Sunday Special: Church shopping.

I'm moving and the first thing I check when I go to a new place is where the church is, how far and what time the Sunday Mass is.

So I found my parish church and went there on a couple of Sundays.

And it was truly awful.

The preaching was awful, the music was awful. Jesus was there, so that's the most important thing, but everything else was rubbish. It was mainly music that pushed me away from that church. I can compromise on a lot of things, but music is a deal breaker.

So this Sunday I went to another church.

It was marginally better. The singing wasn't great, but at least it was not so great singing acapella. Which is truly better than bad singing coupled with the organs. I don’t like the organs. I much rather they played the piano in churches. But that’s a digression.

Anyway, this entire moving and finding a new church affair made me think about church shopping. Should I be looking for a church that suits me? Or should I just stick with the one that is closer to where I live?

It has been a little of a moral dilemma for me, because the Church is not about me, but about God. I don't want to go around saying 'I don't like this, I don't like that, I'm going to go elsewhere.' My faith is what it is, no pick&choosing.

Now I only ever church shop within the Catholic Church, so I really get the same deal wherever I go and it makes me a little more comfortable about going round and trying different communities. There is the same order of Mass everywhere, there is the same rite of confession, the same adoration. But then each church is different in so many ways. Some are well organised with loads going on. Some keep it to bare minimum. Some have evening Masses during the week, some only in the morning. Some churches do loads of charity work, some just collect donations. Some have a wonderful music ministry, some are truly awful and can't tell the difference between an entrance hymn and a recessional hymn. In some churches the preaching is heavily scripture based and really scholarly, in some it is an incoherent lump of 'God loves you', 'Don't sin' and 'We need to take care of the poor and needy'. I know some people won't care, but I care deeply about all of these. I want a proper church. And short of starting my own (this ain't gonna happen), the next best option is to shop around and find a Catholic church that will at least broadly meet my rather complex spiritual needs.

I suppose this is a little like finding a religious order which will work for you. Ultimately, they are all the same. You wake up early, have a set time of prayer, you go to Mass, you work and study during the day. You try to fight your sins and become more holy. But the details vary from order to order, speak to any Dominican friar about why they are not Jesuits ;)

The church I went to this morning wasn’t perfect, but I don’t think I’ll ever find a church which meets all my expectations. But the preaching was not tragic and the priest really made me feel welcomed there. It does mean a 10 minute drive each Sunday morning, but maybe I could cycle? (ha ha ha)

I think in the Catholic Church we are often guilty of just accepting the things as they are in our churches and not challenging bad practices, inattentive priests and poor organisation. I would like to think that after some months in my parish, I would be in a position to say ‘Actually, we could do this or that better’. For now, I can live with that little church as it is. Church shopping concluded for the next couple of years, hopefully.