Connection Quad Cities

Connection Quad Cities: Creating spaces to build community, embrace vulerability, and practice compassion

[connectionqc]

July 4th: A Reflection by Aubrey Barnes

As a child growing up, I think I enjoyed the Fourth of July for the same reason I enjoyed my birthday. The day was a gift; a gift of good company, family members, good food, and an amazing display of fireworks that filled the air. It felt good, as I remember it, and absolutely perfect. 

I have a lot of memories from this day. Like the year I hastily lit an expensive firework, only to have it tip at the last moment and veer towards my parents, who were sitting comfortably on their deck. It shot directly at them and I heard them scream. My eight year old brain thought I murdered my parents, and I was internally making plans for how I could hit the road to escape the law who would soon pursue me for the heinous crime. 

I was maybe a little bit dramatic, but I was young. This memory, and many other, built a foundation that surrounded my joy that was found in the holiday of the Fourth of July. I love and cherish each memory.

Being twenty eight years old now, I have since had time to experience this American life, both its blessings and woes. I have had time to observe the ugliness that is still breathing through the soil of this country. I have had time to read many stories of those who have faced unfortunate violence that is done in the name of America. All of these stories have been a slowly creeping climax of bad news, waiting for me to reach the right age to hear it.

This birthday party, that I have accrued so many memories around, has built such a tradition with my family and friends. However, when I let my mind wander and think of how I’d celebrate this with my kids one day, I’ve come to realize:

It was never meant for me.

Matter of fact, it is almost embarrassing that I have placed so much value in this holiday that wasn’t meant for me. It is a day that holds the exact opposite values as a day like my real birthday. 

Originally, the Fourth of July was a celebration of freedom, but only freedom for some. This celebration, the one we sing about in our National Anthems and preach about from our pulpits, still proves itself to be a celebration meant to exclude our Neighbors. The African American Neighbor, the Latino Neighbor, the Native American Neighbor. 

It is, rather, a celebration meant only for the Home Owners. (I don't say this in a ‘woe is me’ manner. I don’t think such a realization is worthy of placing myself under some victim mentality.) But it brings me to such a sobering thought: after all this time of believing I was first, I now realize I was really last. 

After all this time of believing the best in our ‘heroes’, they actually keep turning out to be crooked. It is this crookedness that still vibrates through the voices of those in power, who continue to be insensitive and dehumanize simply for the sake of their power.

This holiday is a reminder to me that we are all still so damn far away from where we desire to be. We are so damn far away from having a country that is compassionate, love-driven, and ego abandoning, for the sake of those around us. Though unfortunate, though It may keep us suffering, it also keeps us focused. It keeps us sojourning. It keeps us fighting for a chapter in this country when we can speak of this holiday in an honest light. 

Hopefully, one day, this birthday party can be an ode to our proven desire to create a place where our Neighbor is truly loved, elevated, and served in order to do things greater than those before us.

-Aubs

[connectionqc]

Self-Care in the Midst of Traumatic News

If you are alive and have half a heart, last week was tough. Hell, the summer as a whole has been almost unbearable.

Dayton.

El Paso.

Garlic Fest.

Virginia Beach.*

With each piece of horrific news comes an unfortunate series of emotions. First is the deep sadness, and fear, imagining what it must be like to lose someone in such a violent way. Next comes the outrage and despair; desperately wanting to take action but simultaneously feeling powerless to make a difference. Then the frustration sets in—and often a feeling like you are crazy—why do I have to convince my uncle on Facebook that we have a serious problem on our hands?

And before you know it, the cycle starts over again as another story hits the news.

Lost in this cycle is the grieving process. Grieving takes time—the kind of time we often don’t have—to sit and dwell in our sadness. Giving it space. Honoring it. 

This is always the case, but it is especially true in 2019: Grieving is self-care.

If we don’t take time to grieve these losses we will quickly find ourselves full of resentment, carrying with us bitterness and pain everywhere we go. We will carry it into our relationships, our workplaces, our classrooms, and our interactions with strangers. 

We can only bear so many traumatic losses without grieving before it dramatically effects our mental health. The problem is that it’s hard to find time to grieve when you’re given a new loss to grieve every week. So we must be extra-intentional to find time in our weeks to grieve.

Turn your phone off and lock yourself in your room and cry for an hour. Write a lament. Journal about how angry or sad you are. Spend time with people where the group agrees to intentionally talk about how everyone is feeling. Give yourself permission on your day off from work to draw the curtains and curl up in a ball in bed.

We must take the time to grieve. Be angry, take action, try to initiate policy change—please do these things—but do not forget to grieve.  Be an informed citizen, but please take care of yourself.

------

*Literally too many others to mention. It’s awful to know that unless I want a list of 30 cities, I have to pick the most notable.

[connectionqc]

A Different Approach

I was recently talking with a new friend over coffee, sharing a bit about what we do at Connection Quad Cities. After explaining our mission, my friend asked, “How are you different than a Unitarian Universalist church?” I thought it was a valid question and it made me wonder if other people have thought the same thing, so I wanted to take a moment to briefly explain the difference between Connection Quad Cities and a UU church.

To be clear, I am solely pointing out differences in what you would experience at a gathering. I’m not addressing our theological differences. Because Connection Quad Cities is a non-religious non-profit, we do not have an official stance or statement of beliefs. I also want to make it clear that I am speaking in generalizations. Not every UU church is the same, so what I say might not apply to all UU churches.

Oh. One more thing I’d like to add to this lengthy preface; the point of comparing isn’t to make a statement about being better than anyone. I think that the UU tradition is beautiful and, because they offer something we don’t, I often recommend the UU tradition to people that cross my path.

So how are we different? Most simply put, when you attend a Connection Quad Cities gathering you don’t feel like you’re attending a church service. Most UU services retain, more or less, the same structure and feel of a traditional church service. They include the same elements—or have a similar liturgy—as a traditional church service. For example, UU services typically include songs and sermons or homilies. One of our local congregations sits in pews and their is beautiful stained glass windows. You can become a member of a UU church.

Attending a Connection gathering, however, does not feel like church. One of the most glaringly obvious reasons is that we don’t sing songs. The second thing most people point out is how we sit around a table and have a conversation. There are no pews, or rows of seats, all facing a stage. This is very intentional. The focus is not on receiving a message or information from the front of the room, the focus is on connecting with those around you.

There are two instances during our gathering where a discussion is facilitated. The first discussion comes after we read either read a parable or excerpt from a book or have a time of group meditation. The second group discussion is held in place of a traditional sermon. Someone will present a topic for discussion to get the ball rolling and we go from there.

I have heard people describe what we do in various ways, some say it is similar to an AA meeting, some say it feels like a group therapy session, others say it is like a family get together. Either way the goal of each gathering is for people to walk away knowing that they aren’t alone and knowing that people love and care for them.

