Rachel G. Hackenberg is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. In a recent Huffington Post piece she raises the issue of individuals who choose to leave their churches, or whole congregations that feel compelled to depart from their denomination. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-g-hackenberg/letting-you-leave-church_b_1501481.html?ref=religion
Hackenberg suggests the proper response to church leavers is to bless them on their way.
Of course she is right. What else can you do? Individuals leave churches. Congregations separate from their wider communities. It happens. It is impossible and undesirable to force anyone to stay in a situation they have come to find untenable. And, there is no doubt that there are times when it is simply unhealthy for some people to remain in a particular community.
What I find troubling in Hackenberg’s piece is her attempt to list the reasons that may cause people to leave a church.
If you’re not being spiritually fed within this church’s walls, please, be blessed as you seek another faith community to encourage you. If you have been hurt or scorned or disenfranchised by a church leader, pastor or congregation in your life, please, leave to find the safe space needed for healing; I certainly hope that someday you will participate in a non-injuring faith community, but I affirm your need to leave the Church at this time. If your congregation can only relate to your denomination with animosity or apathy, be blessed as a faith community to spend time in discernment about your wider church affiliations.
If you struggle to relate to your faith community with grace instead of ultimatums, unable to pursue your own and the congregation’s growth without also seeking power, please, for the sake of the Church’s health, let me bless you as you leave. If the color of the carpet is pivotal to your experience of God (a logistical issue which, when debated ad nauseam, becomes precisely one of those reasons why people dislike organized religion), please know that I will affirm your choice to leave in protest over the carpet color.
1. You are not being fed. Churches need to be places of spiritual nourishment. Worship, teaching, and spiritual fellowship play an important role in assisting spiritual growth. It is essential to be part of a spiritual community in which one feels nourished. But, it is also possible that by offering nourishment and encouragement to others, you may find yourself deeply nourished and supported in your spiritual life.
2. You have been hurt by your church. There is no doubt that churches hurt people. It is terrible when it happens and every member of every church community bears responsibility to do everything in their power to mitigate the hurtful realities of being in community. There are certainly times when a church community becomes so toxic and vicious that the only healthy choice is to leave. But Hackenberg’s suggestion that you set out to find “a non-injuring faith community” is I hope only tongue in cheek. There is no such thing as “a non-injuring community”. Pain is part of the package of living in a world with people. Wherever two or three are gathered together, there will be hurt. We grow by facing the painful reality that we will often feel let down by people, not by rushing from community to community in the futile attempt to find a place where we will never be hurt.
3. “If your congregation can only relate to your denomination with animosity or apathy” or “If you struggle to relate to your faith community with grace instead of ultimatums, unable to pursue your own and the congregation’s growth without also seeking power” then leave. Whether we stay or leave, discomfort always provides an opportunity to grow in our practice of,
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22,23)
4. And then there is the truly momentous issue of “the color of the carpet.” I can only hope Hackenberg is trying to generate a smile here. But, perhaps this is the one issue in church leaving that most hits the nail on the head. The truth may be that people leave churches and congregations leave denominations for imperfectly grasped reasons of which they themselves are only partially aware. People leave communities because something has arisen that makes them feel uncomfortable. It no longer feels like a place of belonging. There no longer seems to be a fit. So, at some point, it feels easier to move than to engage in the difficult exercise of self-examination asking what is it that I am reacting to here, what are the lessons I might be able to learn by staying, or what are the real reasons for needing to leave.
There are obviously times when it is necessary to leave a community. But we are always called to engage deeply in a process of self-examination asking if there may be deeper reasons behind our desire to depart. Whether we stay or go, if we enter fully into an honest process of self-awareness, we and the community will be enriched whatever the outcome.
4 comments
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June 7, 2012 at 8:33 am
Steve
I think what Hackenburg is saying is to give people their freedom, the kind that is a necessary requisite to all healthy relationships and in the absence of which causes people feel trapped or smothered. Nothing will kill a relationship faster than dependence or an insistence on living up to standards that are not your own. But that sense of detachment is not to be confused with indifference, either to the person or the principle. The object is to create an atmosphere of acceptance and inclusivity. We all have a personal space that has to be respected.
That people separate over serious doctrinal issues is a matter unto itself but in lesser issues I reckon the relationship of congregants to the church or church to denomination to be like a marriage. If we started packing our bags at the first realization that this is not what we signed up for, virtually all marriages would end in divorce. In marriage, commitment is the mollusk and trials are the friction that produces the pearl.
As much as marriage is the institution, in which the love of God is brought to fruition it is no less so with the church. Friction that is bound to occur is but the hand of God giving us fertile ground to work our own salvation. God’s purposes can be accomplished in no other way and to run from conflict is to deny Jesus. But in the end, I think the serenity prayer expresses it all.
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
June 7, 2012 at 3:45 pm
kimgye
I like what you have to say here Steve.
“Friction that is bound to occur is but the hand of God giving us fertile ground to work our own salvation. God’s purposes can be accomplished in no other way and to run from conflict is to deny Jesus.”
I think that Christopher also makes a great point with #4
“at some point, it feels easier to move than to engage in the difficult exercise of self-examination asking what is it that I am reacting to here, what are the lessons I might be able to learn by staying, or what are the real reasons for needing to leave.”
In my life I have heard (and have used) the “personal space” clause to opt out of answering or contemplating my reactions. Some peoples personal space seems like hundreds of meters long and an authentic dialogue is not possible, so I can see why it is not possible to meet every need as a community.
However, In my heart I know that were we all able to engage in the honest self-examination that Christopher mentions, not only would people rarely leave, but the relationship between us would truly feel like family (or dare I say what I hope to have with Jesus one day).
Alas, self examination and the deep pain that can lay within requires a whole other level of open support that may not be possible in a once a week community.
June 7, 2012 at 8:40 am
Tress
This is food for thought.
June 7, 2012 at 10:39 am
Rob
In marriage you can tell someone as in family to bugger off and eventually saner heads prevail or a discourse continues. Sad for sure but the marriage is of two souls and they continue. In the Church though being God, you and the church community you expect the spiritual tie that binds you to have a sense of togetherness and not to be one of discourse.Course we are on Earth and you can deal with one as your own partner but when the church leader and /or congregation give you grief or lack of understanding then telling them to bugger off becomes an unbelievable act of , how could you .
The community then wil shun you as you have gone over the wall they think.
A one to one can be healed but a one to many for one person can be difficult even thought they love the Lord , it is that group they feel they have to leave or move on. Sad for sure but a reality