What if you don't like your church anymore?

 Touchy subject, right? But seriously, what if you don't like your church? What if you don't like your pastor? What if everything changed and it feels new and scary? What if someone, even the pastor, is actually doing something illegal? 

Been there? I have. On all counts. Multiple times. Multiple places. Thankfully, not usually all at the same time. 

Is this just a "church" issue, as some would say? Hardly. This is the brokenness of humans and sin. It's everywhere, but at the end of the day, you still have to act, right? 

Yes and no.

I have been hearing church complaints for awhile now, in various places and from various people. They seem to follow a few general themes...homilies, music, accents, etc. It's tough right now and the issues are complex. I would like to share one particular complaint though, that seems the most general one at present. It fits in perfectly with one of the mass readings from this past week and it has touched my own life, as I will share later in this post. It addresses the idea of being fed spiritually, and specifically, of the desire to still be spoon fed. For example, I know it can be very hard for parents of small children to try to manage small children in a pew and navigate mass changes, a difficult accent in the homilist, etc. There can be a desire to simply be spoon fed, so parents feel like they receive something from the mass that day.

On some level, I totally get it. My kids were little once, too, and one of mine has the energy of ten kids times a bazillion. I really, deeply understand. The struggle is real, and to some extent I am still in the trenches with younger parents, too. 

While there are always ways that pastors and deacons can develop their homilies and the church can make changes, might I share a few thoughts to consider in prayer? It seems a hot topic at the moment, across the board. 

Firstly, have you prayed for your pastor today? Have you asked him specifically how you can pray for him, and then maybe even follow up later to check on how he's doing? They are going through a lot, too. Often more than we realize. We see them in their church setting, serving others and getting things done, but at the end of the day, they have lives and struggles of their own. They need our love and support, too. Even if prayer does not immediately change the situation, it changes us. God helps us to find light regarding how best to move forward lovingly, and sometimes that answer is simply patience to see what we can learn from a situation.

Have you started with a simple question, assuming good intentions, or have you just unloaded in statements or complaints on whoever in the staff you are contacting? It can make a difference in the tone and willingness of the other person to engage in dialogue.

How long have these problems been going on? Two months? Six months? A year? Two years? When there have been major changes, it generally takes awhile to let the dust settle and assess how best to move forward, but if it's a year or more later, then further action may be necessary. Obviously, if something illegal is going on or suspected, that requires immediate action. The vast majority of things are not this immediate though.

What if the homilist (preacher, priest or deacon) has a deep accent from an unfamiliar language? Are they your only homilist/preacher or is there a deacon or another priest that shares the load? Sometimes a person can desire to run one homilist out of a parish that they only hear once or twice a month, versus situations where they only hear that one person every single day. Is this homilist trying to address their accent issues or are they being stubborn and only focusing on one particular group who shares their native tongue? At the risk of sounding annoying, have you prayed for understanding, to be able to understand what God wants you to learn today? The Holy Spirit speaks directly to our hearts in a language we can understand and He will not let us miss something truly necessary for our souls. 

How could grief be fitting into the picture? Grief can be profound and those feelings are real and they deeply matter. Our culture doesn't allow time for grief, yet we grieve all kinds of things, even pastoral changes. We can have the human tendency to judge the merits of new people by comparing them to what we knew before and risk missing out on the incredible gifts of the new people in our lives because we haven't given ourselves time and space yet to acknowledge the profound loss of what came before and the idea that we weren't ready to let it go yet. Life doesn't look like what we expected it to be just yet, and we can temporarily rebel out of the anger of our grief before taking time to process our emotions and discern what is truly necessary change versus what is born of our own desires that battle within us. Then, we can discern how to address change in love, even when it's hard.

Lastly, the music...this is a biggie, I know, but I have a few thoughts on this one, too. Is it possible that this is personal preference or that it is truly something disruptive to the mass? This issue, like others, sits on a spectrum. If someone literally can't play their instrument and it is completely disrupting the mass and responses as a result, that can't be left on the backburner for long. Half a congregation can disappear, no doubt. On the other end of the spectrum, we are all the Body of Christ, and it takes some growth and working together on everyone's part to find a happy middle ground. 

