I Hate Church

Many people don't find their faith in church. The first connotation of the word for most people is of an uncomfortable fancy place where they have to be good. Church actually is defined biblically as the body of Christ; a commune like group of followers; a family, but one with a mission.

My first memory of church is this beautifully old and plain Presbyterian church in Spring Hills, Ohio. My mom's family was one of the founders in the 1800s. It's a clapboard clad building with a tall steeple and tall stained glass windows. It sits on a hill surrounded by an old graveyard and walnut trees that drop their fruit around the parking lot at the end of summer. The pews and steps were always equally worn and hard.

I visited the old church and added this picture after writing this entry and have to confess all this is actually a fond memory.

When you're little, churches are torture. You have to sit on that hard pew and be quiet and still and not make noises. You have to stand when everyone stands to sing at the first organ notes and sit through day long sermons. Occasionally it's communion Sunday and that makes it even longer. To keep me occupied, my dad used to give me gum to chew or do the trick where you lace your fingers inside a double fist (here's the church), put up your first fingers in a point (here's the steeple), and then roll your wrists around so the enclosed fingers are showing (here's all the people). We'd race to see who could twiddle their thumbs faster, but that led to giggles and shushes.

After that we'd move to Sunday school class, or sometimes it was before church. Another place to be still, listen to nice stories about nice biblical characters with cute paper lions and feltboard reenactments. I always pictured the Lion of Judah as a pussycat and the battle of Jericho as a marching band in a parade I'd seen once. There was always some moral to the story about how God didn't want us to lie, or hit people, or be mean to our sister, or we should turn the other cheek...What was that good for?

Bible school was more of the same, but cooler since there was always Koolaid and cookies. We always had some flower we'd potted, or seeds we'd planted or crown we'd colored to take home. How nice.

As a teenager that turns to how boring. That saccharine sweet Christianity is boring. Where's the fun in that and besides, who can live up to those expectations. Who can be good enough to be a Christian.

Things happen. We moved to a Methodist church when I was eightish. We had Christmas programs where we sang Christmas songs and Santa Clause came and gave us each an orange and a candy cane. I went to catechism class when I was 12 and confirmed, but I don't think I really knew what that meant. I ended up dating one of the girls who was in that class later in high school. I don't think she did either.

It's too easy to believe that "Church" is what it's all about. By that I mean, church the building or event that happens every Sunday morning. The place with stained glass, hard wooden pews, poor singers, and droning ministers. Nobody had ever taught me anything different and I believe now that many of them still don't know there is anything more to it in their life.

That's sad.

With that premise and the lack of logic and meaning in church it's easy to not get it. It's easy to see TV preachers with private jets and think it's all a big scam. Christians seem weak...people who need this crutch to get through life. Not what the world tells us we should be: independent, self sufficient, individualistic. Something as amazing as what God is purported to be wouldn't live there. Why would I expect to find him there? More importantly, why would he need my weekly financial contribution?

We Sunday school kids think these things through and fall away giving up on God's existence. He has only ever been fairy tales and myth to us; never a person much less one you could talk to or expect an answer from. God in church just doesn't seem real so when we see the amazing things humans have learned in the pursuit of scientific discovery the last half millennium doubts solidify into skepticism.

I went full atheist for a while myself. Met my wife. Got married. Made the mistake in between once of referring to Jesus freaks not knowing she took her faith so seriously. She was pretty offended.

The wedding was in her church of course. There were more rules than in most. This one believed instruments in church were sinful so all songs were acapella. Once a year or so the "senior" minister would get up and give a lecture on why, but it never made sense to me.

There are so many different churches all with their own strange beliefs which they attribute to the bible. I never figured out which one was right and for the most part there wasn't much substantive difference in the experience at one relative to another. I didn't go except for the rare inclination or when she really wanted me to for a special reason.

I did always believe my kids should go to church. Figured the whole faith thing was good to have if you needed it. Just because I didn't require the crutch didn't mean my kids may not some day. I believed you have to get it when you are a kid because most of the people I know who go to church always have.

One morning when I did actually go with them, my wife was teaching a Sunday school class of 1st graders so I went to one of the adult classes. They guy teaching that day dropped his lesson and shifted gears entirely around to talk about how before he believed, his wife used to take the kids to church every Sunday without him. He started going out of guilt that she was saddled with the kids by herself (hint hint). Eventually after he listened to enough sermons he decided he was going to hell if he didn't change his ways. That fear of spending eternity tormented by Satan converted him. How 'bout that. A special lesson designed just for me. I didn't go back for a while.

I did meet so many very nice people at these churches though. Really smart people. Really "real" people. And they believed. They accepted me even though I didn't. Let me help them move someone who needed help. Let me hang out with their kids in the youth group and drive vanloads of them on excursions to Cedar Point. And some of those kids believed. The skeptic in me thought, "yea, for now, but they'll probably come around eventually, poor kids", but you know several of them had this solid, genuine, well thought out faith.

What was really different is they acted on it. They led prayer groups at their school or were involved with Athletes in Action. At high school graduation time several seniors give sermons.

Real Christians.

As it turns out, church isn't the place or the event. I'd gone too church when I joined Christians who were helping a single mom move to a new house. I've been in church with 16 other sweaty, disgustingly dirty, people in a flooded moldy house in New Orleans ripping out rotten drywall. The best quote I've gotten maintaining the blogs for that work came from a high school girl named Angie a few weeks after the hurricane came through.

"I don'’t want to go back to church and dress up and everything be nice and pretty. What we'’ve been doing here is real church, it'’s getting dirty and helping people."

Though I still don't really like it, I can tolerate church much better now because the songs have meaning to me and I understand the premise of the lesson. I firmly believe in "the body of Christ" and our need to commune with our brothers and sisters in faith. But I also believe that Christian is a verb and I'm happier serving others in "church", or hanging with a youth group on the top of a mountain in the smokies.

If you've never been to that kind of church, find one. You'll find God lives there. And, he's much harder to miss.