Do You Have a Faith?

The title of my book, “Used to Go to Church,” is based on my experience in the field as a first responder chaplain having been dispatched hundreds of times over a span of more than twenty-five years into the realm of people’s worst nightmares.  Those nightmares include the sudden loss of a loved one be it due to a cardiac arrest, accident, suicide, overdose or even homicide.  At some point, after being with the grieving loved ones I will ask, “Do you have a faith?”  I ask because if they do then I can go down that road with the brakes off and pursue the benefit of incorporating their faith into the initial stage of embracing the loss.  I’ve asked that question to the grieving hundreds and hundreds of times.  In those moments I am most interested in what they might believe (or not believe) about God and even more, what they believe about Jesus (if they are of another religion I am still curious as to their beliefs). The reality though has been over all these years when I ask the question the common response is, “Well, we used to go to church.”

Instead of any answer that might relate to belief, I always get an answer that relates to attendance or membership to the institutional church.  Now, in fairness, those in the throughs of grief are less likely to share their deepest thoughts about what they believe related to faith. Some do.  Yet, most everyone I ask about faith first thinks of church attendance to answer a question about what they believe.  Interestingly, most people who claimed they “used to go to church” almost always accepted an offer to prayed for which told me they do in fact have some kind of faith or belief in God.  Those experiences partly inspired me to write my book which delves into the deep questions of faith and belief.  If I were to summarize what I was hearing all those years it is that it appeared to me that many people learned church but Jesus?  Not so much… and “church” did not infuse a deep spiritual connection to God. 

As a child growing up being required to attend church all my childhood years, I clearly recall how, even as a young child, sitting in pews facing forward for an hour, watching the same and predictable boring order of service every week which struck me to be somewhat contrary to how I perceived the nature of God to be.  I wanted God to be exciting, spontaneous, free and fun! I wished God Himself would show up and lead a service each week that would be unpredictable and full of wonderful surprises, instead of the same pastor.   As a child and adolescent, isn’t it interesting that I would have this sense that something was off about experiencing God on Sunday mornings?  Don’t get me wrong, for the most part church people were loving and caring wanting to do good things.  Of course, I had no clue to what church politics where underfoot at the time.  Still, the “true church” which is “the people” were mostly loving even if strapped into pews every Sunday.

Later, as a teenager I abandoned church and became one of those “used to go to church” people myself. It wasn’t God I was abandoning, so I thought.  It was church and religion.  I was a bit of a prodigal in that by the time I entered my early twenties I discovered the path I was on was not a path with purpose and meaning.  I was became interested in knowing whether God really was real.  More importantly, did Jesus rise from the dead?  I mean, who does that?!  For me, going to hell wasn’t even on my radar and played no part in my desire to seek God for “salvation.”  Oh sure, I had some serious misbehaving happening in my life, but it was a deep inner desire to find truth, meaning and purpose that drove me back, not to church, but to God and Jesus.  Hell was (and still is) a quagmire of interpretations, ideas and conjecture that was not relevant in my quest for the truth about Jesus.  Looking back, God did “save” me from my stupidity! Still does.  Sometimes.  When I allow it.

In the summer of 1977 after researching the resurrection for quite some time AND experiencing the love of God through the love of others (the true church) I chose my path while standing the proverbial fork in the road.  Jesus? Or not Jesus?  Now forever or forever nevermore.  Next year will be my fiftieth anniversary of saying to God, “I believe.  I’m yours.  Forever. I promise!”  Believe me, there have been times where I’ve wanted to break that promise and in fact have broken it.  In those moments when doubt and disbelief creep in and linger far too long and I feel like throwing my spiritual hands up in the air and say, “I don’t get it!”  But then those moments lead me back to the embrace of mystery…God as the ultimate mystery in life.  I allow him to be just that…a mystery. 

The other side of that swing of the pendulum of faith and doubt is to have God all tightly packaged up in knowing and certainty with little room for doubt.  I used to live there comfortably.  I am not claiming to be a true mystic.  I wish I were, but I am not disciplined enough to follow that path for more than a day or two sometimes even more than ten minutes. Yet, I’m drawn to the path though tripping and falling.  It might be true that it may be far easier for one to say, “I used to go to church,” rather than “I used to be a mystic.”  I will say, that when I do go to a church service these days, there is little room for mystery.  The worship is sweet.  The message may or may not be relevant.  My latte comforts me.  Mystery?  Unknowing?  Could you imagine if the preacher came to a passage in the message on Sunday where he or she confessed “I don’t know what to make of this” and asked, “Do any of you have a word?” allowing for the church to really be church? Even better, the pastor says, “This doesn’t make sense.  Let’s all take this unknowing home and see if the Spirit can speak to us about this.”  Crazy talk, I know.

I suppose the pastor would likely see the population of the worldwide “used to go to church” people increase if the message wasn’t always tied up in a pretty bow of relevance and application.  We like clarity and doing.  I remember one Sunday morning when I was the pastor and I decided I didn’t want to stand before all these people sitting in chairs facing me so I broke them all into small groups on the spot and directed them to take a passage and go to a place inside or outside the building and talk about it and pray for each other.  I thought it was cool.  So did a lot of others.  But you know how church is.  You really need to please most everyone to keep your job and that move fell well below the required approval rating.  One and done.  Yet, it felt right.  Maybe the most “right” Sunday of all the Sundays before.

I recently read this by written by an anonymous thirteenth century mystic, “No one can fully comprehend the uncreated God with his knowledge: but each one, in a different way, can grasp him fully through love. Truly this is the unending miracle of love: that one loving person, through his love, can embrace God, whose being fills and transcends the entire creation.  And this marvelous work of love goes on forever, for he whom we love is eternal.”   

Even though I came to believe fully that Jesus rose from the dead in 1977, it was love that brought me home God.  Unless we are loved by God and so loved that we reciprocate that love to one another, there is no church.  Yes?