That’s certainly what musician Phillip Magness experienced when he took a sabbatical at Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, Ill., and began a research tour after the 2006 release of the Lutheran Service Book. Since he led the committee charged with promoting the new hymnal, Magness wanted to see what was happening in the conservative denomination’s sanctuaries.

“What I found out is that we’re a lot like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates,” he said. “It says Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod on the sign, but when you go inside you have no idea what you’re going to get. … Some of our churches are playing with the structure of the liturgy and some are playing with the content and our whole synod is trying to find out how to draw some boundaries.”

One pastor wanted to offer five worship services in five musical formats to meet the needs of what he perceived as five separate audiences in his church.

The “TLH” service was for members still attached to the 1941 volume called “The Lutheran Hymnal.” Then there was the “Valpo” audience, which yearned for the “smells and bells” approach to high-church worship popular at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Then there were fans of the pop “CCM” music found in the “Contemporary Christian Music” industry. The “Gen X” crowd wanted its own post-baby boomer music.

The fifth service? It would feature country music.

These struggles are particularly poignant for Missouri Synod Lutherans, who are part of a 2.3 million-member denomination that occupies a tense niche between the larger, more liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the evangelical megachurch marketplace.

It’s crucial, said Magness, to understand that the churches linked to Martin Luther are part of the Protestant Reformation, but it’s hard to pin a simple “Protestant” label on their approach to piety. Missouri Synod Lutherans, for example, have much in common with evangelicals, especially in terms of biblical authority and conservative morality. However, some parish leaders are not sure they want to make radical changes to modernize their worship services.

Magness, for example, is one of about 30 Missouri Synod musicians known as “cantors,” an honorary title once held by Johann Sebastian Bach and many others in Lutheran history. Magness has created “Liturgy Solutions,” a company that helps churches of all sizes maintain Lutheran traditions, while mixing old and new music.

“We know that culture is not static,” he said. “We want to find the way to proclaim the church’s message in ways that remain reverent and appropriate, yet sound fresh today. Otherwise, we’d be singing chants in Latin every Sunday.”

The problem is that many pastors resort to forming separate congregations that worship under the same roof — variations on a “traditional” vs. “contemporary” split. What is “traditional” worship? That’s whatever older church leaders were doing before new leaders decided to change what Magness called the “soundtrack” for worship.

Sadly, these worship wars often drive off some faithful members, losses that negate whatever growth followed the changes that were adopted to attract newcomers.

Magness believes that church leaders should attempt to work with all their members to create services that are faithful to the past, but not stuck in the past. A common warning sign that trouble is ahead, he added, is when pastors begin altering the words of crucial prayers and liturgical texts — even the ancient creeds.

The bottom line, he said, is that dividing a church into separate, even competing, worship services rarely produces growth. At least, that isn’t what is happening in the Lutheran congregations he has studied.

“Maybe the saints prefer a place where the real practice of the church — preaching the Gospel in its truth and purity and administering the sacraments rightly and reverently — are much, much more important than whether Jack’s son gets to play his trap set in church or whether the patriarchal families get to pick all the hymns because they don’t want to sing any new songs,” said Magness, at a national worship conference.

“I do know this: the congregation that works out these issues the old-fashioned way provides a better confession of ‘one Lord, one faith and one baptism’ than the congregation that doesn’t share the Lord’s Supper together.”

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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sent the guidelines to the leader of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. However, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick chose not to share the letter with America’s bishops, which kept its blunt contents secret — until a leak in Italy.

“The Church teaches that abortion or euthanasia is a grave sin,” warned the letter, adding that there is a “grave and clear obligation to oppose” civil laws and judicial decisions that “authorize or promote” these acts. At the same time, it explained that there “may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not … with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”

On the central issue, the guidelines said when a person’s “formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”

Months later, the letter’s author — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — became Pope Benedict XVI. There is no evidence his views have changed.

However, the status of politicians who clash with Rome remains controversial, especially when Catholics occupy strategic positions on the U.S. Supreme Court, in the president’s cabinet and on Capital Hill.

Tensions from the Ratzinger letter were also felt during the public events marking the passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy, one of the most symbolic and influential Catholics in American political history.

