Yesterday our family visited a new-to-us church.
“Is it going to be s-c-a-r-y?” Graydon asked, his desire to spell out words increasing with each new word he learns.
“Not really,” I replied. “All churches are made up of people, and people are just people, so that’s not so scary.”
But it was scary, in a sense. It was scary to try out a new church, not because we were there for someone’s baptism, or wedding, but because we’re actively seeking a new community, a new church to join.
To be a visitor after being on church staff, the daughter of the same church’s former pastor, and having grown up in the church and gone through nearly every program ever offered there felt like the seesaw had tilted suddenly in the opposite direction.
Despite my fear, I was pleasantly surprised.
What amazed and surprised me at this new worship service is that when you pray without contemporary Christian music playing in the background, and huge, well-lit screens above, you can more aptly feel the collective want of a room of people in need of God’s direction and intervention. It becomes easier to hear your own hurt and need, too.
When you enter into a sacred space that has been stripped down of the gimmick and glamour of a church trying to invite by catering to the world, you recognize that the church is a sending place, one that is more rest stop than destination.
When you hear a sermon that speaks to social justice and Biblical truth without muddying the water with stories that reflect only one perspective, you realize that there’s room in faith for others’ experiences, and for questions, too. (And that’s important, because “in the words of Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas, ‘People of the Book risk putting the book above people.’”)
When your child, decked out in safety goggles and a fanny pack acquired at a recent Fortnite-themed birthday party, is seen as equally holy among the sacred ornaments and decades-old stained glass that adorn the church, you know you’re in the right spot.
And when you experience a service led in part by lay people–a joyful staff member leads the children’s message, a parishioner plays a heartfelt clarinet solo, another reads the Bible passage, and yet another welcomes your overwhelmed family–you experience the ideal Barbara Brown Taylor writes about in Leaving Church:
“We needed a different way of being together before God, shaped more like a circle than a pyramid. We needed to ditch the sheep paradigm. We needed to take turns filling in for Jesus, understanding that none of us was equal to the task to which all of us had been called.” (Pg. 163)
I didn’t realize how much I’d craved this new dynamic until I was there. I think it’s because the most prevalent authors of my faith, either from the pulpit or from the kitchen table, have had their own troubled times, which have caused me confusion, shame, and loss. When those in charge of my faith formation encountered their own return to grace, it became even more important for me to see Jesus in everyone.
It struck me, sitting there in the pew, how much I craved a church that celebrates the divine while embracing the human.
I couldn’t stop tearing up during the service.
Maybe it was the way I could be present, knowing that I hadn’t been hurt by the church’s politics (though I know they exist in nearly every religious institution).
Maybe it was the fact that for the first time in my adult life, I was worshipping as myself, not as the daughter of a pastor.
Or maybe it was the way I could easily shift between present and afloat, a fervent keeper of the faith and a tired mom of littles. I didn’t have to worry about how I looked or acted, whether or not I was pious enough for others’ contentment. I could simply follow along with the words of hymns written before I was born, the same ones that will be sung after I’m gone. In a sense, I took myself out of the drama of the church, and in doing so, discovered the holy.
At lunch afterwards, Mike told me he didn’t realize how affected I’d been by some of the tough things I encountered while working at a church.
“I didn’t realize it, either,” I said. Not until feeling the release and rest of letting go set in, I thought.
I didn’t know it would be possible to feel so much about changing churches. But it shouldn’t surprise me. Church, to me, is a second home, a second set of church aunts and uncles, church grandpas and grandmas for my children. A place where my children consume the bread and wine as excitedly as the post-service donuts. A place where people marry and baptize their babies, and grieve cancer diagnoses and deaths.
Before visiting this new church, the idea of changing churches made me feel like I was cheating on my husband. I considered who might see me there and if they would report back to the powers that be.
But now, the idea of a change feels good.
Yesterday afternoon, Graydon rode his bike to the park while I pushed Margaret in the stroller alongside of him. On the way home, he was “tuckered out,” as he adamantly declared. I encouraged him, “Just a little bit farther. You can do it. We’re almost home.”
Then I caught myself. He was telling me he needed rest, and I was teaching him to ignore his body’s weariness, to shove down the pain so that we could get home faster.
I remembered Barbara Brown Taylor’s words, “What made us think that the place we are trying to reach is far, far ahead of us somewhere and that the only way to get there is to run until we drop?” (Pg. 134)
So instead, we stopped. We took off the bike helmet that was squashing his sweaty mohawk and threw his bike over the handlebars of the stroller. We slowly walked home instead of pushing through the pain.
Since leaving my job at church, I’ve been coaching myself to push through pain.
“It’s not about you. Just keep going to church there and maybe things will get better. You have to be the change you want to see. Don’t give up now.”
All the while my heart has been calling out for rest, surrender, and grace.
As Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was, in other words, and it was not until this project failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.” (Pg. 219)
It struck me, sitting in the new sanctuary: we get to leave.
We get to say yes to the call for Sabbath, the desire for healing, connection, and change.
And what a good thing that is, saying yes to the soul’s needs.
It’s not so s-c-a-r-y after all.