I'd like to start a series of posts here about something Cathy and I are in the process of. Around the middle of 2012, we decided to stop attending the church that I grew up in and to find something different. We each had different reasons for this, but we agreed that it needed to be done. My reasons for this change are complex and add difficulty to a search for a new church, so I think this experience should provide fodder for a whole series of blog posts.
Cathy has never connected all that well with people at that church. She's found people friendly but hasn't formed any strong friendships or had deeper conversations with people there. When I was younger, I had good friends there, some of my best friends. For a variety of reasons, we've drifted apart. As most of them had kids, they reached a significantly different stage of life from me (one that I'll be entering soon, but I digress). This factor combined with geography--everyone seems to live in a different part of the city, not the same part as me anyway--and not very persistent effort on all of our parts led to weakening friendships. These are among the reasons why Cathy never connected well either.
But in this series I'll focus more on my reasons for leaving and my thoughts and experiences with a search for someplace new. If Cathy decides to write about her experience, I'll post that too if she wants.
My views have been drifting away from typical evangelical Christianity over time. I believe evolution, I don't believe in the infallibility of the Bible, I experience doubts about pretty much every aspect of Christianity, stuff like that. In my former church, those views didn't get me in trouble, but I rarely felt like people understood me either.
This isn't just about changes in my beliefs and opinions though. It's about the way evangelical churches do things, and some deep-seated feelings that I can't entirely explain and justify, but can't let go of either. Something about his just doesn't feel right.
The pastor has an idea: we need to change _______ so the church can reach out to the community better. He encourages people to read books or go to seminars and conferences, changes are made in how the church does things. Maybe the church grows a bit. Maybe the church shrinks a bit. Long term, not much changes. Then the pastor has an idea: we need to change ______ so the church can reach out to the community better...
After a while, we get a new pastor. A similar cycle repeats itself. Maybe the pastor claims it's not so much about growing the church, but simply about serving others. But it feels the same to me. Sometimes good changes happen, and occasionally those changes have a lasting effect. But much of the time, this whole way of doing church feels dead.
Meanwhile, I've been drifting. As I said earlier, my views have been changing and I don't feel understood. I read stuff saying this "church growth" focus takes people's eyes off the Gospel of Jesus Christ and makes people cogs in a machine, and that resonates with me. A blogger or two suggest churches shouldn't even have "vision statements" or much for goals because those interfere with community, and that resonates with me.
My enthusiasm for community outreach through the church is near zero. The church still wants me to reach out to others. But why would I want to bring others to something that leaves me feeling this way? It's not that they've mistreated me. The people there actually mean a lot to me, and some have been part of my life for all of my life. I have a good relationship with the pastor. This church and this pastor are probably a better fit for me than most evangelical churches and pastors are. And yet so much to do with church programs makes me feel so cynical or just weary. Feeling this way has made it clear to me that something about my relationship with God and his church needs to change.
Jesus inspires me. When church is about Jesus, that can inspire me
too. When it's about programs for reaching out, I get weary of hearing
about it.
I'll unpack some of these thoughts in later posts and talk about things that have happened more recently. If you found this through my Facebook profile and you'd like to keep following it, you'll have to check back here or subscribe to an RSS feed, because I don't plan to post links to any more posts on Facebook.
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6 comments:
as much as it sucks that you're leaving, I agree with a lot of what you said in this post. Lately, I've been struggling with where I fit at the church as well. I also experience a lot of doubt, and I have some opinions and questions about Christianity that I don't feel safe to share at church. Evangelism in particular scares me, and I don't know how much longer I can resist it without drawing attention to myself...
Anyway, I guess since I won't be seeing you around, now would be a good time to let you know that I've always kind of looked up to you. The way you're not afraid to question things that too many people just take at face value is awesome.
I hope you and Cathy find somewhere that makes you both happy.
Brittney
I guess I'll start by saying I haven't been active in any church for several years now, after experiencing many of the same things you have.