I found myself experiencing some of these same frustrations this morning while in daily mass, from the other side things. There was a young mom with two little ones in the pew in front of me. The kiddos literally talked, at loud volume, the entire mass. It was pretty frustrating, if I'm fully frank. It was very hard to hear anything, and just like the parents I have spoken to that complain of priestly accents, I wondered a brief moment why I had attended that day. We were all feeling the same pain, though differently. I remembered the days of pacing with my babies in the narthex, trying in vain to listen to the homily over the speakers, if they even remembered to turn them on. For a moment, part of me wanted to suggest she do the same. Through God's grace, I managed to pray my way through it and to hear what I needed to from the various parts of the mass. 

At the end of it, the younger daughter came up to the seat in front of me and just watched me. We sat looking at each other a moment and she suddenly waved. I gave a quick wave and a smile back and was rewarded with the most beautiful big smile. Any tiny remnant of irritation was gone in that instant. She kept returning to that same spot, just to see if I would still smile at her. Her mother was beaming with love and pride at her adorable child, and we all parted a little stronger than before. As I was packing up to leave, I realized I had a children's book in my bag that I could have offered to the mom as she tried to juggle both kids fussing at once. I had forgotten all about that book. It was a children's bible story. It took some time for me to pray through my frustrations, but in the end, I was rewarded with a glimpse of God within that small child. 

Change is really hard. Sometimes, there are ongoing frustrations within our churches and communities. We can even feel a little (or a lot) abandoned by our parish or by God. We can wonder why things feel rough and not rosy and comfortable, as we have been accustomed to experiencing. It can feel rough to feel the sweetness of our early faith years suddenly drained out of us. Our faith life can even feel dry or non-existent at times. And yet, we will eventually be called to move beyond the comfort of being spoon fed to grow deeper roots in our faith, not because God enjoys watching any of us suffer, but in order to provide us food that truly lasts and to give us freedom to fully be who He made us to be, to look to Him first for all of our needs and desires. The Apostle Paul commented on this very thing.

"And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, 'I belong to Paul,' and another, 'I belong to Apollos,' are you not merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I plant, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building." - 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 NRSVCEⁱ

The desire to be spoon fed is a very natural one. It is the initial phase of a loving relationship between parent and child, in which we learn to trust and to know that we are loved. It is the way we initially bond with our parents. That is a very good thing. Then, later on, we are given our first tastes of solid food and we can have various reactions, reactions that all matter very much to our Father, our Dad, in heaven, who delights to watch us grow and walk with us every step of the way. Just like a parent, He watches with love as we experience different tastes and textures. Just as a baby, we may delight, we may grimace or we may just spit it out and cry and turn away, maybe even throwing a tantrum.

Learning to chew solid food takes time and consists of lots of mistakes and messiness. It can feel jarring to us at first, with the strong and different tastes and the fact that we have to learn to handle food ourselves rather than to just sit on our mom or dad's lap and have it all spooned into our mouths. Eventually, we even have to learn to go out and find our own food, to get a job to earn money to pay for our food, to learn to grown it, to learn to follow recipes and to cook it to our liking and to the liking of those for whom we provide. We have to learn to distinguish between healthy food that our body needs versus the junk food that feels so comforting and tasty at first. We can even use this food as a way to bless others, to give to those without financial means right now. We can cook a meal for a new mom, a sick person, to delight a friend, etc. Our finances can even provide food for people on the other side of the world. At the end of the day, we attend church to worship God, to give our whole hearts to Him and to meet Him in each other. 

Yes, we need to be fed, too. We can't give to others if we are spiritually starving, but then sometimes we simply don't like what's for dinner. Through prayer and growth, even through meals we don't personally like, we can learn to tell the difference and to grow in love and virtue. 

How can I pray for you today? Please drop a note in the comments if you'd like. Be assured of my love and prayers always.

Peace be with you.

Photo Credit: Direct Media, stocksnap.io

iNew Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. Bible Gateway, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%203&version=NRSVCE. Accessed 6 September. 2024