You Can Unravel, Here: A Case for Church

I hesitate to write this, knowing that no church is perfect, and knowing that most, if not all of them, have done deep harm in some way or another. I wish this weren’t so, but it’s generally true. Still, having been wounded by bad theology and arrogant pastors myself, I love church. I don’t mean I love my church, although I do. I mean that something clicks into place in my soul when I’m surrounded by other people, singing songs, taking communion, listening to Scripture being read and preached. In a little church in Paris, in a congregation in Beirut, in the lake-air of Duluth – it doesn’t matter where, it always brings me back to myself. 

I understand the need to put on airs on Sunday, but I still find it kind of silly. I have gone forward for prayer nearly every Sunday since I got home five months ago. At one point, after getting prayer at the front of the church after the sermon (something our church offers every week), someone asked me why I went forward. “Is everything alright?” they asked, concerned. Herein lies the problem, that everyone assumes that to receive prayer means that there is something wrong with you. Or, maybe the problem is that we all judge those whose lives seem to be going wrong. Isn’t everyone’s life going wrong, in one way or another? Aren’t we all dancing on the precipice of anxiety, or depression, or the grief of disease, or a hard job, or the exhaustion of raising kids? Is there ever a reason not to get prayer?

I used to say this from the stage as a pastor, that prayer is for everyone; that it doesn’t matter what the prayer call is – you can come forward for any and every reason, good or bad, because prayer is what sustains us. But even I knew that it sounded like a sales pitch. I had vested interest in people getting prayer, because I was paid to pray for people. But that is why I’m writing this now, because I’m not paid to pray for people anymore. I go to church like everyone else, and I still believe what I said from that stage all those years. I go forward for prayer all the time, whether I resonate with the prayer call or not. I get prayer for little things and big things, for twinges of anger and for the grief of loved ones dying. It doesn’t really matter, because I’m not going to church to look nice. I’m going to church because it’s my lifeline – it fills me up with oxygen, expands my horizons, gives me the communal shot of faith that I often lack in my own prayers throughout the week. I need people. I need them to carry me, to sort things through with me, to stand with me in good times and in bad. I’m not married, but even if I was I don’t think it would make that much of a difference on this front: the church is my family. 

Photo by Laurynas Mereckas on Unsplash

It was eight years ago this Sunday that I walked into my church building, fresh off a hard time, and decided to make it my home. I became a member that day, which sounds crazy, but has been the most important thing I have ever done. I worked there for over six years, but it was more than that. When I took my current position, a non-profit job, I wondered how I would be able to cope with the pressure of it. The first thing I thought of was my church family. I had this image in my mind of myself standing on a bridge over a ravine, about to bungee jump. My church was cheering me on as I jumped into that ravine every Monday, and pulling me back up on Sundays to help send me off again the next week. I preached this kind of community from the stage so many times, and it is a relief to know I still believe it myself. 

As I sat in that same church this morning, I felt a whisper somewhere inside of me: you can unravel, here. I suppose that is what I wish people knew about Sunday mornings. It’s not about a show. It’s never been about a show. It’s about giving yourself room to breathe. It’s about serving each other in love and grace. It’s about hugging people and laughing with people and then kneeling on the floor and crying if you need to. It’s not a place where you put your normal life aside for a few hours – it’s a place where you bring your whole self, all the broken bits and joyous bits, and put them all before God and God’s people. Maybe the bits make sense at the end of those few hours, but most likely they won’t. What will make sense though, or at least it does for me, is that there will always be grace for another week, and that we often need each other to access it.