"Church" = 6 Hands, 45 Minutes and 35 Gallon Trash Bags? - Jeff Wiersma

Eliot (left) and Oliver (right)

There's nothing unique or ground-breaking that I can add to the volumes already written about what "church" means in the 21st century.

This is not to demean or diminish the importance of the ongoing dialogues and discussions over the past decade about making "church" a more authentic, holistic and "earthly-good" experience.

I have taken part in many of them. It is a subject near and dear to my heart; part of a seismic cultural shift from Modernism to Postmodernism that resembles the time of transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

So instead of attempting to reinvent the wheel, I simply want to share one way I thought of to do "church" beyond the prescriptive routine of going to a certain building, on a certain day, at a certain time.

Since I have my sons Eliot (7) and Oliver (4) with me every other Sunday, sometimes we make it to church and sometimes we don't. On the alternating Sundays, you can find me at one of those aforementioned churches leading music and liturgy.

On this Earth Day Sunday, our "church" consisted of filling an entire 35 gallon garbage bag with foam coffee cups, plastic shopping bags, candy bar wrappers, bottled water containers and fast-food receipts in only 45 minutes.

Here are the two key points from this week's "sermon":

• "We are taking good care of the earth, aren't we?" -- Oliver
  
• "People should care more about the earth than about being so lazy and throwing their trash into nature!" -- Eliot

AMEN and AMEN!!