Two stage growth

We’ve had a two-year journey between churches, and now it appears we’ve settled. We like our landing place and have a number of acquaintances there. The kids are enjoying the fellowship and growth in their respective niches. We have a lot of respect for the pastor and his wife.

Yet I am conscious of changes in myself, changes I’m uncertain about what to do with. I’ve come a long way since reading Mere Churchianity, and posting my review about it. Or since I wrote this. But my way of being in church has changed a lot in ways that, for now at least, prevent true belonging.

For instance, though I realize I need church to remind me that I’m not alone in my faith, I find I’m unwilling to let anyone there really know me. I go, sit through the service, then leave. I drop the kids off and pick them up when their activities are over, but I find myself hurrying so that I won’t get drawn into a conversation with anyone.

This is very different from the attitude I brought with me into my adult life until a few years ago, the attitude that said church is the center of my social life. I’ll probably never walk into a church again and say, “Hi I’m Janet. I play the piano. Plug me in!” Instead, I hover at the edges.

I realize this is not ideal. Yet it is also not unChristian. It is a stage in this journey. In former times, I would probably judge someone who behaves as I do — coming late, leaving like a shot at the end of the service, bringing my kids without staying to help, failing to sign up for the ladies’ tea or the greeter ministry or the covered dish meal. But there can be legitimate reasons for caution.

For now, this is where I am. But I hope and pray for a richer connection to church. By that I don’t just mean going back to the way I was before, but moving through this strangely hyperprotective phase into a place that’s both dis-illusioned, and seeing. Maybe the biblical precedent is in the story of the blind man who required two touches by Jesus to see. At first, he thought people looked like trees walking around. But then he passed through that intermediary stage with Jesus’s help — specifically, with Jesus’s “intent look.” Sight was good, but sight with understanding was better. The same is true here.