WHY
I WON’T BE GOING BACK TO CHURCH
Sooner
or later, in conversations about faith, I get asked why I don’t go to church. After 55 years of regular attending, I
stopped about 8 years ago, becoming one of the “Dones”, people who are ‘Done’
with church attending. Early
on I was probably a bit defensive. I
would explain that the church is not something you ‘go to’, it is a mystical,
hard-to-define collective that you are part of.
And I would point out the varied ways I continue to interact with believers. Mostly this convinced no-one, and they would
pursue the question “but where do you go to church?” At which point I gave up on
the conversation.
During
the last seven years I have attempted to keep civil and silent as many Christian
leaders and commentators claimed the Dones are just the result of God sifting
the church. Getting rid of those who are
uncommitted, nominal, lazy, or apathetic.
This of course is rubbish. The
majority of those leaving are strongly committed to keeping their faith, but
like me, they’ve worked out all the years of attending have been unhelpful, and
not because they are self-centred dissatisfied consumerists. They have a passionate belief that connection
with Jesus ought to be more than just another religious routine.
I’m
grateful to Sara Miles, in her book City of God, for giving me a better ‘peg’ on
which to hang my view of church. In this
fascinating book she talks about going to church only in so much as it allowed
her to fall “precipitously in love with what God is doing in the world”. To which I say a resounding Amen! Most of my church experience made me
acquainted with believers, and introduced me to the world of church politics
and dissension. Energy was taken up in
trying to make church better. But
I don’t remember it increasing my love for all people – especially those ‘out
there’. Quite the opposite. People of other faiths, migrants, atheists, Satanists, gays ... all of those
people were viewed as opponents to overcome.
In the name of love, of course.
It’s
hard to put in words how liberating it is to have the time, and the opportunity,
to discover how actively God is present in all those aforementioned ‘groups’. In the last sermon I ever preached in church
I stated my conviction that Jesus could be found at our local mosque. That didn’t go down well. But my freedom from the pervasive mindset at
church has enabled me to start discovering how true the statement was.
Miles
goes on to say she wants to “stand on the kind of sacred ground that isn’t
curated by church professionals”. Again
I say Amen. God is present, and doing
sacred things, outside of church walls.
With people on the margins. The
fringes of society. Discovering the extent
of that is true joy. Energising.
Liberating. Faith building. It’s what I
was looking for. And forsaking ‘church
attendance’ enabled me to find it.
Call me a "done" if you like, but I'm not going back.
