Some Thoughts from a Survivor of the Young Adult Church Massacre

I’m not engaged enough to keep up with all the popular Christian blogs, but I do follow Rachel Held Evans, and recently I’ve seen several posts there (and elsewhere; this is not a new phenomenon) relating to the masses of young people who are disillusioned with the church. What got me writing was a spate of “time to leave the church” kinds of posts. Though, as a pastor, I clearly have a dog in this fight, I’m not criticizing those who have taken that position in one form or another. There are times to leave churches, and they are invariably painful times. So here I am, simply adding more words to the discussion.

I grew up in a Bible Belt church that did not seem (in my eyes) to value asking the hard questions, which did not sit well with my upbringing to parents who, thankfully, cared a great deal about asking those sorts of questions. Emotional response to “the Spirit,” who “moved” predictably in time with the music, was what mattered in my home church, though it’s certainly possible that I wasn’t paying attention when the harder questions were dealt with. Once when I taught a Sunday School lesson that challenged us to consider that heaven, biblically speaking, pointed us more toward resurrection and the union of heaven and earth than disembodied harp-playing on clouds at the pearly gates, I was tersely accused of misusing Scripture. End of discussion. And yet I came to faith in Christ in that church, and I am eternally grateful for the people who sacrificed to share their own imperfect understanding of God with me.

I languished in undiagnosed introverted agony for four years at a major Christian college while I consistently heard the message that I was somehow malformed because I lacked the “passion” for God that was expected, a passion that manifested itself in swinging from weepy-eyed “I just, like, just love Jesus so much!” moments to manic “Yay ra Jesus!” outbursts (at the appropriate times, of course, and usually in front of total strangers). I took a vicious delight in predicting the point in the Jesus ballads in chapel when most people would raise their hands in spontaneous, non-manipulated adoration of God. Ten years later, I can still name the worship leaders and chapel deans I hold responsible for nearly destroying my faith (that is not an exaggeration), but learning to show them grace is just as much a part of my healing as has been growing beyond them. And I still ache from the times when people I cared about and respected asked me, seriously, how I could be called to pastoral ministry when I was such an introvert.

Now I am the thirtysomething co-pastor (with my wife) of a small, un-hip Wesleyan church in the Poconos, an area that is desperately convinced that it is still rural, when in fact it became quite suburban (and even urban) several years ago. I loved our worship last Sunday, in which we sang along with Paul Baloche songs projected on the screen, then sang a Twila Paris chorus from 1982 played on the Hammond organ, then heard a twangy, old-style country duet sung by an eighty-some-year-old couple whose accompaniment was played from a muffled cassette tape. We are not cool, but I love us. Our combination of eighties-era wood paneling, seventies-era gold shag pew upholstery, and sixties-era faded red carpeting is, shall we say, not likely to make a magazine cover. And I, as a co-pastor, am likewise uncool. I do not have gel in my hair, which I crop military-short rather than letting it grow long and cool. I do not have cool thick-rimmed glasses. I do not wear cool graphic tees (or are ironic vintage tees the cool thing now? I’m not even cool enough to keep up). I do not have a cool soul patch. I do not have a cool tattoo, not because I think tattoos are evil, but because I can’t think of anything I like enough to want to have it stuck on my body for the next fifty years. I grew up in rural Indiana, for crying out loud, so I don’t even have a cool backstory. I wear a tie, I tie it properly, and I don’t apologize for it. As a preacher, I am so uncool that I refuse to use video clips from Christian skits and popular movies in my sermons, not because I want to be countercultural, but because I think they almost always hinder effective communication.

We are not perfect, but I still love us. I have cringed with shame when my parishioners have spouted the most backward, überconservative drivel, but I have also beamed with pride when they unexpectedly “got it” and showed love and grace to someone who absolutely did not deserve it. I could name the people who have left our church during the five years my wife and I have pastored here, and I know that some of them have been hurt, and I know that some of them would blame me. Some of them are right to do so, while others are not. I grieve the loss of those people. There have been days — quite a few, really — in my five years of pastoral ministry when I’ve been this close to stomping off into the woods to live as a hermit in a cave (again, not an exaggeration). And yet I still love us, because Jesus still loves us and claims us as His bride, and because I am surrounded by other Christians (especially my ever-patient wife) who gently bring me back, and because I think it lies at the heart of the gospel to insist on loving people who are so different than you that you can sometimes barely stand them.

If you are struggling in your relationship with the church or have left the church but still like Jesus, I’m not going to accuse you of being selfish and needy and write you off as being the real problem here. It is very true that in many cases, the church has evolved to perpetuate its own institution, and many (far too many) pastors lack the theological grounding needed to really be the church. As with most things, you are the problem, I am the problem, “The Man” is the problem… And yet while I am certainly not a Catholic, I recognize much truth in the claim that there is no salvation outside the church.  It’s not technically true, of course, but there is still truth in that claim. I sense in this generation that there is a desire to have Jesus while rejecting the church, and you simply can’t do that. The church is the continuation of Jesus’ mission; we’re a package deal. You might reject the institution, but you can’t reject the community of God’s people, and it’s only natural that even the most spontaneous expression of community will seek to perpetuate itself through gradual institutionalization. You will never find a perfect church, and I think that’s kind of the point: the redemption of the world requires a collision between a holy God and a sinful world. Not only the repentant sinners that Jesus encountered and healed, but the blind, self-righteous sinners, too. Hypocrites, Judaizers, legalists, gossips, and just plain mean people are not a new addition to the church. Not at all.

I am not writing to chastise those who have either left the church or are desperately seeking some non-church church alternative. I don’t claim to know your story, but I do know mine, and I know that there is hope. Do not give up on the church. Do not give in to church-bashing. This ugly, sometimes smelly, unlovable mess of a bride is still the bride of Christ. Take a deep breath, re-read Ephesians 1, remember that Paul is talking about the church in those beautiful words about the mysteries of God, and decide that you’re going to love the church just like you decide to love your spouse even when they’re as unlovable as they can sometimes be. And then go on to read Ephesians 2, where Paul hints at some of the stupid problems the Ephesian Christians were having, and tells them that God has built them together like two walls of his house anyway.

Yes, the church is a mess. Yes, in many cases it is hostile to the things younger generations are facing today. I could tell stories that would leave you picking your jaw up off the floor; I’m under no delusion about how the church works. But the beauty of God’s kingdom is that He loves her anyway.