Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Don't Feel Like Dressing For Church? You Don't Have To In Florida

This Daytona Beach church's website invites you to "come dressed as you like." For all they care, you can show up in a red silk kimono or your Jonas Brothers pajamas - it makes no difference here.

At the First Christian Church of Daytona Beach, situated on an old drive-in movie lot, worshippers have the option of pulling the family car up to the speakers (long since defunct) where they tune into the word via the radio or worship in the church's little chapel located inside Friendship Hall, also located on the property. Should the car become too warm there are outdoor seating areas for the heat-stricken or prostrate to worship in the shade. Lucky for that.

I wonder where the refreshment stand is? If you squint you can see the pastor (or is it a minister?). Click on the photo to enlarge.

8 comments:

  1. This isn't really about dress code. People wear whatever they damn please to church these days. Ratty jeans and a t-shirt advertising a bar; flip-flops and cutoffs; and bunny-rabbit bedroom slippers (this will happen when a good Samaritan picks up a fellow parishioner at the nursing home, notices that the old dear isn't quite dressed, but decides not to send her back to her room for shoes because she might forget what she was doing there, notice the slippers, and quick grab her bathrobe).

    This monstrously ungreen arrangement -- a parking lot full of cars running the air for an hour -- is more likely an accommodation to the self-indulgent preferences of 21st-century people who live in their cars and cannot be separated for an hour from their electronic toys.

    Think of the advantages to the churchgoers. They can pull into a parking space, kick off their shoes, and go back to sleep. The kids can play video games and text away to their hearts' content. A phone rings? No glares from the other end of the pew. No mad scramble to check caller ID and turn the ringer off.

    It's being in church without the constraints normally associated with public worship. People can scratch themselves, pick their noses, and make wardrobe adjustments. They can belt out the raunchy lyrics they made up as children to go with hymn tunes.

    Must have to start taking up the collection about 20 minutes into the service. Or maybe this job is assigned to kids on skateboards.

    This is not by any means to suggest that the Lord is not present in that place. Just a comment on the zeitgeist.

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  2. Enfin. Thanks for the post. I learned a new word.

    I agree with your sentiments. I suppose it's better than not going at all. Funny you mentioned the collection plate. That never occurred to me.

    To the church's credit, their website mentions a small chapel. Personally, I spent most of my church time (up to the age of six or seven), hiding in the "back-back" of Steven Warshawski's mother's Volkswagon Bug. No one could keep track of where I was between church and Sunday School and I took full advantage of it.

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  3. I just realized I could take Gucci to church.

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  4. I checked it out. In 1953, with the cooperation of the owners and management of the Neptune Drive-in Theater, the church organized and sponsored the first drive-in service called the South Peninsula Drive-in Church Service. It must have run concurrently (like some flea markets). The property was purchased in 1957.

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  5. So, you can drive into church and watch "The Gods Must be Crazy."

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  6. Yes, with a big bag of popcorn balanced on your lap.

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  7. Do they serve cake and ice cream? ;o)

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  8. How should I know. I haven't gone to church since I was five.

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