I'll start with the church I guess you could say I grew up in. It wasn't the first church I went to, but it was the first church where I was old enough to understand things and make my own decisions. In the last couple years before I left, there were all kinds of meetings of how to expand church programs. They had no end of ideas of how to serve the community, and yet the programs the church already had could never find enough volunteers. There was just something absurd about the idea of coming up with all these new programs when the ones they had weren't working. People were a lot more interested in having ideas than in doing anything. They were also expanding their building beyond their means. That seems to be a common theme, growing the church in a physical sense and trusting God to provide the funds and people to sustain it.
I'm not really sure why that church was failing, I think it was that a lot of older people were leaving and younger people weren't joining. Anyway, I was at a point where I couldn't grow there and so I decided to leave. My parents stayed, saying that the church needed people that could help to stabilize it and rebuild it. I respected that.
I joined another church that had a lot of people my age, and a really good young adult program. I met a lot of people and made good friends and grew a lot in many ways. That was kind of the height of my involvement in Christianity, and the time I felt closest to God. Things were great, until the youth started leaving to start a new church. Slowly but surely what ended up happening was all the younger crowd from this one church moved to a different part of the city, and got their own building and pastor, and that was their idea of starting a new church. There weren't really any other people, maybe a handful here and there from other churches.
I stayed behind, but basically the young adults program fell apart, and I didn't have anyone I could relate to. It seemed wrong to me that everyone left for the hip new place, it didn't seem any different than going to the hip new night club or whatever. And I know that a couple years later they split off ANOTHER new church from the splinter group.
People were just starting new churches because it made them feel good, even if it wasn't accomplishing much. I actually found myself losing a lot of friends because it was harder and harder to see them. They wanted me to come to their church to hang out, but that didn't seem right to me.
(didn't intend my post to be this long, but I guess it's a two-parter)
Somewhere in the middle I lived in LA for 3 months and was involved in 3 churches in Pasadena. One was a huge mega-church with a giant youth group, but it didn't seem possible to get personally involved with anyone. Another was a smaller church that rented a movie theatre for services. That one was perfectly content to keep to themselves, and actively resisted any growth or new programs. They did have one program that gave food to needy people that I participated in, and I think that was the best thing the church did. They got donations from various places, packaged them and gave them out as fairly as they could. They didn't try to get anyone to join the church, but they'd certainly talk to anyone that was interested.
Then there was the third one. I rented a room in the house where 2 of the pastors lived (long story) for the 3 months, so I was somewhat obligated to participate. It was a very small congregation, maybe 20-30 most weeks. They had several pastors of dubious credentials, and no denominational affiliation. As much as I question the need for denominations, this was clearly too far in the other direction. The church held and propagated a very questionable view of society, and just generally didn't have good enough teachers.
I stuck with all 3 churches for the time I was there, going to Sunday morning services at one, Sunday evening youth services at another, and doing the food bank at the other. None of them seemed like they were doing things right. Christianity in general is so much different in the US than in Canada, even in a liberal place like LA.
The other thing that really made me question the idea of church was the more I got into my education and learning things on my own the more I realized how many lies the church tells. In one breath they claim that God transcends science, in the next they claim you can prove God exists with science. But their idea of "science" and "facts" are quite easily disproved if you spend any time to look at it on your own. If this was such a powerful and compelling message, why did you have to feed people lies to get them to believe it? Sadly, the people teaching it never thought to check whether it was true or not. I don't think that absolves them, but if I was teaching something I'd want to know that it was true first.
Even less than that were all the "sermon illustrations" that came in some book that the pastor presented as fact. Maybe they're great parables, but at least put them in that context.
Discernment is one of the spiritual gifts. It's not particularly glamorous, so it doesn't get a lot of attention. I mentioned it once in discussion that it was lacking at a particular church, and actually got the answer "that's a message for you, not for everyone." If nobody's willing to question the validity of messages, then you'll parrot anything.