Catholics on both sides of the aisle dissected the rites, seeking signs of favor or disfavor. The outspoken Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston presided in the funeral Mass, but played a small role. Was that important? Where were the region’s other bishops? Were television crews told to avoid camera angles that would reveal who received Communion?

But the most symbolic moment occurred during the graveside service in Arlington National Cemetery. That’s when the now retired Cardinal McCarrick — a close friend of Kennedy — read the dying senator’s private appeal for a final papal blessing.

“I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith, I have tried to right my path,” wrote Kennedy. “I want you to know, Your Holiness, that in my nearly 50 years of elective office, I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I’ve worked to welcome the immigrant, fight discrimination and expand access to health care and education. I have opposed the death penalty and fought to end war. …

“I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness, and though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings.”

McCarrick read excerpts from a Vatican reply, keeping some parts private. The final lines, written by a papal aide, were simple: “Commending you and the members of your family to the loving intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Father cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of wisdom, comfort and strength in the Lord.”

Kennedy’s letter raised a familiar and haunting question: Are the Catholic doctrines on the sanctity of every human life, from conception to natural death, part of the church’s “fundamental teachings” or not?

While praising the senator’s career, McCarrick added what was almost certainly a gentle reference to his clashes with the church on abortion, gay rights and other doctrinal issues. The bottom line: Kennedy maintained a 100 percent pro-abortion-rights voting record, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“They called him, ‘The Lion of the Senate,’ and indeed that is what he was,” said the former shepherd of the Washington archdiocese. “His roar, and his zeal for what he believed, made a difference in our nation’s life. Sometimes, of course, we who were his friends and had affection for him would get mad at him when he roared at what we believed was the wrong side of an issue.”

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* * * *

There is no question what the Roman Catholic Church calls the holy bread that is consecrated during the Mass. It is called the “host.” Anyone who knows anything about Catholic liturgy knows this.

Now, how do you describe or define the host? Those seeking to be reverent tend to call it “consecrated bread.”

The problem, of course, is that the special bread used in Western Rite services is not simply unleavened bread. As the old saying goes, there are two acts of faith involved in meditating on the host during a Mass. The first is to believe that it is the Body of Christ. The second is to believe that it is, in fact, bread.

Thus, many people refer to the host in a variety of ways. Some people insist on calling the host a “wafer,” a term that angers many Catholics. However, there are Catholics who use this term. Still, most simply call it by its traditional name — a host.

It is true that, if you look up definitions online, there is an ecclesiastical definition for “wafer” that applies. Thus, you end up with these two clashing definitions:

1. A small thin crisp cake, biscuit, or candy.

2. Ecclesiastical — A small thin disk of unleavened bread used in the Eucharist.

So, is this unique bread the consecrated “host” or some kind of supposedly holy cookie? That seems to be the question.

I raise this because of the interesting and very detailed story that ran in the Boston Globe the other day about rites of “perpetual adoration,” a tradition that is explained well right at the top by religion-beat specialist Michael Paulson. However, many will stumble, or even scream, right at the lede:

The adorers sit in silence before the wafer.

Some settle cross-legged on the floor by the altar. Others kneel in a favorite pew. They read, or say the rosary; they pray, or think, or just allow the mind to wander. Hour after hour, day after day, they take part in an unusual Catholic ritual that appears to be making a modest comeback — a quest for silence in a noisy life, a desire to be part of a team, a hunger to feel closer to God.

The ritual, called perpetual adoration, is, at one level, strikingly simple: around-the-clock, people take turns sitting in a chapel in the presence of a consecrated wafer. But at another level, the ritual reflects an embrace of the teaching of Catholicism that many find hardest to understand: the belief that, during Mass, bread and wine are literally transformed into the body and blood of Jesus.

The lede seems to settle the issue. It’s a wafer. The Catholic church may say that it is the Body of Christ, or even consecrated bread, but it’s a wafer. For many readers, this rite is an act of faith. Others will consider it a mild form of madness.

I think it’s likely that they Globe newsroom stylebook even settles this language question (I’d love to know the actual answer, in fact). The story uses the term “wafer” eight times — including in a direct quote — and the term “host” only once. I found it interesting that the term “host” is left undefined. If the term is so common that it does not need to be defined, then why not use “host,” oh, eight times and the term “wafer” once? Just asking.

