Church is a hard word

But it can also be a beautiful one

There’s an old song by Rich Mullins, called “Hold Me, Jesus”. It’s a simple piano ballad, and the chorus goes like this:

“So hold me Jesus 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace”

As a child and teen, when I was regularly plagued by torturous thoughts that wouldn’t let up (I didn’t know then that I had OCD), I would whisper-sing that chorus to myself over and over, alone in my head, fighting back the dark. There probably isn’t another song I have sang through tears as much as that one.

Yesterday evening, I stood in my living room, surrounded by my husband, my kids, and friends new and old, and sang that song again. Accompanied by a friend on guitar, and my husband on the keyboard, with the setting sun shining through storm clouds out the window, it was the last song of an evening filled with good words, yummy food, and sweet fellowship through conversation and song. As I sang with my eyes closed while I swayed with my tired baby in arms, I thought about all the hard things that God used that song to see me through. And it seemed fitting that the words that so often accompanied some of my darkest, loneliest times, also attended a moment that seemed to echo what I think heaven will be like.

For most of my life, I felt like an outsider at church. I was raised in a Christian home, and believed Jesus for my salvation at a young age. But church was a complicated thing when I was growing up. Both of my parents are believers, but for pretty much all of my at-home years, my dad didn’t really think that fellowship with other Christians was important. My mom did, but she also (understandably) didn’t want to regularly break up the family on one of my dad’s two days off a week (we lived 45 minutes from any Christian church so going to church took up a good part of the day). So we flip-flopped back-and-forth between going to church without my dad, and having “church” at home as a family. The lack of continuity meant that when we did go to church, we weren’t regulars and therefore were always on the “outside”. When my sisters and I were teens, we attended a local youth group, but the combination of not being church regulars, living so far from the church, and being the only homeschoolers meant that, once again, we were outsiders.

After I graduated and left home, the outsider feeling continued. As I did my YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Discipleship Training School, I was the weird hyper-conservative girl who always wore skirts, and it was difficult to find community when you’re only in the area for a handful of months. Same story when I lived in Thailand, and then worked as a mother’s helper in Florida. When I went to a small Bible college in Kansas City for two years, I bounced around between different churches, usually fulfilling the church attendance requirement by going with a friend to their church. Many Sundays, I was singing with our traveling chorale so it didn’t seem worth it to try to establish a “home church” when I knew I would only be able to attend there one or two Sundays a month.

Then, in June of 2008, when I was twenty-two, I moved to New Zealand…and ever spoiled myself for many things. (Like scenery - oh my word! It’s beyond gorgeous there.)

I moved to New Zealand for several reasons, the main one on my year-long visa being that I was going to be a mother’s helper for some friends living there with four kids under six, with the fifth due that coming autumn. The main reason not stated on my visa is that I was desperate for real community. After two years in Bible college, I had become incredibly disillusioned with Christian community. My friends in New Zealand (two couples originally from the States) were trying to start an intentional community there with a Kiwi couple, and so many of their ideas (strongly influenced by JesusLifeTogether) resonated deeply with me.

And there, for five months, I found what I was looking for. We weren’t perfect, but we lived life together with the understanding that we were pushing each other toward Jesus. We helped each other with meals and housework, and many evenings and moments throughout the day held discussions on what it looked like to follow Jesus in whatever situation we were confronted with. If needed, difficult words were spoken, with the understanding that the other person only wanted what was best for you.

While I was living in NZ, I met my future husband, Aaron, online (a story for another day!). One thing led to another, and I was headed back to the States near the end of November, certain I was going to marry this dark-haired fellow bibliophile that I had been emailing with for several months. And in March of 2009, seven months and two days after our initial contact, we did marry.

When we married, Aaron and his family were a part of a house church. And while we both loved the house church model, this particular group was very conservative fundamental patriarchal, and many of their beliefs were quite toxic. As such, for a variety of reasons, we left that house church about a year after getting married (I’m sure many people thought that I corrupted Aaron!), and thus began a church search that lasted a very long time.

Aaron had been hurt very deeply by the church/group that we had been a part of, and the bitter, cynical state that left him in definitely put a damper on our search for church and true community. Add in two cross-country moves in as many years, along with mounting marital and family stress, and we were desperate for community support, but couldn't find it anywhere.

Several years after moving to Colorado, we became part of a tiny church plant. The small congregation was primarily young families like us, and for a year or so we were an integral part of a growing community. We encouraged one other, celebrated victories with each other, and I genuinely looked forward to our Sunday gatherings, knowing I would see people who cared about me, and I for them. But all too soon, many circumstances changed and the church took a direction that we weren't comfortable with, and we slowly stopped going. No one asked us why.

In March of 2020, we moved to a new part of Colorado, and a week later discovered we were unexpectedly pregnant, and it ended up being my roughest pregnancy yet. Between me barely being able to make it off the couch many days, and everything shutting down due to COVID, starting to look for a church in our new area took a long time.

And frankly, we were exhausted of the whole process. Why was this so hard? Were we expecting too much from people? Was there anyone else who wanted church community like we did?

After many different church visits that left us with a bad taste in our mouth, and a summer where we tried so hard to make a certain church work, but couldn't keep explaining to our kids why our family believed very different things from what was preached on Sunday, we gave up. We just couldn't keep trying to do the American evangelical thing anymore. Both Aaron and I recently realized that we don't even really identify as evangelicals any longer. We love and follow Jesus, but all the outer trappings of evangelicalism haven't been something we've believed or practiced for a long time. The hyper-focus on “missions” and apologetics. Knowing all the “right” points of theology isn't hugely important to us, because often we don't even know what those are anymore. We want to love God and love others. That's it.

So both Aaron and I ended up going back to our roots, in a way. We now have a small loose “house church”, but it looks very different from what either of us experienced growing up. Liturgy figures strongly into it, as does real conversation about real-life hard things. We eat together, and sometimes we sing together. And I'm reminded that even through all the confusing seasons of church in my life, Jesus has held me.

“But the joy of fellowship, and the welcome and comfort of friends new and old, and the celebrations of these blessings of food and drink and conversation and laughter are the true evidences of things eternal, and are the first fruits of that great glad joy that is to come and that will be unending.” -from “A Liturgy for Feasting With Friends” from Every Moment Holy, Volume 1 by Douglas Kaine McKelvey (that we read at almost every single one of our church gatherings)