What's more important, that God *could* have created the world in 7 days, or whether or not he actually did? I can tell you which gets more discussion. Does it matter whether or not NASA can prove that the universe lost a day? I thought we were supposed to take things on faith. And pre-mid-post tribulation rapture? How does that have any bearing on my daily life at all?
I believe Jesus had a simple message: Love God, and love each other. You'd never know it from a lot of churches though.
Hey Alex, I don't know if you remember me or not (from Big Brothers). Anyway, I found your post very insiteful in light of what I am presently learning right now.
Right now I am attending a seminary to get my masters in Leadership in Ministry. I just recently took a sociology course on religion and faith in Canada and found that you are definitely not the only one with these thoughts and feelings.
As someone who has worked in the church, I feel and wrestle with some of these same struggles. Is the church about just keeping peopel in? What do we do with the Christianity we see in the Bible and today's interpretation of that in our churches? Where is there room for doubts? How do we work with science...not against it?
I still don't have all those answers...and I don't know if I ever will. I love the church because I think that there is so much potential there and it is the bride of Christ. Jesus loves her and therefor so do I. That does not mean she isn't messy and dirty and in need of a good bath.
I look forward to continuing to read your blogs over the next while. Thanks again for posting.
Grace and peace to you on this journey Alex,
Andreas
ps- some authors that may interest you are Rob Bell (he's been considered a heretic by many in the church). He really causes you to think and wrestle through things. Check out Velvet Elvis and even his new book called What We Talk About When We Talk About God.
For some research on people going through the same thoughts as you check out unChristian or You Lost me by David Kinnaman.
Interesting comments. I look forward to seeing further posts on this subject.
I agree with several of your points. I encourage you to keep studying and working through these issues to resolve many of them.
You mention that Jesus inspires you and that when a church is about Jesus, that inspires you too. I would be interested in hearing more about how Jesus inspires you. Is there a way to use that that inspiration to help influence a church to be something you are comfortable in?
Barry Scheuerman
Thanks everyone for responding. It means a lot to have people who listen and understand. And some of your points and questions could prompt some future writing by me.
Brittney, I'm honoured by what you said. Sometimes I've wondered how well I've handled my own doubts and questions while working with the youth. (Did I hide them too much? Did they stop me from doing and saying some good things? Did my cynicism inspire cynicism?) I think this is one way that God shows his grace in this world--bringing good from our flawed efforts. When deep down something doesn't seem right, I think that usually means that something really isn't right. Can be hard to figure it out though. Keep asking those questions, and I hope you find something that really satisfies deep down.
Philip, it's been a while! Thanks for sharing so much of your journey. I think I'd have pretty similar issues to you in those churches.
Andreas, thanks for listening and sharing too. And of course I remember you from Big Brothers! I've found, through limited experience, that pastors can be some of the more understanding people when it comes to at least some of my issues. Maybe because pastors have so much exposure to scripture, church politics, etc. that most of them have had to wrestle with some issues too. I still believe in the church too, just trying to figure out how I believe in it. I've often thought about how a church could be a place that upholds certain beliefs, yet gives space for everyone (pastors and other leaders included) to deal openly with doubts about those very beliefs. I haven't read anything by Rob Bell, but I've heard a fair bit about him. I'm a slow reader, but I will keep your suggestion in mind. You're going into a tough career, and I pray for all the best for you in it.
Dad, thank you for responding too. I hope to say more about how Jesus inspires me later, but I'll try to say a bit here. While serving is one way to experience Jesus, there needs to be so much more. I'm inspired by hearing and reading about the things Jesus did and taught, and by contemplating his death and resurrection. This is stuff that transcends any helpful action that we can do and anything we can explain rationally. One inspiring aspect: it inspires hope that evil really can be overcome with good.
I'll try to email or talk with each of you individually sometime. In the meantime, I want to wish all of you a happy Easter!
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