:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

I have a love/hate relationship with certainty. On the one hand, it need it to remind me that Jesus loves me and his forgiveness is new every morning. The words of scripture must be true or I’m sunk.

On the other hand, many of the times that I have been most certain have also been the times when I have been most wrong. Aside from the essentials of the Christian faith, I’ve dug my heels into sinking sand plenty of times only to end up stuck and disappointed.

We could say a lot about the inherent problems with certainty, but perhaps it’s most helpful to speak of humility and its essential role in the shaping of Christian community instead. For all of the poison that can come to community through certainty, we still need it. That makes humility a far more helpful way of speaking about our interactions with one another in the church.

My greatest lesson from the comments of this series has been the amount of gray areas in the church today and the fact that humility is our only hope for the future. The Christians in our churches have many more gray areas than we would assume, and when it is possible to acknowledge this diversity and complexity, we’ll make more people feel welcome and free to explore God where they’re at.

Perhaps one of the most harmful things we can do in community is to set a precise standard or blueprint for what the healthy community member looks like, believes, and does.

People are in process with their beliefs.

Other people are healing from past relationships.

Plenty are healing from negative church experiences.

A few aren’t even sure what they believe any more.

We find community in our shared goal of Christ, but that goal of Christ is a destination on a map we’ll never fully reach while we’re together on earth. Our common ground is based more on which direction we’re pointed than on who has achieved a certain status as a traveler.

Community takes shape around our traditions and styles and preferences, but ultimately, we find community in what we cannot attain here on earth. When we base community on the things we can see, measure, or control, we run the risk of making our Christian communities about side issues with a Christian veneer but none of the depth or sturdiness.

As I wrap up this series, I’d like to suggest that while we can find a thousand different ways to divide, but there’s only one way to unite as God’s people. As we each take responsibility for our own parts in fostering healthy Christian community, perhaps the best thing we can remember is that God’s people define black and white differently with gray areas shifting and changing from person to person.

If I want to win, I can convince myself that I have won by imposing my own black and white boundaries around others. However, if I want God’s community to win, I’m going to need to trust God to work in and through his people, hold loosely to some of my own categories, and patiently wait for God to show up among us as we unite around the essentials of our faith.

I am certain that we all have a role in creating the kinds of Christian communities where we can belong. The trick will be learning how to humbly ground ourselves in our particulars that inform where we’ve come from and how we worship God—our traditions especially—without using them as barriers or checklists that alienate those who would otherwise join our communities.

Deep down we all desire to belong to a community, a group that accepts us despite our flaws and supports us when we struggle. It is my great joy as a follower of Jesus to note that such a community is the very thing he created while among us.

A Note to My Readers

I am deeply grateful for the comments and e-mails you’ve shared with me throughout this series. It has been a wonderful, healing process to write through my past and present experiences of belonging to Christian community, and I hope to take these posts deeper in the form of a book in the near future. I’m especially grateful to my friends at St. Paul’s Church who played a huge role in my restoration to Christian community.

The next series of posts in the Monday-Wednesday slot will be about discipleship in conjunction with the release of my co-authored book Hazardous, particularly about what it means to live out costly discipleship. How do we hear the voice of Jesus today? What does it look like to literally “follow” a God you can’t see? When should we step out in faith and take risks for God and when are we reckless?

The Women in Ministry Series will continue on Fridays, and on Thursdays I’ll be launching a new series about being a stay at home/work from home dad. My hope in this series is to avoid parenting topics and instead to address gender roles, our culture’s/church’s expectations for men, and the possibility that “nontraditional” careers and family structures can work.

My paternity leave thankfully coincided with yet another flare up of Christian craziness in the blog world. I read about it with Ethan in my arms, my jaw hanging uncomfortably low as a Christian wrote about marriage with colonial, conquering, dominating language. That flap is thankfully over, but it has me thinking that this issue is evidence of a deeper problem in the church: power.

When I graduated from Taylor University, I received two things: my diploma and a towel. The towel is a Taylor tradition that reminds graduates that the power of the Kingdom is exercised on our knees, both in prayer and in serving others.

You can’t conquer someone if you’re washing her feet.

The dirty, common, lowly practice of washing someone else’s feet has never been in style, and it’s the last thing someone in power would want to do. Don’t we want the people in power to have clean, pristine hands?

Power in the Kingdom of God is always exercised for the benefit of others.

