I actually enjoyed reading that my favorite line being… “…the death-cult-sounding House of God…” but anyway it doesn’t surprise me churches use default formats for their websites kinda makes sense. Question are you saying this industrialized version of Church has changed the message of the church itself or just commentary on the use ((and possibly the lack of knowledge) of technology? I wasn’t really clear on why the things were good or bad but it might be because I haven’t read something that word heavy in a while.
apologies for taking so long to get back to you about this!! especially because I think you’re the first person who seems to have realized that no, I was not trying to make an argument, per se. instead, I was really just going for “holy shit, would you look at this? lol” imo, on subjects like this one where I do not have recognizable authority, all one can really endeavor to do is present the spectacle of the whole thing in such a way that it’s mostly entertaining. in doing so, any insights I do have to offer are basically arrived upon together with the reader. but… I cannot for the life of me write like this anymore, which I’ve been missing recently, notably because a switch flipped…. and all my humor abandoned me completely.
the last time I went to The Crossing, they had at least a half-dozen staff in full reflective vests directing traffic… which is always urgent. among the dozens and dozens of different protestant midwestern churches within which I have attended services/participated otherwise, I’ve certainly never encountered any other where the (imo essential community ritual) of moseying on in from the car before service as slow as humanly possible, trying to get words in with whatever friend(s) you arrived simultaneously with… well, that doesn’t happen. you’d get fucking run down lol.
combined with the lattes and the free doughnuts and the livestreamed services and the bespoke iOS app which actually splits up audio recordings of services editorially, by topic…
The Crossing’s flavor of relationship with God, I guess, misses every single major argument Jesus made about life, in general, but especially about worship. to such an extent that I end up supposing it would be eons beyond comedy, surely, for Him, watching. and as someone who also invests a lot of myself (unsolicited) in trying to figure out what to say, exactly, that would help others’ most… if I ever loved God, I would hope he stopped looking for his own wellbeing, long ago. and if I ever felt shame for his knowing my failings intimately, it’s definitely not my capital-S S I N S I would be most ashamed of, but my idiocy, if that makes sense.
so sorry… obviously, I am nigh desperate for anyone even remotely interested in talking about contemporary Christianity lol