“Middle age” and church

I routinely struggle to understand my feelings toward church. This week, as the girls and I read The Screwtape Letters together, I hear the senior devil’s advice on how to tempt Christians away from their faith with a twinge of guilt:

You mentioned casually in your last letter that the patient has continued to attend one church, and one only, since he was converted, and that he is not wholly pleaed with it. May I ask what you are about? Why have I no report on the causes of his fidelity to the parish church? Do you realise that unless it is due to indifference it is a very bad thing? Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighborhood looking for a church that “suits” him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.

We are attending our third church in this city, over an 18-year span. Hence we are not exactly “church hoppers” or connoisseurs. We moved on from the two that preceded this one for very similar reasons: loss of trust in the leadership. This doesn’t mean doctrinal disputes, or small changes in programs, but what seemed to us like integrity issues. How could we learn where this is in doubt?

And yet, perhaps human integrity is always in doubt. If we’re going to say, as Elisabeth Eliot did, “There’s no perfect church, and if you find one and join it, it won’t be perfect anymore,” the point at which character becomes a disqualifying issue can be hard to determine.

I am curiously uninterested in involvement in “the organization.” I used to immediately volunteer to play the piano, but I haven’t felt any desire to do that at this church, and there is really no need for another piano player. My husband and I joined a small group, and we are enjoying that very much, but the idea of working on the programs and presentations side of things at the church building inspires not the faintest twinge of duty or interest.

In She Can Teach, I read this interesting fact: many women around my age are dropping out altogether. This is a real contrast to the church as I’ve experienced it most of my life. They are not going to different churches, just dropping out altogether. The reason given is that

…since they no longer have children at home, they no longer have any reason to go to church. In addition, women this age have served for years, in a variety of roles. Now they find that they have “hit a glass ceiling” as far as growth opportunities go. They are more apt to serve others outside the church, where their gifts can be stretched and challenged in new ways.

This is the kind of fact that my long years in evangelicalism have trained me betrays a shallow commitment. “If you’re a committed Christian, you don’t go to church for your children,” the reasoning goes. “You go for your own instruction, accountability, and service.”

Yet already, I feel the encroachment of “going for my children.” For myself? Meh. Most of my training occurs in private study. For accountability, we have a small group. And service? I’m simply too tired.

The other reason given for older women dropping out of the church is that they are tired of being the backbone of the place, taking care of everyone else, yet reaching a glass ceiling themselves when it comes to how much spiritual challenge and growth they are permitted in the evangelical structure. I myself have certainly not been taking care of everyone else for years and years in the church. But there does seem to be a glass ceiling in the church we attend now. Women do not occupy positions where they have much influence over the direction of the place. They can do music, hospitality, or children’s ministry. I’ve always been told that if you want to really learn something, you should teach it. But there are no female teachers, or women in other leadership roles.

I don’t want to be active right now in the church organization. As already noted, I’m weary. I’m on output all week homeschooling two teens and working a part-time, online job as a writing tutor. I need the Sabbath to be what it’s intended to be: rest. But I couldn’t help the involuntary response inside during yesterday’s sermon about “getting off the bench” (in honor of Superbowl Sunday) and signing up to serve somewhere in church. After an inspiring message about service bringing joy when God calls you, a list of organizational needs was projected on the screen at the front of the sanctuary. “If you want us to serve, give us something interesting to do,” I thought.

I remembered The Listening Life, with its emphasis on how the church needs to work on its listening skills. Instead of posting a list, why not conduct a survey and ask what people’s gifts are? If you want people to serve, find out what they can do, and figure out how they can do it to the glory of God. And I remembered, too, this passage from Frederick Buechner:

The church often bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the dysfunctional family. There is the authoritarian presence of the minister– the professional who knows all of the answers and calls most of the shots – whom few ever challenge either because they don’t dare or because they feel it would do no good if they did. There is the outward camaraderie and inward loneliness of the congregation… There are people with all sorts of enthusiasms and creativities which are not often enough made use of or even recognized…

I’m convinced it has to do with simple hearing impairment — the kind that comes from disuse of the listening muscles. A truly participatory church would be one where members use their gifts, rather than 80% of them sitting passively, invisibly, trying to be good soldiers but wondering how God might want to use their gifts to enrich his kingdom.

I do not want to be a malcontent of the sort that Screwtape tries to create. I want to be a participating member of the family of God. As currently structured, the church doesn’t readily show an entry point. In the end, duty prompts me to go. Duty, and the hope that someday it will be different.