befuddled

Tonight for the second straight Saturday, I attended worship at what can be safely called a "contemporary" local church. The "sanctuary" overflowed with people of all types, including a professor from the English Department where I attend graduate school. I place "sanctuary" in quotes simply because that's not a term these folks would use. Their lack of use also provides a convenient metaphor for, as it were, my "befuddlement." The church calls itself "seeker friendly," which I well understand as a realistic assessment that many, many folks (including adults of my generation) do not possess the "Christian code" in even the most rudimentary forms of language. I first became aware of that some years ago when one of my parishioners (in Central Southwest Oklahoma), a 51 year old woman who had attended church her entire life asked in Sunday School "Now Noah comes before Jesus, right?" Aside from being appalled, I have since come to realize that for churches to reach people with what we Christians believe as the life-changing Good Story, we have to treat even the most-highly educated adults as theological children or even infants. People simply do not know the background, stories or even some of the words that have comprised Christian faith for almost 2,000 years.
In a large sense, I am glad not to be part of the active ministry any longer. I do not have to deal with the sort of hand-holding that Pastors and church leaders currently do, for which I am grateful. Nevertheless, I feel somewhat at a loss when I do worship, even in my own tradition (Episcopalian). Rarely do I experience the "Word" part of worship in a sophisticated, complex manner that leaves room for ambiguity and uncertainty of interpretation. Most sermons and even Scripture readings almost have to be prefaced in these numerically growing churches with "now these words were spoken by (say) Jesus to such and so an audience and were thought of badly by several other groups of people known as the so and so's..." I dare say that when my grandfather preached, most of his congregations at least knew that the Pharisees and Saducees were different groups of people and had different fears in living under Roman occupation.
That assumption no longer holds and I just shake my head and wonder what will become of (especially) mainline Protestantism over the next 35 years or so. The congregations that adapt will, of course, survive physically while those (like especially one of my former congregations) who insist on worshipping in a style of circa 1958 will die sooner than later. I wonder for the survivors, however, at what cost will come their maintaining their congregational life. Worship will resemble something far different than the traditions these places claim as their heritage and time will be spent simply explaining, for example, that baptism is an important part of "following Jesus" or "we have what's called the Lord's Supper every Sunday and you are certainly welcome to have it with us" sort of pronouncements. Time will not be spent, in other words, in exploring just what baptism has meant and how that has changed over the centuries. Time will not be spent in discussing how the Lord's Supper has not always had an "open admissions" policy and how both it and baptism, for Protestants, are sacraments that somehow indicate God's reality to us. Time may even have to be spent in explaining the word "Protestant," which causes me no small element of despair.
So other than just continuing my own search and proclamation of God as mysterium tremendum et fascinans (Rudolf Otto's phrase--wonderful and metaphorically inviting) and an ever-increasing unwillingness to downplay my faith in public settings, I plan to attend worship, seek the Holy and try not to worry too much about matters about which I can do nothing. God bless to all of you--