In one of my very first books, I had a church scene with an altar call – or invitation if you’re more familiar with that term – and my editor commented and said something like, “I’m a Christian, and I’ve never heard of this. Remove it so you don’t lose your readers.”
I thought that was the strangest thing in the world. How could a Christian not know what an altar call/invitation was!? Oh, how little I knew…
There are a lot of things that we write into our Christian romances that not all Christians recognize. Or even events that they sort of recognize, but we’ve written them entirely differently than they’re used to.
Any author will tell you that we try to avoid putting things into our stories that will pull readers out of our stories. For example, if I’m reading a book that has a lot of references to fashion – something I’m admittedly clueless about – I will stop to look up those words, get a definition, look at pictures of the item, et cetera. The goal, obviously, is to understand the item and quickly return to the book. But let’s face it – that doesn’t always happen. So, as authors, we generally try to avoid putting elements into our book that will send our readers off on a random online rabbit trail of curiosity. If we use a word or phrase we think people won’t recognize, we try to subtly and organically explain it within the passage so that our readers don’t feel the need to jump ship in search of more information.
Christianity is full of different little idiosyncrasies, though, and it’s hard to avoid them all. Here’s an example we can easily get tangled up in. Some people call it the Lord’s Supper; some call it Communion. Sometimes it happens on the first Sunday of each month, sometimes it’s weekly, sometimes it’s quarterly or just completely unscheduled and infrequent. Sometimes the elements are passed one at a time and everybody waits for someone up front to say something and indicate that they should eat the wafer or drink the juice. In some churches, though, people eat and drink the elements as they’re passed rather than waiting and all doing it together. Sometimes the elements are a loaf of bread and a goblet of wine, and everybody gets in a line to walk past, tearing off a piece of bread and dunking it into the wine before eating it. (I admit – Just the thought of soggy bread makes me gaggy. The one time I was in a church that did it this way, I chose not to participate. The last thing I wanted was to have to rush out of service to vomit because I couldn’t handle the texture or taste of the juiced bread. I kind of thought I’d be permanently labeled a heathen if partaking in the elements made me throw up. Shudder.)
Anyway…the point is that many God-fearing churches conduct this single event in many, many different ways. So if I’m writing a scene that includes the Lord’s Supper (or Communion), and I get too specific, most of my readers will find some fault with the passage because my characters aren’t doing things the way they’re used to it being done. And if a reader is noticing everything that’s wrong with a passage, then they’ve definitely been pulled out of the story.
Here are some smaller examples (that are slightly less convoluted):
- It always startles me when characters recite a known prayer. My faith tradition doesn’t have specific prayers that we memorize, so that always gives me pause when I see it in a book. I’m not saying it’s wrong – it’s just different than my personal experience.
- I think candles are beautiful. There’s something peaceful about them. I’ve never been to a church, though, where a specific candle table was set up so that people could come in and light a candle, and I struggle to picture that. Is it in the foyer? At the front of the sanctuary? If so, do people just walk up and light candles while someone is preaching?
- Thinking outside of church – different faith traditions think differently about alcohol. While I don’t think any condone drunkenness, some are okay with alcohol when not used to excess, and others are completely against alcohol.
- The same is true for dancing and playing cards. Some Christian denominations are completely against either while others are fine with them both.
I’d love to hear your input on this. What are some faith elements you’ve seen in fiction before that seemed alien to you? Or at least alien enough to make you stop reading so you could try to figure out what was going on?
This is just my two cents – but we have a lot of diversity within the Christian faith. We don’t all attend cookie cutter churches or have a cookie cutter faith. Not only that, but we’re all at different places along our faith walk. Some of us have been walking with Christ for forty years and have been in church every single week for all of those years, and others of us have walked with Christ for a much shorter time and perhaps have no church experience. While there are some bedrock truths that are central to the Christian faith, there is also a lot of room for us to experience our faith differently. Those differences can present challenges and sometimes confusion, but they also make the body of Christ richer, more layered and complex, and even more beautiful than we imagined.
Heather Gray loves coffee, God, her family, and laughter – not necessarily in that order! She writes approachable characters who, through the highs and lows of life, find a way to love God, embrace each day, and laugh out loud right along with her. And, yeah, her books almost always have someone who's a coffee addict. Some things just can't be helped. Despite their different lives and situations, Heather’s characters have something in common. They're all flawed...but loved anyway.
Yes, for a group of people who should be known for our oneness in Christ, we sure are different. But then God made each one of us different so I don’t think He expects or even wants us to worship Him the same way. I often encounter ‘religious practices’ in books that are either foreign to me or even make me a little uncomfortable, but if the basis of salvation through faith in Jesus is there, I skip over them, because I know lots of people would think that the way I practice my faith is also odd. However, if it seems that what they believe is skewed, I am likely to just stop reading the book.
