Why I’m Not At Church Today

Brooke and I have struggled over the years to find a church home. Though I’d consider myself a convinced Christian, Brooke still has a lot of questions, and that’s a difficult situation in which to meet new people. I’ve also struggled personally for a long time trying to recapture the feeling of vibrant community with which I began my spiritual journey. I spent the 1980s as part of a pretty unique youth group and I suppose that’s been a hard act to follow. I’ve had to learn that those experiences can’t be recaptured.

Last week, I had the privilege of going out for dinner with two of my companions from those heady days. At one time in the late 1980s, we had all shared an apartment together. One is now director of an inner-city mission organization who recently survived a serious accident. While surfing in Hawaii, he was hit by a large wave and suffered a spinal injury. He was paralyzed and almost drowned, but has made remarkable progress and now is almost back to normal physically. Spiritually and mentally, this experience has changed him dramatically. He’s reaching out to his friends much more. He’s slowed down his workaholic habits. He’s savouring all the good things in his life. I don’t see this friend that often. The last time I saw him was at his 40th birthday last October, about a month before his accident.

The other friend is someone I still see quite a lot. He’s had a very different journey. Almost fifteen years ago, he sent me a letter from Ottawa, where he was living at the time. “I’m gay,” he told me. I was the first person who knew, and it fell to me to tell the rest of our highly-conservative friends. Over the years, he’s become estranged from Christianity to the point where he declares himself an atheist. And yet he’s still one of my closest friends. He will turn 40 this summer, just as I turned 40 in February. So, we’re all mellowing with age and thinking of what is important to us.

One of the things we talked about was church. And I got to thinking that one of the reasons I didn’t feel very enthusiastic about joining another church is that so many churches want you to join every activity they have going, and to focus your entire life, social and otherwise, around their program. I began to think that perhaps I already have a kind of church, a community of people whom I care about and who care for me. Many of them aren’t Christians, or are disillusioned “ex”-Christians, but isn’t that kind of irrelevant? Instead of trying to surround myself with people whom I’m supposed to be like, I’ve already surrounded myself with the people I am like.

And so instead of hurrying to commit to a new group of strangers who probably don’t need me, I’m rededicating myself to the people in my life with whom I don’t spend nearly enough time. It’s important to live out the love that I claim is so central to my faith. And we’ll see where it goes from there.

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