As the summer ends

A personal announcement, why I think people are really leaving the church, and some recaps.

Greetings from what I wish was the other side of Texas heat, but is in all actuality, the dead center of it. I haven’t shared this news anywhere else (because I really want to pull the “surprise! we had a baby and no one knew” move on social media), but I’m just over six months pregnant with our third child. Doug and I are thankful the baby is healthy and that we are able to become parents once again. This time around, we are waiting to find out the gender until birth and are in desperate need of another boy name…so if you have any ideas, send them my way, but be forewarned, we are picky.

With the pregnancy, selling a business, and a million little things, the summer has flown by. I’ve eaten a lot of Taco Bell and found no time to write. Our dog who struggles with a stress hormone deficiency had a health crisis. We are in process of kicking a rat family out of our home and off our property (unfortunately they really don’t want to leave). I had a *touch* of pre-melanoma that needed to be cut off my back (they caught it early, praise God!). We are in the thick of toddlerhood which is to say, we are in a war zone of emotions and discipline day and night: some days we “win”, but most days are a zero sum game where we (parents and toddlers alike), shed a few tears, hug a few forced hugs, and move on with our lives.

I don’t know exactly why exactly I write all this except that it feels cathartic to do so. I feel like so many people I know are having a hard time this summer - dealing with not just the absurd but truly heavy and difficult things. I had coffee this morning with some good friends who are in the middle of such seasons, and it felt good to laugh at misery, to say, “I’m just sad,” and “This is simply ridiculous.” We have such extremes these days - it feels like we have to either ignore all negativity and make a positive lesson out of every suffering or clench as tightly as possible to every terrible thing that happens to us until it’s plastered on our forehead. Perhaps laughter is the solution to minding the gap between these extremes because it allows us to acknowledge things for what they are but gives us an escape at the same time.

In a (funny) way, that’s what the cross allows too: having faith that Jesus died for the sins of the world reorients our ability to name suffering as suffering, but fortunately, this reality also offers a very real and true escape through the hope we hold in God’s ability to set all things right. Regardless of where you find yourself these days - in the sad, the ridiculous, or the joyous - I hope you’re encouraged to share with someone not so you can bury your burdens down deep but trusting that you will, eventually, be free of them. I hope you’ll remember (along with me) that life ebbs and flows and we are so often laughably just along for the ride.

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Some Thoughts on Church

This article, “The Misunderstood Reason Millions of Americans Stopped Going to Church,” recently caught my attention and I’ve been thinking about it a lot in the face of what Christianity has to offer the world not only in the face of suffering, but in general. I also tried my hand at a little Youtube video (look at this cross promotion!) if you want to watch that instead:

“The church isn’t a building, it’s the people.”

There is a lot to unpack in a sentence like this, some things true and some not so true. But one thing to be careful about with this sentence is that on some level, it implies that the success of church is based on the strength of it’s community. That it is community itself: how well people get along, how close they are, how much they hangout, etc., is the ultimate marker of the church.

But if you’ve ever been a part of a church you know this is rarely the case. I would wager you may have even left a few places because of it.

Some people at church really suck. Some can be included on the list of strangest and weirdest people you’ll ever meet. Some make you feel judged no matter what they say or do.

I used to try and pick a church based on the people. In college and my early twenties, I church hopped all the time. Which community was the best fit for me? Which one had the most normal people (or which is most in need of my amazing skills)? Which one had the strongest small groups and bible studies?

This ultimately resulted in me never picking a church, because (surprise, surprise) none ever met my very high standards. Now, I say that with this caveat: community should be a part of the church. We should share each others burdens, forgive each other, and provide for each other. But to base our definition of church on how well the community aspect is operating – or perhaps better put, how much we find the community aspect as fulfilling or even distinct, is dangerous.

This all came to mind for me after reading Jake Meador’s recent, “The Misunderstood Reason Millions of Americans Stopped Going to Church,” which has a lot of really insightful points. Meador argues that the big reasons we tend to think people leave the church (church abuse, scandal, or traumatic life events) are not the most common reasons they leave:

“For most Americans who were once a part of churches but have since left, the process of leaving was gradual, and in many cases they didn’t realize it was even happening until it already had. It’s less like jumping off a cliff and more like driving down a slope, eventually realizing that you can no longer see the place you started from,” Meador says.

Meador goes on to cite long work hours, drained resources, and demanding schedules as some of the underlying causes for people to drift from church. “The underlying challenge for many is that their lives are stretched like a rubber band about to snap—and church attendance ends up feeling like an item on a checklist that’s already too long.”

I think the author is on to something extremely important here, especially in the wake of COVID-19: what makes the church different? Why should anyone sacrifice their time, their effort, their personal goals and desires to make time to sit in an uncomfortable building with uncomfortable people on what is undoubtedly the only downtime left in American life?

But here’s where I find myself departing from the article’s analysis: yes, attending and being a part of a church is a sacrifice. But this sacrifice - our sacrifice - isn’t where we find fulfillment nor the “ultimate marker” of Christianity. Instead, the primary of goal of the church, the reason to attend week after week surrounded by all those other weirdos, is because of what church offers you: not authentic community but the proclamation of the gospel.

