When You’re in Between Churches
Church shopping is the worst. For many of us it’s a reality at least once in our lives. We find ourselves in a season on the lookout for a new faith community. We have our mental scorecard: Was the music cool? The message relevant? The people friendly? Was it inspirational? Was it boring? Like Robin Williams’ English professor, we’re thinking, “I like Byron. I give him a 42. But I can’t dance to him.” But this isn’t American Bandstand. This is Church we’re talking about.
There are a lot of legitimate reasons to be between churches. I’ve experienced this myself numerous times. I’ve moved across the country, sometimes for a job, sometimes for school. I’ve been hurt deeply by a church community and decided it was time to move on. I’ve felt burned out and used up from a church and decided to leave. I’ve known people who experienced emotional or spiritual abuse in a church. I’ve known others who had hairpin turns in their faith journey and they no longer felt safe in their church. Whatever the case may be—our place in a transient culture, our own continuing personal growth, or the sheer difficulty of getting along with people—church is still a good idea.
“The stories that must be told to rightly tell the story of Jesus are called Church.” I heard Stanley Hauerwas say this at a conference. He went on the say, “Jesus would not be who he is without a community. This is why you don’t want a personal relationship with Jesus.” We need the Church to tell us the stories of Jesus. We simply don’t know what kind of god Jesus is without a community. Our capacity of self-delusion knows no bounds. The Church is God’s idea. And though terrible things happen between people in church, the Church is still the vehicle through which God has chosen to change the world.
What is church?
A friend has shared with me how he was with a guy he was mentoring. As they sat in the coffee shop, the guy had an epiphany: “Dude! This is church! What we’re doing is church!” My friend compassionately responded, “No. No, it isn’t.” Church isn’t two people sitting in a coffee shop, or anywhere for that matter, talking about spiritual things.
In his book Faithful Presence, David Fitch talks about seven practices that form church.
Holy communion (or Eucharist)
Reconciliation
Gospel proclamation
Being with children
Being with the poor
Fivefold gifting
Kingdom prayer
Justin Martyr, who lived a generation after the events in Acts, wrote about what early Christian gatherings looked like.
A Sunday meeting
The reading of Scripture
Commentary and encouragement by the leader
Corporate prayer
Eucharist
Collection for the poor
We are citizens of God’s community, not consumers of it. We are surrounded by a world that has shaped our imaginations so much to be critics and consumers that we’ve lost our imagination to be citizens of a community. If we must walk into a new church setting with a mental checklist, these things make a much more helpful rubric than our own personal tastes and preferences.
What is church for?
The risen Jesus says, “Look! I’m making everything new.” That means you. That means me. That means our neighborhoods around us. It means our own hearts. It means systems and institutions. And the church is God’s idea as the means for this transformation. Perhaps a helpful question we can ask ourselves when we walk into a new place is, “What kind of person will this place shape me to be?” Our place in community should be mutually transformative—we are changed even as we change those around us. Some times we can find ourselves in places where we are not being shaped to be more Christ-like—more human—or that our influence on others is unhealthy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim.” Community is a gift we receive. We experience it not on our own terms but by God’s. We can’t manufacture it. We can’t wish it into existence. We can pray and ask God for it and then wait patiently and respond appropriately.
It’s okay to take a break
You may find yourself in a season of deconstructing your notions of faith and church and God. You may need to strip yourself of the noise and the busyness of “kingdom stuff” you do so you don’t have to actually deal with God. You may find you’ve been doing spiritual disciplines to distract yourself from God or going to church to hide from God. Silence and solitude are powerful practices. Find a spiritual director, or other voice you trust, someone with some wisdom and wide experience with this thing called “church.” Listen to them. Ask questions.
Give yourself grace. You won’t be losing your salvation if you don’t go to church for a week or a month or a year. There is no shame in being in a season where you and church just don’t get along. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. It can be healthy to give yourself some space to de-clutter your soul. But don’t give up on church entirely.
Explore and experiment
The variety of expressions of church are as wide as God’s infinite creation. This comic captures the utter absurdity in the belief that any single church or denomination has finally figured this thing out. There is no perfect church. We should reject perfection outright. We’re all each trying to seek God as eagerly and sincerely as we can.
Presbyterian. Methodist. Baptist. Pentecostal. Greek Orthodox. Roman Catholic. Megachurch. House church. Hispanic. Black. White. Korean. Each church is made up of humans and susceptible to all the frailties and corruption of human beings. Each church is made up of humans and capable of extraordinary goodness and beauty. The final vision of all things is “from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb.” We might do ourselves well practicing worship among those who don’t look like us in our current communities.
Some discerning questions
How are you seeing God at work in the world? How are you responding? What local group of believers can you do that with?
These questions aren’t necessarily linear. Being fiercely committed to a group of people, even if you don’t look the same, act the same, or even believe the same, is a primary way that God shows us his work in the world. Sometimes God makes himself known through some personal revelation. But more often than not, this happens when we give ourselves to a community.
Commit yourself to listening and paying attention to God’s work in the world. Respond wholeheartedly to God’s invitations as you see them. Be open to giving yourself to others with whom you can do this work of listening and responding to God.
Whether you’re a burned-out staff person, a disillusioned pew sitter, or someone whose questions just keep multiplying with no safe place to put them, there is still room for you in God’s embrace. Yes, the middle can be oh so messy, but the end of your story is not yet. No matter how high your pile of doubts, they don’t disqualify you from the gift of Christian community.
At the core of the theological doctrine of Trinity is the idea that God is fundamentally community. We are made for community. God wants it for us. We are most human when we are oriented around God embedded and rooted in community. God’s gift to you may be a house church. It may be a formal, liturgical church.
It may be something you’re least expecting.