Leaving Sunday: Worshipping the Church Organization and Building instead of God

In her memoir leaving church Barbara Brown Taylor wrote that she fell in love with a church building before she ever met the people who worshipped in it

That observation sums up the modern day church. It's about the building and not the people. I hear stories on the news of people in cities right here not having fresh water to drink and fresh foods to eat and then I think I wonder how many church buildings are in that town?

If you go to a lot of churches the building or the acquisition of a building is a primary focus. The people become secondary to this building of a church. I used to hear people say: the building isn't the church. The people are the church. However our lives and the budget did not reflect that. It made the building the focus of the church

I was thankful Ms. Brown Taylor had enough awareness to make that observation because it said SO much

Before she was ordained as an episcopalian priest a bishop said these words to Ms Taylor

“Think before you do this.. Right now you have the broadest ministry imaginable. As a lay person you can serve God no matter what you do for a living and you can reach out to people who will never set food inside a church” (Leaving church)

That's how I feel. I feel that by doing the work I've been called to do out in the real world then I can reach more people and actually do meaningful work. Church has always been such a surface level and shallow experience for me. We always hear a church is a hospital for sick people but In my experience they're only interested in treating the disease and not healing the human. They're afraid to GO DEEP and hear the ugliness and uncomfortable stories that people have inside of them. Out in the real world I've found that people are more open to sharing these experiences.

Contrary to what church people are taught, sharing a belief system is not how people bond. Sharing experiences is how people bond. Perhaps that explains why many churches feel unwelcoming to outsiders and behave as exclusive groups. There is no safe space for people to share their experiences honestly so the shallow bonding that the church facilitates isn't authentic or impactful enough for people to form real bonds.

The strongest bonds seem to be between the people who have been at a church for years so their bond is based on their experience in the church and time.

The Bishop went on to warm ms Taylor brown that once she became a priest that, “every layer of responsibility you add is going to narrow your ministry, so think hard before you choose a smaller box.”

These are such honest and blunt words but hold so much truth. When I began to have reservations about church, one of my main thoughts was about how it really limits the impact one can have. It really narrows the impact one can have in the world and that has never my vision. My vision is to impact as many people as possible whether they agree with everything I believe or not.