Confessions of a Curmudgeon

Mnemonic of the Day from
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The other night I told my dear friends in our Life Group that I have decided to stop being the Church Curmudgeon.

As is typical of our laid back group, this led to several minutes' discussion about the fact that nobody except my wife and I (the old people of the group) know the meaning of the word curmudgeon.  And so I offer the graphic definition above, for their education.

I told them that I am a cynic in regard to the church.  None of them gasped in surprise.  These people know me.

They have all heard me say that I go to the church that I find least annoying.  While I consider this to be high praise for the congregation that has won this honor, most folks don't see it that way.

I also told my friends that I expect I will always be a cynic.  I will likely always find things about the programs, the methods, the priorities or the preaching that nag at me like a cockle-bur down my sock.

But I am resolved to no longer allow there to be a direct lineage between the cynic in me and the curmudgeon hiding behind the cellar door.

Toward that end, I'm trying something new.  I'm resting my curmudgeonly finger on a different sort of trigger, if you will.

Whenever I'm sitting in church and the cynic threatens to transmogrify into full curmudgeon mode, I will press the pause button and try to think of some way, some action requiring effort on my part, to get involved in the very thing I'm inwardly grumbling about.

Which is why I'm sitting  here in our church building at 2:15 AM writing this blog post, having spontaneously volunteered this past Sunday to be the midnight-to-5 AM "security guy" who is letting people into the building every half hour or hour for the congregation's 24-hours of continual prayer on the National Day of  Prayer.

This is my penance.  

I'll keep you posted on further acts of anti-curmudgeonly cynicism.