Last time we went to church I walked out. In the course of my faith and years at church I've walked out of my share of services. This time it was because the preacher started comparing non-christians to terrorists in between repeats of the statement 'purchase our products after the service'.
I just am now really struggling to find a reason to go back.
For me the big thing at the moment is separating faith and religion. I find the format of church quite boring. I guess it's a case of not feeling I fit in for so long that I can't be bothered. I know who I am, I know what my skills are, what my interests are, I don't want to do church drama because often it is badly written and well, lets just leave it at that. I don't particularly want hubby in a music team because then there is music team commitments and sundays are a total write off (especially as we go to a church that has two morning services).
The other thing is so many of our friends that we met through church or associated events are also no longer interested in the sunday ritual. So the question is then, what is going on? What has driven so many creative people away from the church? Is it that in many ways the church doesn't value the creative? Sure the mega churches can pay their music leaders or those in creative ministries but most of the team members are volunteers. There is just one problem with volunteering, you get little to no say in what you will be doing and it's so very hard to get time away from it. The creative pursuits may be your gifting, your passion but you are expected to do it all for nothing and give up a chunk of your time.
Of course the flip side of that is if you love something you give your time up for it anyway, paid or not. I've done plenty of plays for no reason other than the love of it. So why do I do that but reject the idea of joining a church drama team? A lot of it is for the reason I mentioned earlier, I find church sketches to be badly written. That aside, I'm not interested, even a little bit, in 3 minute sketches, as an actor they don't challenge me, I get nothing from doing them, except the feeling that I am wasting my time. Also you really don't get a choice, someone else picks the piece and unless you have loads of willing performers you don't get the option to say no, you are either in the team or not. When I audition for something it's because I want to do the show - I choose what I audition for. The other thing is actors accept my oddness, my sense of humour, my questioning nature and my some what out there personality, I fit in there. With church I feel the need to reel myself in, to curb my questioning, my humour.
Then there are those who stand under the banner of christianity and spew hate and judgement and for me at the moment that is perhaps the big thing I struggle with. I know I've talked about his things before. I know there are times I think it would be easier if I didn't know so much, didn't read so much, didn't question so much. The way I figure it though is that this is the way I was created so there must be a purpose for it. It may be that I am not the only one who struggles. I'm not the only one who walks the line between wanting to believe and hating so much of what religion stands for.
Through all this though I am blessed to have people of faith whom I admire and who speak into my life, they don't judge me for my questions, they keep me hanging on to that thin thread of faith and even help me reweave strands back into it so I can hang in there a bit longer.
