churches and choices (and then less serious stuff)

I talked with Kati Li during winter break and had an interesting conversation on the sociology of religion. I feel like, after reading Mark Noll, I've tried to make myself somewhat of an amateur sociologist of religion, analyzing groups, thinking about what characterizes them and their particular brand of Christianity. I mention this because, I think for a while, in response to my questions on faith and the lack of answers I found, that I became obsessed with doubt, evidence, thinking about things and making sure they were right. This habit has relaxed somewhat, but I find that even now I tend towards this more than I used to (which I guess is normal, considering I'm an applied math grad student).

So, like Matt Dunn, I've been looking around for churches recently. I've been going to Vox Veniae in Austin, an emergent-ish church that carries heavy emphasis on social action. It's very hipster, very cool, and very much not like a typical evangelical church (good?). It does some great stuff around Austin; however, I don't think it stresses especially good thinking habits. Mark Noll remarked that a key feature of the evangelical church is a "call to action", that the world's troubles were the demands of the hour that needed to be met *now* (without too much time thinking). Vox may be different from evangelical churches in a lot of ways, but they retain this trait in some form. Even in their thinking and reflection, it seems focused on how to do something, how to achieve some goal or help some group. How.

I visited Austin Stone, the largest evangelical church in Austin, and was impressed by the setup, the attendance, the band - most of the things that don't seem to matter to me much anymore. But at least from a cursory glance at things, I didn't find the depth of thought that I valued from either the people I knew there or the pastor, and I felt a little out of place in the large-Christian-conference type of emotional band that I have grown wary of.

I have visited Ted Lee's church as well (Acts), and I'm impressed - had I come to Austin 2 years and 1 crisis of faith ago, I probably would love to have joined this church. It's solid; there's good, correct (I think) teaching, and a friendly, open community. I may go back - it reminded me of HCC, and perhaps it has people like HCC too who will dig deep into a subject and really ponder over it - but before I do so, I wanted to look beyond the types of churches I've been to before.

When I talked with Kati, we talked a lot about habits of the mind, thinking habits of Christian groups. This is primarily the focus of both "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" and "A Mind for God", the latter which I'd highly recommend to any Christian. We both remarked that we enjoyed groups that emphasized and encouraged careful thinking, and somehow she commented that I seemed somewhat Anglican/Episcopalean.

I'm going to visit an Episcopal church that one of my friends goes to. He's a fellow grad student I really admire for his thinking/reading and intellectual habits, and I'm fairly excited given that he admires the level of thinking in this church (it's close to a seminary, so there's interplay similar to how Dunbar Heights Baptist Church and Regent seminary in Vancouver are). I'm a little nervous too - I admire the liturgy from a distance, but I wonder how I will respond to it longer term, when the novelty wears off. It's so different from what I've experienced before - Episcopalean, large, non-Asian. I hope I don't get scared off by these differences before I have a chance to grow as a result of them.

So...long boring stuff over. I'll update with more long boring stuff in the next few weeks if I get another free night like this one.

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On a side note, recent life updates

1. I went swing dancing at a place nearby. It's great - a lot of fun. For me. I can't be sure that other girls dancing with me aren't bored out of their mind - I can only do the most basic steps, can't hear the music and rhythm clearly sometimes and thus go off beat, and often fail when trying to actually spice things up (and a lot of these dancers can REALLY spice things up). Girls, any thoughts? I'd like my partner to enjoy the dancing as much as I do, so I'd like to know a girl's perspective on this.

2. I'm getting old - I injured myself. I don't think I'm exercising too much or too hard in cardio, but I think my bike seat was too high when I biked 5 miles somewhere. At the very least, I'm finding that unlike my high school days, I can't just push myself mindlessly (like some action anime character) and expect good results.