Closer to God

If you’ve been to my house, then you’ve no doubt commented on the neighborhood eyesore, a.k.a. the Apostolic Faith church. When I was house shopping, I almost didn’t come look at my house. Not because of its proximity to the church, but because it really didn’t look like much in the pictures. But I figured why not, and the real estate agent brought me in from the east, so I never laid eyes on the church until after I had already toured my house and decided it was the one.

Of course, when I left the house, I made it a point to drive out the opposite direction to check out the neighborhood. That’s when I noticed something strange. So if you haven’t been to my house, you are probably wondering what the big deal is. I mean, it’s just a church, right? Well, not exactly. It’s the world headquarters of this faith, which prior to moving here, I’d never heard of. I did some research and turns out it’s not so big in the US, but huge in Nigeria. The church property consists of almost two full city blocks. Several houses, a church, an office building, and of course, the scariest part: jesus camp! The camp has RV parking spots, a ton of tiny sheds and a tabernacle with “Jesus the light of the world” written in huge letters on it. Here’s a picture I stole off their website.

So yeah, it’s a little weird, but my house is removed enough from the action, and I’ve been here long enough to just ignore it. Anyway, directly across the street from me lives the grand pubah, or god, if you prefer. The church owns all the houses on the other side of my street (except for one) and the church leader happens to live in the one closest to me. It’s cool. I don’t bother him, he doesn’t bother me. In fact I’ve never spoken to him or anyone else in his family. We live a wonderful mutually oblivious existence. Except for today. Which brings me to why I’ve decided to write about this now.

I spent the day outside. We were painting the siding we replaced and I raked up leaves, etc. What’s important though, is what the neighbors were doing. They were also up to something outside, but what was unusual, was the loud music blaring from their yard. Church people are usually not music people, so it was weird to begin with. But then I listened for a minute and realized it was mellow jesus rock, just really loud. Now to each his own, and if you want to be down with G.O.D. good for you. Not for me, but whatever. However the Jesus rock was just too much. I mean, not only is is about Jesus, but it really, really sucks, musically. I debated calling the police and complaining, mostly for irony’s sake, but then decided to just go inside instead. End of the story.

After the work was done we headed into Woodstock to eat some burritos, and we saw this:

(not my picture, obviously. I failed to take one.)

I guess it just seems like a lot of Jesus for one day, especially for me. Perhaps someone is trying to tell me something?