The meaning of Jesus for life and community – Part 3: Church Leavers

It is commonly assumed that people who leave churches do so either out of conflict with the leaders of those churches or out of frustration. These individuals are pictured as banding together to diss the established church and argue that the path they’re on is the real, true and authentic express of community through which Godde may be found. They’re often portrayed as backslidden at worst and off track at best in terms of their relationship with Godde.

Just over two years ago I went on sabbatical for 3 months, and then never went back to church. Recently I’ve been having conversations with some people from my old church. I’m quite disturbed by the number of people who apply the common assumption to me – that I left out of frustration and am embittered by my experience. Sorry guys, that brush simply doesn’t fit. I said in my last post that I’d be picking up conversations stemming from my desire to create a new architecture for church. In this post I want to comment on church leavers’ ongoing journey with Jesus as well as my own.I’d like to draw attention to several resources.

• James Fowler’s Stages of Faith is a book exploring the various stages of faith people grow through as they move toward maturity in faith. I recommend this to be read along with Myra Perrine’s What’s Your God Language?. Basically, people will express their faith most naturally in keep with their development as well as in keeping with their temperement. Church focuses on a narrow developmental period along with a  narrow expression of spirituality. One could profile various expressions of faith from Buddhism to Hinduism to Islam to Christianity to the various spiritualities bannered under the term New Age.
• Church Outside the Walls is a documentary. Part one is available as a free download. Ironically, the church leavers interviewed here reflect similar things you’d hear said in a Vineyard Church. Many people leave churches because of the reasons these interviewees reflect. I’ve likewise spoken to a number of people in Cape Town, South Africa, who reflect similar reasons for leaving churches. Many people in the Vineyard Churches I’ve been a part of joined the movement due to those same reasons. This evidences that individuals both leave churches due and join other churches for similar reasons. It seems that people can be fulfilled equally through a church-less spirituality as a church-filled spirituality.
• Allen Jamieson wrote a book called A Churchless Faith which he’s recently followed up with Church Leavers: Five Years On. I’ve read the former but not the latter (it is in the mail). I like his work because the exploration evidences that many church leavers do so for different reasons to those commonly assumed. Often those leaving churches are those who’ve been significantly involved. Not all of them leave because they’ve burnt out.
• I’m part of an emerging community and some insight can be garnered from a conversation we had around this same subject. The community I’ve becoming part of includes a few committed to churches but wanting to explore alternative expressions of the Christian faith. Most of the people involved are church leavers. Some left due to withdrawing from a wider conflict they were being sucked into. Others left because of a dual life created by Christianity not including the creative and the sensual. A few left simply because church doesn’t “scratch the itch” of their spirituality based on their temperament and developmental phase.

Why did I leave?

There were a number of contributing factors to my leaving the church I was a part of:

• I felt sandboxed. I really enjoyed the first few years I spent as an urban missionary. Eventually I realised that the church I was a part of wasn’t going to become the church the people I was reaching needed. Without being able to rework the architecture of the church I felt I was wasting the finance of my sponsors and selling those I was reaching short as I wasn’t able to provide them with a fully functional spiritual home.
• I felt the need to de-church myself: I realised that I’ve spent a few years in church and that the system had become part of my outlook. I realised I was not looking to building a community experienced based on the culture and needs of those I was working with. Rather, I was looking to reflavour church as it had been in my experience. I felt the need to get away from “church” and thinking about “church slightly different”. This meant time away.
• I felt like I was being strung along. A year prior to my sabbatical the church recommitted to take me on staff as soon as they were financially able. This offer came as a great encouragement to me as I wanted more financial stability in my life and I saw it as an opportunity to be able to contribute to the re-structuring of church. I realised then that I had to make a decision about how long I was willing to remain where I was. I was already feeling sandboxed and considering the limitations of the church’s ability to serve as a spiritual home for people who didn’t share the same language and culture. I was already thinking about the need to somehow get back to the willingness to “build church from the ground up”. I realised that if this offer didn’t materialise then it was time to move on. 3 months after that “due date” I initiated the follow-up and discovered that there was no definite movement on their side to fulfill the commitment.

So I left.

What do I take with me?

Beyond leaving, what am I left with?

• Good memories. I’ve had a lot of fun in ministry and in church. I’ve had man adventurous experiences and have a lot of good memories.
• Experience. I’ve got over 10 years of experience as a committed churchgoer. Before this I had about 13 years of experience at the periphery of church, much of it being annoyed by Christians trying to evangelise me. I take all of this experience with me and know that it goes into the general “kitty” of experience.
• The desire to maintain relationship. I know some of the “out of church” groups develop a stance that is anti-church. Personally I’m not an never will be found in that camp. Humans are dysfunctional and so every human institution will be dysfunctional. Similarly, I won’t be found in the church camp that says “all your base are belong to us” – you need to be part of an institional church. We need to grow and develop more expressions of our spirituality that are rooted in Christ and we need to do so in the soil of other people’s lives and their cultures. I don’t believe the various denominations and movements covers all the bases that are needed. Every tribe and tongue and nation and generation needs to discover Godde for themselves. I’m keen to be part of a being church in a new culture, a postmodern or post-postmodern culture. I do so in partnership with Jesus. Like I said in my previous post, the established churches need to recognise that newer expressions of church are equally valid and that they’re on the same team.
• The desire to tap into the wisdom of older churches. Our forebears likewise embarked on adventures in pursuit of the dream of Godde in their time. They’ve learnt a lot along the way. I’d love to tap into their acquired wisdom.
• The desire to feed into the life of older churches. Many churches continually reform themselves. Being part of something radically different means I’m able to pass something back. There’s a lot established and slower churches can learn from smaller adaptive experiments. I’d love to feed some of my experiences back into more established churches, including those I’ve left.
• The desire to be part of the new. I feel “called” by Godde to be part of shaping and contributing toward emerging churches. This calling is general, in the sense that I wish to dialogue with those who’re “doing church” in novel ways. This calling is specific, in the sense that I feel called to form communities that are actually new ways of “doing church” rather than old/modern ways disguised with different lights and styles of music.

I’m not sure if my journey here will be relevant to others but felt the need to share anyway. I trust you will find the resources stimulating.

I highly recommend Nic Paton’s series on shamanism:

• The shamanic shadow. link.
• Shamanism, Inteview One: Anthony Paton. link.
• The shamanic shadow in the Old Testament. link.
• Shamanism, Interview Two: Gavin Marshal. link.
• The shamanic shadow in the New Testament. link.
• Shamanism, Interview Three: Tim Victor. link.
• The shamanic shadow in the 3rd millenium. link.

I’m going to take a break from my current series to explore some of the contributions we can take from Eastern Spirituality. I’m busy doing a course rooted in Eastern Philosophy while reading several books. I trust you, the reader of this blog, will join me for that series as well as comment here on your own “church leaving” and “church abiding” experiences. For additional reading on this subject, to tide you over, you may want to read Ken Bakers A Missional Church.