When Everything Falls Down...
We were sitting in a beautiful cathedral waiting for a funeral to begin for a father of a dear friend recently. True to form, I was in my head and my man was in his body (Enneagram 6 & 9). Adjusting my reading glasses and Googling, "Can you light a candle or take communion if you're not catholic?" I heard him busily catching up with folks sitting next to him. I leaned over and whispered to him and my cousin, "You're not supposed to take communion if you're not Catholic, but I'm going to anyways." He shook his head smiling as she whispered a response, "Of course, you are...since when do you follow the rules?" :)
In my mind I wasn't thinking "rebel", in my mind I was thinking that I love Jesus and I belong. He made a way for me and I belong no matter the rules man decided to set in place. I belong. I had not always felt the belonging outside of hustling for it...something had shifted in me. Belonging had been hard fought for in my heart and thankfully it's roots had wrapped deep around my soul. The wilderness had been a long journey and one we were not certain we would live to see the other side. But we did, by God's grace, loving friends and a lot of grit, we lived through the darkest nights of our souls.
There are not great parties of people you know heading out into this desolate place you can't help, but seem to be going as a church refugee. "Community" isn't exactly what you'll experience there, as He leads you out to meet with Him alone. Maybe you were like us, being a part of "something bigger" had been such a deep desire and given you value and identity that you cannot believe you are even considering giving that security up. Who gives up their tribe?! Yet, like other church refugees, community had already begun to change for you when you were still sitting there on Sunday mornings or writing you next support letter. The cords of connection that had held you so tightly and consistently began to loosen and seemed to unravel at a rapid rate on the edge of the place where things go to die. It's one of the hardest parts - the way only you can be buried in the tomb of incarnation. The wilderness.
Unknowingly, you chose what it meant to pursue Him in this personal journey over the safety of church or movement affiliation's natural neighborhood. Something inside of you wondered and maybe longed to see what relationships would remain outside of association of the place you frequented on Sunday mornings. Were we really family? Or when you were fired from your church job and the story was spun to represent something far from the truth, you were blessed to leave when the pain of it all was too much to revisit week after week? Really, what you were longing to see in all areas of your faith and friendships was what was REAL. In a world glutting on virtual and experience, there is something in a soul that wants to know what is REAL, what will LAST and what REMAINS.
And on the concave of this desire is the FEAR that nothing will remain - that when the dust settles you'll be alone with nothing REAL, nothing LASTING and only your worst fears being true. It's this fear that causes many to turn back from the wilderness, back into the safety of relationships, ritual and religion.
This can sound like everyone should leave the building, right? While we would say everyone would benefit from the reformation of the current Western church model, we would also say that your wilderness experience may not lead you out of your church doors. Maybe you're one of the few who have a healthy church life. That is so beautiful and encouraging to many. So beautiful. However, when we speak of the wilderness of a church refugee it is with a heart to see the stigma of this journey removed. To bring understanding and even value to the process. The wilderness of the soul will find everyone, it will find everyone because He promises it. And He promises to be with you through the whole journey.
The wilderness is the scariest part of the journey of deconstruction. It's where a lot of what you held close dies, where you hallucinate and think you see the end of the desert sooner than it ever comes, a place you mostly just survive, where you learn to eat new and strange foods, where the line between sacred and ordinary dissolves, where you meet brave souls who have set up places of respite for travelers like yourself and and aren't scared off by your journey and where you see a side of God you never have before. The wilderness is where you are made new, made new in a painful and holy way.
Over the next few months we will be posting blogs written by fellow church refugees for your encouragement and education. They'll come from people with marketplace jobs, from "home moms" as our children call them :), from current full-time church workers, from college kids, missionaries and well, people just like you.
Our prayer is that wherever you're at on your walk with Jesus that you know this - YOU BELONG. He gave His life to make sure of it. YOU BELONG. He's been in the wilderness too and He knows exactly what all of it means. He's got you and you'll live to see the land of the living again. You will. Promise.
In my mind I wasn't thinking "rebel", in my mind I was thinking that I love Jesus and I belong. He made a way for me and I belong no matter the rules man decided to set in place. I belong. I had not always felt the belonging outside of hustling for it...something had shifted in me. Belonging had been hard fought for in my heart and thankfully it's roots had wrapped deep around my soul. The wilderness had been a long journey and one we were not certain we would live to see the other side. But we did, by God's grace, loving friends and a lot of grit, we lived through the darkest nights of our souls.
There are not great parties of people you know heading out into this desolate place you can't help, but seem to be going as a church refugee. "Community" isn't exactly what you'll experience there, as He leads you out to meet with Him alone. Maybe you were like us, being a part of "something bigger" had been such a deep desire and given you value and identity that you cannot believe you are even considering giving that security up. Who gives up their tribe?! Yet, like other church refugees, community had already begun to change for you when you were still sitting there on Sunday mornings or writing you next support letter. The cords of connection that had held you so tightly and consistently began to loosen and seemed to unravel at a rapid rate on the edge of the place where things go to die. It's one of the hardest parts - the way only you can be buried in the tomb of incarnation. The wilderness.
Unknowingly, you chose what it meant to pursue Him in this personal journey over the safety of church or movement affiliation's natural neighborhood. Something inside of you wondered and maybe longed to see what relationships would remain outside of association of the place you frequented on Sunday mornings. Were we really family? Or when you were fired from your church job and the story was spun to represent something far from the truth, you were blessed to leave when the pain of it all was too much to revisit week after week? Really, what you were longing to see in all areas of your faith and friendships was what was REAL. In a world glutting on virtual and experience, there is something in a soul that wants to know what is REAL, what will LAST and what REMAINS.
And on the concave of this desire is the FEAR that nothing will remain - that when the dust settles you'll be alone with nothing REAL, nothing LASTING and only your worst fears being true. It's this fear that causes many to turn back from the wilderness, back into the safety of relationships, ritual and religion.
This can sound like everyone should leave the building, right? While we would say everyone would benefit from the reformation of the current Western church model, we would also say that your wilderness experience may not lead you out of your church doors. Maybe you're one of the few who have a healthy church life. That is so beautiful and encouraging to many. So beautiful. However, when we speak of the wilderness of a church refugee it is with a heart to see the stigma of this journey removed. To bring understanding and even value to the process. The wilderness of the soul will find everyone, it will find everyone because He promises it. And He promises to be with you through the whole journey.
The wilderness is the scariest part of the journey of deconstruction. It's where a lot of what you held close dies, where you hallucinate and think you see the end of the desert sooner than it ever comes, a place you mostly just survive, where you learn to eat new and strange foods, where the line between sacred and ordinary dissolves, where you meet brave souls who have set up places of respite for travelers like yourself and and aren't scared off by your journey and where you see a side of God you never have before. The wilderness is where you are made new, made new in a painful and holy way.
Over the next few months we will be posting blogs written by fellow church refugees for your encouragement and education. They'll come from people with marketplace jobs, from "home moms" as our children call them :), from current full-time church workers, from college kids, missionaries and well, people just like you.
Our prayer is that wherever you're at on your walk with Jesus that you know this - YOU BELONG. He gave His life to make sure of it. YOU BELONG. He's been in the wilderness too and He knows exactly what all of it means. He's got you and you'll live to see the land of the living again. You will. Promise.
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