Power means we get to take care of the most vulnerable, the powerless.

Power doesn’t just take us down from a pedestal. It takes us lower than anyone else.

Women and children should feel most comfortable and protected in the church. And that’s just the beginning. That’s just what I feel comfortable with.

I struggle to figure out ways to welcome the poor, homeless, and drug abusers. I’m still working on it.

Any power and influence that I have is not for my benefit or pleasure. It is meant to be used in love and selfless service of others. That God incarnate could wash the feet of his disciples before his most powerful act of conquering death should give us pause before we think of power and position in any other light.

Whether you believe that men and women are equal or you believe that men are somehow “above” women, Jesus cancelled these things out to a certain degree by teaching us that we demonstrate love not by placing ourselves on top of someone, but by placing ourselves below the other.

That may sound like a no-brainer to some, but for of us, our theology has been so wrapped up in God’s sovereignty and power that we forget what it looks like when God actually uses his power. God is not most glorified when he uses his sovereignty and power to dominate and conquer his creation.

God manifests his power through selfless love, service, and sacrifice. Period.

This is why love is at the heart of the two greatest commandments. This is why the apostle John hits us over the head with the word love in his Gospel and first epistle.

Power is the tool of love, not the other way around.

Bad Christian theology imagines a God who is consumed with demonstrating his power and authority as his most important attributes. And that bad theology will filter into our thinking and practice, convincing us that submission to leaders, to husbands, and to whoever else is always the best for a Christian—when mutual submission in a spirit of love is the true thing. 

An approach that puts authority first tramples on God’s revelation of love and servanthood. God shows up in power, but that power is manifested in love and service.

That towel from Taylor remains in my bedroom. I see it often, and it reminds me of how far I have to go, how imperfect my own notions of love and power can be. I’m not a big fan of humbling myself. I don’t like letting go of power or of spending too much time on my knees.

I think we all like to have a little bit of power, a little bit of distance from those below us. It makes us feel safe and secure. And that’s why I find it particularly jarring when Jesus creates a community of disciples and then leads them while on his knees. It’s an example that I didn’t want to see but am bound to try to imitate.

Today’s guest post in the belonging in church series is by Dietrich Gruen who blogs at www.thegruengroup.weebly.com and takes us outside the four walls of the church for his story:

No teenager got injured, lost, terribly ill, or dropped from the program; some dropped out on their own just before the week started, preferring to party or afraid of a new challenge. We endured scorching heat, blood-sucking insects and leeches, and refusals to get with the program (e.g., “I’m not taking my meds,” or “I won’t do dishes”). And our team lagged in paddling or portaging, arriving late to campsites we wanted.

Despite all this, we did finish well. We worked as a team. The 8-day canoe trip, July 3-10, to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area was sponsored by Big City Mountaineers. Our four at-risk teens all were products, for better or worse, of a flawed but necessary foster care system (e.g., 10 homes in 10 years). The four, like most teens, were also loud mouthpieces of our over-sexualized and profane culture. Working with their psychosocial issues, obsession with sex and teenage humor added challenge—and fun—to the physical exertion of doing 30 lakes in 5 days.

Our expedition did not take a boot-camp, “shock therapy” approach, but one of “expanding the comfort zone.” Weathering the withering elements, we let the natural rhythms of wilderness camping bring up teachable moments and crisis points. Our vulnerable, fragile, even hostile kids gave us even more life lessons to battle through and reflect upon.

Within the safety net of four caring adults, we never gave up on each other. Within a group agreement, teens “enjoy” the freedom to make mistakes and suffer natural consequences; thus they learn to fail forward not backward. The goal is to turn their mistakes into stepping stones, to get unstuck, overcome fears, and move forward in life.

Into this wilderness adventure in community building, the boys brought very divergent trust and attachment issues. They would meet a challenge, break through a barrier, invent a new way of being, and then relapse—all within the same hour. That learning cycle was repeated hour by hour, day after day, for all four boys. We adults would cycle through our stuff similarly—from exhilaration to exhaustion to exacerbation, back to being energized.

One boy, trail name Polar Bear, witnessed severe domestic violence and was regularly beaten by his parents (with wood in the middle of the night). That sad upbringing has made him hyper-vigilant and very distrusting, such that he thinks being ugly, aggressive and mean will keep him from ever having to trust others. While he kept thinking we’d throw him away, Polar Bear experienced our acceptance despite his ugly, unlovable behavior. By week’s end, I was “Pops,” he was Bro, everyone was family.

