My time in Romania has been hard.
I love our ministry. I love our host. I love our location… for the most part. This is a spiritually dark country, the likes of which I haven’t seen on the Race. Perhaps part of the difficulty I have been experiencing stems from the lack of preparation on my end. I knew going into Thailand or Africa I’d experience spiritual oppression, so I mentally and spiritually braced myself. On the other hand, I was completely unprepared for Romania.
I feel like I’m in a war zone, ducking for cover. I need protection. For the first week, I had been all but hiding in the church we are living in. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to see the people who are hurting because I don’t think I have any power to help. Walking around, you can almost see the bondage people are trapped in, the endless cycles of drugs and abuse, passed from generation to generation.
I realized that I couldn’t save everyone.
I can’t save anyone.
It’s easy to feel hopeless.
Instead of going out and being overwhelmed by what I can’t do, I’ve been ignoring the problem by hiding in a space I consider “safe”- the church building.
I’ve always felt at home in a church building. I grew up in the church- I know all the right answers, right moves to make, which is empowering.
- During Sunday services, I have always loved to sing when it’s time to “worship.” I pray when directed and I pay attention to the sermon when it’s time to listen.
- I go to Sunday school/Bible study.
- I participate in events.
- I volunteer to help when I am able.
- Over my church career, I have helped run AWANA programs, youth groups, small groups, and Sunday school classes.
- I won’t mention the hours upon hours I’ve spent on nursery duty.
- I would go to a small group if someone could figure out where to place a single, non-college-aged woman (other than in a “Singles” class that’s actually designed to get us all married off… but I digress…)
I never felt particularly obligated to do any of the above- I just love “church.” I love community and getting together with kind, like-minded people is awesome.
Religion and my status in regards to church have always been a huge part of my identity. It is how I related to the world. It is how I ranked or categorized myself in comparison to the people around me. I have my “church performance” down pat in the Evangelical world, regardless of country or culture: I know what to say, what to do, how to act.
God has shown me lately why I feel safe in a church building, why I have been hiding in this church building this month. Growing up, when things were chaotic in the “real world”, I could run to a place that I knew I could always fit in: church. I knew my part- I could recite my lines and hide in plain sight.
Growing up, I learned a “good Christian” goes to church. In my book, a person who “went to church” was synonymous to “Christian.”
Unfortunately, putting a bunch of broken people together under the umbrella of a certain set of ideals either breeds vulnerability and honesty or inauthenticity and shame. Either we work together in love, open about our faults and fears, pouring into each other the love and grace we have received from our Father… or we force ourselves into boxes in an attempt to hide our flaws and we shame others into doing the same.
Growing up, I tended to be surrounded by the latter rather than the former. You learn what your environment teaches: church became a place where I would tuck my dirty laundry away, paint on a smile, and act pious.
Church was where I awkwardly stand in the lobby, holding my Styrofoam cup filled with cheap coffee, chatting with a person I only see for an hour or two on Sundays, recycling the same old conversation topics, all while wondering if I should stop by Chipotle on the way home or swing by Taco Bell because, hello, drive through.
I have met Christians who don’t go to church. They have been burned by “church” they are a bit skeptical of Christians in the church setting. I get where they are coming from. You have this deep connection with other Christians- the Holy Spirit binds us together which brings a certain cache of trust- and to have someone betray that trust would be rather traumatic.
To the part of me who still remembers what it’s like to be a scared, confused, 15-year-old girl, clinging to church as a source of stability and identity, this is rather unsettling. I have always tended to err on the side of legalism, “You have to go to church. Good (read: real) Christians go to church…”
Sometimes I have a hard time understanding or accepting Christians who have “turned their backs” on the church. I look back on all of the good I’ve experienced through the church- the support, the love, the acceptance- and it breaks my heart that not everyone has the same experiences as I did.
Then, I look a little harder at my history in the church.
I see the hurt I’ve experienced but tried to ignore. The lies and sin that was covered up and then, eventually, exposed. The division. The staunch adherence to the “non-critical” doctrine that excludes any room for questioning or doubt.
I realized that, at times, the acceptance I felt was based on the condition that I would uphold specific doctrine and other people’s viewpoints.
I see the plastic smiles that we all say we abhor but we cling to anyway.
I see pastors, refusing, unable, to show any signs of weakness, doubt, or vulnerability.
I see individuals buying into “groupthink” and covering their politics with religion and their religion with politics until everything is so muddled that no grace or tolerance could ever seep through.
I see fellow broken, hurting humans, attempting to construct a fantasy world where scared and confused people might be able to go to find something that will give them feelings of significance and acceptance in a chaotic world.
I still love “church.” Something about the familiar liturgy, hymns, and programs are soothing to me. But a church without the Church is a skeleton, dead bones where a living being should be.
Church, Christ’s Bride, is a living thing. It’s you and me, loving each other, building each other up, doing life together, drawing us closer to Christ through His love and grace.
I need to continue to move past the thinking that “church” is a replacement for a true relationship with Christ- or with other Christians.
I can’t hide anymore. I can’t show up and accept generic answers to the question, “How’s it going?” I need true community. I need people involved in my life outside 9:30 AM-Noon on Sundays. I need the Church.
All I know is that, over the past 9 months, I have seen what the true Church body looks like- and I won’t settle for an alternative.
