When Church Isn't Magical
I’ve returned to this question the last few months: What do I need church to be?
To examine the idea that church could possibly be about us, our needs and wants, in addition to being about God is an essay for another day. I do know for me, that it has been valuable and actually drawn me closer to God to ask what I need from a local church.
In the last three years, I have faithfully worshipped on Sunday mornings with other people who are seeking to love Jesus and their neighbors. I have rhythmically read scripture, prayed, sang songs and taken communion with people who are curious about and connected to God. Similar to my entire thirty-three years, Sunday morning worship has been a thing in my life. A regular, recurring thing.
But church has also been different than it has ever been. Church has been a thing but not the thing. Church has not been my main community. Church has not been hours and hours of my week. Church has not been something I think about a lot or feel emotional about regularly. Church has been an hourish of traditional worship components, familiar and easy. That’s it. I have not demanded it to be more and in return it has not demanded me to be more.
Over the past three years, I have found an incredible freedom in not letting church be a big deal.
Let church be what church is. This is the thing I wish I could have told myself a decade ago because, for me, church started feeling light when I stopped expecting it to be magical—a one-stop-shop for every emotional high, relational need, path to change, the whole kitchen sink.
These days church most often sends me home about the same way I entered it. Sometimes I find a moment of encouragement or something to contemplate deeper, but a lot of Sundays I just am when I leave. I don’t usually cry or feel deep conviction. I am not hyped up or beat down as I sit down to Sunday lunch. Maybe most importantly, I am not upset. Upset about the people around me in the pews, the things being preached from the pulpit or upset about all the people outside the church. At most, I might notice how the banners need to be hung higher and wonder how no one else has noticed this and done anything about it. And then, I leave.
I go home. I go back to the rest of my life and church is just church. It is a part of my life and not my life. I go about my week and on Sunday morning I go again. Just like I take a shower and feed the dog and do my dishes, I go to church. And that is good. Mundanity is not meaningless.
The pandemic has caused church chaos for all of us. We have left churches and found new ones. We have stayed home and gone back. We’ve yet to return because of fragile health and unvaccinated babies. We’ve gone back despite the risk because we can’t be alone anymore. We have worshipped through screens, sometimes with intention and attention and sometimes scrolling our phones and muting worship to watch a funny video.
I think for many of us the chaos has left us asking big questions about church. And they really do feel big, don’t they?
What do I believe church is supposed to be? For that matter, what do I believe? Does a church need to believe the same thing for me to go there? Is it OK to not go to church? Why don’t I want to go to church? What do I need church to be?
After several years now of de-elevating church, I am looking for a new place to read scripture, pray, sing songs and take communion. I have found that this is what I need church to be. I need a moment of worship and reflection in my week. Everything else, for now, doesn’t matter.
In the midst of the big questions, there is one thing that has been true for me since I stopped thinking church needed to have it all. I have almost every Sunday left church and thought, “I’m glad I did that.”
What joy and peace I have found in that being more than enough.