A crisis of church

Recently, my church split up in to two services. Great news for them, as it highlights their growth in just over three years of existence.

But they moved my service time. By half an hour.

OK, look, I realize this isn't earth-shattering. But that 30-minute loss meant getting home at 12:30 instead of noon, which meant pulling in at just the same time as my husband was getting off work. I couldn't have lunch ready for him when he walked in the door anymore. I didn't have that 30 minutes after church sitting on the couch, napping lightly, before he got home. I only had 1 1/2 before work instead of 2 hours.

I felt the loss of that half hour deeply, and I resented it.

So I've been hit-and-miss at church since. I've managed to drag myself there about every other week since the switch. The problem is, having church start at 11 meant I never had an "I overslept" excuse like I did sometimes for the 10:30 start. I'm always awake in time to be dressed and out the door by 11. So I would lay in bed, starring at the cat, who I knew was looking at me in judgment, until the clock ticked just past the point that I could still make it if I hustled.

Testify

I'm not going to church tomorrow. I need to, because I have a tithe check to turn in, but I'm not going to. I can't.

It's Family Share Service.

For the uninitiated, that's the service where there's no Sunday school, and all the little kids wiggle next to their parents uncomfortably for an hour and a half. We sing songs that require hand motions. And then instead of a sermon (or, better yet, in addition to the sermon), they pass the mic around the audience and people share what God has done in their life in the past year.

In Pentecostal church, we call this "testifying."

I don't testify. At least, not at church.

The entire concept makes me hugely uncomfortable. Inevitably, there's someone that rambles. Someone that gets the mic and won't let go, who shares something overly personal, or starts preaching a sermon of their own. Our pastor has a really neat way of keeping control of the situation; it's really something to see when he talks someone down from a public-humiliation ledge. But the damage is already done. And, as my brother used to say, those of us who are opposed to public sharing spend the service "counting the bricks;" that is, finding something to focus on instead of listening, because we're so damn uncomfortable.

My church doesn't have any bricks to count, so I spend the service examining the pattern in the ceiling tiles.


I don't testify, because I was taught not to. My family didn't share. Even in the years when we had truly amazing things happen and God reached down into our lives, we kept it to ourselves. Because usually it was associated with something horrible. "God reached down and saved us .... after a suicide attempt. After a divorce. After a death." Yes, it can inspire others. But my mom was very weary of airing her skeletons publicly.  We were private people, and we endured our misery privately.

I've loosened up considerably since. My mom now complains she gets to have no skeletons, as I'm always throwing open closet doors. But I'm still leary of the Testify. It ends up feeling ... forced, and almost as if we're trying to one-up each other on Grace.

I still don't really like to share. It's why I get uncomfortable after we go through rough patches -- why I lose patience quickly when people keep asking me how TJ is managing with his diabetes, or if I'm feeling pregnancy sickness, etc. These are well-intentioned folks, colliding innocently with my inner trauma. Growing up, people knew when something tragic was going on. But when it was over, we put on our brave faces and moved on, Life as Usual. We appreciated those who helped us out in the midst of our struggle, but then we wanted to be left alone.

 We didn't want people to think we were broken, though we so clearly were.

To this day, if someone asks me how I am in the wake of something difficult, I usually respond with, "I'm fine?" It's always a question, with a slightly accusatory tone, as if I have no idea why this person should bother asking me how I'm doing. Clearly I'm OK.

So I'm going to stay home tomorrow. I'm going to take the Communion of the Scrubbing Bubbles and clean my bathroom. I'm going to pack some boxes. I'm going to make my husband lunch.

And quietly, in the space of my head and my home, I'm going to thank God for all He's done for us in the past year. And maybe that will mean taking a minute to embrace my soul and admit that I'm not always OK, but eventually I will be. And it will be through God's grace alone.

That'll be something worth sharing.