I Haven't Given Up on the Church. But damn.
Let me begin with a confession that may cause a few people to question whether I should be allowed anywhere near a pulpit. Sometimes church exhausts the hell out of me. And I'm a pastor.
I love Jesus. I love the church. And I love the people who show up on Sunday mornings. Some of them drive me absolutely nuts. I'm sure the feeling is mutual.
But here's what I can't wrap my head around. I've watched church people rearrange their entire lives to help somebody in trouble. Give away money they probably needed themselves. Show up when nobody else gave a damn.
And I've watched some of those same people decide somebody doesn't belong because they're gay, divorced, or don't believe the right things. How the hell do we manage both?
I've spent years listening to people tell me why they left church. Some are angry. Some are wounded. Some are embarrassed they ever believed what they were taught. And some are just tired. Tired of being told what to think. Tired of pretending they don't have questions.
I've had people sit across from me and say, "I don't think I believe in God anymore." And after listening to them describe the God they were taught to believe in, sometimes I find myself thinking I don't believe in that God either.
The God who supposedly loves the whole world but apparently needs us to decide who's worthy of that love. Just ask the gay kid who learned to hate himself in Sunday school. Or the divorced woman who was made to feel like damaged goods. Or the person who finally worked up the courage to ask an honest question and discovered that church was the last place they were allowed to ask it.
And the worst part? We send people away believing God rejected them, when the truth is, we did.
And can you blame people for feeling like we lied to them? We told them God loved everybody. That nobody was beyond God's grace. That there was room for everyone. Then they watched us decide who was welcome and who wasn't. And then they left. And somewhere in a church lobby, somebody took another sip of coffee and wondered why nobody came to church anymore. You can't make this shit up.
I don't have a clever answer for how we got here. I'm part of the church, too. I've said things I wish I could take back. I've been so sure I was right that I forgot to consider what my words were doing to somebody else.
But I haven't given up on the church. I've seen too much good come out of it to walk away. And that's why this stuff pisses me off.
We sing about God's love on Sunday morning, preach about grace, and then turn around and treat people like shit because they're different, believe differently, or don't live the way we think they should.
I wonder how many people we've convinced that God doesn't love them, simply because we couldn't bring ourselves to love them.
Shalom, Shithead
