Godliness

I went to theology on tap last week. Theology on Tap is a program of St. David’s young adult ministry. (please note that I do not currently attend St. David’s). The idea is that we meet once a month at a bar and talk about God and stuff. I’ve been twice now. I really like it.

This week our conversation turned to the topic of Godliness. (we were supposed to be talking about recreation and God). We went around our table of 5 and defined what makes a Godly life. (This table included me, a professional photographer, her husband – a theology student, an applied math PHD student and a writer/business student). The answers were all different and interesting. I started with “Peace with yourself, God and others.” The next answer was very vague, “Any action that is in accordance with God’s will” (okay I’m paraphrasing that one). Then next answer was “Living your life so that you are more like Christ every day, through the sacraments of the Church.” The math student sitting next to me said that living a Godly life was “living out God’s plan for you life in joy.” There was a clear distinction between living out some plan you thought God had for your life and being miserable and living out that plan which brought you joy. Finally my friend, the photographer, said that “emptying yourself to love God’s people.” was a Godly life.

Our conversation was so fascinating because we all had such different ideas of what a Godly life is and most of our answers were not concrete. I personally, think that anyone can live a Godly life whether or not they go to Church or believe in Christ or are of some other faith. My friend who said that living Godly life was dependent on being part of Church would highly disagree. We were able to be in discussion and listen and respect the other opinion. Over our beer and gin and tonics (and delicious enchiladas) we were able to discuss these ideas and talk about the freedom in Christ and be in true conversation. I have missed that since I’ve been back in Texas. While in Geneva I was surrounded by people who were aware of and exploring faith in amazing ways – but here I had not yet found people that I connected with on a spiritual level. It’s refreshing to hear and see and experience a spiritual friendship. I hadn’t even realized how much I needed that until I experienced it again.

I am so thankful that I am beginning to find Godly friends here.

Evangelical Church!

I have spent a very long week in Romania. It was a week that was amazing, but it was tiring. I am now in Budapest and tomorrow I head back “home” to Geneva. I am so glad that I will get to sleep in my own bed tomorrow night and I have will be able to cook in my own kitchen and I will hear people around me speaking a language that I understand (even if it’s not English) and I will be with my friends.

I went to church tonight with my host here in Budapest. She goes to a church that is associated with Calvary Chapel. It is a bilingual (english/hungarian) church. I do not know that I have ever been to a Church that is 100% bilingual like this one was. Most of the congregation is Hungarian, but the pastor (at least the one that preached) is American. There are many people there, though, that are foreigners and either speak little to no Hungarian.

Even with the language differences, the church felt very much like most of the other evangelical churches I have been to before. The service began with “worship” – which is the very modern music. I enjoy the music because I think it evokes the emotions that are often glossed over in more traditional churches. Tonight was especially poignant because the music was mostly in Hungarian – but almost all the songs also had English lyrics. We sang a few verses in English too. I found myself singing in Hungarian. It was a very strange feeling to really worship God in a language that I cannot speak. (Although I have to say that I sang in many languages this past week and I felt that I was truly worshipping God – especially when we sang this one, Swahili song). The worship in the service was really good.

Then there was the sermon. The priest preached on loneliness. The text he used was Ecclesiastes 4:1-12. I have never heard this passage preached on before in such a way. His sermon made me realize that I need to be more authentic with my friends. I need to be willing to be vulnerable with them. I have many friends that I am not being as open and honest as I could be. He also made an interesting comment. The last verse of this section says that “a three fold chord is not quickly broken” – basically, if we have a friend (or more) and God to support us that we will be stronger people. I think that having the relationship with God is so important. This string of friendship is strong when it is just based on human relationships, but becomes even stronger when the relationship with God is added.

I am looking forward to going back to my friends especially after this sermon.