Okay loyal readers, as promised, I have a report on how the Walk to Emmaus was not cheesy, did not suck, and various other thinly-veiled accolades hidden behind noncommittal euphemisms . Oh my God, that was a tightly-constructed sentence! I just listened to it in the Mac Talk tool in textedit on my new mac and nearly giggled in glee. I’m such a total word nerd, but I digress. As aforementioned, Emmaus did not, in fact, suck. I’m gonna have to recant a little and say that there were parts that were just a bit cheesy, but not overwhelmingly so. For instance, the first song we did for worship was (I kid you not) “Do Lord.” (As in: “Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me. Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me. Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me, away beyond the blue.”) I haven’t sung that song since VBS back in the days where I still refused to eat actual chicken off the bone, considered lettuce grass, and still thought girls had cooties.
So there was the absolutely stellar presentation of my favorite mid-eighties to late-nineties selection of worship music, which actually ended up being kind of nice in a strange, nostalgic kind of way, kind of the way that old cartoons like Pirates of Dark Water and the Smurfs have that “Oh my God, I was a total retard when I was a kid” kind of appeal. I have to give props to the guys from Saint Simons United Methodist Church for their great job on making two acoustic guitars being played at the same time not sound like a total train wreck, a feat which is not easily achieved. Anywho, content-wise, Emmaus propagated a lot of truths that are sort-of common knowledge, but we bear hearing over and over again, and featured a pretty solid base of clergy and lay-people who had some great things to say.
I have to say that my two favorite talks of the week were the Prevenient Grace talk given by Jay Hanson and Andy Holmes’ talk on Perseverance. Other good talks were given by Joe Fendig, Neil Barley, Westy Westmoreland, and a couple of other dudes who were good, but whose names I forget.
Now, maybe I’m not supposed to share this, but I refuse to propagate the popular position that Emmaus is a secretive cult, so I’m spilling the beans. If you go on the Walk, you’ll find that you don’t lift a finger…for anything. Everything is done for you and you’re pretty much saturated in an atmosphere of people doing things for you. I was served my food, cleaned up after, and ministered to by people whose names I never caught and who were so seamlessly integrated into the background, that I feel guilty to admit to you that I didn’t notice most of them. Now trust me, as someone in “full-time ministry,” I’ve gotten VERY used to giving my time and attention to people. I have been taught to serve people in every way and I find myself doing it out of reflex sometimes, and that’s not a bad thing. What’s bad is that I had forgotten how to receive.
You see, you can get so used to being an outlet that you can forget how to let people pour into you. It started out being very awkward letting people serve me because I had to fight the overwhelming feeling that I should be doing something, but once I got past the guilt, I actually felt my walls come down a little. Then, there’s the BIGGIE, the really huge thing that I will never ever reveal about Emmaus because you have to experience it to understand. It’s the one thing that I won’t tell you about if you ask me, not because I’m cultish and everything, but because it genuinely is a surprise and a pleasant one at that.
Let’s just put it this way: this past weekend was a turning point in my life. I’ve been in some amazing times of worship and have clearly felt the presence of God before, but his weekend was the closest I’ve ever, EVER felt to the Body. Ever. If you have a chance to go on the Walk, then run, do not walk. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just go straight on the walk to Emmaus.
Decolores,
Ben
