Essay on Church of the Good Shepherd
by church member Craig Bowron
You’re probably wondering who we are, and so are we. We’re not your typical church. We ask a lot of questions. Honestly, there are days when we think to ourselves, "Maybe the hokey-pokey really is what it's all about." But those are rare.
We cast a skeptical eye on Christendom, for all the things that Christianity has done to the world rather than for it.
We believe in the holiness of the Bible, but don’t believe it was the last thing God ever said. For all the Good Book’s divine inspiration, sometimes God can be deliberately vague, and then we enter into prayer, and perhaps action, with deep humility.
We believe Jesus was more than just a really good person with a community-minded spirit and a penchant for storytelling. We're dead certain he was Emmanuel, God-with-us, and that the DaVinci Code is like a cross between the Easter Bunny and James Bond: a highly entertaining fast-paced thriller with silly spiritual overtones.
We believe that sometimes music transcends all knowing, and in that way connects us to God. We believe Dr. Phil, Garrison Keillor, and Captain Kangaroo dispense good advice, not spiritual direction. We want our kids to understand the stories and traditions of the Bible, and to develop a personal faith built on grace and God’s boundless love, rather than a burden of guilt or shame. We’ll lay that on them later.
We’ve rummaged through Methodist and other Christian traditions and kept what we thought was real. Our minister, Peter, attended a conservative Baptist college and a liberal Presbyterian seminary, hangs out with monks and is a Jewish wanna-be. So we’ve got all our bases covered. People who say, "It’s better to be out fishing thinking about God than to be in church thinking about fishing" have never heard Peter preach and probably are pretty distracted fishermen. The man takes us places.
Because we think there are times when God wants us just to sit down and shut up, our service includes a lengthy period of silence after the sermon, and during the week we offer several meditative "centering prayer" sessions that provide all of the prayer with none of the talk.
Come join us on our little pilgrimage.
You can start by putting your right foot in, and then putting it out, putting it back in and then shaking it all about.