Another team member, nicknamed Fanny Pack, was severely neglected as an infant (e.g., left in dirty diapers for days and never held). Almost every hour of our trip he wanted hugs, asked incessant questions, or wanted to do whatever we adults were doing, and made some requests that were out-of-bounds—all to get his needs met for love, belonging and closeness.

You know “Polar Bear” and “Fanny Pack,” friends in your midst who seek authentic community. Friends—the family we choose for ourselves—that means the world to these foster kids—indeed, to seekers of all kinds. Within the church, as within this wilderness adventure, I find that trust issues work out with the right structure and expectations.

In most wilderness therapy programs, youth do the hard work unaccompanied by their parents and their cell phones, yet the whole experience—if properly structured, reflected and acted upon—brings new insight and healing for the entire family. Kids return home with a new sense of autonomy, self-control and personal agency. Perhaps in the church, we could structure some weekend, even wilderness retreats, where we similarly reflect on experiences, then conceptualize the life lessons that apply back in the “real” world.

I am most impressed with how we built community out of the adversity we faced on this canoe trip. This also happened for several of us some years ago, when I took adult volunteers to help clean up New Orleans, post-Katrina. My best friend came out of that mix of service to others, cycling through action & reflection, plus hours of windshield time.

Men and boys build fellowship whenever there is a physical task or challenging mission in front of us—why is that?

Like dogs or wolfs in a pack, the males in these groups were reticent to look directly into the eyes of each other, but would approach sideways. Windshield time and canoe time provides the “sideways” connection and limited eye contact we need. But we must also be dedicated to the occasional fierce conversation—not being argumentative, but affirming our various self-interests for win-win solutions that appeal to the common good.

A “fierce conversation” is one where we hold convictions with courage and integrity, feel things deeply (instead of staying just in our heads), and fearlessly and shamelessly embrace reality, even looking at the “man in the mirror” for what’s really going on inside. With our adventuresome boys, it meant telling the one who refused his meds, that “when one suffers, we all suffer,” likewise, telling the boy balking the program, that no child will be left behind, that we are all in this together, to the finish (I Corinthians 12:14-26).

The search for authentic community is no different for the rest of us. We won’t find it by church shopping and hopping, hither and yon endlessly. Authentic community happens over time, at some personal cost, without a focus on self. Community demands sincere motives, dropping masks, no posturing. Crowd-pleasers who do things for show, or people-pleasers who pretend, know not this community. When our motive is to gain approval or look good to our peers, this detracts from community.

If you want to test your motives or desire for authentic community, check your response when treated like a servant, unappreciated, as I did on this canoe trip. By giving what others need most and deserve least, we build real community.

Rev. Dietrich Gruen is a hospice chaplain to the elderly and dying, father of three adult sons, husband of one wife, working out of Madison, WI, where he leads fierce conversations on hot topics, once using Ed Cyzewski’s book on Coffeehouse Theology.

I’m honored to have Diana Trautwein guest posting for me today while I’m on my paternity leave:

There have been days in my pastoral life when I’ve wanted to chuck it. Days when politics and personalities join forces to quench the Spirit, when trivia takes up more space on the calendar than truth, when frustration and fatigue invade body and soul. No doubt about it, parishioners (and pastors) can be difficult, demanding, prickly and pervasively apathetic. The church is not a perfect organism. How can it be? It’s made up of human beings!

But sometimes, those very same human beings can rise to the occasion. Sometimes they can look and act like exactly who they are as members of The Body of Christ. And when that happens, all you can do is take a deep breath and watch a miracle unfold. Three years ago, I was privileged to watch such a miracle during a time of deep crisis in our community, a time of trial by fire. Really.

On a late November Thursday afternoon, the wind blew hot and wild. I had just said good bye to the last of a dozen women gathered in my foothill home, when the phone rang: “Fire in the next canyon! Get ready to move out!” That very morning, the senior pastor had flown east to conduct a family funeral. I was now point person for a terror-filled emergency and our own home was in the line of fire.

So was the church. Staff who were still on campus evacuated a few things and then were sent down the hill by police and fire personnel. Members of our congregation who lived in Westmont College faculty housing were forced to leave everything behind, fleeing for their lives to local hotels and over-crowded homes and shelters. We drove south a few miles to sleep at our son’s for the duration and I began trying to gather church leadership for prayer and planning.

