If you live on campus at a Christian college, and you didn’t go to church one Sunday and you want to go to the cafeteria for lunch, you better dress up. You better throw on a pair of khakis or a skirt or something else that doesn’t instantly scream “I am a sleepy heathen.” You wear shorts? People are going to know you didn’t go to church. You wear flip flops? People are going to know you didn’t go to church.
It doesn’t matter if you went to a Saturday night service or are going Sunday night or go to a church where jeans and flip flops are the norm, you’re going to get some looks. And maybe at your school, people have developed highly sensitive “that dude dressed up so it would look like he went to church” radar. What to do then? Fear not. I came up with four new ways to look like you went to church.
1. Carry bulletins with you.
When you reach for a meal in your school cafeteria, casually drop a church bulletin out of your pocket. Act like you’re surprised it’s there, as if you just rushed in from church and forget you even had it with you.
2. Use loads of “church” words and puns.
Everyone knows that on Sundays, the food they serve in college cafeterias is just the food no one ate during the week with a layer of cheese melted over it. Same thing happens at camp. That doesn’t mean you can’t describe it with really silly church words and puns. Say things like, “Our corn is an awesome corn, its grains, are on top of my plate.” Or “I’m not sure I understand the systematic theological implications of sitting on this side of the cafeteria.” People will over hear you, especially judgmental people because they have pretty phenomenal hearing, and will think, “Wow, that lady sure sounds churchy. She must have gone this morning.”
3. Show up in a group.
If you show up to the cafeteria alone, people are going to know you didn’t go to church. That’s why it’s better to arrive in a group. There’s great strength in numbers. Grab a few other friends that are going to the Sunday night service or just went to bedside Baptist. Work out a plan and then show up all together as if you were on your way to a restaurant after church but then remembered the cafeteria is delicious too so instead headed there. Designate a “key carrier,” who can swing a set of car keys around to give the impression there’s a car involved. That adds a nice touch of realism.
4. Wear a guitar.
Forget looking like you went to church, pretend you actually played some music while you were there. Just walk through the line of food, grabbing things on your tray, knocking plates off with your guitar, bumping into people and saying, “whoa, sorry about that, musician here.”
Hopefully those will work for you like they did for friends I had at Samford University. I personally didn’t use these methods when I was there. I was too busy church hopping, but that’s a whole other story.
