The Umbrella: Engaging "Leaving Church" From the Grassroots

I recently facilitated a "Becoming a Younger Adult" workshop at a Christian youth camp. The conversations I had after led me to writing this post to share a few thoughts.

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” - Matthew 7:24-27


Ten years ago, when I was about to move halfway around the world, my youth group got me an interesting gift. It was an umbrella that had been signed by the people in that youth group that I loved dearly.

That umbrella has lived in the storage closet in my parents' home for the last ten years. Every once in a while, I would think about it, but not once did I think about taking it with me when I left my parents' home again after a visit.

I never realised it, but that umbrella was to become a symbol of what that youth group meant to me. Having grown up in a comfortable home and having attended church regularly, life was predictable and having a faith system was easy. And everyday, I woke up knowing what to expect. I would take a shower, sit down at breakfast, then hop on the bus and go to school. In many ways, life was as if I had an umbrella that would protect me rain or shine. The people who had signed that umbrella were, for me, symbols of constants.


Last December when I was back in my parents' home, I dug it out and used it on one of those days when it was pouring down rain. Mum had kept it tucked away and not let anyone use it because she knew I was sentimental about things like that. I found myself twirling the umbrella around and around as I walked to the train station, looking at all the notes and signatures on it. There was one in particular, signed by one of my youth leaders that said, "We will be waiting for you to come back." 

Half of those people were no longer a part of our church. A few of them had found other church homes to plug into, and I was truly happy for them. Some of them I don't hear from anymore. Of the two youth leaders that I had, one no longer attended church at all, and the other did so half-heartedly.

But they said on the umbrella they would be waiting for me to come back... Sigh.


As I continued reading the notes on the umbrella, I didn't realise that my feet were getting wet and muddy because I wasn't watching where I was going and had been splashing in puddles. I began to realise a lot of the frustrations I had about the church political mess I had found myself entangled with in the recent years might have been exactly because I had focused too much on the signatures on the umbrella.

Even if I were to have gone back, youth group isn't the same anymore. Church isn't the same anymore. And if I was honest, I'm not the same anymore either. How can you be the same when you spent seven years at a Christian university, watching your friends one by one fall away from the regular, predictable routine of going to church every Sunday? To be fair, we were in Christian community all the time, and had to be at chapel services twice a week, so was Sunday church really necessary? How can you be the same when, in those seven years at a Christian university, you had spent more than half of that time uncovering the brokenness and inadequacies of the institution, and the humanity and fallibility of her leaders?

I began to realise the certainty of that umbrella and that youth group was never going to be enough to protect me from the storms of life. The truth is, no physical thing would ever be able to provide enough protection from the storms unless I stayed indoors all day--but what would be the meaning of life if I only did that?

What I also had to realise was that the storms of life cannot hurt me. Neither do they change who I am. Because my foundation has been built on solid rock--rock that is more solid than an umbrella with signatures of people whom I once sojourned with. But maybe the problem was that I needed help remembering what my foundation was built on.

And so I stumbled upon mentors who refused to let me walk away. And friends who kept me accountable. Sabbaths I had to learn to take to shift my perspective back to the things that matter. Walks I had to take to remind me to breathe and there's a Greater Being holding things together.


Well, I thought it was finally time to take the umbrella with me this last time that I left my parents' home. If nothing else, it would serve as an illustration at the workshop I was facilitating. What ended up happening was that the umbrella never made it to Auckland with me. I was walking out the main doors at the Auckland airport when I realised I had left the umbrella behind. I rang the luggage office every day at least twice before I left the country again, and would get the same message that they would call me if they found it.

Truth be told, I wasn't entirely fussed that it got left behind either, because it almost made for a better story to tell.

By no means am I suggesting that youth group or church community is a bad thing that should be left behind. I'm merely suggesting that for some of us, just going to church on Sundays isn't enough. We need rhythm markers along the week to remind us of the things that really matter when it all hits the fan again.


So this: what are your rhythm markers? What serves as reminders for you to remember where to keep your focus on?

"Rhythmus" Part 1

The first time it happened, we were in Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche. Or what became affectionately known as "The Blue Church". It was my first week in Berlin. Never mind that I had had a year of university level German by then; if not for the undergraduate class where four of our assignments involved studying and creating a liturgical order of worship, I would not have had a clue about what was going on.

That was, until we got to "Das Vater unser Gebet". I still only understood about 5% of what was going on, but I gathered something about Father and praying. And then the chorus of German voices saying the words together. Something stirred in my heart as I simply read the text from the pages along with the other voices. I didn't know word for word what I was saying, but I knew in English I was saying, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name..."

It occurred to me for the first time that even before I was challenged to memorise the words of the Lord's Prayer as a primary school kid, people all around the world had been reciting the same words together. I was merely one of the voices joining in this familiar rhythm.

And then it happened again this weekend. The Pasifika festival, a celebration of Pacific Island nations, was on this weekend, and for the first time this year, there was also a unity worship service on Sunday morning. Naturally, I was there.

Never mind that we're in the middle of a draught and it was sweltering hot in the park that morning. I'm usually pretty skeptical about unity services because they can be very well-intentioned but not always well-planned. It was one of the most beautiful services I've been to in a while.

And then it happened, right in the middle of a congregational prayer in Samoan. The voice invited the Church to join in with The Lord's Prayer in our mother tongues. The chorus of voices in all the different Island languages, and I in my lame English (I know, I know... It's been on my bucket list to learn it in at least Mandarin and German, but I haven't gotten there yet), saying together, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name..."

Except this time, it was even more meaningful for me. I heard my own voice join in the chorus of Island tongues, with friends in Berlin, and the friends in the States who have been journeying with me through this wilderness season of Lent.

To be continued...