Throughout that long first night, it became clear that we had been hit hard. Over 120 homes were destroyed, another 100 damaged badly. Fourteen of our own church families were left with the clothes on their backs and nothing else. Another six had severe fire damage awaiting them. The flames raged on and the evacuation order stayed in place throughout the weekend. Arrangements were made to worship at a local country club, emergency funds were accessed, worship liturgies were written and as many people as possible were contacted and encouraged. We did this by email and telephone and one small gathering of staff and lay leadership. It’s amazing how fervently you can pray on the internet!

375 people came to sing, mourn, rejoice, pray and share stories that strange Sunday morning, and we managed to get Deacon’s fund checks written for each family who had lost their home. Then we began to dig in for the long haul of recovery.

We began by hosting weekly Advent dinners in our church gym for the entire foothill community, and at the first one, we gave away donated and purchased Christmas decorations to any and all who came. Surely not the most ‘practical’ gift at such a time, but one that was deeply appreciated by everyone who filled a bag full of beauty and sentiment.

We opened our campus to insurance agents and neighborhood housing organizations and city planners. We welcomed our neighbors and we set up meals and temporary housing for our displaced family members. Several spontaneous small groups took shape, offering a safe place to vent and share and pray. The Body worked hard, and it worked well.

As the New Year turned, it became clear that the road ahead was not going to be easy. Twenty families in a congregation of 350 people were displaced, and a few of them had no insurance. We found more money, we found furniture, we found hope. We also wanted to make room for grief, and as we moved into Lent in early February, we made plans for an unusual Good Friday service.

The faculty housing community now had about a dozen vacant lots in a neighborhood of 30 homes. We designed a walking liturgy, acknowledging the pain of this loss as we remembered the sacrifice of our Savior. We began and ended in a small central park, then walked up and down the hills, about 150 of us, stopping at each cyclone-fenced empty lot as a Station of the Cross, sharing in scripture, litany, and prayer. It was a powerful time of recognition, of understanding how deeply Jesus understood our bereft brothers and sisters. Our Easter celebration that year was particularly poignant and rich. The promise of the empty tomb spoke right into the bleakness of our loss, and together, we looked forward to new life.

Disasters are never easy – they are confusing, disorienting, frightening. But sometimes,

by the grace of God, a lovely light shines right through all the muck, all the heartache. Sometimes, you find a miracle – a whole series of miracles – when the community of the committed remembers who they are. Thanks be to God.

About Today’s Guest Blogger

Diana R.G. Trautwein is a retired pastor, a spiritual director, wife to a good man, mom to three adult kids and their spouses, and grandmom to 8 exceptional grandkids, ranging in age from 21 to 2. She also blogs at http://drgtjustwondering.blogspot.com. After raising her family, Diana experienced a call from God to attend seminary and dove in at the age of 44. While there, she was stunned to hear God say, “I want you to be my minister.” So after graduation, she served two congregations as Associate Pastor for a total of 17 years. She is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church. These days, in addition to entertaining a delightful 2-year-old two days each week, she and her husband are walking the last leg of the journey with their moms, each of whom suffers from dementia. Even there, God is. And even then, life is a gift.

My paternity leave continues this week, so my friend Renee Johnson Fisher is stepping in to tell her story of belonging in church:

I’ve attended many churches in my life. Often I church hopped to find a place to belong and feel comfortable. However, the longer I stayed single, the more difficult it became to find a church where I fit.

Although I was never asked questions like “Why aren’t you married?” or “Do you want to serve in the nursery?” or “How much can you give?” I sure felt them. As a woman–I felt my only place to serve God was in the four walls of a church behind my husband. Since I didn’t have one I felt lost for many a season.

Fortunately, I found a church with a thriving singles ministry.

I got involved quickly. I put my skills of leadership, teaching, and hospitality to good use and lead a small group for 20-somethings. It wasn’t so much to get what I thought I wanted (a husband), but to honor God with my time, leadership skills, and because God loves a cheerful giver.

Unfortunately, it was a mega-church where I never quite felt like I belonged.

No matter how many friends I made–I never seemed to go deep enough. I felt like a number. Although I had many friends we never really saw each other around campus.

After a few years of this, I put one foot out the door (literally, I moved to San Diego) and one foot back at my parent’s house. I committed to lead one last small group.

