Church for the Non-Religious

Church for the Non-Religious


My friends are mostly of an atheist or agnostic variety and almost none of them attend church. A common challenge I face is to explain the kind of faith I think is possible to those who have very clear visions of what God and Church are, based on their (limited) experience of it. Those experiences are real and true to the reality that church has been a damaging place on many levels and in many ways in its various manifestations. My congregation is filled with people who left church because of its abuses and have returned, feeling both angry and in need of spiritual wholeness. Those who don’t make it back in, though, are often in the same place but incapable of conceptualizing a church that has a place for someone who understands the world the way they do. In recognizing that sometimes these folks make it in on an experiment, by the nudging of a friend or peer, or because their niece is being baptized, it’s important to both paint the church in its truths and its resistance to old paradigms, but also to be theologically clear in our articulations of who we think God is and can be in our lives and of what we think church is and can be in our lives. I think that helping people re-imagine God and the church can be very healing and can help bridge the gap between the bitter ex-religious and the enthusiastic progressive churchgoers... a step that’s very important. Many of my friends commented about how wonderful my church was as they perceived it through my wedding ceremony… but none of them have shown up on a Sunday. They have re-imagined what a church community can be and have been healed, in a sense, by witnessing that truth… I still wonder what it takes (beyond a massive, expensive media campaign) to get people to be willing to get up early on a Sunday morning.

... or maybe it's the Sunday morning that needs re-thinking. 

What if worship wasn't the center of church life?  What would fill that space?