Our church does the altar call or invitation but not as much as it use to and it use to be the evening service more which we no longer have. We also have The Lords Supper/communion weekly. We had someone different buying the wafers and she bought rice crackers and not the plain ones the ones full of salt and I just couldn’t eat them.
Candles is another thing we don’t really use only at Advent and we have only had Advent for the last 10 – 15 years. We also don’t really celebrate Lent but I am ok with it in books.
I do notice that books are fairly genetic with churches services with them being non denominational.
We have people in our church that don’t think you should play cards in the church like at a games night held at the church. I never understood it but found out its cos they are used to play poker. Most of us played kids games with the cards so I couldn’t really understand it. We also don’t have dancing but its more because of older generations. When mum was growing up there were often country dances at the town hall and while the dancing wasn’t the issue the problem was often men took alcohol on the sly and be drinking out the back so many Christians wouldn’t go to dances. My brother use to go to a dance and his girlfriend of the time wasn’t able to go because of this. By then they were family dances with no drink allowed and a family night out.
I think its nice seeing how different churches do things and it doesn’t put me off reading the book. If you have pages of sermons that is more likely to turn me off.
Being a preacher’s daughter, things that were done in the past, a lot churches aren’t doing anymore, which I believe is sad. That being said, every denomination does things differently, so I don’t have a problem with books incorporating different church rituals, as long as it’s not way off.
I relate to a comment above! when I became a Christian I did not understand why many saw playing cards as something bad until I understood that it is because in many cases there are people who bet or get addicted to it, I always played more familiar games with my friends so I did not understand. The same thing happened with alcohol until I saw that many young people lack self-control or come to Christ after having been heavy drinkers, so the Church discourages consumption.
With the dance it was something similar, I never went to parties and I had few friends, I only went to meetings at home during high school so I asked a friend why in her church they spoke ill of young Christians who went to secular parties and “mixed with the world” what was wrong with dancing? She had gone out long before she came to Christ and she told me “have you seen what music is played at those parties and how is it danced? There is simply no way to modestly dance any of that” and well… she was right in Chile they dance a lot the reggaeton.
Something funny was when a girl spoke that the elders of her church told young people not to go to the movies with their partner but in a group or with friends, I simply wondered what the problem was…it turns out that many committed sexual sin in the cinema or they felt very tempted by the darkness and the closeness. Some Churches have rules that if you don’t know the context are difficult to understand especially when you are a bit naive.
While I normally fellowship in one denomination, there have been times when I’ve atte ded others, and it was interesting to see how they did things. The important thing being that God is there, too! So with Christian fiction, I quite enjoy the different takes on how things are done. God is a God of variety!
Perhaps you should visit different churches and faith traditions to gain a broader perspective. This could help you in your writing as well. So many people are stuck inside the box thinking that their own Church’s practices are the norm. Appreciation and respect will then be seen in your stories.
We have an altar call at every preaching service. I don’t think I would continue to attend a church that never had one.
The preacher tells us that we need to be saved, but doesn’t give us a chance to do so then and there? I wouldn’t like that.
I’ve read a lot of church services in Christian Fiction, and they don’t always include an altar call, but it certainly wouldn’t pull me out of a story if it was included.
I’ve attended, and been member of several different churches and denominations in my life, so the differences in individual church traditions isn’t an issue for me. I’d be more likely to take note if everything was done in a book just like I’m used to it.
Diversity in different denominations is interesting. I’ve attended different ones and I settled where I felt the Lord lead me. We use disposable communion cups that have the wafer on top sealed and it is passed out and we all partake at the same time. It is not at any set day or service. I grew up in a church that was against dancing and playing cards but we did those things at home as a family anyway.
Hi Heather! Growing up in a German speaking church, I have always been fascinated with world religions and different denominations. My senior year in our public high school, I took an elective: Comparative Religions. One quarter we studied world religions, second quarter we compared denominations. I have visited churches in various cities in the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan.
Our German speaking Baptist churches, didn’t frown upon alcohol in moderation (one glass of wine with dinner), but card playing and dancing were a no, no. In Germany, religion is part of the school curriculum. Lutheranism in the north, catholic in the south.
At the churches my husband pastored, Communion was celebrated the first Sunday of the month, but the elements were different depending on the church and time. Bread vs. crackers, grape juice, etc. My husband would follow the congregational traditions, but over time added his own personal touch (who served communion, song, scripture used, prayers). Some congregations – only male deacons served communion.
