Having recently left a 20-year engagement as a minister at Covenant Baptist Church, I’m suddenly asking a question that is both familiar and unfamiliar.
“Where will I go to church?”
It’s a familiar question to me, because I’ve watched other people ask it over the last two decades. Church shoppers often dropped by our church for a visit. New to the area or new to the idea of going to church, they were in the market for a faith community. I tried not to feel like a salesman as I outlined our approach to church and went over our various ministries and church schedule. Some stayed and joined us; others didn’t.
And now I’m the one asking the question. How weird is that?
I’m determined not to approach this search as if I was a consumer looking for a good deal. Instead I’m trying to pay attention to what is happening in my heart and soul as I stretch and worship God in new ways and with new people. Four different churches have been meaningful to me these last few months. I’m trying to pay attention to what these experiences say about me.
1. The church of mowing the lawn at Covenant.
Let’s start with the strange one. I’m still a member of Covenant Baptist Church. And I like Covenant. I attend worship there a couple of times a month. I’m not joining the discussions about how to find a new pastor. I keep a low profile. I’ve joined the lawn mowing team, and I’m finding that mowing the grass at the church is one of the most important spiritual practices I’ve ever enjoyed. Alone at Covenant on a Friday or Saturday, I trudge along behind the lawnmower, contented, talking to God, thinking, and musing. It’s both physically demanding and emotionally relaxing.
I absolutely love mowing the grass. I look forward to it.
The pleasure I feel when mowing the grass tells me that I might need to avoid positions of leadership that require me to be in charge or up front in this new season of life. I think I’ve been called out of the foreground and into the background. I think God has some lessons to teach me in my new place of service.
2. The Quakers.
I’ve been attending the Quaker meeting in San Antonio. Quaker worship is very counter-cultural for most Americans. We sit in silence for an hour. There are no spoken prayers, no liturgy, no order of worship, no sermon, and no singing. Apart from a comment or two from the occasional Quaker who feels moved to speak, there are mostly no words at all.
I love it. I love the silence. I love the lack of structure. I love the luxury of sitting for an hour with no agenda, listening hard and waiting for the Spirit to move.
My love of Quaker worship tells me that I need to be listening in this next season of life. Having spent twenty years programming worship for a Baptist service, I need some unprogrammed time. I need quiet. I need less words, not more words.
3. The Orthodox Church.
This one cuts against the grain of the others, because Orthodox worship is perhaps the most ritualized and highly organized worship in all of Christendom. Seriously, it’s like two hours of liturgy with occasional breaks where long sections of scripture are read in a monotone.
I’ve been strangely drawn to Orthodox worship for reasons that I do not fully understand. Perhaps it is because I don’t know what the heck is going on half the time. I’m not even qualified to be an altar boy. And that feels nice to me.
My love of Orthodox worship tells me that I need to become a child again. I need to rediscover mystery and encounter the unknown in worship. I need to be a part of something that is much bigger than myself.
4. Home worship with the Soupiset family.
Jeanene and I have been taking our kids on Thursdays to a friend’s home where we eat together, sing, pray, and do all sorts of creative things. Some might call it a house church. I don’t feel inclined to label it at all. But it’s been very important to me. Getting to know Paul and Amy Soupiset and their kids has been wonderful for my spiritual well-being.
My love of our home worship group tells me that years of being somewhat invested in the lives of every family in a church took a toll on me. Many pastors know everyone and feel close to no one. Perhaps this next season of life will allow me the luxury of putting my energy into a few deep connections.
So what have I learned about myself in my search for a church?
I do not need to be up front. Less words are better for me right now. Mystery is good. And I need deep connections with spiritual brothers and sisters of faith.
I have no idea where I’ll end up. For now I consider myself to be a lawn-mowing, Orthodox Baptist Quaker with leanings toward home worship.
And I think that’s enough for now.
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Wow, that’s a heap of insightful listening. I enjoyed your posts about your pastoral experiences in the past but I’m enjoying these ones just as much. Which says there is so much more to a person than what they do!
Ooh, all four of those places sound like refreshments for the soul. And variety can be good too.
I have this image in my head of you mowing the grass of the church you pastored. Initially, I felt uncomfortable reading it and thinking about it.
And then I realized the beauty in it. For you and the church.
Glynn, I’m fascinated by your initial response to the lawn mowing. Now I’m trying to remember how I felt when I read it. I felt a little sad, because I thought maybe Gordon (hi Gordon!
) felt sad while doing it… but then I felt a sense of layers being peeled back… years of burden that were not burden but were burden… each dissipating as he crisscrossed that lawn. A healing kind of thing.
Mostly (hi, Gordon!
) I felt this whole piece was the laying down of a healing path–like the unrolling of a bridal what-do-you-call-that-paper-thing.