I also wondered if this statement is true:

Later this week, in a Back Bay shrine, the Archdiocese of Boston will celebrate the return of perpetual adoration to Boston for the first time in decades. Volunteers at St. Clement Eucharistic Shrine are signing up 336 people — two for every hour of the week except during Mass — who will agree that, starting Saturday and continuing indefinitely, they will spend an hour a week in the presence of the consecrated wafer, a practice they understand as spending an hour a week with God.

That’s interesting. I had no idea that perpetual adoration was this rare, since I have heard about the practice in a number of contexts through the years. Are there no monasteries in Boston? Did this particular archdiocese ban or discourage the practice for some reason? I’m curious.

Please understand that I am not attacking the Globe report (and certainly not Paulson) on the “wafer” vs. “host” issue.

Still, I have no doubt that many Catholics were not offended by the drumbeat references to their adoration of a “wafer.” However, I am sure that some were offended and there is a good chance that some traditional Catholics still read the Globe.

My question is more basic: What was gained by using the blunt “wafer” reference in the lede? Is the word “host” so strange in a heavily Catholic region? Why not open by saying that they are kneeling before the “consecrated bread” that they believe is the Body of Christ? A reference to the belief of the worshippers would be accurate, even for skeptics. Correct?

Behind this question is another: Should journalists cover the beliefs of others with some sense of respect for the language that they would use? What is accomplished by using language that is sure to offend many of the “stakeholders” — that’s a journalistic term used by Poynter.org and in some other academic settings — who will care the most about the accuracy and sensitivity of this fine story?

There is no question that the Catholic church calls this a “host.” And there is no question that the Boston Globe calls this bread a “wafer.” I am asking this question: Why does the “wafer” language need to win in this debate? Is there a way to be both neutral and to show respect?

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“I knew that I didn’t want to be in charge of anything,” said Atkinson, long known as the “Real, Live, Preacher” to those who read his intensely personal online journal (reallivepreacher.com).

“Preachers talk and talk and I wanted to get away from that. I didn’t want to be a worship tourist, but I thought it would be refreshing to worship in some places where I was the person in the room who knew the least about what was going on.”

It helps to know that Atkinson leads an unusual Baptist flock, a “contemplative Christian community” that holds spiritual retreats based on the writings of St. Francis of Assisi and men’s fellowship meetings over beer and pizza. Covenant’s belief statement stresses that the “fullness of the gospel cannot be contained in any one church.”

While proud of his Baptist heritage, Atkinson said the “glory days” when “moderate” and “conservative” Baptists fought to control the old corporate machinery are long gone. Now, many congregations are experimenting with “emerging,” “post-denominational” and “postmodern” identities and forms of worship.

Thus, Atkinson began his sabbatical by visiting the radical stillness of a Quaker gathering, a tradition that asks believers to remain silent until God inspires someone to speak. For 30 minutes, every cough, sneeze or stomach growl was audible.

“You have to lose a lot of your shame when you sit in silence with people,” he wrote. “These sounds are not disturbing to the time of worship. Not at all. They are the delightful sounds of humans trying to be quiet. And we cannot. … So even the sounds of people trying to be quiet are a part of the lesson.”

A few Sundays later, Atkinson found himself swimming in words and symbols when his family visited an Eastern Orthodox sanctuary.

“It was like they were ripping raw chunks of theology out of ancient creeds and throwing them by the handfuls into the congregation,” he wrote. “I heard words and phrases I had not heard since seminary. Theotokos, begotten not made, Cherubim and Seraphim borne on their pinions, supplications and oblations.”

The experience, he concluded, was an “ADD kid’s nightmare,” with the “robes, scary art, smoking incense, secret doors in the Iconostas popping open and little robed boys coming out with golden candlesticks, chants and singing from a small choir that rolled across the curved ceiling. … There was so much going on I couldn’t keep up with all the things I couldn’t pay attention to.”

His family struggled, but Atkinson had tears in his eyes by the end of the nearly two-hour liturgy. After years of focusing on user-friendly ways to attract people to church, he was stunned to attend a service that — much like the Quaker meeting — placed intense demands on all the participants.

