#105 - Should I Go to Church (Part 2) {Reflections}

Ever wondered why rituals matter? In this thought-provoking exploration, Ryan dives into the transformative power of church community and how it fundamentally shapes who we become.

Drawing from Aristotle's wisdom that "we are what we repeatedly do," they unpack how our regular practices—whether exercise, complaining, gratitude, or worship—slowly mold us into particular kinds of people. The episode reveals the anthropological truth that humans across all cultures have always been ritual-creating beings, not by coincidence but because rituals serve a profound psychological and spiritual purpose.

Through compelling examples like the disruption of funeral rituals during COVID and the importance of marriage ceremonies, Ryan illustrates how rituals take abstract ideals like love and forgiveness and give them concrete, embodied expression. He introduces the fascinating concept of church as a "Jesus Dojo"—a practice ground where we rehearse resurrection living and experiment with countercultural values like forgiveness, patience, and sacrificial love.

Perhaps most powerfully, Ryan explains how worship gently decenters our egos, positioning us within a larger narrative and creating healthier patterns of relating to others and the world. By participating in these ancient rhythms, we're making intentional choices about who we want to become.

Whether you're a regular churchgoer, spiritually curious, or skeptical about organized religion, this episode offers a fresh perspective on why communal rituals matter for human flourishing. What rituals are shaping your life right now? Join the conversation and share your thoughts!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
What is up everybody?
Hey, welcome to Reflections.
My name is Ryan, I'm your host,along with my good friend
Olivia.
What's up?
Olivia Doing good?
All right, I put her on thespot there.
Hey, we are in a three-partseries, a short one on why I
think you should go to church,or, you might say, be a part of
a church community, and Imentioned if you haven't heard

(00:37):
episode one, go back and listento that.
But the first one was thatchurch provides a sort of a
larger story for us to be a partof.
And there's this.
We all have this deep humanlonging for meaning and
connection and direction for ourlives, and, beyond the shallow
sort of, you know, things thatwe need and want and desire, we
long for meaning and also humanconnection.

(00:58):
Community, real flesh and bloodcommunity it's just good for
our souls and our lives, and soI would love to invite you to be
a part of a church community.
It's just good for our soulsand our lives, and so I would
love to invite you to be a partof a church community.
Okay, number two, then.
Here's what I would say I lovechurch because church shapes the
kind of people that we are.
So rhythm, the rhythm of worshipshapes who we are.
So Aristotle believed that whatwe repeatedly do is what shapes

(01:22):
the kind of people that we are.
You could also say it this waythat we are what we repeatedly
do.
So rituals, rhythms, these arepowerful things when we do
things over and over again,because it slowly shapes who we
are in every way.
So things like exercise if youdo it with regularity, or things
like complaining if youcomplain all the time and we all

(01:44):
know folks who do this, don'tpoint anybody out right now, but
it shapes who you are.
Gratitude, if you're a personwho's consistently grateful, or
doom scrolling before bed theseare all rhythms and habits and
rituals that shape who we areover the long term.
So church is no different, andit's no wonder that people have
for centuries had these rhythmsof worship gathering, sort of

(02:06):
honoring the divine, practicingrituals in these worship
gatherings, because rituals, Iwould argue, are things that
shape us.
In fact, I would argue in adeeper way.
Anthropologically is the fancyword that we are people of
rituals.
We need rituals.
We've always had these, as farback as like historians and
sociologists can look andanthropologists.
Rituals have always beenpresent in our communities and

(02:30):
so we need them.
We're people of ritual, soweekly practices that are
communal, they shape ouridentity.
So singing together, confessingour sins, listening to music,
praying, singing, breathing inunison, these embody truths that
we just can't think our wayinto.
So here's what I mean we needrituals.
Rituals are like a concreteexample, or one scholar says,

(02:51):
the concretization of the ideal.
So you have these ideals likelove, like love is this ideal,
and we're like great.
But what does love actuallymean?
Or look like, I don't know.
Or forgiveness, or hope, hopeor the neighbor, these are all
ideal things that seem a bitambiguous, maybe nebulous.
What does it mean to love?

(03:12):
Well, a ritual can take thoseideals and these principles out
of the ethereal and put them ina concrete manner, like an
actual embodied experience.
Like this is what it looks like, and we're going to do this
thing together.
And so you know, jung andJungian psychologists talk about
how rituals can take principlesfrom the unconscious, like the

(03:33):
unknown part of ourselves, andbring them and impress them
vividly on the conscious mind.
So, like it brings it out ofthe unconscious into the
conscious mind, so it gives anembodied expression to an idea.
So what does it mean to lovesomebody?
Let me show you.
Here's an embodied way.
The cross is a wonderfulexample of this.
I love the cross story.
Here's what love looks like tosacrifice yourself for the sake

(03:55):
of the other.
It's beautiful, and so this ishow we live out a faith.
If you have a faith, ritualsand rhythms are how you live it
out.
So during COVID, one of ourrituals, in our culture actually
it's almost global are thingslike funerals.
When someone dies, we have thismoment where we carve out some
space, we gather, we weep, wecry, we grieve, we do prayers,

(04:17):
whatever, and it's different inevery culture, but it's an
important ritual.
It helps bring closure, ithelps you to let go of the grief
or express grief.
Rather, and during COVID, herein the States anyway, we people
didn't do funerals for manymonths, like we're going to wait
until later.
What I saw was it was likeactually deeply troubling for
those families.

