In Defense of Small Churches

It's awkward. It's desperate. It's uncomfortable. It often has a disproportionate number of elders, some of whom smell of odd potions.

Bishop Dan of Nevada recently wrote a blog about the unwelcoming habits of churches, many of which are the foibles of small churches. And it's all true. In our modern, and what is passing for polite, society these things are all certainly unwelcoming. There is an underlying assumption, stated as people are closed to outsiders, that youth or new butts in pews is the purpose of church. And if that is in fact the purpose of Sunday morning, oh yes this is indeed unwelcoming behavior.

But is it actually bad behavior? Sometimes.

I've met that usher. Everyone who has stepped into the front doors of a church at least once has. Sometimes that is why it was only once. But while I have been asked on first meeting if I wanted to join the altar guild, never has a small church given me "The Grill." No one has asked me right out of the gate, what my job was, or if I owned my own home, or looked at my shoes with anything other than admiration.

I was chased out the door after the Ash Wednesday service last night. I'd gone as exposure therapy, on the advice of my therapist, who has diagnosed me with mild PTSD after a year in one of those up and coming churches that are so popular these days. I'd done the work, I'd made it to the end, and I'd even found a little teaser that might help me give that whole experience over to God, something I have been completely unable to do for the last year. But I wanted out of there.

I actually made it across the threshold and into fresh air when a voice called, "I'm so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself." Groan. Politeness is an ever present failing, although I am working on it.  So I turned around and eventually the other four attendees of the service and the priest surrounded me, offering me the names of church members who live on my street or very nearby, I got a flyer with the service times, a invitation to the Lenten book series and the classic, "Have I met you before?" from the priest. The thing is, I attended seminary in this diocese for 3 years and there is every chance that is true, but I don't remember if we have.

In that strange awkward moment, I saw the moment for what it truly was - the last moment of real, authentic parish life in America, and perhaps in other places as well. The assumption, so obvious that no one ever says it, that you are a neighbor, and of this denomination, so of course you will attend this church. Some would call this a last hold over of Christendom, and say that in this post-Christendom, post-Modern world, we need to ditch the geographical idea of parish as local worship community and replace it with parish as local community center that has, among it's offerings, religious services.

But that strange and awkward moment, the whole surrealism of it, the culmination of post modern bad manners, is exactly what happens when you meet the extended family at the wedding. You love your spouse, you have decided that the parents are going to be manageable, and then you meet the drunk uncle and the crazy cousin, and you are sure that your videographer is not going to be able to keep them from ruining not only the wedding but the permanent record as well.

Isn't is awful when they love you, right then, without caring at all if you have a good job or expensive shoes. Isn't it awful when they give you an embarrassing richness of gifts you don't really want, but know that you are going to have to keep anyway. And the thing is, unless you are a truly selfish person, you are eventually going to love these looney people back. You are going to hear all about that cousin's time teaching children in Borneo and discover that she speaks 8 languages, often all at the same time. And that drunken uncle, he has great taste in Scotch. He is going to teach you all about mixing cocktails and you will love that tiki bar he gave you. Someday. But probably not at your wedding.

Small churches are families. But they are not like the families you see on TV; they are not beautiful or skinny, they aren't rich or mildy ironic, they aren't even crass and humorously trashy. They are real families, and like real families, they don't come with a sound track to let you know where the funny or the scary parts are. And just like real families, they have a whole different definition of polite than strangers do. I see this as something to cherish and protect. Something to care about and to teach people to realize just how precious it is to find a group of strangers who will take you at face value and on your worst day, and just love you, and invite you in. It may be a bit awkward and desperate, but it is always genuine, and I don't know another group of strangers for whom that is true.

A note on personal integrity

Something that people eventually learn about me, often the hard way, is that I have a really high personal integrity. Oh, I'll cuss like a sailor and run red lights with the best of them, but I've spent actual time in my life figuring out what my ethical boundaries are, and I'm pretty lucky, I've never had to violate them to eat.

One of the reasons I stopped being interested in working in the for profit world is that twice I was asked to forge documents. I can only assume that there is something written on my forehead that says - go ahead, test me, or people really as as morally bankrupt in the business world as the liberal media tells me. I quit both of those jobs, and the only reason I know that some people do violate those boundaries is that my dad asked me why I was too proud to work, and informed me that you do what your boss says. I can only ponder what chips and dings he has from managing to stay in his field, with few employers, for his entire working life.

So, I found a place, that wasn't perfect, but that I felt I could blunder along with my integrity in tact. I think I found a little tide pool of uniqueness. And when the tide came in, I was just not interested in being part of the ocean, or more to the point, I was simply unable to be part of the ocean, and consequently, the ocean spit me out.

I love crazy metaphors.

In any case, I am still a person of faith. My God looks a lot like Jobs' God these days, and I'm perfectly content with a secular summation of that God which amounts to "shit happens." Because it does. And I don't find any comfort in imagining that my limited perspective through the eyes of this meat bag are giving me any real insight into a larger reality. I can make shit up and smash atoms all I want, but at the end of the day, shit happens that I'll never have any reason for. Honestly, does finding a place to put the blame actually make the situation any better? Does a tit for tat response actually make people feel happier or safer?

I can't change that shit happens. But I can try to minimize the amount of shit I spread. It probably isn't much, but it's something to know that in as much as I am aware of and can control my own actions, I'm not protecting the powerful at the expense of the powerless. I'm not trying to create preferential in groups. I'm not complicit in protecting harmful people, and I'm not talking about pedophiles, because that is definitely in the category of shit happens that I can't do anything about, but there are petty ass people walking through the world being bullies so they can feel better about themselves, and I like to think that I don't protect bullies.

The fact that that is exactly what I did when I left St. David's is I believe why I felt so betrayed when the committee decided not to send me to vocations conference. Because I protected the priest, something I swore I would never do, and had I become a priest, would have been really pissed to find people doing for me. And if there is something that I can't forgive myself for, it's that I wouldn't change anything that I did - even though what I did broke my own sense of integrity.

I still don't know if I ever even want to go back to a church. I miss straight up worship, and I miss the kind of sermons I used to write for myself because no one else would, but I don't miss the institution. I miss the rituals and the sinking into beautiful sameness. I think I really need to find myself a latin Taize. Surely one of these multitude of Catholic churches has one.

But I sure don't want to be involved in the political community. How we live together in church is something I just can't swallow right now.