I attend both a local non-denominational church and the Catholic church that I grew up in. It’s hard to p(name removed by moderator)oint when I started having difficulties with our local church but definitely after I was married. My husband isn’t Catholic but was very willing to support me going to church but, in his own words, didn’t get anything out of mass and was only going to make me happy. That made me pause and think of what I really wanted for our family. I still don’t know the answer.
What I do know is that out of the three priests that belong to our church one I cannot understand (in fact many cannot understand and petitions have been written to the Bishop of our Diocese to move him to a Vietnamese speaking community as he would flourish there), one I can understand half of the time (he is from the Philippines only as an older adult did he move to the US, and the third is easily understood but 70+ (I think 76) years old and doesn’t have the energy that he once had. As a mother of a young child I cannot attend the bible studies as no childcare is offered and there is no mothers group like MOPS even offered. I tried participating in the Mass as much as possible but with a very active 2 year old and a husband who only attends sporadically I was basically spending the mass trying to contain my child and wasn’t getting any message out church. Yes, I’d receive the Eucharist but when it was after a 50 minute struggle to keep Abby quiet, still, and contained any grace I might have gotten was overcome by frustration and just wanting Mass to end so I could get out of there and get home so Abby could get her wiggles out. There is no childcare available and Sunday school doesn’t start until the child is 3.
At the non-denominational church I miss the hymns, the traditional worship, and the reverence. I do enjoy being able to understand everything that is being said and find myself really interested in the sermon since it’s basically an hour long bible study with real life application. Abby goes into the children’s program for Sunday school where she colors Bible pictures, sings Bible songs, and watches a Bible movie (such as Veggie Tales). I get my faith bucket filled for the week and find myself more apt to spread the message of God to Abby since I come away with some new nugget from the sermon.
Our local parish has stepped up for teens and kids attending the parish school. However, it still is a parish with a low-energy Priest, with unintelligible Priests, without any mothering support, and with few family activities outside of Mass.
So in a long nutshell that’s why I’m a Catholic who occasionally attends a non-denomination church. Am I happy about it? No. Do I struggle with my decision? Yes. Do I want to come back to only going to Catholic Mass? Sometimes. Am I prayerfully continuing on my Faith journey in the hopes that whatever path I may take I come closer, and my family comes closer, to God? Yes.
My husband is non-Catholic, too. When our children were small, he would watch them and I would attend Mass alone. They started going when they were about five, at which point we sat in the front where they could see what was going on. Now they’re adolescents, and they often serve at daily Mass. I think it is best if our children start attending Mass with us from birth on forward, but sometimes that is not best in a particular case. In our case, it was better to let them wiggle at home until they were older. (If I ever missed Mass, my husband noticed it, and not in a good way.)
I also went to both Mass and to a friend’s Protestant church, while I was in college. My friend played guitar for his church, so I’d go to hear him, mostly. It simply did not compare. I particularly noticed this during Lent and Triduum.
As for homilies, I’d suggest signing up to be on the e-mail list for the abbot’s homily from the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert, in New Mexico (
christdesert.org/). It comes into your e-mail box a few days early, so you can prepare for Sunday. You can find the readings for each day at the USCCB web site. Once you get into the rhythm of the Lectionary, I don’t think the more-or-less random choices that a pastor at an independent church can choose on his own can compare. There is a lot of wisdom in the Liturgy of the Word, if you know to look for it. A good hint I got from a priest is to read the response from the responsorial psalm first, then the Gospel, then start at the first reading and read through. The first reading is chosen to foreshadow the Gospel, and the psalm is chosen sort of as an “ooh! ooh! we see what is coming!” response for the congregation. (The second reading is kind of a wild card; sometimes it is chosen to fit and bridge the other two, but sometimes it is chosen for other reasons and therefore provides a contrast to the overall theme.)
I would really recommend the book,
What Happens At Mass, by Fr. Jeremy Driscoll (you will want the revised edition). He was on the committee for the new translation, a very good theologian, but he wrote this book for laypeople. It is very good, and only $13. You can get it at
Amazon.com, but you can also order it directly from the bookstore at his monastery, Mt. Angel Abbey. (The address is “St. Benedict”, but that is because the Abbey has its own post office.)
The Nondenominational churches focused more on meeting the desires of the attenders. They would have programs to meet the emotional needs of the attenders–like movie night or a mom’s group.