church

I want to clarify what I wrote yesterday regarding the institutional church.

Last spring, I found a podcast that described life outside the institutional church as a path in which some people were finding freedom. To me it sounded like an interesting idea. We had been in the process of “looking” for a church for about five months. (We had left the church which we had been a part of for 12 years the previous November.) As we searched we found that each one we visited was not much different from the previous week’s visitation and that left us in a quandary.

It was necessary for me to reach an end to my understandings and beliefs about church. What I had believed about “organized” church was that it was meant to function as the body of Christ. I believed that people with problems should be able to go to those in charge and find people who understand and will minister and care for the needs of that individual. When I needed it to function in that manner, I found that it did not. I found that there was an absence of care. Never mind that I was a total emotional and mental basket case. My life had been lost. What I thought was real no longer existed due to the personal issues with which I was dealing. I felt that I needed someone to help me sort through all my confusion and pain. I was a mess. I didn’t find what I was looking for at my “local church”.

I know now that it doesn’t necessarily work that way. We (my husband and I) were squeezing oranges and expecting apple juice. It didn‘t work. We asked for support from people who could not give it. We needed people who would love and care for us. I think that if we showed up on Sunday morning, we looked like we were doing okay. We’re connecting with God, right? That wasn‘t the case however. I was looking for people support… not God support. I was looking for the Body to work without understanding what that really meant.

My thinking was wrong in at least two ways. 1) I was looking for relational help from people in whom I had no relationship. The “local church” was supposed to be “The Church“ (the Body of Christ). It does not automatically work that way. 2) I was looking for help from the Church first and not from God first. I saw God as someone far away and observing only. So the people in charge at the church should know what to do to help, right? Not so. It didn’t happen that way.

Is the institutional church setup wrong? Not necessarily. Expectations should be limited, though, depending on your own “local church”. I look at the institutional church as a club. An organization that must do certain things in order to maintain its existence. In order to survive it must function like other clubs and have rules and regulations which its members need to follow. Time is limited for the pastors. How can soul care happen when so many people need help? Enough on that for now. Just realize that it is what it is and don’t expect something that it is not. I expected a certain level of care and concern. When I didn’t get it, I turned to other sources… mostly books and the internet.

That doesn’t sound very relational, but it helped more than a person would expect. Since I believed it was up to me to fix and resolve the issues at hand, I immersed myself in the problem seeking to heal and restore my marriage so that I would never have to go through this again. I was certain I would rather die than experience the pain again that had visited itself upon me. As we went forward, God stealthily maneuvered us each step of the way for which today I am very grateful.