I Already Know the Answer...

Asking questions is not all that difficult. It's easy to raise questions about just about anything. What is challenging is hearing the answers. Because sometimes the answers are not what we want to hear or they cause us to pause and re-examine ourselves or even what we believe. It's not the questions then that are dangerous, but the answers.

Both in my newsletter article and my recent sermon, I encouraged folks to ask 1-2 people that they know who are not connected with a church to talk about their experience. I was very clear in preaching to ask questions that they didn't already know the answer to and to be prepared for answers that might make them uncomfortable. Well, I don't ever ask the congregation to do anything that I'm not prepared to do as well, so I sent out many facebook messages and e-mails to friends and family who are either not connected to a church, have limited connection, or that when I knew them, they had a limited connection.

The responses that I have gotten back have been heartbreakingly honest and vulnerable. They have indeed made me sad to be a part of this thing we call church that has been responsible for causing more brokenness and pain in the world. I wanted to justify their responses and share where I have experienced the same things or where I have experienced something opposite. In some responses I still did that when I didn't want to. The visions that I asked for of what they would picture church are simply stunning. In many of the visions I found myself wishing that I could be a part of a community like that! To say that I was moved in reading these responses would be less than acurate.

As moving as the responses have been, one of the nagging pieces to me was if I was asking questions that I already knew the answer to. When I asked what they thought of when I said "church", the responses came back pretty much the way that I was figuring they would-- some of my assumptions based on the book UnChristian by Gabe Lyons and some just knowing about young adults. It makes me wonder if I could have phrased the question better to get different answers...I mean the answers are true in their experience and they are painful for me to hear...There have been times that I have been a part of the congregations that they speak of and there have been times when I have been explicit or implicit in the treatment that they have recieved from the church. Nevertheless, I was not surprised by some of the responses and I, myself, felt justified.

Perhaps the reason the same words and phrases come up over and over again is because they are indeed true. The church has made some poor decisions and poor choices...The church is hypocritical and judgemental...Or at least that's how the church has acted. I don't think that the Church is any of those things, but the way that we have lived as the church has been in those ways. It makes me incredibly sad to think that way.

What do we do now? Like I said, I was amazingly moved in the ways that some of these responses described church and my soul ached to be a part of those kinds of congregations or in a place that would allow for such creativity and movement of the Spirit. I don't know if I've ever been in a place that allowed for that...Maybe I'm still waiting for it.

But I think that I need to do more than wait...Adam Hamilton has said that if the church that you serve is not the kind that you would worship at, you need to get it there...I honestly haven't decided how I feel about that. I know that my spiritual needs are much different than those in the congregations that I serve, as I would expect they would be! I have been shaped and formed in traditions that seem foreign to others. I have been molded and grown into expressions of Christianity that may seem threatening to others. My idea of worship is different than yours. So, what does it mean?

I'm not sure...it's the messs and mesh that we are involved in today and in today's world. There are segements of the population whose needs are not being met and we have to honestly ask ourselves if we are prepared to meet their needs. If the answer is "no", what does that say about the church?