To learn more about what our gatherings look and feel like, and why we do what we do, you can watch this series of videos. If you are still curious, don’t hesitate to join us on a Sunday or to reach out with questions!

[connectionqc]

Writing Stories

“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

We’ve all heard the stories about a musician or an athlete who had a fall from grace. Take Brett Favre for example. Favre was a Super Bowl winning quarterback, beloved by America, and full of southern charm. Then news comes out that he took photos of the least photogenic part of every male body and sent them to people who did not request such a photo. Sure he is back on TV now selling back braces with Jerry Rice, but for the most part, his approval rating is low.

Some would say he “let down” his fans and his supporters. This doesn’t just happen with celebrities. This happens with our friends, our coworkers, our families, our partners. Let’s say I’m meeting up with a friend and maybe that friend shows up late, and has had a bad day, and we don’t have a good conversation. But I wrote the story, “They will be here on time and we will have a great discussion.”. When it doesn’t go according to script I’m mad because, unbeknownst to them, they didn’t live up to the story I had written.

We all write stories about the people in our lives. This is partly what our brain needs to do just to make it through the day, but it’s also a sneaky way we don’t allow people to live freely. We try to control people with the stories we write for them.

This is where I am at right now in life: Whenever I get angry at someone I ask myself, “Am I really angry with them? Or are they simply not living life according to my agenda for them?” Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is the latter. It isn’t love if it comes with an agenda. It isn’t love if the person feels boxed in.

I’ve been trying to use the perspective changing mantra  of “Yes, thank you…” If someone is late meeting me for a drink I say to them, or just out loud to the world, “Yes, thank you…” Thank you for being late. Maybe it gave me a few minutes to catch my breath and slow down, to notice how hurried I have been. Maybe it gave me a chance to make a grocery list so I wasn’t frazzled at the store. Maybe their tardiness simply reminded me to accept everyone and to stop writing a story for everyone I meet.

It is possible that our biggest offense, however, is the stories we write for ourselves. We all play various roles in the melodrama that is our life. We are the parent, the spouse, the successful business person. 

We all write stories for how we see our lives going, what direction they will head, and when this doesn’t happen we find ourselves disappointed. 

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with setting goals at work, or trying to be a good parent. The problem comes in when we attach our value and our identity to those things. They are masks that we wear. Roles that we play. They are not who we are.

You are you before you are an employee. There is a you beneath the you that is a parent or a spouse or a friend. I’m sure you can identify the people in their lives they feel safest around, the people who allow you to be your true self, unashamed. This is the challenge in life; how can we come to know our true selves? How can we surround ourselves with people that bring us into awareness of our true selves? How can we stop writing stories for ourselves—and those around us—and begin connecting to ourselves and others on a deeper level?

By Brandon Carleton

[connectionqc]

The Stranger who was Your Self

Our theme for 2019 has been “Finding Your Voice.” I was introduced to this poem a few months into 2019--certainly one of those “god-things” or stars-aligning coincidences. It was after the passing of Mary Oliver and a friend and I were talking poetry. He shared with me this poem and it it perfectly encapsulates our theme.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott:

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Quite often in life we come up against various forces---friends, family, teachers, marketing agencies, etc---that one way or another, tell us to not trust ourselves. Many of our early life structures are intentionally built to eliminate decision making and they serve us well for a season. In our classrooms, our home life, our piano teachers and coaches… all are better served by group think and “falling in line” with those around us.

As we get older, many of us turn to coping mechanisms that are designed to remove ourselves from ourselves. When life gets difficult we often try to numb ourselves, and as a result we disconnect from inner voice.

To make matters worse, the church and its well meaning church leaders often tell us that our intuition--that which is deepest within us--cannot be trusted. Our emotions, our physical bodies, and our “flesh,” are all things that are evil and do not deserve our attention.

It’s no wonder then, considering all of this early programming to not trust ourselves, that many of us get well into adulthood feeling incapable of tuning into our inner voice. We become strangers to ourselves.

The good news is that our inner voice is in there somewhere, waiting to greet us. We just need to work on our ability to listen. A task easier said than done, no doubt. That is a large part of the focus of our group this year: to exercise the muscles that are required to listen to ourselves. Hopefully, at some point this year:

“You will love again the stranger who was your self. At your own door in your own mirror, you are right there, it doesn’t take much work to find you.”

By Brandon Carleton

[connectionqc]

In Search of Wholeness (aka I’m Done Erasing)

I’ve heard that, as newborns, the very first emotion we feel is a sense of abandonment. Your whole life, up to that point, has been spent in a warm, safe space where you are literally connected to another person. The first thing you experience is being forcibly removed from that safety—you’re thrust into a cold word—and someone disconnects you from your life source. If you believe in cellular memories and trauma, this moment could have quite an impact on the rest of our lives.

Philosophers say we spend our whole lives trying to make up for this abandonment. Corny religious people will say, “You have a God-shaped hole in your heart.” Religious or not, we all share a sense of needing something else to be “whole.”

We spend our lives in search for what we think will make us whole. We need a significant other, we need that dream job, we watch HGTV hoping we can have the perfect house one day. Churches often sell people on the idea that finding God will make them feel whole.

That was me. I believed that God would make me whole. Not just any God, but a very specific God: the Western Evangelical God. The symbols associated with this God were helpful for about 25 years of my life. I was happy with this life and I felt safe with my Evangelical God.

But then they system crashed.

I went through a season where I wanted to leave the whole of it behind. Atheism felt easier. To be honest it often still seems easier, but I’ve found a problem with leaving it all behind and it has nothing to do with God being mad at me or me going to hell. Here is the problem: I don’t think it is possible to completely untangle and fully remove 25 years of religious symbols and worldviews from my life. I think the Western Evangelical God is a part of me—will always be a part of me—in a cellular memory kind of way.

There will always be elements of my Western Evangelical God left no matter how furiously I try to remove it all.

Even if I were to somehow manage the impossible and erase every religious aspect from my life, the chief focus of my life would become Erasing. That sounds exhausting.

I’d have to be on constant alert for every subconscious thought that might pop up smelling religiously foul.

I will forever be shaped by my religious upbringing, just like I will be forever shaped by my first experiences of being disconnected from my mother as a newborn. I can’t get away from it, so I might as well make friends with it.

Making friends with my past doesn’t mean returning to my Western Evangelical God, but it means I can no longer abhor it. I used to think that it had no room in the pie chart that is my life, but now I realize that the act of trying to remove it from my pie chart actually gave it more room. (See; growth of alcohol consumption and alcohol related deaths during the prohibition era.)