That’s when I met Marc.

I couldn’t believe that God brought me my husband through one of the largest churches in North San Diego County after I tried everything to find him. Even after online dating. Even after I wrote Not Another Dating Book.

I felt so rewarded for all the years I hung in there, at various churches and their singles ministries. I’m so glad I stayed even though it never felt like home. In my heart I knew it’s where God wanted me even if it’s not where I wanted to be at the time.

When Marc and I married, we moved further away. I thought it would be easy to find a church with all my connections. Nope. Finding a church that wasn’t too big, but not too small wasn’t as easy as we thought.

We got to the point where I stopped expecting for God to show up. You know–church–the place where God is supposed to be, right?

Maybe it’s because we were looking for something deeper. For a place where transparency was key and there was an altar. Yep. I said altar. It’s not a four-letter word and they do exist in southern California.

There was this one church I went to when I took a break from that same mega church in my early 20’s. Every Sunday, I learned how to bring my burdens to God and leave them at the altar.

It was during those few short years that I became a confident woman in my relationship with God and others. For the first time in my life I felt like I finally belonged in a church that was my own. Not my parents. Mine.

It didn’t take long for all my close friends at that church to move away or get married. Once again I found myself so alone. Because I didn’t want to be the only single 20-something–I left.

But I always kept a piece of heart at that kind of church.

Thankfully, after about six months of marriage, someone reached out to me via Facebook and told me about her church in our new area. It was smaller and it (gasp) had an altar. Although I immediately felt at home–the church search wasn’t just about me anymore but my husband and I. It took Marc and I a couple months of going regularly to figure out that (a) we really did like the church (b) they have a genuine pastor and (c) a small group in our area for single and married young adults.

I’m so glad that we have the freedom to find the church that is right for us. Maybe I didn’t always feel like I belonged, but more importantly I was just being obedient regardless of my relationship status. And God blessed me because of it!

About Today’s Guest Blogger

Renee Johnson Fisher is a spirited speaker to twenty-somethings and the author of Faithbook of Jesus and Not Another Dating Book. She graduated from Biola University and worked with nationally known Christian speakers and writers at Outreach Events. With her trademark wit and enthusiasm, Renee urges young adults to take a closer look at the way they relate to God and others, showing them that every relationship finds its perfect example in Christ. Renee loves her engineering husband Marc who enjoys teaching her how to cook in their spare time. They live in Escondido, CA with their pit bull named Rock Star.

For the most part, the Belonging in Church series has focused on telling stories about how to belong to community from the perspective of the pews, but today Rev. Angie Mabry-Nauta writes about the tension of keeping the peace even when we part ways with our ministers:

May 8 marked my two year anniversary of leaving congregational ministry. I remember it like it was yesterday, but have been reluctant to write about it publicly

Am I ready to dive into the church part of what led to my resignation? I ask this myself on a daily basis because I know that eventually I will need to. I am diffident because there was such ugliness in the end. I fear some of the congregation’s wounds are still open and that someone will respond in an attacking manner. The time spanning February to October 2010 was some of the worst I’d experienced in my life.

I was unaware of how bad things would get when I preached my last sermon, which was an utterly graceful gift from God. Because of this I was able to speak into the moment — the pain, the disillusion, and the possibilities of where the church could go from there. God had me preach from a text that encompassed my life verse (Philippians 4:4-7). I called the sermon "A Fond Farewell", most of which I recall here. I figure that rereading this sermon and reliving the moment in my head and heart are the best ways to be posthumously faithful to the time my former congregation and I shared in the presence and work of the Lord.

I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice .Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you (Phil 4:2-9, NRSV).

Here Paul speaks to a beloved community following his departure. Leaving is always the hardest on the party that is left behind, I said to my congregation that day. It was a congregation that had seen the coming and going of five pastors (counting me) over their 40-year history; and now God had called yet another pastor away from them. How they responded over the following months and years was their concern, of course. However, the Spirit seemed to be speaking and offering options through the text.

• They could fight amongst themselves, as are Euodia and Syntyche in the text, and poison the congregation with residual anger, pain, and proprietary feelings (Phil 4:2-3)
• They could choose to fare well in the Lord (4:4-7) by riding out each part of the journey in faithfulness, knowing that there will be ups and downs. With this choice they would intentionally fare well/rejoice happy and challenging times and stay connected to God in prayer. Such a choice, says Paul, brings the peace of God that passes our own understanding.
• They could think on good things (4:8) by taking a glass-is-halfway-full approach and looking through the years we were together and asking God to reveal Godself in them. By doing so they would be more likely to learn from challenges and difficult times, rather than stewing and dwelling on them.
• Following the previous choice, they could celebrate the good that we did together and keep it going (4:9).