It was, he concluded, as if visitors were being told: “You don’t know what Theotokos means? Get a book and read about it. You have a hard time standing for two hours? Do some sit ups and get yourself into worship shape. It is the Lord our God we worship here, mortal. … THIS IS BIGGER THAN YOU ARE.”

Atkinson was intrigued and eventually attended Russian, Greek and Antiochian Orthodox churches.

Nevertheless, by the end of his sabbatical this liberal Baptist preacher knew he had a problem. While Atkinson appreciated the symbols, rituals and sacraments he encountered, he also knew that he couldn’t accept the doctrines that defined the worship, especially the Orthodox rites.

Simply stated, his views on sin, sexuality, salvation, heaven and hell were too modern. There was “no wiggle room” in the ancient doctrines and, Atkinson concluded, “I just couldn’t buy all of it.”

Now he is returning to his Baptist pulpit, while hearing choirs of voices arguing in his head representing many different eras of church history.

“What I don’t know how to do is rank all of these voices and decide who has authority,” he said. “Who is right and who is wrong? … And I want to know, where does Gordon Atkinson fit into this whole picture? I know that I can’t go back to the old Protestant, evangelical way that I was, but I don’t know where I’m supposed to go now. This is a problem.”

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But as any reporter who actually interviewed her quickly learned, Calcutta’s “saint of the gutters” could be remarkably blunt. She once noted — in a half-serious jest — that she would rather bath a leper than meet the press.

“Mother was not known for the ambiguity of her feelings,” noted Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, at a recent gathering of journalists at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “A lot of people in the church, especially those who practice their faith in an active and regular manner, would agree with what she meant — because they feel the same way.”

The archbishop stressed that he does not feel that way, especially when working with journalists who have acquired the knowledge and skills needed to do accurate, critical coverage of religion. However, he is convinced that many religious believers simply do not appreciate the vital role that journalists are supposed to play in public life.

“Journalism is a vocation, not a job,” said Chaput. “Pursued properly, journalism should enjoy the same dignity as the law or medicine because the service that journalists perform is equally important to a healthy society. I really believe that. You form people. You form the way they think and the way they live their lives. So journalists have a duty to serve the truth and the common good.”

That’s the good news. I have heard Chaput make that point more than once during the quarter of a century since I first met him, while he was a Capuchin-Franciscan priest in urban Denver and I was a newcomer on the local religion beat.

Chaput was already interested in mass media, popular culture and the changing landscape of American religion and those interests only deepened when, in 1988, he was ordained Bishop of Rapid City, S.D. Soon after he returned to Denver as archbishop, in 1997, he organized a conference on the cultural and religious implications of the Internet.

These were precisely the kinds of topics that I wanted to emphasize when — 21 years ago this week — I began writing this column for Scripps Howard. Our interests also overlapped when I began teaching about religion and mass media, first in a Denver seminary and then in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Our paths have been crossing ever since.

When it comes to journalism, Chaput knows the good news and the bad news.

The bad news, he said, is that far too many journalists who cover religion events have no idea what they are doing. They may be talented and intelligent, but when it comes to religion they just don’t get it.

“I don’t expect journalists who track the church to agree with everything she teaches. But I do think reporters should have a working knowledge of her traditions and teachings,” he said. “I do think editors should have the basic Catholic vocabulary needed to grasp what we’re talking about and why we’re talking about it.”

Consider, for example, the media storms surrounding discussions of Holy Communion and the sacramental status of Catholic politicians who disagree with their church’s doctrines on abortion, marriage and similar issues. In his book “Render Unto Caesar,” Chaput argued that it’s the “political duty” of Catholics to “know their faith and to think and act like faithful Catholics all the time” — even those who work inside the Washington Beltway.

Alas, the journalists think they are writing about the rights of politicians, while some Catholic bishops want to discuss the salvation and, yes, damnation of souls. If journalists insist on describing this conflict in strictly political terms, he said, there is no way the public will ever understand what is happening.

“No one ever has a right to the Eucharist, and the vanity or hurt feelings of an individual Catholic governor or senator or even vice president does not take priority over the faith of the believing community,” said Chaput. Thus, while journalists are under “no obligation to believe what the church teaches … they certainly do have the obligation to understand, respect and accurately recount how she understands herself, and especially how she teaches and why she teaches” these doctrines.