Making friends with my old-religious-self means not beating myself up for having a version 1.0. For example, I used to see salvation as me being saved from an angry God. Now I see salvation as wholeness. After all, the root word for salvation is indeed “sozo,” which means “to make whole.” And wholeness is a matter of no longer trying to deny my past and rid myself of my upbringing. Wholeness is often acceptance. Acceptance requires the embrace of that ugly, past version of myself and integrating it into my future—not to make it a focal point—but at least to give my past it’s proper sliver of my pie chart.

By Brandon Carleton

[connectionqc]

Looking Back at Easter

Peter Rollins’ tells a story about this in his book The Orthodox Heretic called “Being the Resurrection.” Here it is.

“Late that evening a group of unknown disciples packed their few belongings and left for a distant shore, for they could not bear to stay another moment in the place where their Messiah had just been crucified. Weighed down with sorrow, they left that place, never to return. Instead they traveled a great distance in search of a land that they could call home.

After months of difficult travel, they finally happened upon an isolated area that was ideal for setting up a new community. Here they found fertile ground, clean water, and a nearby forest from which to harvest material needed to build shelter. So they settled there, founding a community far from Jerusalem, a community where they vowed to keep the memory of Christ alive and live in simplicity, love, and forgiveness, just as he had taught them. The members of this community lived in great solitude for over a hundred years, spending their days reflecting on the life of Jesus and attempting to remain faithful to his ways. And they did all this despite the overwhelming sorrow in their heart.

But their isolation was eventually broken when, early one morning, a small band of missionaries reached the settlement. These missionaries were amazed at the community they found. What was most startling to them was that these people had no knowledge of the resurrection…of Christ, for they had left Jerusalem before his return from the dead on the third day. Without hesitation, the missionaries gathered together all the community members and recounted what had occurred after the imprisonment and bloody crucifixion of their Lord.

That evening there was a great celebration in the camp as people celebrated the news of the missionaries. Yet, as the night progressed, one of the missionaries noticed that the leader of the community was absent. This bothered the young man, so he set out to look for this respected elder. Eventually he found the community’s leader crouched low in a small hut on the fringe of the village, praying and weeping. “Why are you in such sorrow?” asked the missionary in amazement. “Today is a time for great celebration.”

“It may indeed be a day for great celebration, but this is also a day of sorrow,” replied the elder, who remained crouched on the floor. “Since the founding of this community we have followed the ways taught to us by Christ. We pursued his ways faithfully even though it cost us dearly, and we remained resolute despite the belief that death had defeated him and would one day defeat us also.”

The elder slowly got to his feet and looked the missionary compassionately in the eyes. “Each day we have forsaken our very lives for him because we judged him wholly worthy of the sacrifice, wholly worthy of our being. But now, following your news, I am concerned that my children and my children’s children may follow him, not because of his radical life and supreme sacrifice, but selfishly, because his sacrifice will ensure their personal salvation and eternal life.” With this the elder turned and left the hut, making his way to the celebrations that could be heard dimly in the distance, leaving the missionary crouched on the floor.”

 Living Its Meaning

For many of us, Easter has become similar to Christmas is in that what the day means isn’t what the day means. Christmas is a season of consumerism and stress instead of what it’s really about: peace, presence, and humility. Christmas has become what it’s not. It’s the same with Easter.

Rollins’ story about the island community and the missionaries illustrates this well. The community had never heard of the resurrection yet were living its meaning.

As the story says, the island community was living in “simplicity, love, and forgiveness.” They were also “spending their days reflecting on the life of Jesus and attempting to remain faithful to his ways.”

Why were they living their life this way? Because it’s how Jesus lived. It’s what he taught and it’s what he lived. They were inspired by and committed to this way of living.

I believe they also lived this way because it made them healthier people. Living in simplicity, love, and forgiveness makes us more compassionate, just, peaceful, content, kind, gracious, wise, trusting, and empathetic. It also makes you less judgmental, manipulative, controlling, violent, and resentful.

 Universal Trauma

Their lives weren’t pain free. The story says they were “overwhelmed with sorrow.” This means they were grieving the loss of Jesus, but it was more than that. I believe the bigger idea of “overwhelmed with sorrow” means their lives included plenty of sorrow, pain, disappointment, and trauma—to the point that it overwhelmed them at times. The individuals that made up this community had experienced both the particular trauma of watching their friend and teacher die but also the universal experience of the trauma of life overall.

People were surely grieving the death of people besides Jesus, right? I mean, their community was 100 years old, which is plenty of time for children to grieve the loss of their parents, for parents to grieve the loss of their children, for the community as a whole to grieve the loss of friends, family members, and neighbors. Maybe some of the children born on the island were born with life-threatening birth defects? Maybe some experienced painful separation from their romantic partners? Maybe some had mental health issues that made life unbearable at times?

We all have unique and specific traumas that can overwhelm us with sorrow. We’re also all doing this thing called “life” that, at a basic level, is traumatic in a way that’s universal to everyone. Our individual stories may differ in certain ways, but the bigger picture is we’re all walking a path that includes plenty of good but also plenty sorrow, pain, disappointment, and trauma.

Good Friday says sorrow and trauma are very much a part of lives. We must not pretend it’s not true by denying its reality or repressing its pain, because if we do, we may feel better initially, but in the long run, we’ll feel worse. In other words, at some point we’ll feel the pain—just not in a way that heals us.

Denying trauma’s reality and repressing its pain doesn’t make it go away; it just makes it come out in maladaptive and unhealthy ways. In ways like addiction, chronic-distraction, violence, materialism, workaholism, bitterness, and surface-level living, etc.

Unless we embrace our pain and grieve or sorrows, we’ll tend to use and abuse others as away to distract ourselves from our inner turmoil. When we make “the other” the main reason for our troubles, it’s often time to look inside ourselves to see what pain we’re repressing.

This is one of the lessons of Good Friday. People made Jesus the scapegoat for their personal and societal traumas. In other words, instead of looking within themselves to see how they might grieve their losses and heal their pain—instead of looking within themselves to see how they might love themselves and others better—they projected their inner angst onto someone they deemed threatening. “If we kill him, we’ll be good; we’ll be at peace.” And yet after his death, they were in the same place they were before—only worse (they’d crucified someone).

Wounded Healers

That’s what the elder of the island community was afraid of. He wasn’t afraid of the reality of the resurrection itself; he was afraid that the resurrection would come to mean what it doesn’t mean.

What resurrection means for so many is the denial of trauma—that somehow the hope of new life defeats suffering rather than embraces it. That somehow the hope of new life overcomes suffering rather than gives it new meaning.

Sorrow, pain, disappointment, loss, and trauma: these aren’t meant to be “defeated” or “overcome.” They’re meant to be grieved—which is painful. They’re meant to be healed—which is a long road. They’re meant to make us more honest and soft-hearted and tolerant and uncertain and needful of others.

That’s new life. That’s resurrection.

