I Don't Even Know What the Point is Anymore
Are we done? Is the church done? Yeah, maybe.
Important clarification up top:
I love my church.
I love my church people so damn much.
I mention this because it's going to sound like I'm possibly trashing my church in this post.
I promise I'm not.
Amazing people, amazing church, doing incredible things.
And also…
I’m disillusioned with and disheartened by the church in America.
I don’t always feel like I know what my purpose is as a pastor.
Do I keep trying to help people better understand scripture?
To help people meet the God I see in the Bible - the God who cares for the orphan and the widow, the refugee and the foreigner, the poor and the oppressed?
Is that even important to people?
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.
Sometimes it feels like my only role in leading church services is to pray for/with people in between their weekly intake and digestion of their preferred news content, their conversations with people who believe as they do, and their social media rabbit holes.
And often I feel an expectation from some folks that none of my sermons push against anything they absorb week to week.
Other times it feels like I should just scrap the sermon and the benediction for another reason:
because it doesn’t seem like they're going to do a damn thing.
I can say whatever the hell I'm going to say, and it won't matter.
Pastors get 20 minutes a week to influence, to help move the needle.
20 minutes to help people change their lives and the world for the better.
20 minutes to help people become more Jesusy.
20 minutes out of 10,080.
Maybe an hour and a half if we visit someone mid-week.
But often it feels to me like folks aren’t looking to meet and better understand who God is.
It feels like they want a quick God-boost at the start of the week.
Pray, sing, feel good.
It doesn't feel like I need to spend 10-20 hours reading book after book, commentary after commentary, translation after translation, wanting to make sure I’ve treated scripture carefully and helped people understand who God is.
It kind of feels like wasted time,
like it either 1. changes nothing, or 2. pisses folks off.
It feels like their time might be better spent if I greet them at 9:55 am, lead a prayer at 10, and say goodbye at 10:05.
Would anything change for people if I did that?
Does the needle move at all, whether or not I try?
I constantly worry that I’m harming people or giving them trauma.
After all, when I was in my early 20’s, I gave the youth in my youth group plenty of warped or harmful messages about hell, about sex, about abortion, about what music they should or shouldn’t listen to, and what movies they shouldn’t watch.
I gave them the messages that I received in youth group.
It’s the faith I knew.
I look back at all the harm I likely caused, and wonder if I’m doing the same now; if the messages I give today are actually harmful, and 20 years from now I’ll better understand how I traumatized people.
But I also wonder if those fears even matter.
Because the main influence on many Christians’ lives these days seems to not be God, or the Bible, or living like Jesus.
Sometimes it seems like the church is less and less important, and that what I do is past its time.
It feels like whatever shows people have on, webpages they visit, or social media feeds they follow, are the predominant motivating factor in their lives.
You know, the other 10,060 minutes.
And that nothing I say on a Sunday morning is going to change that.
Instead of “let's learn to better love and encourage and find peace and be forgiving and be patient and be kind,”
we’ll have a packed room full of Christians cheering a quote like, "We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand sort of the biblical reference — I understand the mentality — but it’s gotten us nothing. OK? It’s gotten us nothing while we’ve ceded ground in every major institution."1
I’m perfectly aware that this is Not All Christians™
I doubt it’s even most.
But it’s hard not to see a trend.
And that trend makes me wonder how much of a point there really is.
Is the church done?
I hope not.
But maybe it's on track to becoming so?
Yes, I’ve talked only about the church service part of church, and of being a pastor.
There’s great value both for me and (I hope) for others when we connect during the week.
I’d do that, pastor or not.
But I wonder if a lot of folks are really looking for a pastor during the week.
I wonder if a lot of folks actually are wanting to work through and untangle parts of their lives when we connect.
I wonder if some folks truly are trying to learn what it means to be human, and how to connect with something bigger than them.
Or if they just need a friend; a comfort; a support.
Again, happy to do that.
But it feels like anything beyond isn’t really wanted.2
I love my church.
I love my church people.
I also sometimes wonder if the church, as it is, even matters.
I really hope none of my church people would cheer for that, but I’d also expect no Christians at all to cheer a quote like that, and yet here we are.
“David, you’re not using facts, you just keep saying ‘I feel.’” And, yep.
It does feel so futile…all of the time, sometimes? I teach an adult sunday school of 1-4 people. I don’t know who’s going to show up and people are often late and one person needs to leave early to help with service. So I get 30 minutes, maybe 15 on some days, to try and get people to engage with scripture.
American Christianity is such a unique take on ministry. It troubles me that it's been used as a weapon as opposed to a tool for good. That or they build up walls that keep people out.
Your sermons, knock down those walls and build bridges. It's tiring work, but you're doing a great job.