Home, Part 3

The Lord appointed seventy two others and sent them ahead two by two ... "Go!" (He said.) "I am sending you out like lambs among wolves." - Luke 10: 1, 3

I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to make you strong - that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. Romans 1:11


There is irony in the fact that the most isolated I have ever been in my life is the year I spent serving a church.

Church isn't isolating for everyone. I grew up in churches in Alabama; overall, it was a beautiful experience. There is a love for one another, seen in Wednesday night dinners and Bible School, to be sure, but also seen when family members die, or have surgery, or get married. And there is comfort in the consistency, in knowing without looking that Mr. Petty will be sitting in the left hand corner of the 8th pew, with a peppermint in his pocket that he'll give to the nearest small child during the sermon, and that Mrs. Johnston is not the soprano she thinks she is. Much of what I believe came from the efforts of ChurchInAlabama. I came to know Christ through ChurchInAlabama, and some of my closest friends I met in ChurchInAlabama. There are people I love who are serving ChurchInAlabama, and are doing so well. So please don't hear me putting down this institution, ChurchInAlabama. I'm not. Really, I'm not. There is real beauty and joy in these things, and most people can find their niche in a ChurchInAlabama, and enjoy their church while going on about the business of living life. The institution serves itself pretty well, and as long as you fit in, everything goes pretty smoothly.

It's when you don't fit that things can go awry.

I had breakfast recently with a girl who is looking for a church. In her apartment, alone one night this summer, God saved her. She wants so much now to be a part of a group of people who think about God, who love each other, and who will help her grow as a person. But she doesn't fit into the ChurchInAlabama. She has been turned away by her family and friends, and is afraid she will be turned away by the church, too. As she was talking, I tried to think about what churches would nurture her, or what friends I had in the area who might pray with her. I couldn't think of anything - not a single person in the area, not one place that she could go and be accepted. Nothing.

Why is she so isolated from the church? Why did I feel so isolated while we were serving a church? After a year of hitting a wall, not with nonbelievers but with the other leaders of our own little ChurchInAlabama, I'm feeling a little burned. I think my personal experience is also reflected in what is happening politically. The pastors of our old church thought we couldn't be in community because we were too different. They understood connection to mean sameness, and "community groups" were divided accordingly. In the culture of Christianity, too, there is an obsession with sameness. I think this is why so many people buy the products of Christian culture - Joel Olsteen and Rick Warren and the rest - without questioning the integrity of doing so. "Living the Christian life" for many means busying ourselves trying to think the same thoughts as other Christians, to be exactly in line on all points Biblical and political. I think there is an obsession with sameness because we have understood sameness to equal unity, and unity to equal truth. If we all agree, we must all be right.

My friend doesn't fit because truth and acceptance in our culture stand in opposition to one another. People won't love a person with whom they disagree politically and culturally. And this scares me. I'm afraid of how we show love to people we can't accept, but also how we disciple people if we have no sense of truth. It isn't Biblical, and it doesn't make for a very healthy church, locally or nationally.

We never fit in with the other religious people at our little ChurchInAlabama. Which is sad, because we really needed each other. This isn't a PC concept, it is God's honest truth. We need people who are different from us to do what we can't. It's how God intended for us to work together. He never intended us all to be the same. That's an American idea, not a Biblical one. We never fit in while we were there, but I'm still hopeful. I've been a part of communities before, groups of people who loved one another and had the same goal, even though we were really different from each other (and even though we didn't always like each other). I know that it is possible to be a part of that kind of group again. So I will keep looking for it. As a believer, a community is my truest sense of home while on earth.