I entered one of the three double doors into an ocean of people and kids swimming all around me. The lobby was a hexagon of options. Children down one hall, youth down another, and the main hall stretched down an endless corridor. The sanctuary was dark except for a purple, blue haze that glared from the stage. We found our seats and the first thing I notice was the kleenex boxes at the end of each row. I rolled my eyes: Oh geez, here we go. Then the music began to play.
I will never forget the conversation I had with my good friend after visiting their said kleenex-box church. She asked for my honest opinion about the service and I shared it seemed pretty typical with the emotional music and feely sermon. I even got teary which annoyed me tremendously! My friend admittedly expressed the main reason she attended each week was for the experience. She explained how she doesn’t connect with God in an emotional way on her own, so she attends a church that can cultivate an experience for her. I appreciated her honesty but it also deeply saddened me because if we truly believe God is always with us, how is possible we’ve been able to box and package him so well?!
Writer, liturgist, and former pastor Aaron Niequist described this experience of the church with a helpful illustration. Imagine a person who wants to get into better physical shape. They pack their bags, take the 20-minute or so drive, and enter the doors of their local fitness center. Upon entering, a fitness coach immediately encourages them for their motivation to get in shape and ushers them into a dark room to watch a film about fitness. It was an insightful and inspirational film, and once it was finished the person asked with great enthusiasm: Now what!? The training says to come back next week, they have another motivational film for them to watch. The person returns the next week, watches the film, and once again, is filled with motivation. What next? The instructor tells them to come back the next week, then the following week, and the week after that. You get the picture.
American Evangelicals, in particular, have harped on creating an emotional experience with God since the Great Awakening. The movement had good intentions to move away from a mere rational faith that came from the Enlightenment period but it lost the opportunity to engage in a wholistic faith that encompasses a full life. Instead, we taught about the importance of having a conversion experience, packing stadiums with a thousand fainting souls being won for Jesus. In the wake of it, we ended up losing the quiet faith of ordinary people, living ordinary lives. The church became an event that inspires us to live moral lives and not a Body of gifts that serves to restore a hurting world.
I once loved Sunday church. Heck, I have pastored, led worship, served in children’s church, and planned Sunday service for almost two decades now. So I have complex layers of grief in acknowledging the loss of this experience in my life. I even miss it at times but I can’t go back, many of us can’t. It simply does not fit us anymore, so we are left to wander the edges of our spirituality. Some of us experience shame over our wandering, some apathy, and others are actively seeking God in the wilderness. Wherever you might be today, you have may left the building but you are still walking on holy ground.
If anyone knows wandering best, it is the people of God. (Numbers 13-36) Time and time again through the scriptures, God’s people wander. And their wanderings begin at different starting points from being called by God to wander the land or escaping slavery. Regardless of their starting point or the seasons of wandering, God never left them. He continued to feed and nourish them, revealing himself through clouds and fire, water and manna. God used the earth, his original sanctuary, to continue to reveal his presence. I believe God does the same for us today, we simply need eyes to see it, and yet it becomes increasingly difficult to see God when we only look for him in a building.
Our ordinary lives are beautiful and surrounded by holy ground. We don’t need to always feel God’s with-ness, as we don’t always need to feel the earth to know that we are held by it. We simply walk upon it, trusting that it will catch our feet with each step. It is not possible to leave the sanctuary of Divine Love. If you doubt this, contemplate the tree’s trust in the earth. They draw nourishment and strength throughout the seasons. And “See how God clothes the grass of the field… will he not also clothe you?”. (Matthew 6:30) Without some awareness of being supported by the sturdiness of God’s love, we will give way to our fears of isolation, seeing our wanderings as futile and aimless. But to be held by God is to acknowledge the mystery that can contain both the ordinary and grand experiences of our lives. We simply have to shed the expectations of what faith should feel like. This should be a burden off your shoulders as you wander the wilderness! Now you don’t have to second-guess and scrutinize every experience you have, just let it be what it is.
There are so many layers to grapple with and so many emotions tied into each around how church is expressed. Although still attending weekly sunday services I feel the disorientation that comes with changing traditions, I'm grappling with the lack of an emotional dimension in a more intellectual church setting. It is eye opening, humbling and frankly difficult. I love that the scripture reminds us we cannot move beyond Gods presence. He is always with us.
( also your writing is developing in a beautiful way Colette)
Loved this.