The elder worried his people would celebrate the resurrection as a way to defeat trauma instead of embrace it. That they’d stop living as “wounded healers” in need of each other and, instead, as over-comers destined for success above all else.

by Jason Holtgrewe

[connectionqc]

Devils Work, Part II - A response to Bizzle

This blog is the second blog in a series of blogs about Joyner Lucas’ song “Devils Work. Listen to the song here.

From the title alone, I knew that at some point, the religious community would soon bring about their scrutiny of Joyner’s work. I know there has already been a couple of short, Christian-based podcasts who have had dialogue about this single. For the sake of where I’m trying to go, I want to talk about one response in particular from Bizzle, who identifies as a Christian rapper. In response to Joyner’s single, using the same beat and writing from his perspective of God, here is what Bizzle had to say:

“Before I even start addressing it,

I don't owe you any answers,

so don't get used to it

But I feel like you being genuine,

But the truth is you can't handle the truth, Lucas

But you kept it a buck and I love that

If I kept it a buck back, could you take what you stepping in?

I know it's other folk that feel like you,

so first thing I'ma do is let you know who you questioning”

I have to admit it: didn’t listen to all of Bizzle’s response. That is because I didn’t need to listen to the whole thing to know what he was trying to say. I used to be heavily a part of Western Christian culture, a church leader, and a “christian artist,” so I knew the rhetoric from the jump:

“My God is perfect, and you have no business mentioning God in your music because you’re a sinner.”

There is this habit that I had as a Creative, a ‘duty’ as my church leaders would tell me, to police the way everyone else talked about God. If their lyrics or lifestyle didn’t fit with my idea of how Christians should live, I needed to correct those people. If their theology didn’t resonate with mine, I was told to pull out a Bible verse and check them.

I used to spend more of my time thinking about how to keep people in check, condemning them with my creative gift, than I did on actually creating content that was an honest reflection of where I was at in life.

[connectionqc]

Devils Work, Part I - Respecting Honesty

“I'm staring at this Bible as I keep glancing

Dear Lord, I got questions and I need answers

Tryna understand your vision, all I see is damage

Just a bunch of dead bodies in the street camping

A bunch of lost souls on their feet standing

We supposed to be your children, I thought we family

You're supposed to be my Father, bruh, I need answers”

- Joyner Lucas

A few weeks ago, Joyner Lucas, a rapper out of Worcester, Massachusetts, dropped another instantly viral single called “Devil’s Work.” If you haven’t checked out the video yet, do that first here and then come back to finish reading. I wouldn’t call myself a Joyner Lucas fan, but I most definitely respect his creativity when it comes to creating concepts and visuals that beautifully illustrate his lyrics. Dude is dope, no doubt about that. There is A LOT happening in this video and song, so much that it’ll be hard to hit everything that I want to get off my chest in this one write up. So I will have a couple other blogs to follow this one. Anyway, about the song and video:

In the video, Joyner Lucas is walking through a Catholic Church in his hometown, holding a bottle of Hennessy and a Bible. Throughout the whole video, Joyner is having a conversation with God, asking him why the good and innocent must die while the crooked and guilty can walk freely. Asking God if he can bargain lives with Him; trading Tupac, Biggie, and Xxxtentacion’s life for the lives of Trump, Tomi Lahren, Laura Ingraham, and a few others.

What I like most about Joyner as a creative is that he doesn't shy away from being one hundred percent honest. You will always get the raw, authentic, uncomfortable, righteous and ratchet energy that is Joyner Lucas. He doesn’t care how anyone will feel or perceive him. As someone who wants to always create out a place of honesty, I really respect Joyner Lucas.

To be continued...

By Aubrey Barnes

[connectionqc]

Church Attendance

When I talk about Connection with people I’m just meeting, they tend to be most surprised by our approach to attendance. The seemingly universal stance on attendance is that a Christian should attend church every weekend. At Connection, we’ve worked hard to create a culture that communicates just the opposite: it can be healthy to not attend every week.

Growing up I would often hear that attending weekly is a “sign of commitment to God.” or “a sign of a mature believer.” My church leaders would make it clear: Attending weekly is the ultimate goal and what we should all strive towards. I’ve heard it said, “Aim to make it every week and if you fail and you’ll end up only missing a few Sundays a year. If you aim to miss a few Sundays a year and you’ll  end up missing church too many times.”

Naturally, as a pastor myself now, I have started to reflect on this attendance obsession. I started to wonder, “Where does this obsession with regular attendance come from?” I found that many pastors reference a verse in Hebrews that says, “Do not forsake the assembly.” A few quick bullet points on this verse:

It’s only one verse. In the entirety of the Bible. Just one.

“Do not forsake the assembly” is the beginning of a sentence. The next words of that sentence say, “As some have made a habit of doing.” So it’s not even referring to all believers.

It doesn’t speak to frequency. Is this once a week? Once a day? Once a month? We don’t know.

It, without a doubt, is not speaking of a westernized evangelical church service that starts with an upbeat Chris Tomlin song that is followed by three more Chris Tomlin songs.

All Chris Tomlin jokes aside, I think there are two core issues that are driving this unhealthy attendance obsession. For me, personally, I noticed that the issues are the two sides of the same coin—the coin of validation. One of the biggest challenges of my life is getting to a place where I don’t need other people to validate me. The church, unfortunately, has been an unhelpful machine that perpetuates and amplifies my need for validation to very toxic levels.

One side of this validation coin is how church success metrics validate the leaders themselves. Until fairly recently (the last year or so) I would always gauge our church attendance numbers as a judgment on my leadership. If the numbers were low, I would think admittedly egregious thoughts. “No one likes me. Everyone thinks Connection is a bad church. No one enjoys coming on Sundays.” If attendance numbers were high, I would tell myself just the opposite. “You’re doing so great. Everyone loves Connection. Everyone loves you.”

If this is the game you’re playing as a pastor—good attendance equals self-worth—it will inevitably lead to some toxic behavior.

I realized that if attendance–whether implicitly and explicitly—was held in high regard, then manipulation would begin to happen. (And verses will start to be taken out of context to be wielded as guilt-inducing weapons.) I think many pastors have convinced themselves that they don’t need attendance for validation. I also think almost all of those pastors are lying to themselves. I know I was lying to myself.

The flipside of this coin is Church-goer Validation. From an early age, every system we are a part of trains us to get approval from whoever is in charge. Parents, teachers, police officers, Sunday school teachers, and of course, God. The process looks like this: behave properly, gain approval from authority, feel good about yourself. We become addicted to getting approval from authority. Many of us, if we are honest with ourselves, often attend church out of guilt, shame, and obligation.

Take your average approval addiction and combine it with a leader who needs attendance for their own validation and the result will be your typical church culture.

As an alternative—and as a way to help rewire my own internal validation processes—I’ve been talking about Connection as a “community resource.” Just like a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, Connection exists as a resource. Instead of a free meal, we offer a weekly reminder. A reminder of the things we easily forget, things like:

You are loved.