Then I tied it all together and shared what I believed to be most probable to happen.

Actually, it will probably be a process, probably a mixture of each of these things going on both within the congregation and for individual persons, and not necessarily in this linear fashion. Y’all might skip around, or perhaps you’ll be at a place somewhere down the road where you feel like you’re able to celebrate sincerely, and then something trips you up and puts you right back to the anger and bitterness again. This is okay. It’s called grief; and it’s a process. And the only way to healing, or a least living with it better, is through.

The person I’d become through the counseling and spiritual direction needed to be honest about what was happening that day; and so I concluded my sermon thus:

We have been in intense relationship with one another for 5 ½ years. And unlike Paul, I did not enter this community knowing that my term would be up within a certain amount of time. I came here to be your pastor: to love you; to lead you; to serve you; to challenge you; to serve with you; and to grow in faith with and glorify God with you. I wasn’t thinking of the end when I began; nor was I thinking of the end when I went on sabbatical. But here we are. And it hurts. Also, I know y’all don’t want me to linger here in the pulpit all day long because the potential that someone might feel abandoned is too much for me to bear.

But, here’s where the Apostle, Paul, the Good-bye man comes in to offer us another nugget from his vast experience with farewells. The last eight words of our text say this, “ … [The] peace of God will be with you.” No one is abandoned. Not you, not me, not our children, not visitors, not the church, not the community. The peace of God will be with you, and it will be with me. And that’s not nothin’, folks. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Today I am mindful of all pastors and congregations who are presently or have in the past experienced painful congregational ministry times and relationships. I empathize with you, pray for you, and offer you encouragement that no matter how chaotic you may feel the peace of God is indeed with you.

About Today’s Guest Post

Angie Mabry-Nauta is a theologian, freelance writer and speaker in Plano, TX.  She is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America (RCA), and served in congregational ministry for six years.  She blogs regularly at her own website, "Woman in Progress…" and for the RCA at the Church Herald Blogs. Follow her on Twitter @Godstuffwriter.

My friend Lisa Delay kicks off the guest posts about Belonging in Church while I take my paternity leave:

Our sense of belonging won’t remain consistent. Belonging will look and feel different at various junctures of our lives.

Outgrowing my small group

I went through a confusing period when I felt like I didn’t belong in my small group. It wasn’t that the other members weren’t nice people. I simply noticed that as talk of deeper spiritual things was needed conversations got…well, sillier.

But the time the topics of bathing suit season, losing weight, or the merits of breast augmentation made regular appearances during our time together I realized I was spiritually thirsty for more than was possible in my particular group.

At first it was frustrating. I sort of resented the superficiality and the avoidance of the tough sledding needed to grow in holiness. Why was the level of interaction and spiritual thirst so lacking? I wondered. Could I could get emotionally or spiritually risky with people I couldn’t imagine being very close with? Not really. It was disappointing. It’s also a situation ripe for potential misunderstandings and even “frienamies”.

Even though the misfit made belonging difficult it finally created the atmosphere for personal change and the beginning of a new journey.

Misfitting

When you don’t fit in it could be a perfect time to step out and be brave in a new area.

For me, I searched out opportunities for deeper learning, outside the group, and even outside my church. I read books, I connected with people online, and most importantly, I kept my eyes open.

This lead me to a Seminary that I loved. I finally felt like a fish in water more powerfully than ever before. I pursued a Masters degree in Religion with a Spiritual Formation concentration. In the process I didn’t just learn about God, but I learned to trust God and his goodness. I uncovered some the lies I believed about God or people that made belonging difficult.

Swimming with the fishies…

In this environment many others shared my interest for growing closer to the heart of God. Bonding and belonging came very easily. People were sacrificing to study there in preparation for ministry and service. Love, grace, and acceptance was ramped up. Achieving there didn’t come easily, whether academically, personally, spiritually, or emotionally.

In the end, it gave me the experience, tools, and desire to belong in a different way when I was done. I could belong through ministry primarily rather than peer-to-peer relationships. I didn’t have to belong and be compatible like I thought I did previously.

