Saturday evening I made good on a promise made a week ago. I again found myself in an old HQ building across the lateral in Oakley and again found myself confronted with an airport terminal. Kiosks and all. The Saturday night crowd was much akin to the Sunday morning folk. I felt quite overdressed wearing jeans with a button up and a tie. This time around, thankfully, I had the prescience of mind to grab a cup of coffee with a splash of cream from the coffee kiosk. The lauded coffee of Crossroads was to be mine. I also came prepared with a bit of paper and a new pen.
Unfortunately for me the pen was for naught and the coffee initially too hot for the sipping. The notes I attempted to scribble concerning the sermon are bordering on illegibility. The auditorium (it is more a sit down concert hall than sanctuary) is far too dimly lit for proper note taking. The weekly program hand outs are little help as well- containing no information relevant to the service though I dared not attempt to read it in such a dark place for fear of damaging my eyesight.
It seems to me as though the entire point of the production is not to teach as much as to entertain and provide a lifestyle. Glamor and glitz. Theater seating. A dearth of information. About a third of the way through the service I was finally able to taste the delicious coffee. "
Oh hey, it's that guy from last week. Brian Tome, I believe. I wonder what he has to say," I thought to myself while blithely stirring the coffee with a rocking motion.
What little I was able to gleam from my notes tells me that the service focused on Revelation, that old fallback of American Christianity known colloquially as 'End Times'. How we Americans love our end of the world scenarios. The service, however, was a very unique take on this idea. No word or whisper of the dreaded R word, Rapture. No mention of pie in the sky when you die. No, this Revelation message was actually both less and more painful.
It was financial.
The entire push of Mr. Tome's sermon was on "God's physical agenda." The idea that Christians should put their money where their mouth is and donate time and money to the church. A noble pursuit. Sadly, the nobility of the message was tainted irreparably with a five minute interview with a poor soul who sold his car so that he could start tithing, as tithes will surely come back hundredfold or more in God's great blessings!
I honestly felt like leaving at that point. The idea of a man down on his luck selling his transportation so as to give homage to a wealthy church and its staff rubs me the wrong way. Strong soul that I am, I stayed through the service and found myself back at home a scant bit wiser and a good deal more caffeinated.
It seems to me that Crossroads promotes a broken, Starbucks version of the religious experience. Superficial community, over roasted beans, decidedly apolitical and amorphous. I recall hearing it said, once, that the man who stands for everything stands for nothing. As much as I might loathe the crazy churches of the Christian Right, at least those people stand for something.
Perhaps I am the broken one. Unable to understand the appeal of places like Crossroads. The fake veneers, the full ensemble band, dressed down pastors, coffee and dim lighting, all of it seems hollow and empty and commercial. So completely commercial. So empty. Bland.
A part of me hopes that I am wrong about this. So it goes.
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