At American Baptist churches – no dancing or card playing with poker cards – one could play Old Maid or Rook (which we called Baptist Poker). Best wishes.
When I read things in books that are different from what I’ve known in the church’s I’ve been to, I just accept it and go on, to be honest. I know that different denominations do things differently, which doesn’t make them better or worse, just different. As long as the theology about the main things is good, I’m good with the book. When the theology is totally off, that’s when I’ll decide not to read the book and (in the case of one author) totally turned me off of all of her other books, though I’d read them all and loved them. That one book, since she brought characters in from her other books, ruined ALL of her books for me. Now, when I see her name, I won’t even look at anything about her books.
And how about Sunday School pins? The church my family attended when I was little had these. The idea was that, if you had perfect attendance for Sunday School for a year, you got a pin to wear on your blouse or lapel. For each subsequent year, you got a little bar added to the main pin like a dangling chain underneath the original pin. It was considered quite the badge of honor. One wag wrote a song to the tune of “My Grandfather’s Clock” about having a SS pin that hung all the way to the floor because he had 43 years of perfect attendance. It all came to an end when he fell and broke his shin ’cause he tripped on his Sunday School pin. :)
welcome today. yes there are so many differences in the Christian faith/walk. but I feel that that should not impede us but we should grow and learn to embrace the many differences. as long as it doesnt go against what the Bible says, well grow from it all. my mom taught all five of us kids from an early age that the only thing that needs to stand firm is what the Bible says and how Jesus wants us to live. thanks for sharing today
Excellent input, Jeannette! It does make a difference whether the “weird” thing is just a preferential difference or a difference in the way something is practiced or if the difference is in one of those bedrock truths that are of key importance to the Christian faith.
I welcome learning about the differences and am astonished someone would say delete an altar call. On the other hand, I’ve attended many different churches of almost every denomination there is. I just want people to feel loved in Christ.
Hahaha! Yeah, the pages and pages of sermon – I totally get that! (I may have had to learn that one the hard way… ^_^ )
I think you hit a major point – some of the differences we have are generational. And sometimes the differences are out of a desire to protect. Just like people skipped the dances because of alcohol, a lot of churches ban card playing because they associate it with gambling. (I had a grandmother who loved playing cards and shared that love with almost all her grandchildren – and not once was gambling involved. It was no different than playing Monopoly or Sorry – it was just a thing the family did together and a special time Grandma had with her grandkids. But I can see how, for some people, card playing could be a vice.)
So many interesting differences in various churches! Thank you for sharing!!
Great post! I’ve experienced all of the above myself :) we are so different but united in Christ! The Gospel is the same!
Hmmm. I wonder what constitutes “way off” in this case… Snake handling?
Totally kidding! ^_^
I know what you mean, and you’re right. There’s a lot of room within denominations (or even nondenominational churches) for differences in the way we practice our faith.
Yes! You’re right on so many levels.
Some of us – even if we didn’t grow up in church – are rule followers. It would never occur to us to do x, y, or z. So we don’t understand why a church (or church people) might say we can’t do a, b, or c. It’s because, in their experience, a, b, and c lead to x, y, and z. Unfortunately, sometimes when churches try to protect their people from x, y, and z, they tell people not to do a, b, or c – but they don’t give any explanation. When that happens, it ends up feeling like a lot of rules and legalism.
There has to be a balance where protecting the flock is balanced with grace and love and with a desire to grow the flock spiritually outweighs the need to make the flock behave correctly. Some churches strike that balance quite well. Others…not so much. I’ve been in both kinds of churches, and the differences in the hearts and attitudes of the congregation is night-and-day different.
Thank you so much for sharing your insight, Lilly!!
Amen! And thank goodness God is a God of variety, right? Can you imagine how boring this world would be if we all did things exactly the same way?
I’m like you. I generally worship within a single denomination. That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy learning how different denominations practice their faith. I especially like it when I can ask someone why they do something that particular way. ^_^
Good point, Judy! I think one of the things we learn as writers is to not get too very specific about certain practices of the faith. Whether we’re mimicking the way our own church does things or the way a church we visited does things, we can end up alienating a lot of people when we get too far into the details. For that reason, most authors try to keep things a little bit general when it comes to church and faith practices. However, when we don’t realize that the way we do something is different than how others do it, we don’t necessarily realize it. We can’t know those things without having at least some exposure to other Christian practices. ^_^
Ha! I love your attitude -that you’d notice it more if everything matched the way you do things in your church. :-)
I think one of the things in fiction, too, is that we can time skip. A book might include a piece of a sermon, but it rarely includes the whole thing. The important part is pulled out, then the character skips ahead to a different scene. That allows readers to fill in the blanks. For the reader who is used to an altar call, they no doubt assume it occurred.