The beauty of the lawn mowing is that this job I took up as a member of the community. I’m not being paid for it. It’s a pure gift.
I want to be VERY CAREFUL not to imply that getting paid for ministry work is wrong. The New Testament clearly supports it. And, as a practical matter, if someone gives a huge chunk of their week to serving the church they have to make some money so they can live.
But I also think that after many years, it is easy to lose touch with why you are serving. Is it for Christ, for the paycheck, for some weird combination of the two that cannot be parsed?
I like the purity of mowing. Seems like I need that right now.
Fascinating, Gordon! Thanks for sharing. I love the idea of how God reaches us through such different means with the messages we need to hear.
Why not find a church with a little of all of it?
O0h yeah! If you find one in San Antonio, let me know. lol.
When I am mowing the lawn, I also like to talk to GOD.
I usually say things like “Dear LORD, please don’t let me cut anything off my foot.”
My Husband and I are in a season of no church. Unfortunately/Fortunately for us we made a choice to back away after things got a bit messy in the faith community we cherished. And for 18 months or so we have been attending church in the forest, in the yard, at the playground, at the pool, at IHOP {my personal favorite} and around the kitchen table.
It’s a season of healing. A season of learning. A season of letting go all the ways and things that we believed about church…to just us and God. It’s good. A good place to be. Do I have a clue where we will end up? Will we go back to church? A home church? I have no idea right now. We aren’t even “shopping” for a church… just resting and waiting.
Gordon – the image of you riding the mower…I see my dad, the pastor of a small church, mowing the lawn. That’s what he does…no team. Just him. That image for me is sad because I see how lonely a pastor’s life can become. How lonely life inside a church can become.
You and others are kind to wonder if I’m sad. I’ve been incredibly happy mowing the yard. And just for the record, it’s a push mower. Riding would be okay but the push is better I think.
I can’t wait to crash your guys’ gig with the Soupiset’s tonight. Lyle is a live wire.
And I share your love of mowing the lawn. My Kerrville lawn takes 3 hours to mow. That’s a major commitment in Texas summers. And I’ve written more than one poem about zombie lawns and drought and sabbath mowing.
We moved recently and felt the need to jump into a church because we longed for community. So we jumped (twice in fact!) when really we should have just waited patiently for direction.
Gordon, some refreshing thoughts about Christian community. My family has attended more than one church for years and I heard from a pastor in So. Cal that one of the characteristics of the “Next Generation” attenders is that they “church around”.
I enjoy watching and following the ebb and flow of Christian culture as well as the spirit of God. A few weeks ago I had been contemplating Jonah and relating who he was to my own situation of feeling “called” yet wanting to turn my back on the very Godless culture of Reno, NV (and the very youthful church we attend as well). One weekend I took a break from the Reno church and went to go visit my comfy seeker friendly Nazzarine church on Saturday night. The sermon mentioned Jonah. The next day I visited another old favorite and the entire sermom was on Jonah! It’s like no matter what church I go to God is haunting me with his personal plans for my life.
Our main church we attend currently is very young, artistic and college types. I know hardly anyone. This after years of leading biblestudy, women’s retreats and children’s church. It’s painful but purposeful to know we attend not for man but God alone. I admit I miss the good reputation that I have at other churches but I also know without a doubt that the prideful church lady inside me needed to die.
Said St. Isaac of Syria: “This shall be a sign for you, a luminous sign of the serenity of your soul: on examining yourself, you will find yourself full of compassion for all humanity, and your heart is afflicted with pity for them, burning as though with fire, without making distinction between one person and another. When the image of the Father becomes visible in you by means of the continual presence of these things, then you can recognize the measure of your way of life – not from your various labors, but from the transformation which your understanding receives. The body is then likely to be bathed in tears, as the intellect gazes on spiritual things.” May you enjoy rest on your journey.
Wow Gordon, thanks for sharing this post as it spoke to my heart. Being a military family, I sincerely hate the season of ‘church shopping’ that comes after a move. It is simply draining. As I look back at the church families that he has grafted us into, they weren’t the ones I would have chosen at the beginning of the process. Being Spirit-led and Spirit-filled can lead to new paths in this journey. Patience is indeed a virtue.
Good reflections here, Gordon. I’m wondering where Jeanene is. Does she have a list? Any way to get her to write a Part 2 next week in a similar format?
Gordon, This is really great. I can’t help but grin as I read. This story is your story, but it’s my story! I recently found myself looking for a church as well after pastoring for 15 years. My family and I took a very interesting journey as well, through a home church and other denominations not like our experience for the prior 15 years and have recently found a place that just sings to our souls. And I can certainly relate to your from-foreground-to-background transition.
