Aotearoa Diaries: Re-imagining Sunday

Growing up in church, one of the markers of being a good Christian was if my friends knew to never invite me to do stuff on Sunday mornings because they would know I would be at church.

That was never a problem for me because I didn't have friends. (I wish I was kidding, but it's true. I didn't really learn social skills until I was in uni and living in a foreign land, and it was sink or swim to find social skills. But that's beside the point.)

After moving to Auckland and working in a church full time, I wrestled long and hard with how "Sunday = church" wasn't a norm for so many who considered themselves Christians. It wasn't necessarily that I had a personal issue with those who didn't show up at church faithfully every Sunday--no, for the most part, I understood where they were coming from.

It was more, how am I supposed to do my job and sustain our programme if we didn't have a faithful attendance?

In the first year after I left my full-time job in a traditional congregation, I convinced myself to take a break from the Sunday routine to allow room for healing. And the struggle was real. I missed having a weekly community, but more importantly, I missed the music and the congregational singing. I plugged myself into a congregation a friend pastored, and tried to find fringe ways to get involved so I could feel like I was still being a good Christian.

Then I began to realise the main reason I was doing that was so that if anyone was to ever doubt if I was being a faithful Christian/pastor, I could have an easy answer: "Hey, I AM going to church. Don't ask further questions about my relationship with God or my ministry life or any of that."

But I was drowning in my own inauthenticity. It wasn't that being in a traditional congregation wasn't fulfilling my spiritual need, or whatever the new-age/millenialist term for that is. It was that I knew in my heart of hearts I was created to imagine a different kind of church for the other misfits like me. But I was too busy covering up my insecurities about looking unChristian to venture into this unknown of Church of the Misfits.

And then I met Stephen, who was at basically the same place where I was with regards to our relationship with the traditional Sunday congregation. And it became slightly easier--and slightly not. Being raised in church meant that we had been brainwashed learnt to believe if we were to take our relationship with each other seriously, we needed to do better about our relationship with Church.

So for a while, we tried Sunday evening church. We found somewhere we liked enough, but the question kept coming back: Is this really where we should be, or are we just feeling guilty about not being at church on Sunday?

There was one particular Sunday evening that became a turning point for me. Some friends whom we hadn't seen in a while were popping in for an afternoon coffee. It got closer and closer to the time we were supposed to leave for church, and Stephen and I started getting a little antsy about how to tell them we had to leave shortly. But something prompted us to wait, so we did. The conversation turned a corner and we found ourselves learning about our friends' thoughts on church and why they were no longer a part of a traditional congregation.

When we eventually pulled into the church parking downtown, we both had the same thought. We may be walking in to the church building ten minutes after the service had started, but it was a no-brainer. That last little bit of conversation over coffee was more Church than either of us had experienced in a while.

I don't know for sure if that was when it started, but it wasn't long before we gave ourselves freedom on the weekends for encounters like that. For a while, we still tried to make sure we made it to Sunday evening service, but more often than not, we would have had friends popping in and out all weekend long. Our kitchen would be a complete mess after brunch and pizzas and chips and hot chocolates and dumplings and nachos and rugby that trying to head out the door for Sunday church just became too hard. And I began to understand at a deeper level why I struggled so much with the Sunday programming when I was full-time at a traditional congregation.

So what is the Church of the Misfits going to look like? We're slowly experimenting with a few ideas. But it probably wouldn't all take place on a Sunday.

Dusting Off The Pages

It's been over a year since my last post here.

It isn't that I haven't wanted or tried to write, but the words that would appear on this screen made me angry with myself whenever I tried. And so I would walk away, make myself a cup of tea, try to start again and just get frustrated.

So a year went by.

In the year that passed, I re-found affirmation and lost faith in myself and my vocation again just as quickly.
I re-found faith in the institution that housed my childhood idealisms and watched that institution shatter all over again.
I re-found hope in community and slowly stepped away as what was real about community slowly shook off my idealisms again

And I sat in silence.
I wanted to speak, but the words would not come.

So a year went by.

In the year that passed, I watched as bombs fell on the just and the unjust.
I read headlines as the issue of homelessness in our city gained increasing awareness.
I watched as voices on both sides of the spectrum of everything that has to do with "equality" or sexism or racism or some other -ism argued their perspectives on what was good for humanity.

And I sat in silence.
I wanted to say Yes, and Amen, but my fear of backlash made me too uneasy.

And so I sat in silence.
And I sat in silence.

So a year went by.

Compassion fatigue had reached a new low.
I had become afraid that even if I were to speak out about something I believed in, someone was going to pick up on that article or that personality or that cause, and point out all its flaws and inadequacies.

And so I sat in silence.
And I sat in silence.

So a year went by.

And I sat in silence for so long that I became ashamed.
Whatever happened to the zeal and passion to change the world that was once burning a holy flame?
When did it die, and how did I not notice it?

And so I sat in silence.
And I hung my head in shame.
And I sat in silence.

So a year went by.

And then I stumbled upon a box of matches the other day.
I put it away in the drawers because it was cluttering up the room.
But I kept going back to the drawer and picking it up.

The problem was, I liked playing with fire way too much to keep the box in the drawer.
And so I picked it up and struck one of the matches.

And I realised my desire to set the world on fire to make change had died
But the spark
The spark would never go away.

And I went and put on another pot of hot chocolate
One cup of hot chocolate at a time.

It isn't that I no longer believe in the power of words.
But it isn't my ikigai to set the world aflame through words alone.

One cup of hot chocolate at a time.
And if that cup of hot chocolate is to mean friendship, then I celebrate.

One cup of hot chocolate at a time.
And if that cup of hot chocolate is to mean solidarity, then I celebrate.

One cup of hot chocolate at a time.
And if that cup of hot chocolate is to mean believing in another's ability to change the world, then I celebrate.

One cup of hot chocolate at a time.
And if that cup of hot chocolate is to mean sitting in silence without it being disconcerting, then I celebrate.

One cup of hot chocolate at a time.

This isn't just the turn of a page, but a whole new book.

One cup of hot chocolate at a time.