To be honest, I do the same with character descriptions when I’m reading. If I don’t read a description, I just fill it in on my own. I form the mental image based on the personality of the character. (Of course, then if the author gives me a description after I’ve already created my own, I end up ignoring the author’s description in favor of my own. But that’s another story…) :-)
Thank you for sharing, Lucy! We started using those types of communion cups when the pandemic hit. I enjoyed the straightforward simplicity of them. (We very recently went back to the old way with the separate cup and wafer.) I will say, though – the first Sunday that we used those disposable cups, everybody opened the bottom flap first on accident, and we all had a tough time getting to our wafer after that. It was a teeny tiny bit funny. ^_^
I learned to play Rook in college but never heard it called Baptist Poker. How funny!
I’m taking a class right now on Christian history here in the U.S., and last week’s unit included the start of German and Swedish churches in America and the areas they impacted and how they grew and transformed over time. Things like that fascinate me! Unfortunately, in summer school, we move through it all so fast that I have a hard time retaining all the information.
I completely understand what you’re saying! Some friends and I were talking on Saturday about an author whose recent books have kind of turned us all off. Some have completely walked away from the author, some will only read her older books, and then some of us keep reading the new ones hoping that it’ll get better. In this case, it was a stylistic change and not anything offensive to the faith. But still – when something puts you off an author, it’s hard to overcome that.
Hi, well all religions are diverse, yet we Christians all believe in One God. As long as we believe in one God that is all the matters , because the gospel is all the same, some explain it differently, but to the point. I respect a persons religion, as long as they respect mine.
In my church we sit to sing the hymns and stand for the readings. I know most churches do this the other way around.
I have a background with many denominations-Catholic, Methodist, Baptist and Penecostal. I cannot think of anything that has been in a book that has had me scratch my head to investigate. Thanks for sharing. God bless you.
can’t think of anything
I think I’m with most commenters here in saying that I enjoy reading different ways church services are done in books. Anything from communion to baptism to what kind of music is incorporated in worship. As long as the gospel according to scripture is preached from the pulpit, that’s the most important thing.
As for card playing & dancing, I’ve never attended a church that “banned” these practices. Obviously gambling would be out, but I have only attended one church where we would have a family type night and all kinds of games were played (both card & board). I’ve never attended a church that had dancing so I can’t really comment on that other than to say, I see nothing wrong with it as long as it’s appropriate (unlike say, “dirty dancing”). I grew up attending dances because my dad was a DJ & I enjoyed it as a teen. But then I didn’t grow up in a Christian home either.
When it comes to alcohol consumption in books, I personally don’t like it in Christian characters. It’s one thing if they are into that before they gave their hearts to Christ, and then after they got saved, they quit. I think it’s a poor representation of what it means to be a Christian. Typically if I see that in a book, I most likely will not finish reading it & move on to the next. But, that’s just my own personal taste.
I think the way we grew up can influence our tastes when it comes to what’s in a story. To me, if something is different from what I’m used to or have seen, it doesn’t make it wrong….just different. Like I said, as long as it aligns with scriptural truth, then I have no problem with it :-)
Off to google Rock. Ok I hadn’t heard of the game or the cards. sounds interesting. We did have old maid. But we played games at home with cards, like go fish, cheat, Gin rummy, canasta etc.
Hahahaha! Tripping on his pin and breaking his shin. I love it! ^_^
I’ve never heard of Sunday school pins, but I can absolutely picture it.
I can remember teaching the Wednesday evening children’s program one night. I was in charge of the group meeting before the kids split up into their age-group classes. I was holding my two-year-old because the nursery worker hadn’t arrived yet. So there I was, holding my daughter and teaching some lesson from the Bible – I don’t remember which – and my sweet little darling spontaneously puked her dinner up all over me, the carpet, and a few of the nearby kids. She’d been a little fussy, but I hadn’t recognized yet that something was actually wrong with her. I was politely encouraged not to bring sick children to church after that. Apparently, perfect attendance didn’t matter much… ^_^
I’ve never heard of Cheat, and I’ve heard of but never played Canasta. It’s funny, but growing up, all of my card-playing came from my grandparents. I learned Cribbage, too, from my grandfather. I think Rook, Spades, Hearts, and Pinochle are all pretty similar games. Rook and Pinochle use specialized decks, but if I recall, the basic strategy is the same. Or maybe it’s Rook and Pinochle that are similar and Spades and Hearts that are similar. Ugh! Now I’m all confused…
Amen! I did a study years ago that taught us that some things in Scripture are very clear and not open to “interpretation” while other things aren’t as clear and leave room for discussion and different opinions. One of the examples given was Creation – whether it occurred in 6 literal 24-hour days or in 6 days that didn’t necessarily mean 24-hour days. People can debate it and support both ideas from Scripture. What those 6 days looked like could be open to people having different ideas/opinions. What’s nonnegotiable, though, is that God created the world and everything in it. For starters, the Bible says that God created – so that’s pretty set in stone. Additionally, though, when people start to say maybe God didn’t create, they’re attempting to strip God of a key element that reflects His divinity and sovereignty, and if you start stripping away those aspects of who the Bible teaches us God is, then you’re likely to keep stripping things away until you’ve made God into something smaller, more manageable, and more easily manipulated to suit your own whims and wants.