Too often, said the archbishop, inaccurate news reports about this controversy have left the impression that “access to Holy Communion … is like having bar privileges at the Elks Club.”

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However, since this man was scientist, Father Gary Thomas wasn’t surprised that he was a skeptic when it came to supernatural evil. That was fine, since one of the first things the priest learned in Rome while training to be an exorcist was to remain as skeptical as possible, as long as possible. Still, there were troubling facts in the man’s story — such as an episode when a counselor urged him to channel spirits.

Finally, the priest turned to “De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam (Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications),” the Vatican document released in 1998 that contains a modernized exorcism rite. He has been fighting this man’s demons ever since.

“When we started, he told me, ‘Wait! Can’t you just take this thing right out of me?’ But that’s rarely how things work,” said Thomas, the official exorcist in the Diocese of San Jose in northern California. “It’s hard to get people to understand that no two exorcisms are the same. Reality isn’t like the movies.”

The subject of demonic possession remains controversial, as illustrated by the media storm that greeted the revised exorcism rite, which was required by a Vatican II mandate three decades earlier. Later, the Vatican announced that Pope John Paul II had personally performed three exorcisms during his pontificate.

While the new rite warned exorcists not to confuse diabolic possession with mental illness, it also affirmed ancient teachings about the reality of spiritual warfare, as illustrated by biblical accounts of Jesus performing exorcisms.

Truth is, stressed Thomas, the events of Holy Week — especially Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter — make no sense without real demons, real temptations and a real hell. But many Catholics disagree.

“There are plenty of bishops and priests who simply do not believe in Satan and demons and they have told me so,” he said. “That makes a difference. What most people do not realize is that bishops are like independent contractors and they can do whatever they damn well want to do. … That’s why we don’t have many exorcists in America.”

At the request of his own bishop, Thomas took a Vatican-approved approved course on demonic possession while living at the North American College in Rome in late 2005 and early 2006. As part of his studies, the second-career priest — who worked in a mortuary before seeking ordination — participated in more than 80 exorcisms with a senior Italian exorcist. These experiences form the heart of “The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist,” a new book written by American journalist Matt Baglio.

For the past three years, the 55-year-old priest has quietly been using the techniques he learned in Rome. He said that his teachers, from the beginning, emphasized that an exorcist must strive to remain the “ultimate skeptic,” pursuing every pastoral option before turning to the exorcism rite as a last resort.

Modern exorcists are urged to work with psychiatrists, psychologists and physicians while evaluating those who are suffering. They also test to see if spiritual health can be restored through confession, healing rites and frequent participation in Mass. However, Thomas noted that these contacts with “holy things” occasionally trigger open displays of demonic powers.

It’s one thing to hear the voice of a demon on a recording or to read pages of blasphemies in transcripts. Face-to-face encounters are another matter.

The classic signs of possession have been established for ages. The possessed may exhibit superhuman strength, describe private events in the life of an exorcist or possess the ability to speak languages — such as Latin — they have never studied. They often suffer bizarre physical reactions to contact with holy water, crosses or icons.

Most people seeking exorcisms are simply physically sick, mentally ill or emotionally distressed. Some may try to fake “Hollywood-esque symptoms” in order to draw sympathy or attention.

“You may see case after case in which there are other explanations for what these people are suffering,” stressed Thomas. “But then, every now and then, you see things that let you know that you are dealing with the real thing. That’s when you know that sin is real, hell is real and Satan is real. That’s when you learn what the cross and the resurrection are all about.”

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No, honest, as in “the 12 days of” you know what between Dec. 25 and Jan. 5.

If you doubt the accuracy of this statement, you can head over to the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There you will find an interactive calendar that bravely documents the fact that, according to centuries of Christian tradition, the quiet season called Advent has just ended and the 12-day Christmas season has just begun.

So cease stripping the decorations off your tree and postpone its premature trip to the curb. There is still time to prepare for a Twelfth Night party and then the grand finale on Jan. 6, when the feast of the Epiphany marks the arrival in Bethlehem of the magi.

“You would be amazed how hard it was to find information on the World Wide Web about all of this,” lamented Joe Larson, the USCCB’s director of digital media. “We wanted to link to sites that would help tell Catholics what we believe about these seasons and why we do what we do — or what we are supposed to do — during Advent and Christmas. …

“What we ended up with is definitely not a finished product, but we’ll expand it in the future. We got the ball rolling this year.”

