Do you ever feel like the church worships marriage more than or just as much as it worships God? It's weird. An institution whose foundation comes from the example and teachings of single people puts marriage on an awfully high pedestal.
"Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do" (1 Corinthians 7:8 NIV). Becoming single at 44 has been eye opening. I grew up in an evangelical church in the '90s, the peak of purity culture. I started dating my first boyfriend when I was 16 and married him at 21. Here's how that version of me understood the messages of popular Christian speakers at that time.
I carved these messages into my mind so deeply that I have no desire to attend church in my singlehood. I know other singles who feel the same. Church as I know it revolves around marriage and family in its programming, messaging, and look. It's not so much a deliberate branding but a deep-rooted culture that pities or stigmatizes singlehood. And, in leaving church I have been able to work on sanding away those deeply carved messages. So, do I wish I had never married? No. My two favorite people in this world came from my 22 years of marriage, as well as a million beautiful memories. Do I hope to be married again? No. I have incredibly deep and meaningful friendships that I love devoting myself to. I have my work with students at a public high school who bring immense joy and meaning to life. I have fun and faithful family who've got my back and my heart. Marriage requires a lot of time, energy, and focus that I'm not willing to remove from my friends, family, and students. I understand that a spouse could enhance these parts of my life, but that would take an unusually special person I have zero desire to search for. Over the past five years I have experienced lots of loss -- some by my choice and some not. I lost my church and with that some friends. I lost what my school was when we split into two schools. I lost experiences and people due to COVID. I lost my marriage. But with loss there can be gain. I have deeper relationships with friends and family. I have more time and energy to devote to my students and other passions. I have a life I didn't know existed.
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This month marks one year that I have been divorced. I've said this before, and it's still true. Divorce felt like someone tore open my chest and exposed my insides to the world. The pain, the loss of control, the vulnerability were excruciating. I couldn't breathe, and my heart was racing as I bled out.
I didn't know until it happened that divorce was an option, a possibility for my life. Once upon a time, I used to walk around my yard to pull out every weed, to cut down every volunteer tree, to find every repair my home might need. My yard was manicured. I was in control. Last summer, though, I let some weeds grow. I let every volunteer tree grow. I found a rotted board on my deck, put a caution sticker on it, and let it be. I'll take care of it sometime, but right now my deck, my yard, my life don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be perfect. The bright side of having my chest torn open is the release of control. Healing, though messy, allows others to see me torn open and then offer me sutures. Scars will develop. Scars will remain. I didn't know until it happened, but a messier yard and a messier life were both an option, and what I once controlled could be beautiful uncontrolled.
So, why write now?
When our home church was done, I mourned. Those years brought tremendous love, joy, understanding, and growth for me. I needed that small, simple church experience, and I think the people of that home church would agree. It fulfilled its purpose. When it ended, I wandered for awhile looking for my next stop.
What if we re-imagined churches as temporary stops to meet specific needs? What if churches had their specialties, and people stayed as long as they needed before moving on to a new stage at a new church? What if faith is a journey, and churches can be checkpoints and stops along the way? Some churches might go out of business. But, what if churches totally re-imagined themselves so that they didn't have to be in business? What if more churches collaborated with one another to cut expenses and stay small? (This is where I feel great guilt because of my contributions to a church's expensive growth.) What if people demanded less from their pastors and churches and took greater responsibility for their own faith and wellbeing -- as well as the faith and wellbeing of their children -- so that pastors can focus on those who don't have the tools to care for themselves? The resources are out there and plentiful. I know because that's where I'm at. My next stop is no church. I can grow in my faith through books and podcasts. I can experience a faith community over coffee with friends. I can facilitate faith-focused growth and community for my children in my own home and with the help of family and friends. This is my current stop. Our little home church completed its purpose this winter. It existed for over 5 years as my place for spiritual growth and joy. It did what it needed to do, and now the 24 of us who bonded over meals, Scripture, and prayer are released to our next spaces for spiritual growth and connection.
This is not to say that losing a precious part of my life has been easy. Endings and losses are hard and abundant, especially since the spring of 2020. Like billions of others, I have been intimate with loss lately. I have been pushed right into that dark, putrid pit several times. But in time, I always examined what got me there and found the tools and people to get me out. I have scars, but I'm also stronger from the struggle. So, while home church is now on my list of losses, the Jesus tradition teaches that loss can be gain. Our little home church had an important purpose in my life -- a purpose that was completed! The house church I belong to has been together for three and a half years. When we gather each week, we're a group of about 13 people. It's been healing and inspiring. Yet, because it's so different from what I knew during my first four decades of life, I occasionally wonder if I'm doing faith right.
