Today, while browsing Facebook, I ran across an article: 10 Reasons Kids Leave Church. Every point resonated deeply with me. Kids leaving church is not a new problem, though every generation likes to talk about it like it is a fresh problem that must be solved immediately. As a child of the 70s and 80s who somehow managed to not leave church for a lengthy period of time, I can make a few observations. First, people who leave often trickle back as they get older. There are numerous reasons for this; and that is worth its own post. In fact, I left church for a brief time (months) and returned at the urging of a dear friend who was observant enough to know that my heart was never gone.
The article mentions the oft-used reason for leaving: “the church is full of hypocrites.” This line is offensive to many faithful churchgoers who feel that people simply use it as an excuse for not coming to church, and I have heard people counter with, “The church is full of humans, and we are all flawed and just doing the best we can.” I want to return to this point because it has to do with the reason why I stayed in church at all. I have wrestled to put this in words for many years, and I think it would do a disservice to the church and to other people who struggle with decisions of whether to leave or stay if I continued to keep silent.
Point number 1 in the article is, “They don’t need it.” This point comes after numerous other points are made in succession, all illustrating how the Church has stripped so much down that the Gospel is little more than a feel-good message that can be found anywhere else. And that is where I come to the point of my post. What was it that I found in church that I needed? I was a child who felt that she did not belong anywhere, and that included my church. But at church there were people who taught me that Jesus cared about those feelings, that Jesus heard my prayers. I was a blind child who couldn’t get a babysitting job until I was 15 years old, but at church they let me volunteer in the nursery. At church someone taught me how to write music and encouraged me to use it as a way to express my prayers and praise to God, among other things. It was a long time before I truly understood what it meant for Jesus to be my Savior. That theology is now a central aspect of how I live: that Jesus is Savior and Friend.
When I left church for that period of time, it was because of one statement that one person made. Because I am visually impaired, I need transportation to church. I was attending a large church at the time and participating in a singles group. Most of the other participants were young professionals with high-paying jobs. One morning, during the conversation before Bible study began, someone asked one of the young men about his job. He said, “I’m still transporting crazies,” indicating his job transporting clients with mental illness for a social services agency. I refrained from commenting; but I never went back to church there. I had taken advantage of psychiatric services for several years because of personal situations that needed healing, and I needed transportation. I had also shared my home with people who needed psychiatric services. Were we “the crazies” too? I could not have been more offended. Perhaps to him it was only a job; but the language we use to speak about the people we serve speaks volumes about the state of our hearts. If I was going to church to be encouraged, how could I be encouraged by someone who hated people like me?
I am thankful that my friend kept bothering me until I tried another church, and that the leadership at that church was extremely sensitive to my broken places and walked with me and encouraged and pushed me at just the right times. God is faithful!
In the years since I have gone back to church, I have made a choice to stay–not because of the people but because it is the place where I intentionally encounter God each week. There are moments when I experience a sense that I and others are encountering God together. These moments are very powerful and touch me in a place that needs to be touched. There is still much room for improvement–mine and theirs.
We must not use our flaws as excuses or weapons to lash out against people who are wounded and leave the church. Our flaws are the very reason why we need a Savior. They are the reason why we all come in and press in close to His heart. They are the reason why we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, so that our behavior is guided by God and not by our own tendencies. With God’s Spirit, that young man would have said, “Yes, I’m still transporting clients for the mental health agency,” instead of “I’m still transporting the crazies.” What life change would happen when we start yielding our flaws to the Holy Spirit and allowing God to set us free instead of saying, “The Church is just a place of flawed people,” as if God didn’t really have power there! I want to live in the power of the Holy Spirit!
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