You aren’t alone.

You don’t need to change in order to be accepted.

You have people in your life who support you and want to help you.

It’s okay if life sucks sometimes. 

It’s okay if you’re depressed.

If you need to be reminded of those things, we are here. If you don’t need a reminder, that is great! No one will be mad at you or disappointed with you, including God, if you don’t need a weekly reminder. It’s that simple.

I firmly believe that belonging to a community is beneficial, but I also firmly believe that you don’t need to attend church weekly. Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

[connectionqc]

Nuance Nipsey: We all got a lil Crip in us.

Off the jump, I would like to say that I had only heard one song from Nipsey Hussle, and that was “Killer” featuring Drake, which came out in 2009. I say that to say this: I didn’t know him much as a musician.

Hell, I wasn’t even aware of the impact that he had in Crenshaw—the neighborhood he grew up in within Los Angeles. The week before his tragic death, I happened to come across an interview he did with a local news station about the businesses that he started on the block that he bought. (Yes you read that right, he bought a whole damn block.)

With his platform as a creative, he created opportunities that would have never happened for people who grew up where he grew up. Opportunities that transcended music. He opened up a clothing store, launched a co-working space, pioneered a STEM program, and he paid for medicine for those in his neighborhood who couldn’t afford it when they were sick. Oh, one more thing... he was a proud member of the Rollin’ 60s. (A faction of the more-well-known gang called the Crips.)

Now, if you are like some of the people I know, the last thing mentioned about Nipsey probably made you a little angry. “Why are so many people grieved by his death worldwide?”  You were probably angry because in your head, he was not the hero everyone was acknowledging him as.

He was the villian…

He was a crip…

A gangbanger…

The opposite of hero…

Your heroes are, inerrant.

Nipsey Hussle, could never be a hero in your world.

At first, I attributed this disequilibrium solely to the rhetoric of white people who have an apprehensiveness to understanding culture outside their own comfort. But the more I thought about it, I realized it really is a human problem. Our problem is our definition of a hero. And our deeper problem of not knowing how to hold nuance. Dichotomy. Or what I like to call the tension of Righteousness and Ratchetness.

Which is us. All of us.

When I was a part of American Church Culture, it was very necessary for me to see Jesus as “the one without sin”. In other words, I needed to have a perfect, flawless leader of my religion. I’m not here to say anything about this theology in and of itself, but more so I bring it up to point out what it did to my thought process.

Having a perfect, flawless leader meant not taking risks that would in turn make me imperfect.

Having a perfect, flawless leader meant staying ‘clean’ and ‘tidy’....

Having a perfect, flawless leader meant staying ‘in line’ of my religion.. Or else i’d be imperfect…

Having a perfect, flawless leader meant that all other leaders who were not like this one…

We are imperfect and flaw-full.

When I juxtapose this widely-accepted idea of what a hero is, to who Nipsey Hussle was, I notice our addiction to having a nonfictional protagonist to place our faith in. And I get it. When we value certainty—and have anxiety about being ‘sinful’ or ‘crooked’ or ‘ratchet’ —we panic and worry that one rotting edge makes the whole fruit bad. Our heroes must be morally inerrant, and have a clean track record. They must be well spoken, family men (and women) who have never cheated nor had an affair.  They must not swear, must not get angry, must not show weakness… Because it gives us something to chase, to strive towards, and believe ourselves to be.

If we’re honest, all of our heroes are fiction in that space of thinking. We will always be disappointed with ourselves because the shame in our inability to reach that. Or worse, we believe we are that perfect hero, and grow angry at the ‘Nipseys’ who steal our shine.

Today, I am more likely to trust the hero of Nipsey than I am to trust the hero who holds an image of inerrancy. Hell, I trust the real inerrant Jesus over the Americanized, Conservative (and Liberal…), tidy Jesus.

Nipsey and Jesus had this in common: they were ratchet and righteous.

They were nuanced, and had a life that I could see aspects of myself in, while also setting a bar for me to reach in becoming more human and more healing.

Maybe our heroes our worth calling heroes—not in spite of—but because of their ratchetness, they transformed. In their ratchetness, they found their authentic, True self, and lived unapologetically out of that and let the world wrestle with it.

- Aubrey Barnes 

[connectionqc]

Modeling Growth

The term suspension of disbelief has been defined as a “willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe something surreal.” We do this all the time when we experience art and entertainment of any kind. Movies, plays, tv shows, paintings.

I’m reminded of a scene in Gladiator when the main character gets wounded in a battle in Germany and he then rides his horse home to Spain. It’s a 40 day journey by horse, but he gets there in one day in the movie. We intellectually know that a 40 day journey happening in one day is entirely impossible, but we temporarily suspend our disbelief so we can enjoy the movie. (This is the opposite of Neil Degrasse Tyson who, with absolute giddiness, points out the scientific impossibilities in some of our favorite action and science fiction movies.)

We practice the art of suspension of disbelief at church, too. Even though we know it can’t be true, and that it is entirely impossible, many of us often act as if pastors are perfect humans. It’s as if part of the hiring process is making sure they are fully enlightened people who do not require any more growth.

This is the challenge churches face when hiring pastors: They know no one is perfect, but what level of imperfection is acceptable? There are some obvious, low hanging fruit offenses, like a history of sexual harassment or stealing money from the offering plate, but after that it quickly gets muddy.

Can a pastor have a lying problem? Can a pastor be flaky and bail out on scheduled meetings? Can a pastor still be evolving in his theology? In other words, can a pastor still have room to grow? The common response is, “Of course people can still have room for growth, but that means they aren’t fit for leadership.” Fair enough point, but if that is the case, there has never been a pastor “fit for leadership.”

The need for this suspension of disbelief is borne out of the paradigm and the power structure of the current church model.

The current church model says that there is one capital P Person on a stage who has “arrived—the leader—and there is a group of people who are still on the journey—the congregation.

This model requires a leader who is without fault or blemish, because any perceived flaw disqualifies them of leading.

Over the last few years at Connection, we’ve been asking a question, “What if there was a better church model?” This question has many facets, but one of those facets is asking, “What if there is a healthier pastor-congregation power structure?”

Where we have landed is here: There is a lower-case p person, not on a stage, who is still on the journey—the pastor—and there is a group of people who are on the SAME journey as the pastor—the congregation. The pastor isn’t there to have all the answers, but there to facilitate discussion and build community. The role of the pastor is to model behavior. Imagine a church where the pastor modeled what it looks like to wrestle, to doubt, to question, to admit faults, to be wrong, to grow, to fail, to be weak, to do the difficult inner work—and most importantly—to model the art of looking at every person in the room as someone with immense wisdom who is worth hearing and learning from.

Part of this power structure change ALSO means that I must say this: this model might not work either, but it certainly feels healthier. So we are giving it a shot. 

