Monday, October 22, 2018

I Quit......

At church our Pastor started a sermon series about people that have given up on religion.  You know the people I mean.....people who attended church as a child, but now wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near one.  People who have denounced any form of organized religion, prayer of any kind (unless we are praying over the mega millions), and religious authority.

When I first heard about this series, I immediately thought of friends and family members who have walked away.  I thought of the reasons and how the church (and the people) have failed them over time. But then, I realized this series was really about me in some sense.  It was also for the people who sit in the pew week after week and are unchanged by the message of the Gospel.  

I have been out of church before so I get it. I went to college and didn't really make a conscious effort not to attend church, I just didn’t even care enough to really consider it.  To be honest, I made some great friends with people who cared about me a lot and none of us met in church.  That kind of threw everything I thought I knew about church out of the window. These people were nice, funny, caring, and one of them was even my future husband.  In fact, they were a stark contrast to the people I had met in the church growing up.  They didn’t try to nitpick everything and find hidden fault in Every. Single. Person.  I didn’t really make an effort to “quit religion” but it just happened.  That’s the scary part.

As an adult, I entered into a relationship with Christ and realized church was actually something I enjoyed going to.  I didn’t have to hold on to the bitterness of the past and found myself in a church I could grow in, form relationships with people, and raise a family.  I was an adult with a new love for Christ and His church.  As our family dynamic began to change with fostering, the relationships we made in the church, and with other Christians, were the only things that sustained us.  We made a commitment to “do life” as closely as possible with several friends and allowed our thinking to be changed by the Gospel.

But over time, that began to dull once again. I became the type of Christian that showed up weekly and became irritated that the music didn’t make me feel super spiritual.  I mean, I wasn't even tempted to raise my hands.  Annoying.  So I became irritated at everyone else.  It couldn’t be a problem with me.  No way.  Preaching a little boring?  Ugh.  I mean, surely he could have read a little less Isaiah and used a few more videos. 

Someone made me a little uncomfortable talking about the miraculous way God moved in their life?  They got a little too charismatic?  I better pick that apart quickly.  They want me to volunteer again?  There are 6 paid staff people.  Surely, one of them can.  And so on and so on.

Slowly over time, nothing impressed me, everything irritated me, and I found myself being the most religious person I knew to give up on religion.  I sat in the pew week after week and left completely unchanged.  And the scary part is….I didn’t even realize it. 

Sure, I felt sorry for the oppressed.  Broken for them?  No.  Hearer of the Word?  Sure.  Doer of the Word?  No.  Reading the Bible?  Sure.  Allowing the Bible to amaze me and change me?  No.  

To be honest, this is where I live too often as a committed, church going Christian.  Why would anyone want what I have?  What stands out to them?  How do I love differently?  How do I resist the urge to sit in a pew and be unmoved week after week?  How do I resist picking apart someone's personal testimony and story, simply because it makes me uncomfortable or forces me to think differently.

It's hard!  It's an effort that forces me to continue to learn, grow, and think differently.  I imagine I would have felt so out of place in the early church!  I can't be satisfied being stagnant and luke-warm.  It's in those times that quitting seems easy and continuing on seems far too complicated.  

People are messy.  And human.  And imperfect.  But, when we wrap all of that up in the context of the Gospel, it's a beautifully broken mess that I would much rather be in the middle of than on the outside looking in.