The materials gathered at www.usccb.org/advent do not, at first glance, appear to be all that rebellious.

The website contains pull-down menus providing scriptures, prayers, meditations and biographies of the saints whose feasts are celebrated during these seasons. Note that the feast of St. Nicholas of Myra — yes, that St. Nicholas — was back on Dec. 6. Another page suggests family movies for the seasons, some obvious (think “The Nativity Story”) and some not so obvious (think “Ernest Saves Christmas”).

The Christmas season has always been complicated. Many early Christians celebrated the birthday of Jesus on May 20, while others used dates in April and March. Most early believers, however, emphasized the Jan. 6 feast of the Epiphany.

Then, sometime before 354, Christians in Rome began celebrating the Feast of the Nativity on Dec. 25, which created tension with the Eastern churches that were using different dates. Then, in 567, the Second Council of Tours established Dec. 25 as the nativity date, Jan. 6 as Epiphany and the 12 days in between as the Christmas season — the liturgical calendar’s biggest party.

The problem, of course, is that Advent now clashes with the 30-something or 40-something days of the secular season — called “The Holidays” — that begins with the shopping mall rituals of Thanksgiving weekend. For most Americans, Christmas Day is the end of “The Holidays,” even though it is the beginning of the real Christmas season.

While many Christians still observe Advent — especially Anglicans, Lutherans and other mainline Protestants — some older Roman Catholics may remember when the guidelines for the season were stricter. In Eastern Orthodoxy, the season is still observed by many as “Nativity Lent.”

“In a pre-Vatican II context, Advent looked a lot like Lent,” noted Father Rick Hilgartner, associate director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Divine Worship. “It was the season you used to prepare for Christmas, the way Lent helps you prepare for Easter.”

Today, it’s even hard for priests to follow the rhythms of the church’s prayers, hymns and rites, he said. Hilgartner said he tries to stay away from Christmas tree lots and shopping malls until at least halfway through Advent. He accepts invitations to some Christmas parties, even though they are held in Advent.

Now that it’s finally Christmas, he feels a pang of frustration when he turns on a radio or television and finds that — after being bombarded with “holiday” stuff for weeks — the true season is missing in action.

“It would be different, of course, if we all lived in a monastic community and the liturgical calendar totally dominated our lives,” said Hilgartner. “Then we could get away with celebrating the true seasons and we wouldn’t even whisper the word ‘Christmas’ until the start of the Christmas Mass. But the church doesn’t exist in a vacuum and we can’t live in a cultural bubble. …

“But it’s good to try to be reasonable. It’s good to slow down and it’s good to celebrate Christmas, at least a little, during Christmas. It’s good to try.”

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The Rev. Rick Kingham has started asking men a different question, knowing that too many of them are living lives defined by solo commutes, office cubicles, fast food, Internet niches, television remotes, eight-foot fences, garage-door openers and gated communities. Here is the question: Do you have any idea who will carry your casket out of the church after your funeral?

Many men struggle to answer.

“It’s a sad day when most men can’t name six men that they know are their close friends,” said Kingham, president of the National Coalition of Men’s Ministries, a nondenominational network of 110 regional and national groups. “There are men who — if they really get honest — will tell you that they only have one or two real friends.”

That’s a huge gap in millions of lives.

A decade ago, waves of men gathered in Washington, D.C., to kneel and repent of their sins, from spiritual apathy to workaholism, from absentee fatherhood to emotional aloofness in their marriages. The event was called “Stand in the Gap” and, with the Promise Keepers movement leading the way, it drew a million or more men to the National Mall — one of the largest gatherings of any kind in the nation’s history.

The goal of the 1997 rally, said Kingham, was to dare men to stand up at church, home and work and say, “I’m a man. I’m a Christian. I’m not ashamed of that.” The event’s original slogan was, “Where are the men?”

That remains a valid question, which is why some of leaders of the first “Stand in the Gap” event have decided to mark its 10-year anniversary with another rally. They hope to draw about 250,000 men to the Oct. 6 event, which will be held at the Washington Monument and on the Ellipse, just south of the White House. The Promise Keepers network, which is much smaller than at its peak in the late 1990s, is one member of the larger coalition behind “Stand in the Gap 2007.”