- Brandon Carleton

[connectionqc]

No Easter Sunday Service

Let me start by saying the “what” and then I will get into the “why”: We won’t be having an Easter Service this year. At least not on Sunday morning. Instead, we will be having a cookout on Saturday night. (April 20th) Last Sunday morning, as a group, we discussed the pros and cons and we made this decision together. Here are a few of the main reasons we’ve decided against having an Easter Service.

To Shift Focus (away from Sunday morning)

I’ll start with the hardest part for me to say: I don’t enjoy Easter weekend. I haven’t for years. For a while now, this weekend has been a great source of pain for me. I know it shouldn’t be about me. The point of the weekend isn’t me, but let me put it this way: attending Easter services has felt like going to a wedding the same weekend a loved one died. Everyone around me is celebrating and excited, meanwhile, I feel unseen, unheard, and find all the celebrating to be obnoxious.  

I get the hope of the resurrection, but it can feel very distant. While I do identify with Good Friday, I most identify with what I’ve come to know as Awkward Saturday. If we are honest, most days in our life feel life Awkward Saturday more than they do Resurrection Sunday. Life is messy, confusing, dark, Awkward Saturday reminds me that I am human. I love the idea of having a celebration that honors and acknowledges the way life often feels. We are often caught in the middle—something bad just happened and we are waiting, hoping, moping, Sunday feels like it will never come.

Having an Awkward Saturday cookout, for many of us and the season we find ourselves in, simply feels more authentic. This isn’t us saying Easter Sunday isn’t important or lacking value, it’s us saying that we—misguided or not—relate more to the “mess” of Saturday than the “victory” of Sunday. I think there is something incredibly beautiful about choosing to honor this season we find ourselves in.

Seeing Easter Differently

In a way, having a potluck or a cookout represents much of what I see Easter being about anyhow. This idea of breaking ourselves open and pouring ourselves out for those around us is beautifully on display when we cook and eat with one another—when we nourish each other. Aside from the meal, we will spend dedicated and intentional time building a community that is designed to support us through our darkest hours. This all sounds much more live-giving and meaningful to me than any Easter service I have ever attended.

To Ease the Burden

Easter weekend can be very stressful, plain and simple. Many of us find ourselves wishing there was more time in the day and less events to attend. The busy schedule and family obligations can create a lot of anxiety and stress. Many families start with Easter baskets before church, and then the kids have to wear their most uncomfortable outfits. By the time you make it out the door you’re late, everyone is bickering, and you rush into service to just go through the motions. All the while you are stressed out thinking about all you have to do to make it to grandmas on time and get the casserole ready. Not meeting on Sunday saves some of us from that. Even if your morning doesn’t involve all that I mentioned, I’m sure it has the potential to be stressful in a way that is unique to your situation.

To Make A Statement

It is very common for churches to talk about Easter Sunday as their “Super Bowl.” By that they mean it is the biggest event of the year that draws the largest crowd. Many churches invest large sums of money to develop intentional processes (printed handouts, special kiosks, etc) in attempts to capitalize on this large crowd. This is sometimes called “on-ramping.” The question is asked, “How can we “on-ramp” sporadic attenders and get them on board to attend and give regularly?”

By not having an Easter morning service, we are making the statement that, at Connection, our focus is not to convert people to Christianity nor get them to attend week in and week out. We are making a statement that we won’t take a core event in church history and use it as a manipulation tactic to grow our attendance numbers.

To Make Room

If we did have an Easter service, it would be far from traditional. Not having a Sunday morning service frees up the schedule for those among us who are looking for a more traditional Easter celebration. I think it is important for us to honor and respect people who want something more traditional. Clearing the calendar from 10-12 on Easter Sunday is more respectful than any service I would put together.

To Have Fun

Lastly, and I don’t apologize for this, I’m always looking for an opportunity to have a cookout! This winter was long, and now that grillin’ weather is back, I’m getting antsy to get some meat on a grill and a drink in my hand.

As soon as I nail down the details of time and location, I will share them. Oh! Also, I will be making a 5-7 minute video that will be reflection on Good Friday and Jason will be making a video that serves as a reflection for Easter Sunday. We will post them on Facebook and you can watch them, if you’d like.

-Brandon

[connectionqc]

Why I Often Call Myself an Atheist

More often than not, when the topic of God comes up, I tell people that I am an atheist. Even though I believe in God. I say I am an atheist because that statement is closer to the truth than saying I believe in God. I know this might sound confusing, it’s confusing to me! What do I do with this reality?

Misguided or not, I find Atheism to be a much easier starting point for most conversations. For most people, if I say that I believe in God, there is a certain amount of baggage that comes with the that statement. With that term; God. Some people picture Gandalf in the sky, sitting on a cloud. Other people can’t help but picture thousands of children being molested by God’s “chosen ones.” Other people picture and angry, punitive God that is mad at millions of people for simply using the wrong word and believing in Allah. In 2019, many people picture a Trump supporter.

No matter what people picture, there is about a 95% chance they don’t picture the God I mean when I say, “I believe in God.” So I don’t say it. Saying “I believe in God” requires hours upon hours of clarification, “Well I don’t mean that God.” It tends to be much easier, much more clear, to say that I don’t believe in God and then begin to work myself AWAY from atheism instead of towards it. It’s more honest.

You might be thinking, “How can you call yourself a pastor and say that you don’t believe in God.” (Truth be told, I am just as reticent to call myself a pastor.) Here is what none of us want to acknowledge, we all have days when we don’t believe in God. Even pastors. Especially pastors. And that is okay.

If I were to be objective, I would probably label myself an agnostic. Capitalism tells us that we need to follow a leader who has it all figured out. A leader who is confident, who is certain, who knows the path. I’m simply presenting a different idea: maybe our leaders should be more honest. Maybe our leaders should admit that their confidence wavers from day to day. Maybe our leaders should say, “You know what, I’m just like everyone else. I’m just like you. I don’t have all the answers, but maybe YOU can help ME as I try to figure this all out?”

So, let me say this officially: I don’t know if I believe in God, but maybe you can help me?

[connectionqc]

My Journey of Faith and Self-Discovery

I don’t exactly know where to begin, so I guess the beginning is probably the best place to start. When I was young (4 or 5 maybe?) my mom and I went to church, but stopped going a few years later. I started going to church again the summer before my freshman year in high school. My friend, Annie, invited me to go with her and so I did. I started going regularly and getting really involved. I went to church on Sundays and youth group on Wednesdays. I went to a youth bible study. I eventually joined the worship team and became a youth leader. I got more and more involved, “committed” as I would’ve put it. Youth group and church were non-negotiables. I bought into and abided by all of the rules.