Though it gave my interactions more meaning than before, it had its disadvantages and misfits too. I learned it was important for me to seek out the formal counsel and perspective of a spiritual director to help me continue to learn and grow. I realized that each period of belonging or not belonging is a passing season. Each stage is a progression filled with choices to grow or to just wallow in disappointment. It takes some pluck to continue moving forward.

If now is a rough patch of belonging for you, wait it out.

Friends, don’t let a misfit of belonging sideline you or discourage you. It is a season filled with opportunities to grow and change. We mustn’t put the burden of change on anybody but ourselves. Pick your head up and look around. You’ll see the new path that will lead to a new season.

Season’s Blessings to you!

-Lisa

Check out Lisa’s blog today, and don’t miss her E-book Soulcare for Creatives.

When we finally found a healthy church with a great small group, we settled into a comfortable routine  of church on Sunday, ministry on Wednesday, and small group on Friday. everything was close and convenient to our home. Our small group was a tight-knit group of friends that we worked our way into. After seven years in the church-attending wilderness, we had found our home.

Then something terrible happened.

Change.

Different people started to host our group. Others moved away. Some families left our church and our small group because of theological disagreements.

Oh Change, you are so inevitable and yet so unexpected and dreadful.

I can’t imagine why in the world I ever thought we could freeze people in time or preserve our church just as we found it. It was foolish and ridiculous. The shock I endured was brief and quickly analyzed. It wasn’t like this threw me into a deep depression.

And yet, it’s quite common to naturally resist change, especially when things are going so well. More often than not, we can’t see the good that could materialize as a result of change. We just add up what we know we’ll lose because that’s much easier to quantify.

Christian communities will change. It’s inevitable. Sometimes leaders will initiate the wrong kinds of changes. Sometimes it can be good to resist change, especially change that misconstrues growth as equal to health and faithfulness as disciples of Jesus.

I can’t tell you how to respond to change, but I can tell you a few things:

• Change is inevitable in church.
• Most of us will naturally resist change.
• Change can be extremely beneficial.
• There may be good reasons to resist change.

In the case of our church and small group, we made new friends, met in new locations, and things carried on much as before. Very little actually changed in the end. Still, every little hint of change left me uneasy at first.

Are we going to move Sunday meetings to a new location?

Will we change the name and logo of the church?

Will someone keep our potluck going?

I’m sure some were left unsatisfied by some of these changes, but in the end, things worked out. I’d wasted a lot of time worrying unnecessarily. Our small group added some wonderful new members, and then a year later, we ended up moving away, bringing our own change about in our now former church.

If I returned to that church, I’m sure plenty of things have changed since then. I know they have a new name and logo. I’m not really sure where they’re meeting. But I know that I’d find a lot of people who are very important to me, and that’s actually all that matters. The changes I care most about have to do with the people in my church—and relatively speaking, those things remain the same.

Any time I’ve spent worrying about something other than people was a complete waste. Things always worked out, even if the “best” change didn’t necessarily happen. I’ve learned that I’m much healthier in the church when I spend my time making sure my affection and support for my community remains the same and not worrying quite so much about the service time, the landscaping, the logo, and the thousand other little details we can lose sleep over in a church.

Still, there are days when I wonder what it would be like to once again meet for small group with the family that had a pool.

I lug a copy of the Divine Hours around the house all day in an attempt to remember to pray a few times throughout the day.

I jot down notes during the sermon.

I sing the same slow song each week at church as a confession of my sins.

I crunch on a juice-stained wafer for communion.

I read a bit of the Bible each morning while eating breakfast.

This is not exciting stuff by any measure. I often have to force myself to open my prayer book in the middle of a busy day or to put aside an amusing book at bed time in order to focus on the Compline. Watching a hockey game, even a Bluejackets game, strikes me as a bit more exciting than prayer or sitting around at church.

Then some remarkable things happen…

The other night I read two Psalms that spoke right to my spirit. I jotted them down in my journal:

“for the glory of your name, deliver us and forgive us our sins, for your Name’s sake.” – Psalm 79:9

Did you catch that? God views forgiving us as a matter of proving his reputation. God is glorified by forgiving us. When we receive God’s forgiveness, we’re demonstrating his glory. God takes forgiving us very, very seriously, even more seriously than we do. The other verse is similar:

“Remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.” Psalm 25:6

God’s very reputation is wrapped up in his love and forgiveness. He demonstrates who he is by loving and forgiving his people.

