A man stranded by himself on an island was finally discovered. His rescuers asked him about the three huts that they saw there. He pointed to the first hut and said, “This hut is my home.” Then he pointed to the second hut and said, “And this one is my church.”
“And what about the third hut?” asked his rescuers. “The third hut,” said the man, “That is my former church.”
Have you ever become disillusioned with the church that you considered leaving it altogether? Chances are, you’re not alone. According to research by Gallup, the past 20 years have seen an acceleration in the drop-off in church membership in the USA, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999.
Despite the precipitous decline in church attendance, belief in God remains high. Another Gallup poll from 2017 asked the question, “Do you believe in God.” 87% responded in the affirmative. It is a baffling statistical anomaly that so many believe in God, but fewer and fewer attend church.
When I talk about the church in this article, I’m talking about the institution. I’m talking about Sunday services and pews and sermons and potluck suppers and, of course, the physical building in which it all takes place.
As a child growing up in the evangelical church system, I was taught that being a Christian and going to church were synonymous. You could not have one without the other. If an individual failed to attend church for several weeks, the presumption was made that they were backsliding into unbelief. Efforts were made to win them back: Visitations, intervention, and lots of fervent praying.
The idea that someone could have a vibrant faith in Christ and not be part of the Church was virtually non-existent in my world. But it is really the case that walking away from the church is akin to walking away from your faith?
I don’t think so.
In fact, the opposite may be true. Walking away from the institutionalized church may be the very thing that brings your faith back to life. In fact, when I left the church, I honestly felt that I was being obedient to Christ. Let me explain a few reasons why:
God wanted to show me that he can be found anywhere
The church likes to draw a line between the secular and the sacred, but I discovered something wonderful when I left the church behind. God can be found almost everywhere. There is a little verse in the book of Ephesians which declares that God is over all and through all and in all. Now that I have de-cluttered my spiritual life, this has become my daily reality.
God is in the gentle breeze as it caresses my face, the sun as it warms my skin, the laughter of my children, the first mouthful of a delicious meal, the stories that people tell, the music that I listen to — even the secular music. The church does not have a monopoly on the sacred. The sacred is all around us and able to be freely accessed by all. Walls cannot contain it.
God wanted me to learn that he can speak through anything and anyone
In the Bible, God spoke to people in many ways. He spoke through the wind, a burning bush, and even a talking donkey. Now, if God can use a donkey to deliver his words, I don’t understand why anything or anyone else cannot speak divine truth into your life. At what point did we decide that a person needs a Bachelor of Theology or a Masters of Divinity to deliver divine words of wisdom? Any old ass can do it.
If you listen really closely, you will find the truth speaking to you through many things and many people. Not only do Christians not have a monopoly on the sacred, but they also do not have a monopoly on the truth.
God wanted me to take responsibility for my own spiritual growth
Often in churches, we defer to the pastor, priest, or minister to do our spiritual homework for us. We rely on them to read, interpret and deliver the word of God to us in a form that is both palatable and entertaining each week. They do this with varying degrees of success. Preaching became like the Uber-Eats of the Christian faith.
However, Christ came to be the one and only mediator between God and us, enabling us to have complete, unfettered access to the divine. Perhaps we were uncomfortable with this level of freedom, and so we reduced the access the general population had to God by appointing men (yes, usually men) as intermediaries between God and us once more. We go to them for a word, a prayer, spiritual guidance, and advice, neglecting the fact that Holy Spirit is given indiscriminately to all who ask. We outsourced our faith. How ironic.
Don’t get me wrong; there is a place for spiritual leadership, but not at the expense of personal responsibility for one’s own faith. When you walk away from the church, you are forced to engage with the Bible and, indeed, Christ for yourself.
God wanted me to develop deep friendships
Authentic relationships don’t happen in crowds. Churches often like to label themselves as being “like family.” To be fair, it certainly can feel like family at times. However, I discovered when I finally left that many of your “brothers and sisters” never speak to you again. Some of them don’t even notice you’re gone. I’m not suggesting that there is malicious intent behind this — although I wouldn’t rule it out either — but it does show that, in reality, most of the relationships we have with church people are friendships of convenience. You are not really friends because of some unbreakable spiritual bond, but more likely because you happen to go to the same building at the same time each week.
It highlights a truth to me. Authentic relationships don’t happen in crowds. Many churches, to their credit, try to run small group networks as part of their ministries, but many people slip through the cracks. It is possible to attend a large church for a long time and never form any meaningful relationships. However, I want to be part of a community where your absence is noticed. These days I still gather with other believers — in much smaller groups — where authentic relationships are impossible to avoid. It is my new church.
God wanted me to see him in everyone
The church loves to define who is “in” and who is “out,” usually by an often unspoken set of behavioral expectations that include things like church attendance, not drinking or cursing too much, putting money in the offering plate, and generally being a nice person. I call this “performance-based religion.” Real transformation is an optional extra, but as long as you exhibit the right behaviors, you’re assumed to be “growing in your faith,” by default anyway.
When you walk away from the church and start making friends with people who are not part of the ‘in-crowd,’ you discover something wonderful. You learn that there is inherent value and beauty in people who are not part of the ‘in-crowd.’ You discover that you can learn from them as well. You see the image of God imprinted on the life of every human being, not just the elect. In fact, you learn that non-Christians are just as nice as Christians and, in many cases, nicer.