Going to an established church in an established building provides a measure of certainty. If I follow what this church tells me to do, I'm doing faith right, right? If I check the boxes this church proclaims from the pulpit, then God is happy, right? I had a lot of boxes to check once upon a time. Here's just a sampling.
Now that I'm without a traditional church, I have to practice faith more than ever before. I can't lean on what a church tells me and check the boxes it provides. I have to study Scripture; I have to find good teachers; I have to pray and meditate; I have to start conversations. I also can't count on a church to provide opportunities for service to this world. I have to find and create those opportunities on my own. And from time to time the question creeps into my mind, "Am I doing this right?" God, I hope I am. This is all to say that as my faith has evolved, so have my boxes to check. Here they are, not a sampling, but all of them -- at least for now.
If your boxes to check have also evolved, I'd love to read about it in the comments. Take care, Gina It's Pride month. When I was writing weekly, my post titled "LGBTQ+" received the largest response of all posts. In the time since, I've had powerful conversations with people who loved what I wrote and some who didn't. What I learned is that one of the most important requests we can utter is, "Help me understand." Help me understand why you feel that way. Help me understand what led you to this place. Help me understand your experience. This past winter a bill in South Dakota's legislature sought to regulate treatment for trans kids. During a discussion with a friend who supported the bill that I opposed, she said, "Help me understand how you came to your position." This is how more conversations should go, and I hope I made her feel as valued and heard that night as she made me feel. If not, I am sorry, and I am doing better. That night I began putting together a list of speakers, writers, and theologians who put my convictions into words so much better than I. If you've ever wondered how I and so many other Christians can be LGBTQ+ allies and supporters of open and affirming churches, these resources explain how our faith informs these convictions because we support the LGBTQ+ movement not in spite of what the Bible says but because of what the Bible says. LINKS for LISTENING
LINKS for READING
LINKS for WATCHING If you have more recommendations like these, please post links in the comments. Much love, Gina🌈 One of my favorite books of all time is John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Every time I read this classic, I am inspired to lean into community, and there I always find what's sacred.
This idea of community is why I am part of a small, faith-based community, rather than a traditional church. When my community meets, we read Scripture together, we analyze it together, we question it together, and we learn from it together. There's a back and forth between the people as we consider the white space that dances between the words, a gift we receive from Judaism. We do not sit passively to listen to one pastor's insights. We are not satisfied with answers that are quick and expected. In biblical times, faith was analyzed and communicated in community. People didn't have their own Bibles, so they had to hear, discuss, question, and learn together. As a teacher, the most important question I ask my English students is this: "How will you be better for yourself and society because you read this book?" This year, I'm expanding that to all learning. Why are we learning? We are learning so we can help ourselves, and even more importantly, so we can help others. Teachers and students come to school as a community of learners so that we can help our community, and the same is true for my small house church community. We lean into one another with respect and equality, and we lean into Scripture with curiosity and passion, so that we can be better for the larger community, the heart of house church. Let's keep this simple.
That's the church I found after leaving church. Have you ever received this advice?
God's ways are not our ways; that's for sure. Our ways too often bend toward ego, greed, and tribalism. God's ways bend toward compassion, generosity, and a universal community. Despite what too many devotionals told me, "God's ways are not our ways" does not mean that the way we want to solve a problem is always wrong, so just sit back and wait for God to fix it. I've known people, and sadly myself, to pray for years about a problem but to never do the actual work that might solve that problem. We need to have hard conversations. We need to seek and learn from experts. We need to make difficult changes to how we live. An inclination to only pray is especially harmful right now as people pray for an end to racism in our country but don't do the heavy lifting beyond a prayer. If you want to start learning how you can spot and change systemic racism, here are some books and podcasts I've found helpful. Feel free to leave your own recommendations in the comments, as well. LISTENING
Prayer can also turn harmful when it's the only way we support someone in the throes of pain, conflict, or struggle. My friends who do not identify with any faith, as well as a few who do, have taught me best how to help people beyond another common phrase in Evangelese: "I'll pray for you." These friends share space with me, check in on me, listen to me, encourage me, and actually help me. When I hear "I'll pray for you," I appreciate the sentiment, but what I really want to do is hand that person a participation trophy. This is not to say that you should stop saying "I'll pray for you." If you tell me you're praying for me and you also support me in other ways, that's a lot to be grateful for. Not only are you there for me, but you are also welcoming my name into your conversations with God. This is also not to say that we shouldn't pray. Not at all. Prayer is powerful because of what it does inside of us, not just what it might do outside of us. So, let's pray, but let's also act. James 2:14-17 NIV 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. |