I’m a rule-follower at heart, so give me some rules and I’ll follow them. But if I broke one, dare say I watched an R-rated movie or made out with a boy (because hormones and he’s cute 🤷🏻‍♀️), I confessed it to my youth pastors because that’s what you did/had to do to be absolved of the guilt (that church culture creates, but I digress.) But those “sinful” incidents were few and far between; most of the time I didn’t even think about watching R-rated movies or swearing or drinking. (I did think about making out with boys because I was a teenage girl, duh.) I believed what I was told. I trusted my youth pastors, pastors, and leaders. I followed the rules. I toed the line.

This lasted 10 years. Through high school and into adulthood. Through singleness, dating Brandon, and getting married. A lot happens in 10 years. But one thing that didn’t really change (or change much) was my mindset on what being a Christian, a “good” Christian, entailed. Church was my life; it was all-consuming. I became more and more entrenched. And towards the end of those 10 years, I was exhausted, burnt out. I was working a full-time job. Brandon and I were newly married, and we were at the church building easily 4-5 days and/or nights of the week. We were essentially working two full-time jobs (one paid, one as volunteers). It was soul-sucking.

I remember the one-day-at-a-time-ness of it. We’d wake up, work, do churchy things, and fall into bed at night thinking, “Welp, we made it. Now to sleep and then wake up and more or less do it all over again.” I don’t remember where I heard it or who said it, but this saying stuck with me: “Jesus died for the church; you don’t have to, too.” Yet, here I was (we were) running myself (ourselves) ragged and fully being taken advantage of. Boundaries didn’t exist; they were inconvenient. And I wasn’t self-aware or self-confident enough to know that I could say “no”.

See, my value was so wrapped up in what I did and how much I was contributing. As a perfectionist, I understood that and bought in without question. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I was too-trusting. No one around me said, “Maybe you should take some time to rest; this seems unhealthy and unsustainable.” And I didn’t even think to ask for time to breathe so I could enjoy life again.

Brandon and I had been married about a year and we were both burnt out. We were both doing so much: youth group leaders, running the college group, worship team members, Brandon and I worked in the cafe making coffee drinks before service, and I led the “tween ministry” (5-8 grades). We were in church (the building) a lot, but we were rarely in church (the service/a part of the community). Brandon floated the idea of leaving one day and I wasn’t super receptive. Change is hard for me, even leaving sucky situations that I don’t like (because what if what’s next is worse?!). But I think I knew deep down that it was the right thing to do. And “stepping back” or “taking a break” wasn’t an option; we knew we sucked at saying “no” and would just get pulled back in.

So we decided to leave. It was a really difficult decision. Leaving felt like a really nasty divorce. I had spent my formative years there. So much of my identity was wrapped up in my churchy titles and roles; I really didn’t know who I was without it all. And it became more and more apparent that the people I looked up to and trusted believed my worth and value was in how useful I was to them and how much I served.

I’m sure that was always right underneath the surface, I just couldn’t see it. My proximity to them and position, which I viewed as a great honor and privilege, were because I was willing to do and listen and follow and obey without question. Leaving knocked the rose-colored glasses off of my face. It took time, but I began to see things, so many things, in a different way. And it caused me to second-guess and ask a lot of questions. I’d heard it so many times as a teenager and as an adult. Hell, I’ve probably even said it. “You have to make your faith your own; there are no 2nd-generation Christians.” And I believed that I’d done that. But I hadn’t, not even close. I had literally taken what my youth pastors (mainly, as I interacted with them most) told me was right and just believed the same thing. My thought process was all of, “Well, they said it so it’s obviously true, so that’s my belief/stance on that.”

When we left the church we’d been so heavily involved with and in which so much of our sense of self, our identity, was wrapped up in, the doubts and questions started to arise. I felt like the youth pastors at the church didn’t have our best interests at heart (although I don’t think they were consciously making decisions to hurt us), and I trusted and believed in them so what else wasn’t as it seemed? I, in a way, wiped the slate clean of my beliefs, as much as I could of course, and evaluated them almost as if for the first time. Why did I believe what I believed? What did I even believe; did I know?

I realized I had become this person that I didn’t really like; I apologized to a couple friends for being a bad friend because I was so consumed with being a “good leader” (which I now don’t think is possible, to be a good leader and a bad friend, I mean). I started reading books and listening to podcasts by people who were blacklisted by many pastors I knew. And I had a lot of conversations with Brandon as he was going on a similar journey and was a bit ahead of me (and still is, I feel). My approach was and has always been “whatever is true is true” so if I “get rid of” a belief that’s true, I will find my way back to it after my searching and discovery. But this approach isn’t really championed or even encouraged.

Luckily, I haven’t had too many messages from “concerned” pastors and Christian friends who are worried about me, but maybe this blog post will cause me to receive more. Many Christians get nervous and uncomfortable when someone believes something unorthodox; I’ll admit I did. I’ve been there on the other side feeling like I’m watching someone make bad decisions, changing their beliefs, but my sadness was coated in a thick layer condescension. I had it all figured out until I didn’t. I was told that I needed to make my faith my own, but when I actually did that I was met with a lot of “Well, not like that.” I was told that I needed to make my faith my own, but what that meant was to end up at the same conclusions as my pastors and youth pastors did and have the same beliefs as everyone else in church. And surprisingly, my rule-following, line-toeing self wasn’t having it.

I had been on this journey and had uncovered so many new, beautiful, healthy, and healing things. Sure, there were still some things I believed that were the same as before, but I also believed some different things as well. And I’d discovered so much about myself in the process. I realized I was acting; I was who I thought I was supposed to be, playing a role, and I hadn’t even known I wasn’t actually that person. I’m way more introverted than I thought. I’m compassionate and I feel things deeply, so many things. I love to read. I enjoy intellectual, philosophical, and theological conversations. I’m really into the news. And I’m better at self-care now. I’m still a perfectionist. I’m still funny; I still love to laugh. I’m still me. But I’m a me-er me.

I definitely don’t write all of this to say that I’ve gone on this journey of deconstructing and reconstructing my faith and now I have everything all figured out. This isn’t about right and wrong beliefs or who’s in and who’s out; it’s not about keeping score at all. I also don’t write all of this to place blame. I have taken time to heal, forgive, grow, and discover. And I’ve come to realize that the disfunction I’ve experienced is indicative of Western Church culture, especially in the U.S.; the more I share my story, the more I find that others have similar experiences. I write this to say I’m in a healthier (for me) place than I was 5 years ago. I’m an adult and have a pretty solid intuition. I’ve learned to listen to myself and trust myself. I’ve been through hard things, but they’ve helped shape me like the Colorado River shaped the Grand Canyon. It was a process that was difficult and took time, but the results are beautiful.

Mary Oliver wrote in her poem “The Uses of Sorrow”:

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.

