idea. Most of my day is spent engaged in some kind of communication with people, whether it’s at work, outside of work, with myself – I’m talking with people. My ego is engaged (no matter how reluctantly) and I’m always some kind of self-aware. If I’m talking to customers at work, I’m hyperaware of myself, my posture and my communication. If I’m talking with friends or family, I’m thinking about them, their needs, and my reaction to them. “Am I doing enough? I should really call them back.”
To be perfectly honest, I’m tired of myself. So church has always been a kind of respite from the ego; where I go to feel smaller. Most of the time, I go alone, and all of the time I leave my phone in the car. I’m there to reconnect with a life bigger than my own. Life that I know is found only outside (my)self.
I promise, I’m not trying to throw the good reverend under the bus (puntastic!) but I do think this is problematic, maybe even symptomatic of a much larger issue than just a name on a bus. And I don’t pretend to have a better substitution. Maybe there shouldn’t be any words on the bus, maybe it should say “hope” or “life” or something bigger than a man, because I believe we’re all desperate to feel smaller and I’d hate for anyone to get on that bus and go to that church and hear only from a man.
