My friend Brooke hasn’t regularly attended church for three years. Growing up, church was not a safe place for her. Nobody seemed to care that much about her wellbeing until it was time for the annual communion ceremony.
Then she would be approached by her pastors with concern about her dress or the style of head covering she wore. She could be dealing with suicidal thoughts and her family relationships could be falling apart, but they didn’t seem to care about any of that. They just wanted to make sure she didn’t show too much form when she walked.
*Author’s Note: This is an excerpt of a larger piece of work I’m currently working on called, “Unfolding Faith.” There is more to come. Names have been changed for privacy. Below outlines the work as currently published:
Unfolding Faith
Ty grew up on the mission field. His family spent lots of time with the local people. Unfortunately, others within the mission agency got jealous and began angling to get them removed from the field. His teenage years were fraught with rivalry and confusion. To this day, Ty has little interest in mission work and finds it difficult to even be interested in church.
If I had a dollar for every story like this, I could give this book away for free. So many people have been hurt by the church—so many of them friends of mine.
This could be me. I remember talking with a friend once and he commented on how he hasn’t had the negative experiences with church that I’ve had. It took be aback because I hadn’t really thought of myself as having negative church experiences. I have many fond memories of church growing up. But the reality is, now that I’m in my thirties and a part of a church leadership team myself, I can identify a number of times as I look back on my life when it seemed as though church didn’t work. I could have walked away, but didn’t.
And I’m not entirely sure why.
A Heart for Reconstruction
Early on in my childhood, I developed a significant temper. Our family homeschooled and one time my older sister was helping me with English, but I got so frustrated and upset that I pulled her hair. Another time, in my rage I punched a hole through my bedroom door. This kind of anger and outrage had set in early on in my life, and my parents knew something wasn’t right. So, one day we drove to some friend’s house. They were longtime family friends, and the wife was a child psychologist. Dad and Mom felt desperate.
I remember going to their house as a family and then I remember the wife taking just me to another house where we spent the afternoon together. I could tell this all had to do with me, but I was young enough at the time that I did not really feel negative or positive emotions about it. All I knew is that I got to go see a cool house with this lady—all by myself.
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The house had animal skins all over the place. I saw a moose bust with a full rack of antlers and a bear-skin rug bigger than any rug I had ever seen. A polar bear skin hung on the wall and several white-tail deer antlers. The house had all kinds of animals represented.
After we spent time looking at the animals, we sat down at a small table with paper and crayons. She told me to draw. While I drew, she asked me questions. I don’t remember much from our conversation, but I remember that at some point I drew a picture of a church with stained-glass windows. She said it looked beautiful. After we looked at it awhile, she asked what I would do if this church burned down.
“I would rebuild it,” I told her.
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