The Wheat from the Chaff

I chatted with a nice guy this afternoon who is a member of a large Nazirene church. The church is known locally for being "Non=Nazirene" and more of an evangelical mega-church. Okay, mega might be a bit of a stretch, but it is large and it is NOT your garden-variety Nazirene gig.

Growing up, I saw more than my share of the REAL Nazirenes. The following Top Ten list is what really defines a Nazirene church.

1) Holiness Unto the Lord. Jigsawed out of plywood and stained a warmy maple, this apothegm graced the sanctuaries of RNCs (real Nazirene churches). The words were a trademark of sorts, a reminder to all who entered that this was the 9th holiest place on earth.

2) No RNC would be discernible from some low-church Baptists if it were not painted seafoam green. Slathered on the rough stucco walls, this particular green created a shekhinah-type glow when viewed through the swollen eyes of a tearful testimony time.

3) Plumbing and heating in RNCs is always suspect. One never knows if there will be a warm Sunday School classroom or a flushable toilet come Sunday. The furnaces in RNCs tended to be pre-war behemoths that had bad attitudes when roused from slumber. They emitted a dusty musty aroma, wafting toxins throughout the service and certainly posing a biohazard to those napping in the nursery.

4) Paneling. Not the warm, knotty pine of a Vermont breakfast nook, but a thinly-laminated faux bois that added architechtural interest to the vestibule and the dank basement cubbies. The resulting warrens multitasked into classrooms, covens for the women's missionary society meetings, and even dressing rooms for the Junior Church Christmas Pageant, spewing tinsled baby angels into the choir loft like devout oompah loompahs.

5) Speaking of vestibules (and they ARE vestibules, not the affected "narthex" of the godless and/or Presbyterians), the anteroom to holiness was a veritable Library of Congress for the righteous. Lined with yellowed world maps with thumbtacks representing those serving in hostile mission fields, the vestibule was a place to exchange confidences (aka gossip) or pick up an Alabaster Box. Not orderly places, the vestibules typically held stacks of missionary books, back issues of "The Other Sheep", and bulletins from services that were to be remembered only as a few underlines in your New Testament.

6) RNCs do not have "multipurpose rooms" or gymnasiums with PowerPoint screens- they have fellowship halls. The kitchen in RNCs are spartan - no commercial appliances or espresso machines. There is nothing needed to feed the flock that a stained crock pot and a few dented ladles can't produce.

7) Real Nazirene Churches don't have grand pianos or Yamaha synthesizers or midi-spitting soundboards. Hymns are instead measured carefully out of spinet pianos and Hammond organs. The pianist and organist positions in RNCs are venerated only slightly less than missionaries or Sunday School Superintendents. Organists in particular came to their bench through a monarchial lineage, their sovreign right to play exclusively granted by the fact that they have been members since Roosevelt (the first one). No one would dare suggest she retire or share her throne, the fear of laity and clergy alike keeps her glued to the key manuals until she dies in situ during a particularly vigorous "Marching to Zion".

8) The importance of Christian education cannot be discounted: the inculcation of new Nazirenes is the primary purpose of the sect. Train up a child in the way he should go, yadda yadda. Sunday School is the conduit through which all piety flows. No DVDs, no high tech, no "Christian" rap groups - just the puerile rudiments of catechesis. Nappy scraps of flannel tacked to the paneled walls hold figures of disciples and vaguely middle eastern architectural backdrops that illustrate any of the major Biblical yarns: Zaccheus dangling from a Sycamore or Jonah being puked onto dry, painted sand. They made the point: sin and die.

9) Genuine article Nazirene congregations try in earnest to bring in the harvest of souls even if that means rounding them up from their broken homes. RNCs maintain a church bus, not a fleet of people movers that have Veggie Tales DVDs playing in transit. The church bus, a long ditched from a neighboring school, has only slightly less reliability than the tempermental boiler. Prone to cranking fruitlessly whenever the temperature hits the mid-20s, the church bus is also a surefire mechanical liability when found smoking roadside on the way to church camp. Forget the various harnesses, belts, restraints, and safety features of vans found in the Episcopalian parking lots, RNC busses leave the driving to God. He is, afterall, your copilot.

10) There are far more than 10 defining characteristics - tattered hymnals, violet-inked dittos of
prayer choruses, and posters announcing VBS or revivals, and on and on. The point is, be not dismayed, God is not mocked: these megachurches with their "sanctonasiums" and basketball leagues are Satan's playground. The Thursday morning Praise-R-Cize classes are little more than thinly disguised dances and there is nary a Manual to be had. Go to one of these fiendish facsimilies and you will be fondling backsliders, your own soul in peril. Just don't do it.