Back to Church?

This weekend, I went to church. Two, actually.

It’s been years since I’ve attended a church service but over the last few months I’ve been curious about the possibility.

It’s probably important to mention that I didn’t visit evangelical churches. I have no desire to potentially join any group that thinks it’s important to believe gay people shouldn’t have the right to marry. Not to mention the fear based notion that a God had to slaughter his son so a magical cosmic murder can cover me in blood and make my evilness “all better”. There’s just no way that fundamentalism and biblical literalism will ever have a place in my life again.

No, the only hope of me ever returning to church lies in a more progressive church. Churches that are open and affirming of the LGBT community and whose theological perspectives have enough spaciousness to hold a much more generous definition of whatever we may mean by “God”.

As I drove to the first church, I daydreamed about what it would be like. What would it feel like to sit in a congregation and experience the whole thing start to finish? I got a little nervous thinking about having to talk to anyone. Gosh, what time should I get there so I can minimize the possibilities of interaction?

These are the kinds of thoughts I spent years teaching my church staff to be sensitive to regarding visitors to our community. It’s scary coming into a religious space for the first time. And I even grew up in church and pastored one for years!

I even worried that I might tear up a little. Church was a huge part of my life and the one I pastored for 16 years included all my best friends and some of the sweetest memories of my 20s and 30s. Would this experience trigger the grief that I feel sometimes about the inevitable letting go of seasons of life that I loved so much? I secretly hoped not.

Driving into the parking lot, I watched a little family walking across the property, a young kid held the door for me as I walked in and the building was bright and airy and clean. Felt like a really nice library actually.

The congregation was mostly boomers although there were a few younger families peppered throughout and some teens and young adults as well. It was refreshing to feel the sense of communal solidarity and intention that I hadn’t been around for a while. Yep, I miss that.

There just aren’t many spaces in modern life that include a multi generational crowd, group singing, and collective calls to live into the best versions of ourselves for the benefit of the whole earth community. Sitting there, I could really appreciate what this place did. I mean that in a pragmatic sense. This performs an important societal function and few other organizations can even attempt to fill its role. It made me happy to see that it existed for those who are interested.

The other church was smaller and slightly more traditional (think organ music and stained glass) but it too had the quaint feel of a small country church where everyone knew everyone. They leaned more into formality and liturgy than the other one but it was neat in its own way.

All in all, it was sweet. Like listening to an oldies radio station. I enjoyed it. But only at a distance for sure. It really felt like I was an anthropologist observing a different culture. I didn’t have any triggering experiences, I didn’t tear up or feel any grief and there was no fear or frustration - even when comments or beliefs or particular rituals felt disconnected from reality or poorly explained.

I was a traveling tourist who could just enjoy and appreciate a different culture and let it be what it was.

But more importantly, and to the point of my visit, I just didn’t feel like the whole idea spoke to me anymore. And I could sense the part inside me that wishes that it would.

As someone who not only grew up in the church (quite literally - my parents were ministers) and then pastored my own church for so many years, I think i will always be sentimental about the church of my youth. I don’t mean that in the sense of a singular particular church in time and space but more the feeling I had about church when I was young and when I was in my early adulthood. It felt good to feel like the elder adults were in control or even more importantly, the ultimate adult, GOD, was in control and would keep us all safe and secure and we all could KNOW he loved us as we partnered with his work- which was the most important thing in the world.

That is so dead for me. I can’t pretend to see that as even remotely true. I just simply can’t go back to that mode of consciousness. Even if I wanted to. Not emotionally, spiritually, or intellectually.

Also, I’m not asking any of the questions the church seems to want to answer. Like I heard a pastor ask this weekend “so who wrote the book of Hebrews?”. Who fucking cares!?

While the real world is wrestling with what it means to be human in light of artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, the collapse of economic systems, global migration, climate change and other pressing issues, the church often feels like reruns of a religion that once was. A museum of old ways.

And even if church did ask a question I am interested in, if it’s a good question its probably not answerable anyway. And I have stopped seeking a god who someone can simply explain to me from a stage or out of any book - no matter how old.

There’s a chance I could find some appreciation for the community side of it all, but I have also learned of the last few years that I don’t need the church to facilitate community for me anymore. I know how to make and cultivate community and I’d rather do it without the necessity of church services. I simply find them boring.

I don’t stay that because I need church to entertain me. In fact I especially wouldn’t want to go to the churches with huge light and smoke shows, celebrity musical artists and pastors who ride motorcycles up on stage. I don’t need a dash of universal studios in my spirituality.

I just mean that church feels out of touch. Either it’s super “hip”, to the point of being a caricature of itself (these are usually evangelical churches that despite their cool pastor in the Gucci jeans, still have regressive and nonsensical theology or 1950s conservative stances on sexual and social issues) or it’s so dated it feels like visiting a nursing home. And I can appreciate a nursing home! Just not all the time or as my primary source of community.

So there we have it. I enjoyed my little tour. And I didn’t cry - which surprised me. I was just able to visit these little cultures and appreciate them for what they are and do. But it’s clear to me - at least so far - that this is no longer a viable option for the spirituality that is alive within me at 45 years old and after the journey my life has taken.

I feel the sacred more on a hike in the woods or on a tab of LSD, or in sexual ecstasy more than I do ever do singing songs about a concept of God that I find overly simplistic and sentimental.

I may try again - there are a few other liberal congregations in town… We’ll see.

For now, I’m off to hike in the woods on mushrooms. 🍄