Yesterday, I mentioned having a bipolar week, and that it related to my work in church, and on the one hand, I feel like that's deserving of an obvious "DUH!" but I realize not everyone has that experience working in a church, paid, volunteer, or otherwise. For the record, I'm jealous of those of you who don't have that happen, though I keep telling myself that it's good for me in the long run. Pop psychology!!!! woo-hoooo!!
Here's what I mean. Things are good. Jesus is good, heck, GREAT, in spite of me. One of the things I love is how God works in spite of us and our shortcomings. I try to make my only agenda going the direction that God is calling us as a group, and to not get bogged down in the mean time, but I have a hard time learning to let things be as they are.
By that I mean, my heart aches at how life goes in church. There are good things going on, but at the same time, there is conflict and resistance in people, and it creates tension that I wish wasn't there. I'm a firm believer that God offends the mind to reveal the heart, and so on some level I'm okay with the conflict, but it all feels so unhealthy. That's where it gets hard. And it's hard to watch students leave and no one really go after them too. I feel it's a very "mega-church" move of us to do that, for the front and back doors to be wide open to coming & going. And I don't say that to take a jab at mega-churches, I think there are lots of big churches that do great things. I think we even NEED mega-churches. But our group has this strange resistance & hostility to mega-churches, so I say it's a "mega-church move" on our part because we do the same things as churches we claim to not like. (The church I speak of isn't important, but my students that read this will know the church I'm talking about, and that's all I mean by this)
I was looking around at some facebook pages, and seeing where my friends were a year ago, and seeing where they are now, (and I know facebook isn't always accurate, but it's who they portray themselves as, so on some level, it's who they want to be) and my heart hurts seeing where some of our students are.
And we let them leave.
No one stopped to try and encourage them to stick around. And when we mention not seeing "so-and-so" in a while, it gets glossed over and we say "well, you probably WON'T see them around." meaning something along the lines of "I don't think they're living very Christian right now, so we won't see them." and my heart weeps for that. THAT is one of the cancers that will kill the Church from the inside out. To accept that they aren't "living right" (i.e. to MY standard) and so clearly they gave up on the church. Even if they did, why do we let them give up on us? If we don't go after them, then their giving up on us was right! That shouldn't be the case.
ever.
I see this in churches that fight for college ministries too. Lots of places say "college kids just come eat our food and don't give financially, but they'll come back later when they're married & have kids." (i.e. when they're stable and can give their tithe to us) That may have been true once, but it's not anymore. I see this in my age group.
We aren't coming back (people my age I mean). And my wife and I feel like THE minority in our church.
It makes staying hard. Can I say that? (I mean, I just did!) Is it a career-busting move for a church staff person to say that staying in a church is hard because you don't feel like there is a community for you? I don't know, but that's where we are. We know one other couple in our church (500 people) that is our age. Everyone else is way older or way younger.
And at the same time (here's the manic upswing of my bipolar-ness), Jesus gives me such hope for the future of things. And I feel so good and excited about being a part of a story that is bigger than me. About being a part of God's story, and about being a part of the youth group that I'm in. Even if I left this job tomorrow, I'd still stick around as a volunteer because I believe so much in what we're doing as a ministry and as a group.
So, and this is an open question to all of you that might read this: how do I reconcile all of this? How do I justify what we do, when things are being done wrong? We do some things wrong and poor, and some things great and well, so does it all offset? What do I do with this ache in my heart for things to be different? For us to be different? Do I just accept that we're all sons & daughters in God's kingdom and that our flaws get in the way, or do I get upset and rebel against the things we do wrong?
And how the heck do I find community in a place that doesn't offer it?
