I Just Can’t Quit You

Sometimes I wonder what I’m still doing here in this conversation. Of all the friends who have been down the road of deconstruction with me, so many have moved on to other communities, other practices, other faiths, or no faith at all. I can’t say that I blame them. Sometimes coming to  a Christian church, whether it identifies as emergent, evangelical, mainline, or progressive, feels like going to a dry well. So much of the language and practices I find in the church no longer resonate with me. So much of the conversation about what kind of theology to subscribe to or what kind of music or liturgy to use feels like arguing over what color to paint a house while it’s falling down all around us.

If I want a supportive community, 12 step programs offer more space for authenticity and vulnerability than my fellow Christians do. If I want transformative spiritual practices, Buddhism does a better job than most churches. If I want an understanding of human dysfunction, a psychologist can tell me more about that than a minister. And I hate to break it to Lillian Daniel, but if I want to experience genuine awe and transcendence, I’ll take a sunset over a church sanctuary any day. There’s an old song by the CCM band Plankeye that goes “This place that I’m supposed to be…it’s not here or there or anywhere, but in speaking distance with God, and where can you go that’s too far? Because I can worship him anywhere.” I’ve learned to commune with the spirit of God, and I know she doesn’t confine herself to anyone’s buildings or boxes.

But here I am. I just can’t quit you, as the line goes. No matter how often my heart is broken, or I’m left in a state of anger, boredom, or madness, I keep returning. The fact remains that you’re my people. This community, this body has nurtured, nourished, and shaped me in as many ways as it has wounded me, and to totally disengage would be like removing a part of my body. The limb might have a little gangrene, but I’m not ready to amputate just yet. I still have hope that it may be healed.

Someone close to me was talking about a friend who is an artist. He said, “I know he’s meant to do art, because he can’t not do it. He wakes up in the middle of the night with ideas for a project. No matter what else he has to do to survive, he will always find a way to make art.” That’s the way I feel about the church. There’s a longing to see some deep promise fulfilled and no matter how hard I try, I can’t break free from it. I think about it late at night, when I’m trying to sleep. How do we create environments that nurture each individual’s connection to God and call forth the particular gifts they have been given? How do we create a space where they have the freedom to develop and use those gifts in service to the greater community? How do we sustain practices that produce genuine transformation? How do we build communities that will love and hold us as we become the people we were meant to be? How do we together become a people that can produce transformative change in the world around us?

I can’t explain why these things matter to me. All I can say is that I have been called. I’ve been called to remain not just one of these Emergent Voices, but a member of the Christian church at large. Over the next several months, I will talk about some directions I think we as Christians need to go in- Embodied, Contemplative, Interspiritual, Relational, and Radical. I can’t claim that any of my ideas are based on in-depth research or understanding of demographic needs, future trends, or any of that stuff, although they are rooted in my experience and observation. I won’t pretend that these ideas are all my own- I am borrowing from many others. I will simply share the vision that is calling to me, and offer it in the hope that some of you will resonate with it. Thank you for listening.