This has been the story of one of my boxes of darkness, which I’ve come to see as a gift. I’ve come to know disappointment, suffering, grief, and all shades of darkness are parts of life. We are all on our own journeys. We all have boxes of darkness, some we’ve been given and some we’ve found on our own. I think we should allow people to go on their own journey, to be in process as we all are, without judgment.

We might not understand or agree, but we can still support and love one another along the way. And if big feelings come up about someone else’s journey, may we stop and ask ourselves why before chastising them, questioning their actions, or sending a condescending message. May we remember that the darkness we see in our own life and the “darkness” we perceive in someone else’s life are gifts. Without them we would not be the people we are.

- Amanda

[connectionqc]

Taking An Honest Look

If you know me at all, you know I am vocal about how I find many aspects of church culture to be unhealthy and toxic. Naturally, in response, I get a number of messages from other pastors. I am not surprised by the fact that they message me, nor am I surprised by the nature of their messages. What I’ve come to realize, however, is that their responses are actually perfect examples of the toxic behavior I’m tend to criticize. Let me give you two examples of what I often hear:

1. “Oh you are just speaking from a place of hurt. Once you get over that hurt--once you experience healing--you’ll stop criticizing.”

I definitely won’t deny that I was hurt by the church. And I definitely won’t deny that I am still working through the pain. Honestly I think it’ll be a lifelong process to work through how I was hurt, but this response is the exact kind of behavior that caused the hurt in the first place. There are two things happening in this response.

First and foremost, this response is entirely devoid of empathy. Imagine someone cuts you with a knife, and you rightfully got angry at that person, and someone said to you, “Once you stop bleeding you won’t be so angry at them anymore. Once that wound heals, you’ll be in a better place.” Maybe that is true, but in the meantime can you maybe help me stop the bleeding?

Second, comments like these send the message of, “your reaction isn’t justified.” It is a form of gaslighting. Let’s say, for example, a woman is in a relationship with an abusive man and she rightfully decides to break things off with her dumpster fire of a boyfriend. Then, let’s say she talks to her friend who is interested in dating her now ex-boyfriend. Wouldn’t she be justified to warn her friend? Wouldn’t she say, “Hey this guy is abusive, stay away from him.” Imagine saying to that woman, “Oh you’re just hurt. Once you’re healed, you will tell your friend to go ahead and date your abusive ex-boyfriend.”

Here is the ugly truth: many pastors would rather place the blame on the person who is hurt instead of apologizing and trying to mend the wound.

2. “That is no way to treat the bride of Christ. You shouldn’t be saying those things.”

Unhelpful and overly spiritualized language aside, this is a very one-sided way to look at the situation. I always find comments like these interesting; they are worried about my comment making the church look bad, but they aren’t worried about the toxic behavior within the church making the church look bad. It is easy to get defensive, but it is hard to take stock on your culture and consider that it might be unhealthy.

Here is the ugly truth: many pastors would rather defend a broken, toxic system--a system they are a large part of--than take an honest look at the system to see what toxic behaviors might need to be addressed.

---

The church as we know it is dying, there is no denying that. I don’t claim to have the answers, but I think one place to start is to empathetically listen to the stories of people who have left the church. I think another good place to start is to stand up for those who have been hurt by a system designed to help them.

I know these pastors don’t mean to make matters worse. I know the pastors who message me mean well, but I wish they would realize there are probably people who attend their church who feel exactly the same way as I do--but they are afraid to say anything because they know what the response will be.

For every email I get from an angry pastor who is out to “correct” me, I get ten more emails from people saying, “Thanks for speaking out, I had a terrible experience with the church too. Thank you for trying to make church culture more healthy.”

[connectionqc]

Why Gather Regularly?

Have you ever considered how weird it is that some people spend one hour a week pretending to be someone they aren’t, to gain acceptance from people they don’t like, while doing something they find boring? That is the story for many churchgoers, and honestly, it was my story up until a few years ago.

Last year, as a group, we did a lot of deconstructing at Connection. This deconstruction led us to ask many questions, for example:

The word ecclesia, the Greek word for church, is only mentioned a few times in the New Testament, so why is there so much focus on the church in modern day Christianity? 

Is it really in the Bible that we must sing one song, have a greeting, sing two fast songs, one slow song, have a 10 minute tithing sermon, and so on? Where did our model of church come from?

How often must you attend church in order to be saved? Can it be zero times a year? (Not to mention all the question around what it means to be saved!)

Last year allowed many of us space to closely examine our motives for attending church. Some of us realized we attended out of a sense of duty or obligation; it is just what good Christians do. Others realized they attended in order to escape God’s wrath. Some of us attended so we felt better about ourselves—the classic, “Well I was a jerk to my spouse but at least I went to church this week.”

All of these questions, all of this examination, and all of this deconstruction brought us to our discussion for the first four Sundays of 2019: Why gather regularly? Time and time again, the overwhelming response was simply:

“I attend Connection regularly to not feel so alone.”

People also said that gathering regularly:

centers us and affirms who we know ourselves to be and our purpose in the world; 

makes room for us to hear different opinions; 

allows us time to slow down and pause, and to make space for spiritual discussions; 

to hear what Jesus and other spiritual teachers had to say about various topics; and

de-centers us, pushing us to consider the purpose of our beliefs/non-beliefs.

I must say, those are some fantastic reasons to gather! I think one of the healthiest things we can do is look at all of the weekly/monthly engagements we have in our lives and ask ourselves, “Is this life giving?” (Or to borrow from Marie Kondo, does this spark joy?) Sometimes, attending church does NOT spark joy, and that is okay. There are seasons—sometimes very long seasons, like the rest of your life—when attending church might actually be bad for your spiritual health and that is okay.

Isolating yourself for long periods of time is usually unhealthy, so please don’t hear me recommending that. However, finding yourself in a regular community that affirms you can happen outside of a traditional church. Taking part in a regular gathering that allows you time to slow down and pause can happen at through yoga. Spending time reflecting on your faith can happen over dinner with friends.

The best part about taking the first month of 2019 to consider “Why gather?” is that, as a pastor, I needed to ask myself those questions too. 

Honestly, I have to ask myself that question often. Spending these four weeks examining my motives for gathering regularly on Sundays has been very helpful to me. It is a blessing and a curse, but I am flat-out terrible when it comes to faking that I enjoy something. (Ask Amanda about my opinions on some of her TV shows.) Because I can’t fake it, is important for me to find meaning in our gatherings, otherwise it would be very exhausting for me every week. It wouldn’t be life-giving. (It wouldn’t spark joy!)

That being said, I think it might be helpful for us to examine our gatherings even further. This post will be the first of many (and eventually each one will be turned into a short video) where I slowly go through each element of our liturgy—thinking through exactly why we do what we do, and how it can be meaningful. 

I am trusting that together we can build an authentic community that is meaningful and life-giving. I’m looking forward to the journey!

-Brandon