Monday, January 9, 2012

The Back Row

was born and raised a Southern Baptist so I have a natural preference for the back row, the pew of choice for members of God's "frozen chosen."

Back when I was a "Professional Christian" in charge of a church, I took out the first twenty-four rows of pews so that everyone would move a little closer to the front.

It did not work.

The Back Row people would have nothing to do with it. They unscrewed their pews from the floor and moved them back to their regular location. This was after I'd done all of the hard work by unscrewing those damn screws in the first place. They'd been in that floor before Billy Graham could shave or Oral Roberts learned how to heal over the fly in his boxer shorts!

So if you can't beat them join them, right? I started preaching from the back row to be closer to the people.

This also did not go over well.

While Preachers think that the real action is behind the pulpit, it's really on the back rows. Couples are holding hands. Some have a hand on a thigh underneath a Sunday dress. Others are settling into the buzz that's hitting them while a few adjust their I-Pods.

There are "traditionalists" too who have magazines they're reading inside of their Bibles. Of course there are always those who just sleep and the Restaurant Rushers who are gonna beat everyone else to the buffet line (though lets be honest ... most are fat and lose the ground they've gained from being on the back row when they "sprint" from their car in the parking lot to the double wide doors).

I haven't thought about any of this in years ... until now.

God, Guy Sayles, my Mother, Bill Berry (not the former R.E.M. drummer but the other one that went to Seminary with me), Johnny O, each of my children Jeremy, his wife Marie, Kristen and Chelsea and Sam, Shirley Sessions, Jan Skutch, Terry Ball and ... a heavenly host of others ... are aghast!

I regularly attend church again.

No one ever saw this coming.

And I do it from the back row.

Of the band.

Playing rhythm guitar and occasionally hitting really good harmony notes, I've been moved around a lot but normally I'm back row ... behind Samuel Adams, who plays damn good live music on Tybee Island, Dedra or "DeLuv" but only because she sucks up to Sam, and Sarah who is beautiful in her tight jeans and makes many a congregation member yell out ... "GLORY!"

It's OK. I like being on the back row with Davy, the drummer. We share secret jokes, do really cool stuff that nobody else can see, and stare at Sarah who is beautiful in her really tight jeans. GLORY!

Sean, the bass player, used to be on the back row with us and was really cool about it. He brought really groovy dance steps to the stuff that we were doing. But ... he sold out to corporate Christianity, pulled the trigger ... rode the bullet ... to the front row yesterday.

Davy and I merely looked at one another as he drummed and I played a brilliant rhythm guitar, shrugged our shoulders and acknowledged another lost soul.

Nevertheless ... Bar Church is happening. Then last night, God summoned me back to the Bar around 5 because Sam needed the guitar that I had. (You must understand that God talks to Samuel first then normally ... but not always .... Sam passes on to the rest of us whatever it was that God said. We're always surprised!).

So last night, I ended up on the back row of the band in the bar ... not to be confused with the Bar Church Band ... playing two sets of pagan music!

It was great.

There is a point to all of this ...

Mitch Wesley!

Eat your heart out.

Oh ...

and ...

GLORY!