At least I got a cowboy hat . . .

I went to church on Sunday. I rode my bike to a Baptist joint down the road. Made it past the professional greeters at the door and sat in the last pew (yeah, that's right, wooden pews, baby!). Was welcomed by numerous people, shook numerous hands. The congregation looked mostly like a retirement community, but with a scattering of the usual goatee and funky glasses types. An old gal played piano and we sang some songs I wasn't familiar with. One of them was called (something like) "I give my life to you," and the choir director (who didn't have a choir, so he faced us and waved his hands as we sang) told us to sing it like we mean it because God looks on the heart, which I found kind of baffling.

After that we heard a couple of testimonies from twenty-somethings who had done mission trips to Peru and Haiti. I liked that part a lot. That was interesting, and these kids were the genuine article. Then we heard a sermon from the guest preacher (the regular guy being on vacation). He was an apologetics dude, the head of an "institute" for apologetics (in rural Maine of all places). He proceeded to tell us we needed to be ready to face down the pagans and the New Agers and the emergers, etc. He warned that we would soon be coming under persecution of the Book of Revelation variety. He said beware the fine sounding message that is 98% Biblical, but 2% heretical. That's the most dangerous kind of message of them all, he said.

If I wasn't in a great mood that morning, I would have walked away scowling. Instead I was just mildly disappointed, like when you toss a coin and you call heads and it lands tails. Going to church is always a crapshoot, it seems.

Anyway, the morning hadn't been a total loss. Across the street from the church was a little boy who had laid out a blanket on the sidewalk and was selling his old toys. Things he now valued less than whatever it was he intended to buy with the money he raised from the sale. Well, I can't ever pass up a six year old entrepreneur, so I had stopped by before heading across the street to lock up my bike in the church parking lot. I bought a cowboy hat for a dollar. It didn't fit me, but there's probably somebody I can give it to. As I was making the exchange with the young dealmaker, cars were flowing into the church lot, and I wondered why more people from the church weren't stopping by to bless the little boy across the street.

Anyway, I stashed the hat in my satchel and went to church, and all the while that I listened to the guy talk about apologetics, my mind kept wandering to the cowboy hat in my bag. At least I got a cowboy hat, I kept thinking. Not a bad deal on a Sunday morning.