(04:37):
They couldn't have they didn't,they couldn't have this ritual,
this closure, this time ofexpressing grief, and it sort of
it sort of stunted any kind oflike progress they could have
made in this sort of sayinggoodbye to their family member,
and it was terribly sad.
I have another friend who, himand his wife, or rather they're
married now, but they weren'tmarried.
They were living together, theywere doing all the things that

(04:59):
married couples do.
This is a long time ago and Isaid why don't you guys just get
married, like you're alreadypractically married?
He's like he goes, I don't know, I'm not going to just do a
wedding just for the sake ofdoing a wedding.
I think it's sort of silly,like just getting up there in
front of my friends and sayingall this stuff, it doesn't
really matter.
And I was like, dude, it doesmatter.
We are people of ritual andceremony.

(05:20):
And you getting up there infront of people, friends, loved
ones, and declaring your lovefor her and her to you and
saying vows, and her saying vows, and then exchanging these
rings and maybe dancing aroundthe altar three times, whatever
your things are, these areincredibly important.
It's a fleshing out, it's aconcretization of the ideal,
it's an expression of faith andlove and each other and your

(05:43):
vows to what you promise, andeveryone's watching and we're
all celebrating.
It's incredibly important.
We are people of ritual and,oddly enough, they did get
married just recently, but ittook them years because, no,
these rituals are superimportant.
They're not nothing.
So the ritual of worship, then,is when we gather together and
we all focus our attention, ouractions, our prayers to God.

(06:04):
So it's actually kind of arecentering of our lives.
Much of our lives is about usand, you know, serving me and
taking care of me.
But when I go into a place ofworship a Sunday morning or
whatever day you gather, but achurch gathering to worship God,
it recenters my life that, hey,life isn't about me, it's about
you know, it's about all thesepeople.
It's about experiencing Jesusin them and worshiping a thing

(06:28):
bigger than me.
So it decenters my ego andhelps me be more humble.
I'm a part of a grander story.
You know.
I love the Job story.
When God comes to Job and tellsJob hey, job, where were you
when I hung the moon bud, like Ilove it.
He sort of puts Job in hisplace and many of us I mean to
be frank need to be put in ourplace Like I'm not the center of

(06:54):
the universe.
I'm not.
There's a much bigger thinghappening.
Worship grounds me in that wayand it decenters my ego.
So we live in a world thatwants to say otherwise, but
worship sort of helps us in thatregard.
And so the last thing I wouldsay is this Rituals are really a
practicing of the things thatwe learn about as well.
So how can you practice thingslike love and forgiveness and
hope and even resurrection?
The church is where youactually practice these things.
I love it.
In martial arts, they have thisplace called the dojo.

(07:16):
I think it's mostly in karate,but a dojo is a place where you
go to learn and you learn bypracticing.
So you do the stuff, you do themoves and the karate, and that
actually is how you learn.
And so there's a guy his nameis Mark Scandrett wrote a book
called the Jesus Dojo, and heand some friends began to gather
and practice the teachings ofJesus.

(07:36):
I loved it.
That's what church is.
You're practicing the teachingsof Jesus, this thing that's
deeper and more ancient than youor I or these modern
philosophies and these kinds ofthings, and you're practicing
this idea of even resurrection.
What would it look like if Godwas king, if the resurrection
was true, if forgiveness andpatience and reconciliation were
a better way of living life?
What if we tried it out andjust see what happens?

(07:57):
So I love it.
So it's a place of practicing.
It's the Jesus Dojo, and thispsychologists have suggested
gives us healthier patterns oftrust and belonging, and it
actually helps us to embodythese truths that are really
transcendent.
And so church is that it's aplace to come and experience

(08:17):
ritual and to have these thingsshape your heart and your mind
and your way of thinking, and todo it with other people and to
sort of embody the ideal and theethereal and to practice what
it means to be a person of faithand to practice love and
forgiveness and hope and theresurrection in a community of
other people doing the samething and, of course, as always,
to then leave that space, thatgathering, and to go out and to

(08:41):
do it elsewhere, because theworld needs it as well.
So there you go.
That's number two.
Number two the reason why Ithink you should go to church or
to be part of a worshipgathering, church community, is
that our rhythms and our rituals, they shape the kind of people
that we are, and so we should becareful.
The things that we dorepeatedly and going to church,
being a part of worshipgatherings, being part of a

(09:02):
church community, practicing theteachings of Jesus, can help
shape us into people who look atleast a little bit more like
Jesus, I love that.
So all right.
Love you guys, peace.
Hey, if you enjoy this show,I'd love to have you share it
with some friends.
And don't forget, you arealways welcome to join us in
person at Central in Elk Riverat 8.30, which is our liturgical

(09:26):
gathering, or at 10 o'clock,our modern gathering, or you can
check us out online atclcelkriverorg Peace.