Truth is, religious groups that want to reach men face many of the same cultural challenges as they did a decade ago and some of the problems have even gotten worse. In the case of online pornography, 1997 was the “good old days,” said Kingham.

“If anything,” he said, “there are powerful forces at work in our society that have driven men even further into isolation than they were 10 years ago and even further from the kinds of community that they need in their lives.”

While the 2007 event will be smaller in size, its leaders hope to reach out to a wider audience in terms of the ages of the men who take part.

For better or for worse, the original rally turned into a kind of born-again Woodstock for men in the 77-million-member Baby Boom generation. Organizers hope that the program at Stand in the Gap 2007 will also include speakers and themes for the World War II generation that many call the “Builders,” as well as the post-Boomer generation known as the “Busters” and the “Millennials,” born after 1982.

“If we can find a way to let these four groups of men talk to each other about what is going on in their lives and their faith, then we will have accomplished our main goal,” said Steve Chavis, who served as media coordinator for the 1997 rally and is playing the same role again.

The first rally focused most of its energy on family issues and racial reconciliation and these subjects will surface again. Kingham said Stand in the Gap 2007 will also emphasize themes of loneliness, complacency and disillusionment. But after looking inward, men must find ways to reach beyond their own needs and help others.

Take, for example, all of those Baby Boomers who will soon face retirement.

“We have to tell these men, ‘Don’t quit your jobs. … Use your jobs and skills in missions, relief and development projects around the world. You can help the widows and children,’ ” said Kingham. “There are all kinds of ways that men can offer a credible witness to what Jesus Christ is doing in their lives.”

NEXT WEEK: Fathers, sons and empty pews.

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When his mother’s Jewish parents arrived from Poland they added “ski” to their name because they thought “Rafalski” sounded Catholic and, thus, would be safer.

And when Kathleen Rafalski married Dennis Maris, she immediately joined the St. Demetrios Orthodox Church in Hammond, Ind.

“They were married in the Greek church,” said Peter Maris, 42. “She learned to speak Greek. She learned to cook Greek. She did everything she could to show her commitment to the faith.”

Then came the parish Christmas party when his mother brought a plate of Polish cookies. His father didn’t tell this story often, because it was too painful.

“Some of the women got upset,” said Peter Maris. “They told my mother, ‘What are you doing, bringing those in here? We don’t need you and we don’t need your Polish cookies. We are Greek.’ “

The family walked out and never returned.

Now, nearly four decades later, Maris has come home to Eastern Orthodoxy — just in time for “Pascha” (Easter in the West).

This is one man’s story, but it contains elements of stories told by thousands of converts in an era when this old-world faith is growing in a land already packed with Protestant and Catholic churches. In most communities, Orthodox parishes are known as the “Greek church” or the “Russian church” or carry some other ethnic label.

This is one man’s story and it happens to be a story that I first overheard in the fellowship hall of my own Orthodox parish. What is different about this minister named Maris is that his story combines both the joy and pain experienced by “converts” and “cradles” — those born into Orthodoxy — who are learning to live and worship together in an ancient church that is quietly sinking its roots into modern America.

Maris has tasted the bitter and the sweet.

There are an estimated 250 million Orthodox believers worldwide — the second largest Christian flock — but only 1.2 million in the 22 ethnic jurisdictions in North America. While a few leaders have raised eyebrows by claiming a 6 percent annual growth rate, an accurate count would have to account for ethnic members who are drifting out of Orthodoxy as well as converts who are joining.

It’s safer to count U.S. parishes and watch clergy trends. The convert-friendly Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese has, for example, grown from 66 parishes to 250 parishes and missions in four decades. Also, a recent survey found that 43 percent of today’s seminarians are converts, a percentage that must be higher among the Antiochians and in the Orthodox Church in America, which sprang from Russian roots.

Maris is unusual, since he was baptized Orthodox before finding his way into evangelicalism. He met his Baptist wife at Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, did graduate degrees at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and worked in Korean Presbyterian and Chinese Christian churches before being ordained as a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church.

