99 Days and I Don't Miss the Church
It’s been 99 days since I left my church.
99 days.
99.
A number.
A famous number.
The Great One’s number.
‘Starting centre number 99 - Wayne Gretzky!’
99.
JayZ’s number.
‘I got 99 problems but a job ain’t one’
I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.
99.
99 bottles of… pop on the wall.
‘99 bottles of pop! Take one down and… put it back in the fridge! No. You aren’t having pop for breakfast!’
(Growing up we were discouraged from singing about beer.)
99 Dalmatians.
99 is the number before 100.
99 is apparently a symbol for the completion of humanity (?!).
99.
99 days.
For me, on this particular 99th day, there is absolutely ‘0’ significance to the number 99.
No grand plan.
No big plot.
99 is totally random.
I just felt like writing.
I had an idea about sharing my experience in leaving my church job. A reflective piece.
I opened my calendar and counted backwards.
‘Huh.’
Fancy that.
99.
It’s been 99 days since I left my church family. My job. My employment - a steady income - and my career. 99 days of distance. Perspective. Healing. Growth. 99 days away from folks who were my surrogate-family. 99 days from the consistent and never-failing rhythm of Sunday being the apex anchor of the week. 99 days since I stopped worrying daily on the countless ways I was failing ‘my flock’. 99 days since I went to church at all (at least, in the formal sense).
99 days of reflection.
99 days of honest and hard conversation.
99 days of realization.
And in all those 99 days I have not missed the church for a single one of them.
Oof.
Hear me out.
Let me make a clear distinction that I came to realize this in the dying months of my employment. There is a difference between church as ‘institution’ and the church as ‘the people’. Or - the big ‘C’ church incorporated, and the little ‘c’ church congregation.
Let me be clear dear reader: I miss the little ‘c’ church people.
Deeply.
You know, the blood and flesh and bones and breath and voice and smiles and laughter and tears of the beloved followers of Jesus. I miss the meals and jokes and shared struggles and flights up and down the stairs chasing a group of kids with a creepy puppet in hand. I miss shooting hoops in the gym. Sharing coffee in the cafe. And all those unscheduled impromptu conversations that just seem to happen everywhere and anywhere at anytime: in the traffic loop, under the catwalk, by the doors, on the street, in the dark, in a park.
The life on life stuff.
Certainly. Unequivocally. I miss the people.
Terribly.
I miss the sacred. Those moments of deep spiritual reflection. The weight of the gravity of the realization of God’s love expressed in community. I miss sharing in the ancient story of the scriptures. And the breaking of the bread by candlelight. I miss sound of song from the choir of believers.
The life as incarnation stuff.
I miss hard conversations. The impossible-to-answer questions from teenagers. The obnoxious sound of my own children being disruptive in service. I miss the taste of baby-cookies stolen from the nursery. I even miss the awful church coffee.
I miss all that stuff.
The weaving-together of a newly-knit-family-of-believers who would otherwise be strangers.
The thy Kingdom Come stuff.
You know, the good stuff.
But in these past 99 days I’ve come to realize that the little ‘c’ church is far, far, far too often tossed aside by the aggressive belligerent needs of the ‘C’ Church. Church Incorporated. It is almost as if the Big ‘C’ Church takes the little ‘c’ church entirely for granted.
The policies. The boards. The governance structures and budgets. Job descriptions and mission statements and missions planning teams. And committees. The strategy meetings and planning maps to make the most of the calendar. HR considerations. Staff salary grids. The assumed calculated loss of human resources during ‘necessary’ transitions. Fire the pastor = people will leave. Hire a pastor = new people will come. Low on funds?Plead for more! A certain ministry not panning out? Can it! Try something new! Gotta get those people in the door! Low on volunteers?! Activate volunteer recruitment strategy #452! And don’t forget the name-tags and donuts! The Church must prevail!
Church Inc. reigns supreme.
The church as an institution.
The church as machine manifest.
The nuts and bolts and grinding gears of the system that make it all work out.
Shenanigans!
And the longer I stayed ‘working in’ and ‘working for’ the church - the more obvious the distinction.
And I do not miss Big C Church at all.
99 days reflecting, regretting, questioning.
What was my role in it all? My own significant contributions to the machinery. I was not immune to the beast’s hunger. I was not an innocent passerby. My hands were all over Big C Inc. I have the certification to prove it.
And I have spent the better part of those 99 days asking if I even have the strength, or will, or desire to stick it out and find my way back. Do I care? Is worth the hassle? Will it ever change?
Deeper still, I have spent 99 days asking if I even have the courage to reimagine a different way:
To reimagine a ‘c’ church that lives and functions as a family first.
To reimagine a ‘c’ church that expresses equality in action - not in simply an expressed mission taped to the wall.
To reimagine a ‘c’ church that values togetherness above all else. True togetherness. An honouring of the cascade of ages in structure, practise, actions and beliefs.
To reimagine a church where the little ‘c’ takes priority over the big ‘C’. Where the needs of the corporation take the secondary role to the needs of the people.
I want to believe that the church can be reimagined anew.
I want to believe that I can have some part of it.
99.
99 days.
What comes next?
I’ll let you know on day 100.
Just a quick thought.