Where my head is on the whole church thing.
I haven’t been to a United Methodist Church in over a year.
I haven’t been in a church at all on a Sunday morning in six months. [Then, it was an ill-fated attempt to make myself available to a girl.]
You might note that this dovetails nicely with my depression. You are exactly right. Once out of the habit, it was easy to enjoy my time at Mattress Springs UMC: quiet services, comfortable pews, and no one asking me to do anything.
See, my hangup is that I’m an active member when I’m in a church. I have a problem saying no. I have a problem with volunteering and being voluntold. I burn myself out easily. [Have we noticed a pattern?] All of this has me deathly scared of going back to church.
I had a realization earlier today: being spiritual but not religious is kinda like being intelligent but uneducated. Right now, I feel like Matty Damon in Good Will Hunting—it’s easier being a janitor than admitting to myself that I want to be out there and doing this.
If you are of the praying type, I would ask that you encourage me to be able to write here tomorrow about how I went to church and enjoyed it. I’ll go somewhere new if I go, because all the old places just scare me. I know that people in those places love me and will accept my flaws, but I’m scared and feel like I need a fresh start. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me.
Doooooooo it.
I just did a quick search and found an EPC church in Huntsville, if that helps. http://www.centralpresb.org/
[Hey, you never said anything about sticking to Methodist churches...
]
April 18th, 2009 at 22:46Central is the last place I was at, Mike.
April 18th, 2009 at 22:50Geof – I really do hope to hear that you made it to church even if you don’t feel like it.
April 18th, 2009 at 22:52And looking forward to your post about it – the good, the bad and the ugly.
Jeremy G.
Geof at a Presbyterian church? Who’d a thunk it?
Okay, how about Sojourn Church [http://sojournhuntsville.org/]? Or one of the churches listed here: http://churchsearch2.9marks.org/viewState.php?code=AL
April 18th, 2009 at 22:59I was chasing a girl! Better yet, an Episcopalian working at an EPC church. Fish out of water.
Anything Reformed is a no-go for me, really, even though I have friends at Sojourn Huntsville. [Hi, EA.]
April 18th, 2009 at 23:02‘being spiritual but not religious is kinda like being intelligent but uneducated’
Not really sure how to respond to that. It bothers me, though I haven’t been able to pin down why.
However, if your beliefs are such that church services suitably fulfill them, then you need to go. I know it’s weird to hear that coming from me, but it’s true. If this is your path, then put on your shoes and walk it with gladness. Or coffee until gladness kicks in.
April 18th, 2009 at 23:42Amy: Perhaps I should define what I mean by being religious.
I think that religion is a search for the divine. I don’t think that religion always ends with a belief in the divine—plenty of people practice religion and then find that they have no faith in the divine. Me personally, I don’t understand and can’t really relate to that, but I think that it’s certainly a possible outcome of the search.
I’m aware that I’m using religious in a way that is not standard. But, well, it’s my blog, and I’m allowed to be as malleable as I want, right?
[I am not surprised to hear this from you *at all*.]
April 18th, 2009 at 23:49I believe the problem here is your inability to say “no.” It doesn’t have to be a negative thing when it is said and as a pastor I always honor that. Perhaps you should talk to your pastor and tell him that right now you need to be IN church and not busy AT church. I am praying for you.
Mark
April 19th, 2009 at 06:16I too hope to see the ‘Victory! I went to Church!’ post (though, knowing you it’ll be sans-exclamation points.
).
Mark Spencer (Internet Monk) has a lot to say about church culture and burning out those people who are most attached to it… I have to say I agree with his critiques, but I’m not sure of the best way to respond to them, aside from guarding my own time (and my families).
–Jason
April 19th, 2009 at 06:49Mark: That’s a fair point. However, I didn’t really fit in my last church other than as someone who served a lot.
April 19th, 2009 at 07:36Phoebe and I can totally come pick you up this morning.
April 19th, 2009 at 07:38I’m glad you have lots of people who care enough about you to write here
And let me tell you.. if it wasn’t for Dan I wouldn’t go to church half the time. Depression stuff .. it SUCKS. And there’s not much else out there harder than going back to church after not being there.. But I hope you’re able to go somewhere today.
I don’t have any words of wisdom.. just lettin you know you make complete sense brother!
L
April 19th, 2009 at 08:59It’s hard to get back in the habit of going to church when you fall out of it. Even harder when you don’t have a strong connection to a local church.
One thing jumps out at me: you need to learn how to embrace no. It was impossible for me until I started having kids, but I’m starting to get good at it.
You are a scheduling mo-fo. Look at your schedule, and carve out big blocks of time where you have scheduled nothing. And I don’t mean, scheduled overflow times, where you get in the habit of using your blank times to catch up on whatever it is you are working on at the moment. I mean, schedule empty blocks of time where you can put the pencil down, take a moment to meditate, and do whatever strikes your fancy.
If you can’t do this you need to start saying no to nearly everything until you can. It’s hard. I started doing this two years ago, and I still need to work hard on it.
Next time you go to a church, embrace no. Say things like “I’m sorry but I’m working on reducing my time commitments and simply can’t take on another project.” “Hey God, I know that’s something I could do but just because I can do something doesn’t mean I should. Please let me know if this is the right ministry opportunity for me.”
April 21st, 2009 at 06:13I hear you, John.
April 21st, 2009 at 08:07I felt vaguely offended by your spirituality/religion remark for about a minute, until I realized that it’s pretty much “orthogonal” to me. I realized I had nothing to be offended about.
For me, I’m not sure religion was really a search for anything. I didn’t seek it out looking for something. It was simply what I was supposed to do. I knock that a lot, but I should give it more credit than I do. Before you’re able to figure things out for yourself, there are much worse reasons for doing things.
At some point though, you have to grow out of that. Maybe that’s a matter of figuring out what you’re searching for. That never happened for me, and I was past 30 before I started really figuring out that I wasn’t really searching for anything (at least not in that department).
April 21st, 2009 at 22:48