So – lots of room for different ideas and opinions about a lot of things, but you’re right – when the Bible is clear on something, we need to stand firm on that.
You’re so right! And the thing is, when people experience the love of Christ and feel loved in Christ, they find a myriad of ways to both express and experience that love. Our faith is built on that, right? We love because Christ first loved us. All those different expressions of the Christian faith are a beautiful thing to behold. :-)
Amen, Natalya! We might all have different ways of doing things, but we serve the same Savior, and we’re united in Him. Well said!
Thank you for sharing, Alicia! You’re right about some explaining the gospel differently. I was talking to an older gentleman once. He’d led a pretty rough life and came to Christ in his 50s or 60s. He was telling me about his salvation experience, but the words he used and the way he talked about it was completely different than anything I’d ever heard. It wasn’t even until he was all done that I was able to look back on what he’d said and realize that he was talking about salvation. He didn’t know or use any of the usual church words, but he spoke so purely from his heart. While he was talking, I knew I was listening to something special, and when he was done and it all clicked into place for me, I got chills. We serve such an amazing and big God!!
Haha! We stand for the singing *and* for the Bible reading. (Does that make us more holy? ^_^)
Although you did make me think of churches I attended growing up – and even as a young adult – where they did responsive reading. I haven’t been at a church that’s done responsive reading for several years now, but I remember it well enough.
Oh, wow! You do have a pretty broad background! I’d love to know more about where you started, where you ended up, and how you got from one to the other. It sounds like you’ve had quite the adventure in your faith walk. :-)
I’m glad you could visit the blog!
Well said!
While I know that some Christians cuss and some Christians drink alcohol, those aren’t things I generally have my Christian characters do. While some Christians might think that the occasional curse word is no big deal and that the occasional drink is not forbidden in Scripture, there are those Christians who are deeply offended by those things. Because some people are deeply offended, out of care and respect for my fellow Christian, I tend not to put those things in my books. I might have a character who has the urge to curse but bites it back if I’m trying to show both their humanity and their desire to please God. One of the things I ask myself is whether or not people will miss something. For example – those Christians who are okay with some alcohol consumption won’t miss it if I don’t put any alcohol in my books, but those Christians who feel strongly that alcohol is evil will be bothered by the presence of alcohol in my books. So, that’s an easy choice. Unless I’m writing a scene that something demands it, I won’t include alcohol. (Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a scene that might demand it, so I’m not sure I’m much help here.)
Thank you for commenting! You made some excellent points! :-)
Funny, I was going to comment about not being an offense or stumbling block to our fellow believers in word or deed or food etc (can’t remember the verse) but then I deleted it. I’m glad you mentioned it Heather!
And I’m also glad you have the same conviction in your writing. As an author, you want people to read your books not turn them away with the content. So it’s better to err on the side of good rather than put something in that might offend someone. Now that’s not to say nobody will ever be offended or find content they don’t like, but rather that you’re sensitive to that about your story. You won’t please everyone but just do your part not to! :-)
Also, I’ve been a Christian for many years so I understand almost all the ways of saying church things (baptism, Lord’s supper, etc) and haven’t found too many things that are confusing to me :-)
Great post, Heather. Excellent points, and fascinating comments. Thanks for sharing.
Cheat is like it says you cheat. normally paid with 3 or 4 players and the pack is dealt to everyone. The idea is to get rid of all your cards by putting them in the discard pile face down. player one would say 3 kings and they may have that or may cheat by putting other cards. one of the other players can call cheat and if they did they get the cards and all others in there hand if they didn’t the one calling cheat ends up with the cards. it keeps going till a player had gotten rid of all their cards. It is a fun game.
Thank you for visiting the blog, Carolyn!
You triggered an interesting conversation with this post, Heather. Thank you!