My Faith-Crisis

I have a confession. I don’t go to church every Sunday morning anymore. There, I said it. What a startling omission to say the least. For over 2 decades, not only was I going to church every Sunday morning, but I almost always was part of the service, while most of my week was spent in practices, studies, leadership development, volunteering, and my list could venture. I was a leader and pastor’s wife in the Christian church, one to be counted on with almost perfect attendance. And when I was battle-worn, or simply didn’t feel like going or doing, I wrestled with this guilt that struck me like lightening by nightfall. Thinking that others were ready to judge my absence, I grew angry with the imaginary audience that was whispering about me and my lack of commitment. Or so I thought.Where I stand over 20 years later, I believe I’m in somewhat of a faith crisis, or a crossroad if you will. If I’m honest, I am a bit disgruntled with the Church, but all the while realizing that flesh and blood is not entirely to blame. Going deeper, there are principalities that I’m at war with, and will continue to wage against till Christ rises my limp body from its dirt tomb. Perhaps that is the true source of my disgruntled sentiments. I’m almost certain based on the apostle Paul’s insights.Tragedy and crisis have a beautiful way of obliterating solid and structural foundations that have been built upon for years. It will grip you by the neck and yank the ground from beneath you like a flimsy carpet. Such was the case for me.Now, I don’t belong to an actual “church” who meets in a “church building” thriving with “ministries” and inundated with events that are comprised to equip the saints (but not sure about the sinners anymore). And for some reason, I feel so free about that. Yet, paradoxically, there is this inner turmoil that points to my ministerial disappearance and ironically, it’s threatening that same freedom.I know I’m not alone. I know I’m among so many that are grappling with their faith, the church, and their place in kingdom work. I know I’m not the only one in crisis, who has ripped off the “I’m ok” mask and who is walking around bare-faced, and faith-scarred in public view. My wounds are as a out there as the morning dusk, my story not hidden from the Christian community.    And yet I remain. What’s left of the old me is not very much. I stand outside the cathedral walls, peering in the stained glass window, questioning if I should go back inside to build like that again, pray like that again, believe like that again, worship like that again. I’m unsure. I’m uneasy. I need to think and doubt and moan and question through this. I don’t wear any leadership hats anymore. I’m just a plain o’ believer who is a sinner stained by grace. I’m just a girl who loves the Person of Jesus and has never lost hope, even when it was snatched from her tight grasp. I resonate with the penned words of author Rachel Held Evens in her acclaimed Searching for Sunday. I felt a kindred spirit as she divulged her personal crisis to us as her readers. She authentically declared, "I am writing because sometimes we are closer to the truth in our vulnerability than in our safe certainties, and because in spite of all my doubt and insecurity, in spite of my abiding impulse to sleep in on Sunday mornings, I have seen the first few ribbons of dawn’s light seep through my bedroom window, and there is a dim, hopeful glow kissing the horizon. Even when I don’t believe in church, I believe in resurrection. I believe in the hope of Sunday Morning."God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of the Old Testament. My spiritual forefathers, my Christian ancestry. I still believe. I pay homage to our spiritual lineage who paved the way for us to douse in the blue rivers of revelation, bought with a price through persecution and mayhem. I nod my head in reverence to a Martin Luther, an A.W. Tozer, a John Wesley, a C.S. Lewis. Your work rattles me, shocks me, and reignites a seductive and beauteous depiction of our Trinitarian God, and the Power of His Might and Preeminence.Yet, I am not sure at the same time where I stand with them, the Triune God, and my role in the Kingdom anymore. I look behind me and see a facade of who I was, in deep meditative state of who I want to become. I’m tired. I’m tired of Church. I’m tired of the demands, the lies, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the pressure, the competition, the politics, the order of service, the performance, the ingratitude. Yet, I miss the God moments of community in a space that we deemed holy, creative explosions on the canvas of our souls, of teams that would go out and search for the least of these, knowing that we were also they. There are so many things I do miss.Honestly, I still care…deeply. I still can discern the wild look in people’s eyes who are choking in their own suffering. I still care, and my classroom is a daily reminder of how alive I feel when I teach, help, reach, and influence the human condition. Thus, there has to be more. When Nehemiah looked at the ruins, he saw more. When Jesus saw the sinners and the pharisees at odds with pointing fingers, He saw more. When Joshua preceded Moses in his journey to the promised land, but knew he had to convince a murmuring people, indeed even he saw more.Battered, bruised, almost killed by the issues that often flow from the Church, I still see more. I want to be part of that more. Still looking, rearranging, reimagining, rediscovering, redetermining. It’s who I am, the pews and the hymns. It’s how God fashioned me, the rallying cry of Justice, and a piercing pain banging on the epicenter of my heart every time I see a person in need. My vocal cords light up like fire when I share the Gospel, sing praise to Jehovah, and lead others towards a mission to do good. I still yearn and crave that. I’m not fully living less I’m alive with purpose to create change. I desire to minister, yet I’m tired of ministry. I digress. I’m not “in” Church anymore, so how? Then I’m reminded, I don’t need to be. I have to find a fresh rhythm. Not certain where to begin; somewhere I guess. I am part of a Bible study in my home now, while revisiting the sacraments and searching for the broken pieces of our once community from the floor to re-create a mosaic of a new found hope with a very special kinfolk.I’m in a faith crisis right now. I have to be ok with that. I’m not my own. I can’t write the next chapter. So I will wait here for a real God to grant me a real chance to re-engage the world and rediscover the idea of “Being the Church,” instead of falling into the temptation of merely attending, and getting lost in the motions for another 20 years…