I’ve become friends with people who I might not have otherwise associated with — people of other faiths and people from the LGBTIQ+ community, for example — and they are all lovely people. It’s ironic that even though Christ was happy to be seen with the marginalized, Christians like to stick to their own kind.
God wanted me to rest
Sabbath is a God-ordained day of rest. It is one of God’s best commands! Take a day off! Have a rest! Put your feet up!
It is ironic then that Christians went and filled it with so much religious activity that it became downright exhausting. The effort required to drag myself out of bed on a Sunday morning, put on a brave face, and try to get three reluctant children ready for a church service that were mildly opposed to attending anyway was disproportionate to the potential reward.
On the other hand, sleeping in on Sunday mornings is good for the soul. Going out for a picnic as a family is unifying and edifying. Catching up with friends for a drink in the afternoon is a glorious conclusion to a fabulous day of rest.
Rest is spiritual, and I’m loving having my Sabbath back.
God wanted to free me from the baggage
I felt so guilty when a friend at work asked me if I went to church, and I said, “No!” Even though this is the truth now, my whole life, I was told this was akin to denying your faith — kind of like Peter denying Jesus before the rooster crowed.
However, many people carry unhelpful preconceived ideas about church-going people — a lot of them unhelpful. Bible bashers, flat earthers, Trump-supporters, hypocrites, homophobic, judgmental — I could go on. A lot of these labels are self-inflicted and probably deserved. However, there are plenty of church-going people for whom these labels are manifestly unfair. Still, labels stick.
When you do not go to church, you are free from the stigma of these labels. In fact, people are fascinated by the idea that you could be a believer and not go to church. When you tell people the reasons why you left the church, along with the reasons why you won’t leave the faith, it is a powerful combination. This leads me to my next point.
God wanted me to heal
I don’t think the church did it on purpose, but I am deeply wounded by my long association with the institutionalized church. I know I am not the only one. All those years of struggling and striving to somehow evoke the blessing of God over my life by behaving and performing in particular ways took its toll on me: The decades of putting on a brave face, a forced smile, and a thin veneer and niceness, to mask the brokenness inside. I wanted to believe in a God who indiscriminately loves me and accepts me for who I am, but the underlying message of the church seemed to be, “You are a wicked sinner, and you need to get better.”
Now that I am free from the burden of performance-based religion, I am learning to embrace a far greater truth. I am a beloved child of God — no strings attached. I do not require my own children to perform to me. I would rather them come to me in honesty. When they stuff up, I am angry for the briefest of moments. Then the anger is swallowed up in my love for them. I am only human, yet loving my children is mostly effortless. How much more so for God?
If not Church, then what?
If you walk away from the traditional church system, then what? Well, you still ought to meet with other believers in some capacity. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I am not saying, “Go and do Christianity all by yourself.” In fact, the Bible assumes that all Christians will be part of some kind of faith community. Christianity has always been and always will be a communal religion.
There’s a good reason for this. Without a connection to a faith community, you cannot fully know God.
C.S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves, explains why: Imagine that I had a friend. Let’s call him Tim. Me and Tim are good friends, close friends, and we know a lot about each other, but what C.S. Lewis says is that I, myself, am not big enough to call any person into complete activity — I myself cannot, by myself, see the whole Tim.
So when another friend comes into the picture, let’s pick another hypothetical person, say, Mike. When Mike interacts with Tim, and I get to see Tim’s reaction to that, it unlocks a part of Tim that I never knew about. And let’s say that Tim has a hypothetical girlfriend — let’s call her, I dunno, Annie. And it’s only when Annie comes into the picture that me and Mike get to see this loving, caring part of Tim that we might not have known existed otherwise.
You see, it takes a community to know an individual. Only a group brings out the whole person. And if that’s true of humans, how much more true is it of God. You cannot know God by yourself — you can only know a little piece of God by yourself. Therefore, the more we engage in a Christian community and get to know the individuals who make up that community — with their unique personalities, talents, spiritual gifts, and the multitude of ways they honor and glorify God — the more I get to know of God myself.
You see, you cannot fully know God on your own. For this reason, I will always be a part of a faith community of some description and encourage others to do the same. But as for the institution, I think I’m done with that.
For me, sticking with Jesus meant leaving the institutionalized church. In fact, I followed Jesus out the door.
What would Jesus do?
Jesus didn’t go to church. Think about that for a minute.
Jesus grew up Jewish, so he would have gone to the synagogue with his family and participated in all the Jewish rituals of his day because that was the way that they would have worshiped.
Church, in the sense that we understand it, was still hundreds of years away. In fact, you have to wonder if the church, as we have it today, is what Jesus had in mind. Jesus is only recorded using the word “Church” twice in his entire ministry — both times, he said it to refer to his community. He sure wasn’t talking about an event or a building.
If a reincarnated Jesus came to Earth today and showed up in the USA, would he attend a traditional Sunday morning church?
Or would Jesus gather with a small group of friends and break bread together in an upper room, then take a walk in the garden?
It’s an important question, don’t you think? After all, if you believe that Jesus wouldn’t attend a traditional Sunday morning church — except maybe to flip some tables and whip some people into shape — then why should you or me?
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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