From the blog of a 19 year old female uni student:

“I was forced to sit quietly (and very politely refrain from standing on my chair and yelling about false messiahs and made-up Gods) inside a BAPTIST church this evening. My bloody mother had some choir thing that I was informed was compulsory to attend. Despite my very vocal objections to the venue (a church…? she, of all people, should know how I feel about those places!) and the fact that there would undoubtedly be “one or two god songs” (her words, not mine), I found myself locked inside, surrounded by large crosses and pictures of Jesus and believers after dark … not the most comfortable of settings …

Turns out that most of the songs were about God, or vague metaphors hinting at God and Heavenly Light or Angels and Saints (I use capitals because, from experience, song titles make use of them, not out of any respect to god’s saintly lights and heavenly angels). I really dislike Gospel music. The lyrics, centered around phrases like “God is great, He is great, Jesus is great and so is God. I love God. God, I love You. I Love Your Greatness, and in Your Greatness I find solace. And Jesus Too. Jesus offers solace and love. I find Love for You with Jesus. Hallelujah!” tend to get repetitive. Just a tad… I spent most of my time biting my tongue (truly!) trying to overcome my heretical revelations and my propensity to giggle at the lyrics and the foolish looks of inner peace and acceptance on the faces of the choristers … who all looked surprisingly like Laura Bush. Same haircut, same “cat who got the cream” expression, same pastel colours, same religious beliefs. Have these women styled themselves on Mrs Bush, or is this just some weird part of their belief system that one as atheistic as I could not understand?

Maybe this is the Christian alternative to the hijab.”

Related Articles:

• Leadership Skills: Tools for Policy Impact (brilliant!)
• Pastor Burnout Statistics
• Stress and Burnout in Pastoral Ministry: A Prologue
• Leadership for success
• Tribes: we need you to lead us

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.