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By Jo Gamm Witt
For some background, I grew up in a rural Presbyterian church where my family attended weekly. When I left to go to college, a great aunt and uncle who lived in that town and who had a close spiritual relationship with the Lord contacted me weekly to ensure that I continued to attend church (a Spirit-filled Methodist congregation) weekly and they would witness to me about their relationship with the Lord. After college, I transferred my church membership from my parents’ Presbyterian church to the Methodist church where I had been attending and continued to be Methodist since. My ex’s career moved us around quite a bit for a few years, and we always found a Methodist congregation to connect with wherever we were and attended services weekly, and I played piano for most of those churches.
In 2005 some things occurred in the church where we were attending that led to the end of my membership with them, and I have not been a member of any church since that time. I spent several years stepping away from church, a few months completely stepping away from all worship, after which I playing for worship services for a local nursing home for most of 13 years. During that time of stepping away from church, I spent much time contemplating about church, pastors, and church membership. While I do believe that church serves value, I think often it falls far short from what it should be, and that we’ve strayed greatly from God’s intent. Often there’s great focus on buildings--recall in the Old Testament God’s reluctance to allow David to build him a temple. Recall Jesus’ words regarding church the day he overturned the moneychangers’ tables. Church has strayed much from God’s intent. The original Christian church was people worshipping in small groups in people’s homes. In smaller groups you feel a greater sense of connectivity and care. Instead nowadays the focus has often been on large, nice buildings and growing and maintaining high membership rolls. Church membership while theoretically giving people a sense of belonging, also conversely creates exclusion, an “us” and “them” mentality. During my time stepping away from church, increasingly I adapted the belief in a universal “church,” not a church of membership, but a church of a universal connectivity between all Christians where there is not exclusion based on not belonging to the same church or exclusion based on not sharing all the same common beliefs. Rather than an “us” and “them” mentality, not uncommon between members from differing denominations, I would like to see a greater focus on universality; a greater love and acceptance of all Christians as belonging to God’s family, where there is no exclusion for having differing ideas; a focus on what we have in common--the belief in the Trinity and salvation through Jesus. I have many times in recent years when sharing with others, stated to them, “When we get to heaven, God isn’t going to ask which church we belonged to.”
While I don’t expect many to agree with my changed perspective regarding “church,” I think we all can grow together as Christians when we share our perspectives and ideas with each other.
When something is broken, restoring the jagged edges results in something forever changed.
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