More Questions than Answers

What questions would YOU add to this list?

I’m in the final few weeks of my life here in Maryland, and in the church that I helped birth into the world. My time as a spiritual formation pastor in this lovably oddball church has taught me much that I will be unpacking for years to come. Yet I’m left with more questions than answers when I think back over the work I’ve done here, and the ways this community and I have formed one another.

My questions center around what church is and why we should bother with it anymore.

As I’ve interacted with young adults, deconstructing middle-agers, teens and kids, and disillusioned elder folk, I’ve found myself coming up short when answering those kinds of questions.

Why should we go to church? Well, because the Bible tells us so…

That reasoning just doesn’t satisfy most of us anymore, not only because it’s overly simplistic (does the Bible really say that in reference to the kinds of churches we have available to us here and now?), but because it fails to address the real problems. If church is so great, why do we often dread going? Why would many of us prefer to go almost anywhere else on Sundays? Why are pastors increasingly considering leaving the ministry and why are congregations across all streams of Christianity struggling?

In my many years of ministry in diverse contexts, I’ve run into the same kinds of problems over and over again, but what’s different now is the cultural climate. We are foreigners in a new and strange land when it comes to cooperate, institutionalized religion and spirituality in this country.

It occurs to me that sharing my ever-growing list of questions might be helpful for readers of The Golden Thread. Perhaps some of these questions have plagued you as well, and maybe you can add a few of your own. As much as I’d like to put on my “Doctor of Leadership and Spiritual Formation” hat and pretend to have answers for us all, that would be a farce. I am here with you, asking questions and often coming up short. So, for this week, let’s just sit with these questions and see what comes up.

Photo by Simone Secci on Unsplash

Question: How do we compete with entertainers, algorithms, advertisers, and addiction to consumption?

Question: How do we challenge people Godward, deeper into spiritual formation, when they don’t seem to care?

Question: How do we truly live according to the value of inclusion amid diversity?

Question: How do we make a stand against sin without becoming judgmental witch-hunters?

Question: How do we create a context of love and maximal safety without devolving into mushiness and moral laxity?

Question: How do we deal with uncomfortable truths and complexities without becoming bullies or cowards?

Question: How do we live with moral courage and intellectual integrity while remaining teachable and as “innocent” as children?

Question: How do we cultivate a safe space enough for spiritual growth and exploration while not simply becoming a social club?

Question: If the church is a hospital for the sick and wounded, what is essential for healing and how do we experience it?

Question: What do we do with chronic “takers” who can’t/won’t become “givers” in the community?

Question: Considering churches of all kinds are declining, what are essential elements of “church” which must be present for the future (and for the particular needs/demands of this current cultural moment)?

Question: How do we deal honestly with the Bible, without advancing our own agenda? Is this even possible?

Question: How do we get past peoples’ fears, preconceived notions, and biases about the Bible so we can provide comprehensive biblical education in a non-academic context?

Question: How do we create an environment in which the Spirit of God can move, speak, reveal, empower, and heal when the community has an impoverished understanding of the Spirit and a lack of personal experience with the Spirit? How do we “make room” in a helpful and comprehensible way?

Until next time, I’ll leave you with this tantalizing quote from one of my most cherished theological thinkers, Kathleen Norris. She captures something here that I think my (our?) soul longs for in church:

“I was not seeking an aesthetic experience and had endured enough perfectionism in worship over the past week to last a lifetime. I wanted worship with room for the Holy Spirit, worship hospitable enough to welcome a confused soul such as myself. And there, among strangers, I found it: living worship, slightly out of control, and not terribly educational. Orthodox in the ancient sense, as “right worship,” joyful enough to briefly house a living God.”

-Kathleen Norris