What do you do when the church that once felt like home now feels strangely unfamiliar? When what seemed before a loving place now is hostile, petty and narrow, do you smile and bite your tongue, or – like Abraham, led by God – do you embark on a trek to an unknown land, leaving behind all you’ve ever known?
In Search for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (Nelson, 2015), Held Evans chronicles her own personal story of disillusionment, quitting the Evangelical church tradition of her youth and setting off through a spiritual wilderness in search of a new church home. Raised in a Bible church in Dayton, Tennessee – site of the infamous “Scopes Monkey Trial” – she presents snapshots of her upbringing, the certainty of faith instilled in her and other children through Sunday School, Bible camps, and youth groups. Only grown and married does she exit the church of her youth and begin deconstructing her faith, accompanied by her husband, Dan. While gaining an online audience as a rising faith blogger and author, creating a space where questions and doubt were welcome, her connection to any church weakened. She wryly observes:
“Having failed to locate the First Post-Evangelical Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Deconstruction, we settled into something of a church-hopping rhythm wherein we visited more liturgical churches on holy days and more familiar, evangelical churches the rest of the time…and by the rest of the time, I mean maybe once a month. We weren’t exactly regulars. It occurred to me one morning as we snuck out of yet another service to avoid yet another awkward coffee hour that somehow, after all those years on fire for God, I’d become a back-row girl. I’d become the type of person for whom I’d prayed for revival. Only now I wasn’t sure I believed in revival anymore (p. 88).”
Spoiler alert: Rachel and Dan eventually rekindle their faith and join the Episcopal Church (USA), finding what in their eyes was far from a perfect church yet a better one, rich in liturgy and inclusive of the marginalized. They had found a new church home.
Chapter 15 (“Epic Fail”) especially spoke to me. As a young pastor in the Kansas City area, every pastor stood one-by-one before the annual District Assembly and summarized how things had gone the year before. Delegates followed along in a book containing all the statistics for each local church. I viscerally recall the shame I felt that year standing before the Assembly, since we had nothing impressive to show and we’d paid only a small portion of our budget for the district and missionaries. (Note: Pastors are no longer required to give a verbal report, a less shame-based way of proceeding). With that in-mind, Held Evans’ recounting of the 2011 Epic Fail Pastors Conference resonated. I felt an odd sense of comfort as I read the stories of other pastors of varied denominations or none, who – by human standards – horribly bombed. Yet God doesn’t count success in the same way we do. God only demands faithfulness. Thanks, Rachel, for reminding me of that.
Searching for Sunday is not your book if you already have it all figured out. But if you’re questioning your faith and have soured on the church, pick it up. It may just be what the Lord uses to help you find a new beginning.
Gregory Crofford 