These were not necessarily exciting moments, but they spoke words of restoration and hope in my spirit. The same often happens at church each Sunday as our pastors apply the story of Jesus to our community and as we confess our sins to a merciful God who is committed to nourishing us.

I need to do these “boring” things because they reorient me. Oftentimes I don’t even perceive the ways I’ve been drifting away from God and from others before it’s too late. Lots of times sin works like that: we drift away little by little until temptation pounces on us when we’re far away from God and our defenses are down.

There is something effective and necessary about the daily gentle prods of prayer, scripture reading, and worshipping in community. They aren’t magical remedies for sinful ailments, but they can provide the timely pushes, the sustaining words, and the stories we need to stay on track, to draw near to Jesus, and to stay there.

When we draw near to Jesus, life will not be quite so boring any more, even if the steps we have to take to get there are usually hard pressed to compete with a last place hockey team.

I’d had it with Richmond Bible Church (not the real church name). The pastors had been manipulative and I honestly wasn’t even sure if one pastor named Robby was a Christian. The Sunday that the head pastor described Robby as a “remarkable” associate pastor, I knew it was time to get out.

Things were falling apart all around me at Richmond Bible Church. Divisions were rising up all around me, I didn’t learn all that much, and most of its ministries were better labeled as entertainment.

I wanted to shake the dust off my feet.

While I had the decency to tell Robby in person that I was finished with him and his church, I wasn’t gentle. I didn’t think he deserved gentle. Who wants to be gracious to a guy who is squandering his entire ministry?

I was angry, frustrated, and ready to attend a less flamboyant church that preached the Bible without all of the bells and whistles.

Robby was crestfallen when I and most of his ministry volunteers stepped down and left the church. We scattered to a bunch of other churches in the area while Richmond Bible church descended into chaos.

Leaving felt right for me. I didn’t trust the leadership, and they followed a worse course than I could have imagined. A bunch of people were surely devastated by the events that followed the inevitable church split.

Years later, I’m haunted by the memory of Robby and the poor people who watched friendships dissolve as parties chose sides and fought for control of the church’s future.

There’s no doubt in my mind that many people fell more in love with a ministry vision than they did with one another and with Jesus, but did I make the right choice?

On the one hand, I benefited tremendously by attending another church. The Sunday School teacher at my new church was a woman named Mary who has proven to be one of the most influential spiritual mentors I’ve ever had. On the other hand, I wonder who helped the people at Richmond Bible heal?

Staying or leaving a church is a difficult decision that taps into emotions such as anger, guilt, and deep grief as you lose a level of intimacy with people who were your family for a season. What once felt like home, feels like hostile territory.

A few of my  friends stuck around. They invested in the same ministry as before, and I saw something in them that I didn’t see in myself: a pastoral heart for people. I’d been so wrapped up in the politics and leadership issues that I didn’t stop to ask, “Should I stay for the sake of others?”

There were many good reasons to leave that church. I just think my reasons were the wrong ones. At the very least, I wish I’d left for better reasons.

Leaving that church didn’t mean that I had to give up on some of the people I knew. We could have still invited the high school guys over to our dorm room to hang out (this happened while I was in college) or taken them out to the driving range to horse around—this was the Midwest after all and entertainment options were limited.

I did what I should have never done: I made leaving a church an all or nothing, tribal decision. Once I left one “tribe,” I cut myself off from all of the people. I saw church as a matter of loyalty to one organization over another. When I joined a new tribe, I did my best to forget my old tribe.

I buried my emotions and pain rather than working through them and facing the difficulties hitting Richmond Bible Church every week. I wanted to remove myself from the pain and the mess. I didn’t have any redemptive hope for that church or the people. I just said, “What a mess!” and walked away.

There are situations where leaving a church is certainly necessary, especially where there are issues with manipulation and control among the leadership. However, I pray that I’ll always have the courage to put the people first, to walk with my friends through their pain, and to remain committed to the ministries God places before me, even if leaving a church is the right decision.

I used to think of church and community as an all or nothing matter. My smaller, tribal notion of community was far from the love for one another Jesus imagined for his people and the unity his Spirit gives.

Despite the dramatic ways I’ve failed others, God doesn’t give up on me. He takes that shame and sadness over the past and reminds me that he delights in restoring even the unremarkable.