“For the longest time, I could only see Orthodoxy through the eyes of my childhood,” he said. “For me, Orthodoxy was an ethnic ghetto. … In many ways, I came back to the church kicking and screaming. But in the end I knew this was where I was supposed to be. There was no place else I could go.”

Maris can still speak some Greek and he has been experiencing flashbacks to early memories of the taste of Communion wine, the smell of incense, echoes of Byzantine hymns and glimpses of an icon of Jesus, high in a sanctuary dome.

However, he also remembers his parents’ conflicting emotions as their new American dreams clashed with old ethnic traditions. He witnessed similar dramas in Korean and Chinese churches.

“You want to keep the language and you want to keep the food and all of that, somehow, gets mixed in with the traditions of the church,” he said. “Then the parents discover that they just can’t communicate with their kids and the kids just can’t appreciate what is happening in church because that’s all wound up with the ethnicity thing. …

“At some point you have to claim the faith as your own — you can’t inherit it. In the end, you have to believe.”

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The story begins with the Empress Helena, who commanded that the relics of the Wise Men of the East be brought to Byzantium.

These three skulls were eventually taken to Milan and, in 1162, to Cologne. According to folk tradition, the relics made their journey from Bethlehem to Cologne in three ships. As minstrels kept singing the songs, the destination changed and so did the identity of the travelers.

The result was a carol: “I saw three ships come sailing in, on Christmas Day on Christmas day. I saw three ships come sailing in, on Christmas Day in the morning.” It asked, “And what was in those ships all three?” The answer was the Holy Family, or “Our Savior Christ and his lady.” The carol asked, “And where they sailed those ships all three?” The obvious answer: “All they sailed in to Bethlehem.”

The logic may escape singers today. But it worked for centuries of carolers in the pageants, processions and parties during Christmas and the 12-day season that followed.

“The true Christmas carol is anonymous, both the text and the tune. A true carol is something like ‘I Saw Three Ships’ or ‘The First Noel.’ Many of them are very, very old,” said scholar Hugh T. McElrath, author of “The History of Our Christian Faith In Hymns.”

“Hymns tend to be more formal and church-centered and from a particular composer in a particular place and time. Carols just spring up among the people and it’s common to find many different versions handed down from generation to generation.”

The question now is whether centuries of carols can survive modern trends, from the secularization of public holiday music to the contemporary church’s hunger for music that constantly changes to mirror pop sales charts.

Christmas carols can be traced to St. Francis of Assisi and his Nativity dramas in 1223. Carols were sung as “intermezzi” between scenes of the “mystery plays” for centuries. The carols became so popular that theater players and members of the audience began processing into the streets, singing and dancing.

After all, noted Erik Routley in his classic book “The English Carol,” early definitions of “carol,” “carole” or “karolle” define this music as a round dance. “Even if we say that to all general purposes today a carol is a cheerful seasonal song … we shall never understand its extraordinary history if we forget that it began not as a pious religious gesture but as a dance,” he wrote.

When it came time for Christmas festivals, few drew a stark line between sacred and secular. Thus, the home of the true Christmas carol was not in the safety of a church sanctuary, surrounded by marble and pure candlelight. Carols were sung on sidewalks and in the marketplace, in homes and in taverns.

“The dance could be trivial, but the church would spiritualize it,” noted Routley. “Feasting could be orgiastic, but the church would balance it with fasting. Joy could be selfish and frantic, but the church would make it sane.”

This happened in many cultures, from the festive Christmas carols of Latin America to the rousing Russian “kolyadki,” which were shared by carolers who gladly accepted food, drink and coins as they moved from house to house. North American folk music has already yielded classic carols such as “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “Away in a Manger.”

And what about today?

As long as people gather to celebrate Christmas together, they will produce new carols and pass along classics to future generations, said Kenneth W. Osbeck, author of “101 Hymn Stories” and many similar books. There have been hard times for carolers in the past, such as the Puritan era when such public revelry was banned.

If the Christmas season is celebrated with joy, then the carols will survive.

“I can’t think of a single carol that has a note of sadness and tragedy to it,” said Osbeck. “Maybe there are a few, I don’t know. But what unites these simple songs — from culture to culture and in all settings and times — is that simple sense of joy in celebrating Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ.

“If people want to share that joy with others, then that’s what the carols are for.”

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