On Leaving Home

Today was the dreaded vote at our church. Circumstances have brought us to a point at which we as a community haven’t the will to continue. We close our doors at the end of the month.

As weary leaders stepped down, no new leaders stepped up, and organizations need leaders. Meetings surrounding this decision have been emotional. Some people have been a part of this faith community for 20 years. Dread has now moved to a sense of impending loss for many of my friends. Part of me wants to join them, but I can’t. I know there will be people who I won’t see for a while, but that’s okay. It won’t change my appreciation of them. I’ll miss the shared experiences, but that’s okay, too. There are new experiences to be had.

Seeing this decision as a mark of failure is too easy and ignores the effect we have had in surrounding communities.

Nearby, we have supported people in dire need. We have made medicines available to people who have no other health system than a volunteer group of physicians. We have opened our doors to homeless people each year during colder months and have spent time getting to know people who can be quickly dismissed if we’re not careful. We have supported one another, celebrated births, shared the experience of deaths, watched couples commit to one another for their lives together, eaten many pizzas and covered dish meals, gathered for study groups, consumed countless cups of coffee, and we've grown together.

Abroad, we've made dear friendships in the Caribbean, sharing teaching techniques, responding to hurricanes, worshiping together, training people to use tools for carpentry, helping to refit a commercial building into a health club—a fantastic place of outreach there, and rebuilding homes.

As a body, we've only just emerged from our teen years. Fittingly, that’s when many of us leave home and branch out. Beginning in March, that’s what we’ll do.

So what we are experiencing is not God saying “no,” but God saying “yes, but not here.” This was simply a local expression of the Church. Even churches called out as examples out in the bible have ceased. But the Church remains.

During a congregational prayer at a worship service yesterday, the leader made this point: God will never love you less, nor more, than today. That dramatic thought, that Somebody accepts us as we are and that we are so fully, constantly, unchangingly loved, gives me a sense of peace about the impending change at my church. I have had the privilege of worshiping alongside wonderful people. Despite misunderstandings we may have had with one another, each of them is loved beyond comprehension by their Creator. Each of us receives that same grace.

The remaining question is “what next?” I don’t know. I do know something that excites me, though. By existing at all, our church has equipped many people for service. Some left us quietly to serve elsewhere. Some left us dramatically. People, you know, can be like that. But now, or very soon, we’ll see people transplanting themselves into new houses of worship. They’ll be trying different places, studying new things, making new friends, and the legacy of my church will find its expression throughout our community. I hope we all give the best we have, now that we’re leaving home.