So far in my life, I’ve found (and would say currently have) much better community in my neighborhood, friend groups, and at work, than I have at church. Some days this makes me sad; I do long for a future where this isn’t the case. But I no longer choose to base whether I show up Sunday morning on this factor alone. Instead, I’ve decided that the primary thing that needs to happen for me on Sundays is hearing (even if it’s muffled by toddler cries and baby giggles) that I am a sinner in need of God’s grace and that he gives me this grace again and again on account of the death and resurrection of Jesus. I need to receive Christ’s forgiveness through his body and blood and I need to be reminded that I am made righteous by our Savior through the gift of my baptism (rather than through my church attendance and volunteer record).

Sadly, I think people are emptying out of churches in droves not because they can’t find meaningful community elsewhere (although I acknowledge that is also a current problem for many), but because they can. Doubling down on the idea that Christians in church need to give more and attend more is going to have the opposite effect of drawing people in. I fear the type of preaching and mentality that minimizes the radical gift of the gospel for a “radically different sort of community” will actually be the last snap in our rubber band lives, rather than the glue we need to hold everything together.

But imagine with me now church pews packed full of a herd of weirdos who make their way into a building Sunday after Sunday because they know it’s the only place in the whole world where their thirst will be quenched, their load actually lightened. And then imagine this lot of sinners heading out into the world for the week ahead: chatting with each other as they go, caring and growing closer to one another not because that’s the goal, not because all the undedicated people remain outside, but because they can’t help but love one another after being renewed by Jesus’ love. Go to where God’s law and gospel are preached, and I can guarantee this will happen. Why? Because where the gospel is preached, the Holy Spirit creates faith. And where faith in Christ exists, we are promised that love will follow.

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Outside Ourselves

A number of Outside Ourselves episodes have come out since I last wrote something, and I loved this conversation with my new friend, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson. I am not sure exactly how to categorize this one because we talked a little about many things: the very real difficulties of church (which parallels some of my thoughts from above) and faith and doubt, among others. I think if you listen, you’ll be encouraged.

And my last episode was a somewhat spontaneous episode on aliens, theology, and more on the role of reason within faith (I’m realizing that’s somewhat of a theme for the show) with 1517 Academy Director, Adam Francisco. We had a lot of fun and whether you buy into the latest on UAPs and testimony on non-human biological matter or not, I think you’ll find what Adam has to say interesting. Here’s a shorter clip from the episode:

I am really excited about the two remaining episodes this month, so be on the lookout for those if you listen/watch.

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What I’ve Been Reading

• After his death at the beginning of this summer, I listened to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I. was. entranced. I don’t think this book would have had the impact it did if I had consumed it before having kids (and boys specifically). Reading The Road feels like walking through a pitch black tunnel for hours on end, with only a microscopic pinhole of light to guide you: the richness of the darkness forces that pinhole to shine brighter. For both his characters and his readers, McCarthy zeros attention in on whatever minuscule hope is available. There’s no denying that life feels like this at times. Blackness does overwhelm. The question is what do we trust and who do we become when it does? I don’t know if I’ve yet to experience a time quite like this in life. But reading this book made me think about what my own answers would be, and I hope that if that time comes, my answer centers on Christ, and on the promise that his promises remain true no matter how faint they may - at times - appear. As long as they remain, then at some point they will overpower the darkness.

• I just finished the forthcoming A Quiet Mind to Suffer With, before interviewing author John Andrew Bryant for a future Outside Ourselves episode. I don’t think I’ve read anything else quite like it, and as a teaser, the interview with John was one of my favorites to date. A Quite Mind is Bryant’s retelling of his struggle with OCD, and his brief experience in a psych ward and then successive recovery. Although very specific to how as a Christian, Bryant navigates mental illness, the larger theme of this book is that we are not in control and need saving particularly because we think we are. It’s the story of a merciful God who has done just that through his dying and rising and the hope we have in his return. I’m sure I’ll write more about this book in the future, but for now, here’s a short excerpt, one of too many to count that I underlined (you can find another amazing passage on my IG):

  A life in Christ is not cerebral; it is audible. That it comes to us, into us, through the mouths of folks we know. It wouldn’t exist without someone to speak it to me. Because the gospel, especially when it is spoken out loud from the mouth of someone who isn’t us, continues to have a power over our hearts we do not have. The very strength of a Christian’s life, its very foundation, the very fact and basis of it, is its being announced by someone else.

• The last book I want to mention is not nearly as heavy as the first two and yet it’s about infidelity and saving a marriage, so…take that as you will. I’ve never laughed so hard nor sobbed so loudly as I did while reading Harrison Scott Key’s How to Stay Married. This book is for everyone, because as Key points out, infidelity can and does happen to anyone. It’s a story filled with honesty about who we are when we take a second to self-reflect (hint: not as great as we would like to think), and the grace God gives to us anyway. Key is hysterical and wise and I wasn’t able to put this one down. If you’re not convinced, watch his 12 minute TED talk on the book and I guarantee you’ll change your mind: