Those Who Have Left

I've been thinking a lot the last few days about those who have left the Church in the last few years. Some have held on to Jesus, but have lost all confidence in the institutional Church in America (or at least within driving distance of their homes). Some have left the Christian faith entirely. I know and love people in both of these categories. There are a multitude of reasons - many, many of them valid.

I grieve for the loss, both in the vast numbers and in all the individual lives. For we have lost much in the gifts and love of those that are now gone. We are a Body and losing any part of us should be painful. We should feel gaping wounds. We should weep and mourn, looking to ways we were and are complicit in discouragement and pain so great they felt no other option than leaving. Instead we too often look for ways to lay the blame "out there" and sooth our consciences with our tidy, buttoned-down answers.

I want desperately for those I love that have walked away to see Jesus in our Churches. Not the Americanized version of Jesus. Not Republicans. Not Democrats. Not culture wars. Not liberals or progressives or conservatives.

It is not our perfectly laid out theologies, not our valiantly fought culture wars that will bring them back or prevent others from leaving. Not our perfectly planned and aimed shaming or shouting. Not our power moves or our cancelling. Ultimately, it will be our repentance from all the ways we have misrepresented Jesus.

Jesus. For it is His love that compels, it is His kindness that leads.

It is Jesus.

Revel in the Journey

I've wrestled much the last few years with my relationship to our Christian scriptures. I have so many questions. Many of them are questions I've had for, quite literally, as long as I've been reading scripture (that's a really long

time). I have never stopped being moved by the words of scripture, never ceased to believe that life is found here, but the down-pat answers to every single question simply were not leaving me with the peace that I think was intended. If I didn't know, it was simply a matter that I hadn't studied enough. I never felt like I was in an environment that I could voice my questions without my faith or devotion to Christ being brought into question. I felt safe to have generalized doubt related to suffering, but doubts about the nature of God or the Bible or cherished doctrines...not so much. The couple of times I did scrape up the nerve to ask a question, they were dismissed with a well practiced answer that did not actually answer the question. So I stopped asking. I fell in line. And I stayed in line throughout decades of church, nearly two of those decades as a pastor's wife.

Until I couldn't anymore. 

I've spent the last several years reading a wide array of teachers, finally asking my questions and actively looking for actual answers. I still don't have all the answers, but I've learned and grown and found some peace in being open to different approaches. Hearing for the first time theologies that were never even touched on in all my years deeply involved in churches, only to find out that they are not new at all. They just weren't, apparently, okay to explore in my tradition. But they're coming from faithful, Jesus-following, Bible studying teachers. They don't all agree with one another. I don't always agree with all of them. What I love is no longer being afraid to explore and question and discuss and engage with different thoughts and perspectives and cultures. 

I'm currently reading N.T. Wright's, Simply Christian. I've heard quotes of his for two decades, but never read one of his books until last year. This is my third, and so far my favorite. Part of the book is discussing doctrines of escatology and how they impact our lives practically that make so much sense to me and do not operate out of fear and doom. But in all the fascination with, and emphasis on, end times theology I grew up on, I never once heard these teachings.

This podcast series I linked is giving me so much ---hmmm, hope, maybe? The whole entire podcast is fabulous, but the current series is looking at how the Bible was formed and how we're actually meant to use it. Again, there is so much here that was never spoken of in my circles. It is beautiful and it is opening my eyes to why I've likely been frustrated for such a long time. I'm really looking forward to digging in deeper. 

I am incredibly thankful for a husband that has walked every step of this journey with me, letting me ask him a million questions, asking many of them with me, as we explore together. And cheering me on as I explore others on my own. I am exploring contemplative prayer with a couple of other friends and finding exactly what I needed right now in this new space. 

After years of thinking I could not rest until I had all those questions answered, I have finally realized that I do not have to know all the answers. We're exploring the God of the universe. And God won't be contained within our man-made systems. A whole lot of humility is necessary when we're making attempts to explain God. "I don't know," is sometimes the best answer we can give, or get. I'm finding that much Joy is found in embracing the mystery and being okay with not knowing. 

I am so thankful for a community of believers that hash this all out together, safe to ask all the questions, admit the doubts, disagree and still love, explore and learn and re-learn together, challenge and be challenged. A place where the leadership isn't afraid to stir up some dust and embrace new thoughts, listen to the questions and raise some of their own. A place where we're willing to hear hard truths, even when those truths mean we need to repent and go another direction. Because we're never really done. This is where I want to live. 

As I was listening earlier today to the podcast (I'll link it in the comments), this thought struck me... This way of engaging with God and with my community feels like taking great huge gulps of fresh air when you've been under water too long, or after you've been breathing smoky, stale air for far too long. God is huge and invites us to revel in the journey of exploration. I won't ever go back to any other way.