The End of a Formational Chapter

Saying goodbye to my church

This past Sunday morning I stood in front of my church family for the last time before my family and I move away to put down roots in Georgia.

My voice broke as I reflected on our time together and how being among them has left me radically altered.

I met the beautiful, glistening eyes of a person who I’ve stood beside and prayed with (and for) as she’s waged a battle to love – instead of hate – her own body. I was comforted by the gentle smile of another who doesn’t consider themselves a Christian but keeps coming back to church because there’s something – or Someone – calling to them. More than once I glanced at the loving face of a mama who has lost countless friends and family because she’s chosen to stand with her child who is queer. I allowed my eyes to rest on a table at which sat a group of mid-life empty-nesters who came to our community looking for the Real and Living God who transcends the dogma of the churches they’d attended before. Some faces were missing – neurodivergent folks, unhoused people, some who are mentally ill, and others who are addicts. Each one has been known, touched, and welcomed in this community of misfits, even if our open arms were wobbly, awkward, and afraid at times.

We didn’t intend our church to look this way, but the Spirit is like the wind and brought us all to this small, downtown church for a season and, most certainly, for a reason. We refused to wrestle the windy Spirit for control, and eventually accepted that this is the church God was co-laboring with us to build. We may not have fought the Spirit of God but, Lord, how we have rumbled with everything and everyone else!

Me, trying to see what the heck is going on as the Spirit blows through!

“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around him will create community.” – Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Somehow, through all the turmoil and the questions and the uncertainty, we managed to build a church which allows space for woundedness. I think that’s been our biggest draw. We allowed hurt people to be in pain without pressuring them to conjure a healing they didn’t have the power to provide for themselves. We waited on God together without fixing one another, as hard as that was for us all to do.  

Our overt mission was always nothing less than spiritual transformation, yet we didn’t demand people conform to certain biblical interpretations or creeds. We valued critical thinking, freedom of conscience, and asking the hard questions of God. We had our weaknesses and blind spots, to be sure; but we prioritized love and found a way to be okay with that even when we took public beatings for it. Every time we realized something wasn’t working – usually remnants from the Evangelical stream that once flowed through all our veins – we adjusted. This experimental quality is perhaps what made us weirdest of all.

My goodness, this journey has been filled with frustration and excitement and grief and joy and never-ending learning! A few pieces of gold I’m taking with me into my next adventure:

• Inclusion means not just welcoming others but believing that they belong. Trust me, I’ve heard the argument against inclusion – sure, we believe they belong, just not their sin. That sentiment has much wrong with it, the most basic of which is this: if people who actively sin do not belong, then no one belongs. We’ve all seen or heard people with porn addictions, those who are sexually active outside of marriage, others who are obvious gluttons with severe food issues, gossips, narcissists, and others who decide that their flavor of sin can be overlooked or minimized while underscoring the sins of others. Heck, we’ve seen people condemn certain sins of others while secretly doing the exact same things in the dark corners of their own lives!

  Thinking like this indicates that our image of God (and of humanity) needs healing. The shocking message of the Gospel is that we all belong. When we find this truth difficult to accept for others, it is almost always because we don’t, deep down, accept this truth for ourselves. Listen, I agree that this kind of love from an Almighty God makes no good sense but, again, wrestling against the Holy Spirit is not advisable. When I come to believe, and to trust, that all of me is accepted by God then I can also believe, and trust, that everyone belongs.

• Unity sounds beautiful, but getting there seems impossible. A fact emerged in my doctoral research on Chrisitan unity: humans really, really don’t like being with people who are different from them. Sure, we know on an intellectual level that diversity is good because it makes us (and the world) better in every way. The science is in on that one. Yet, we prefer the comfort of being with others who think/act/look/believe like us, so we find our in-groups and get those boundaries up as quickly as possible. Most of the people in my church have been “othered” by groups in which they didn’t fit in. Everyone understood that pain, and yet we found ourselves tempted into us-and-them thinking continually. One of my biggest frustrations in being a pastor in this community was constantly trying to get us all (including ME!) to stay open to one another, to keep working on it rather than walking away, and to consider how we need one another before riding away on our high horses for pastures that seemed more familiar. When it comes to fostering unity within a non-denominational, non-creedal, ecumenical environment in the Year of Our Lord 2024, I’m walking away with more questions than expert knowledge, that’s for sure.

• Loving others in freedom and authenticity is just plain hard and exhausting. Holding the tension that comes with being an imperfect person who is trying to love other imperfect people, with no “sin management” program as an interface between you, makes for one wild ride. Radical acceptance does reduce suffering and it does create a context for trust to develop, but it also requires an extraordinary amount of energy. One of the worst things that has happened to Christianity is the abdication of the “hard stuff” that comes with life in community to the market and the state. We look to economics and government to provide what we once provided for one another and, because of this, we’ve become lazy in love. Since real love can’t be bought or legislated, we give up on another too quickly and move on to what’s easy, pleasurable, and convenient. Fighting against this is like swimming against an overwhelming current. When Jesus talked about the narrow road of following Him and the pain and effort of bearing our crosses in this world, He was describing the hardships of love. Managing sin is so much easier than staying in a loving relationship with others and that’s why so many communities prefer the former and neglect the latter.

• Transformation takes time and can be invisible for an uncomfortable duration. The soul is shy, Parker Palmer once said. And truer words have never been uttered. Most of us are wary of allowing others near our souls, and rightfully so. We should be discerning of who we allow into our inner sanctum. Yet, transformation can only take place when we open ourselves to God, to reality, and to others. This process takes time and requires heroic patience. We tend to be brutally hard on ourselves and others when it comes to seeing change happen. This lack of maturity and patience has killed the faith of many because the conditions necessary for true and lasting change are safety and trust.

  We don’t possess the capacity to see the seeds growing beneath the ground of the human heart. Yes, we must look at the ripened (or rotten) fruit of a human life, but even that, given a long enough time, is subject to change. God, who is above our time constructs, takes the long view and has written the wisdom of all reality in the parable of the seed. When Jesus warned us not to attempt to separate the “wheat” from the “tares” He did so because we are not qualified to make the call of who is in the process of transformation and who is not, being as hobbled by our own humanity as we are. If we want in on God’s work in the human heart and in the world, then we must pray for maturity and patience because this is the long game.

• As for me and my household, we can never return to the alternatives. It may sound like I’m walking away from my church having had bad experiences, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, I’m tired and confused and a little uncertain about what the Church means in the world right now. But I’m also exhilarated and curious and resolute in continuing this experiment wherever I go. I’ve learned that Jesus dwells “outside the camp,” (Hebrews 13) and if I want to be with Him, I must go to Him there. These past three years have felt like I was finally fully alive with God, experiencing true Presence, asking the kinds of questions that really matter, finding Christ in the most unlikely people and places.

  My kids experienced raw love in a community of rejected people and learned what faithfulness-against-the-odds looks like. They would never have experienced that in programs or youth groups obsessed with cultural relevance. They have real-world training in how to get along with others unlike them, to see beyond the surfaces and personas, and to extend empathy even among disagreement. They’re the kind of people now who make room at the table for everyone because they believe we all belong. As a parent, I see this as rare gold.

To borrow a beautiful phrase from Valerie Kaur, “You are a part of me I do not yet know.” This sums up what happens when we open ourselves to love. The people and experiences I’ve opened to at my Maryland church have become a part of me that I’ll carry into my new home. As for all the questions, doubts, and uncertainties that I’m taking with me? I carry those happily with all the love, belonging, integration, and purifying I’ve gained as well.

“God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from in pain and hostility, namely real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.” – Deitrich Bonhoeffer