The Cinnamon Roll Effect

So, tomorrow we start the two day event of baking home-made cinnamon rolls (and if you haven't tasted the Stock--now Kubicek--family recipe, you've never tasted dessert as it's meant to be).  Our family recipe has magical powers to break down societal walls and lay an even playing field for us all: namely, "the stuffing of the faces".

Anyway, we're baking them to take to a friends' house where we'll be hanging out after church on Sunday.  Ironically, we'll be spending a few hours in the afternoon with two other families who attend two other churches, yet we are beginning to consider these families as our brothers and sister even more than the couples in our church whom we've known longer and spent more time.  Why is this?

There's something about church today that detracts from community.  This may very well be in my mind alone, but I feel that more and more church is an event, a Sunday morning reminder to check in with God to be sure, but an event mostly.  I mean, is it possible for me to go to church without thinking about checking it off the list so we can do the other things in our day?  And when we're there, are we not singing the same songs we've sung for years just with slightly different chord changes?  Seriously, I'm not a poet laureate, but learning a "new song" at church that's chorus is "Glory to God, Glory to God, Glory to God Forever" is either a really bad joke or a mockery of the creativity and intellect that our Lord has placed into our bodies.

So, we go over to our friends house on Sunday to learn what community feels and looks like as we participate together.  And we challenge each other to live deeply and seek Jesus with purpose and questions and anticipation.  We talk about our struggles to know God more and how to walk in His footsteps and follow His direction and serve each other.  We're trying to figure this life thing out together.  We're trying to figure this church thing out together.  What's it supposed to look like?  How is it supposed to operate?

We could spend timing deciding if Pope John Paul II should be deemed a Saint like the current pope, Benedict XVI, has requested.  But I'm not certain how that will really have any effect on any living creature (and as a subplot, aren't all who are saved, saints?).  I guess if Pope Benedict stops by this Sunday we'll save an extra cinnamon roll for him.  I wouldn't want him to miss out on a little heaven on earth action!