Christianity in the Internet Age

I have a head cold today. Or maybe it's a sinus infection. Or maybe it's....well, whatever it is, I woke up feeling a bit crappy. That and a wind chill of -22 made me decide to skip church today.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

This is not the chicken noodle soup I made. Silly me.

I didn't think o take a picture in case I wanted to

write about it later!

If you've been following some of my little asides in these posts, you know that I started going to church again this summer for the first time in 20 years. Or maybe even longer. I keep promising myself to write about  why I went back, but I'll have to leave that for yet another day. It's not a terribly dramatic story, but I don't want to give it short shrift.

Ok, this is too weird to pass by, so let me do a quick aside. I just looked up the phrase "short shrift" to make sure I was using it right. Dictionary.com has the meaning I intended listed second: little attention or consideration in dealing with a person or matter. However, the first definition they give is: a brief time for confession or absolution given to a condemned prisoner before his or her execution. A little spooky given I was just "confessing" that I hadn't been to church in ages.

Anyway, no matter how long it's been, suffice it to say that I wasn't going for longer than I ever did go. I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do, so I really hate missing the service. Plus, I actually enjoy going, a definite change from the way I felt about church as an adolescent.

Then I remembered this is the Internet Age. Hello! I don't have "to go" to church to go to church if you know what I mean. So, I logged in and checked to see what my local church had on tap for today. I can't recall what it was, but it didn't immediately catch my interest. Plus the particular pastor scheduled is much younger than me, and he just doesn't resonate with me as much as the other pastors do. (I know he resonates with others, so that's more about me than him!)

I took a virtual hop on down to Greenwood, IN (a 15-hour drive in the non-virtual world) to another church I like—Greenwood Community Church. My sister-in-law goes there and my husband listens online, too. I missed the live service, so I picked one from the list that looked interesting. The sermon I chose was called Will you return? While the label makes sense if you listen to the story, the theme was actually gratitude. 

Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking "Gratitude? That's a bit trite for a sermon isn't it?" I grant you that had the sermon been labeled that, I probably would have skipped over it. I mean it's been done before. But if you haven't heard Pastor Steve Czajkowski (I have no idea how to pronounce that!) preach on a subject, then you haven't heard it before. He's got an upbeat style that borders on the snarky, and that definitely resonates with me.

Anyway, two sermons from GCC and a big bowl of homemade chicken soup later and I am feeling remarkably improved. I might even head out to the grocery store  given that it's up to a balmy minus 5. Or maybe I'll just have another bowl of soup.