In the past eighteen to twenty-four months, my church-going habits have deteriorated badly.
While they may now be described as sporadic, for a long period I didn’t go anywhere at all, and took recourse in my home on Sunday mornings.
I can’t put a finger on the specific date that my love for what I’d known to be church started to wane. I just started to tire of the constant ‘busyness’. The seminars and conferences. The meetings and formulaic prayers. The non-stop activities.
And then the questions began. Niggling questions that I couldn’t shake off, no matter how hard I tried.
Do activities really change people’s lives? Do they bring people closer to God? Could it be that as a Christian, I had come to mistake routine and activity for relationship?
I was also struck by numbers of Christians – myself included - fanatical church attendees who didn’t necessarily understand the Bible. I mean, one could know what the Scriptures say - or people’s variant interpretations of it – but that’s not the same as grasping its messages, revelations, history and contexts.
Having stumbled on these realisations I admit that I became frustrated with church; disillusioned, but not in any way that I could articulate clearly. Yet, the overwhelming strength of my convictions made it impossible for me to continue with the status quo.
A few weeks ago a friend rang me up raving about a book she was reading, and she recommended I have a look at it. The title So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore tickled my funny bone, and in a brief synopsis she explained that it presented a completely different perspective of the concept of church, which is exactly what this book does.
In no unsubtle terms, it hammers home the often touted but rarely understood point that church is not a building. It also explores some of the practices churchgoers may be accustomed to, and forces readers to consider the motives behind them.
In style it is very similar to The Shack by William Paul Young. Not surprising, given that the two authors Dave Coleman and Wayne Jacobsen were involved in the publication of that bestselling book. Presented as the four-year spiritual journey of protagonist Jake Colsen, his spiritual antecedents are sorely tested when John mysteriously appears on the scene.
Though completely innocuous, John’s influence means church will never be quite the same for Jake, his family, and his friends.
I obviously loved this book because of it struck a personal chord, but also because the writers succeeded in capturing feelings, stirrings, frustrations and – finally, I am glad to say – excitement I had failed woefully to externalise.
Available at Amazon, the book is worth a read for Christians who regularly attend any church, regardless of denomination.
June 10, 2009 at 8:08 am
I so get you. My church attendance this year has been sporadic as well. As for church conferences etc, I stopped going to those a few years ago. I tired of the repetition, the noise, the unrealistic expectations, needless showmanship of some church leaders as much as I tire of the same tired prayers I’ve been praying for xxx years now.
At the same time, by being around people from different denominations and theological perspectives, my faith has been more introspective, meditative and geared towards a contextual study of the Bible, a world away from the ‘noise’ of pentecostals and chariswacks. So much so I finally applied to go on a Theology MA which I’ve been accepted for.
I don’t really understand this new faith journey of mine but I do know that somewhere along the line is a God eye, a nudging, that somehow makes it all okay. At the moment, church bores me tremendously but the faith still excites – if it makes me mad more times than I care to remember.
June 12, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I agree too. I haven’t been to Church in a long time. I don’t think it makes me less Christian, I too was bored of the monotony of Mass.
Recently on holiday a friend told me she’d done the Alpha Course. While I’ve known others who’d done it too and given it rave results she was the first to really explain it. Perhaps the format of Mass should be changed to be more exploratory and more contributory. Listening to readings is not the same as living them and understanding them.
We all have our own personal journeys and personally I think that as long as we have a relationship with God and faith in Him that is what matters. However it is a shame that the community of worship is falling away.
A friend gave me Eat, Pray, Love for my 30th birthday. It’s the journey of a woman trying to find her faith. I’d highly recommend it:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eat-Pray-Love-Womans-Everything/dp/0747585660