The journey of seeking a church was an intriguing one and definitely full of insights about ourselves and the chruch at large that I never realised in all my years of leading a part of it! Thanks for sharing.
It’s interesting how “church” changes in meaning as I read this post. I love your conclusion, too. From the very beginning, it seems to me, “church” was always meant to be a process of discovery, trust, and relationship that could never be confined by place or time. It is a web of interaction defined by the acknowledged and welcome presence of God. I’m glad to be reminded of this again through your thoughts.
I didn’t even know there was a Quaker church in San Antonio! After much searching, we are happily settled in Community Bible church (on 1604). At first the idea of a mega-church was absolutely foreign to us. We had always attended small Baptist churches. However, when we walked into CBC it was like coming home. There is such a sweet spirit there. Come visit some Saturday or Sunday!
This is so freeing for me to read — both Gordon’s post and the comments. Since my mom died in March, it hurts to go to church. And my small town is not exactly filled with options. I am getting spiritually hungry again, and that encourages me. This summer, the kids and I are back to daily Bible times around the breakfast table, a discipline we let lapse this year. My words are “rest” and “heal.” I pray the same for you in this journey.
Very sorry to hear about your mom, Megan.
home and organic church is great. i love it thus far.
Some of you know that our church has been through a lot recently. In the past ten years or so, we’ve watched six pastors (associates, interims, and called) leave. I’ve always felt a little sad that there has to be this clean break. It’s sad on both sides, I’m guessing. I think it’s sweet that you are remaining a part of your church community.
Wishing you well in this endeavor, Gordon.
When my family and I first moved to Florida almost 10 years ago, we tried 13 churches before we found our home church. some good ones, some bad ones, some great ones. There’s all kinds of churches out there, thankfully more good than bad I’ve found.
It’s a weird feeling reading this post. I went through the same experience four years ago when I resigned from my first church. I remember the sinking feeling I felt when I realized the new churches I go to had the same weaknesses as my former church. It was a horrible and encouraging at the same time. Horrible because I finally saw pastors and their ministries through the eyes of a newcomer and I saw myself in them. Encouraging because I realized I was not alone in my struggles in the ministry.
Gordon (and others) – I know exactly what you mean about the lawn. Well, usually. My lawn tractor broke down earlier today. Spark plug, siliniod…somethin’ or other. I was not uttering psalms and hymns.
Dear RLP, What great church you’ve found. I’m Catholic, so even if church isn’t Mass, it can still be worship (years of nunny bunnies instilling this as they conned us into washing the blackboard well, etc.). Still, I believe them. I used to church at the top of the New River Gorge Bridge before it was built. What a view. And what a view of eternity. (The New River is actually one of the oldest in the world). But then place is important to me, both as a Catholic and as a writer, so I needed a Church. I’m a Yankee in FL like Joshua above, so I know about the hunt for place. I’ve been heavily influenced by Milton, so one of my criteria, especially since we’re so serious about the Sacraments, is finding a place where I would feel welcome to eat with everyone. I still haven’t really found that sense of acceptance, welcome, or even invitation–but I keep hoping!
I have been following your blog for some time now because I ran across it during a web search. I get the whole mowing the yard thing. While others listen to music, I just use the time to think, which I have been doing a lot lately. I just graduated seminary with no payed ministry position on the horizon and student loans due in 6 months. My theology has taken a radical shift in the past year and much of my old “huntin’ buddies” want less and less to do with me. But I digress. The point is that I totally get where you are in your spiritual journey and let me affirm to you (if that means anything to you) that you are in the right place.
Blessings,
David M.
I’m attracted to the Orthodox Worship too but I’m A Lutheran pastor. I love the icons and yes I have been accused of being a little too Catholic because of Crucifixes and candles. The Germans don’t know what to think of me but I used to be Southern Baptist among other things.
My first thought is wow, can you do that? Can you choose to worship/fellowship/be spiritual in several different places? Wouldn’t that mean that I was rejecting and not standing by my church if I showed up in different places to do those things? I have been getting a taste of “church” in so many places of late that do not fit the model of church. This post has helped clarify the question I didn’t even know I wanted to ask yet. Thank you! So what have I learned about myself? Tthat for now I need to break out of the box, that the current way I have been practicing my faith has been choking the life out of me. And maybe that there is more courage in stepping away then trying to stick it out.
Just an anonymous thought: don’t go to the Orthodox Church because you find it attractive. Orthodox Worship is about participation with heaven and touching God Himself. If you go, go because you believe it has the Fullness of Him that fills all in all. This is a journey I made over the course of many years – it was not easy on many dimensions. And as my priest told me prior to my Chrismation – “now the struggle begins.” But I thank God literally every day for that struggle.