This message is for Church People.
It’s for those of you who are part of a faith community every week; a physical place where you usually find yourself on Sundays. You come there willingly, expectantly, and in that place you receive encouragement and find community and feel acceptance, and you regularly experience moments of challenge and inspiration and joy.
You feel at home there in that building, connected to those people, confident in the creeds you recite there, comforted by the songs you sing together. The sum total of what you find in that place makes you certain that God exists and makes that God feel close enough to touch. Your presence there on the inside of it all makes you better. It leaves you feeling lighter. It takes your faith deeper.
If that describes you, I celebrate what you’ve found and what you feel and what you have, because it is well worth celebrating.
But what you need to know, Church People, is that there are other people too (lots of them, in fact); those who used to have those things and used to feel that way—but who no longer do.
They are not at home in that building or connected to those people or confident in those creeds or comforted by those songs anymore. Their presence there doesn’t make them better or feel lighter or believe more deeply. It only leaves them feeling depleted and bitter and sad.
And the reasons for this are as many as their numbers. They may have had a catastrophic life event that instantly rocked their faith to rubble or they slowly watched their beliefs weathered away by the waves and winds of the disappointments and sadness of life. They may have been terribly damaged by those within the Church or had their trust betrayed one too many times. They may have had prayers they felt weren’t answered, or spiritual questions that were never fully resolved, or they may have simply come to believe after a long, difficult journey that they no longer believe what they did back when they were Church People.
