I don’t want to go back to the way things were.

I have to tell you something kind of silly. As I am typing, I am wearing my glasses, held onto my face by green cross stitch thread. Can you even picture that? It is definitely a sight to behold. A few weeks ago, as I stretched out on the couch, a very good stretch complete with a stretch squeek from me (every good stretch comes with a noise, its law), I rolled over onto the glasses besides me and snapped both legs off. I had already gotten my free spare so I made my appointment with the ophthalmologist and now am waiting for my upgraded prescription glasses. By updated, I mean really updated, like I am in my forties now and my eye sight is not letting me forget it. Also, my ophthalmologist laughed at my green thread. I refused to let her take a picture to add to her collection of ridiculous rigged glasses.

I have a very good point in sharing with you my green threaded glasses. Stay with me here.

My family has not been to church in what feels like 100 years. 2020 am I right? As a result, a few things have happened in my family. We started studying, really studying the Bible together and we pray together. Being out of the set cultural normal way of “doing” church was probably one of the best things that could have happened to us.

You see, that perfect, pretty packaged way of doing church was doing more damage than it was helping. Here is the formula; service and Sunday school on Sunday, one Bible study gathering on Wednesday. During our years of doing church like this, I have watched my children, week after week run for the parking lot. Week after week, more often than not, Dan and I got into arguments on the way to church. The only feeling we had after church was relief we had that done with so we could go home, eat and take a nap.

I felt like the worse Christian ever. I saw all those happy families week after week, toting the line, wearing their Sunday best, smiling, going along like that was the epitome of a good Christian and it was slowly killing me. Even more sad is I was faking being one of them.

In 2020, having to break out of that, having to find something else as we endured the quarantine and then the ongoing pandemic, Dan and I just struggled with how things should look. He began reading the Bible at bedtime with the kids, all of us on our bed snuggled together. Other times, it was at dinner or on the couch. I doodle, Sarah doodles or fidgets with putty, Collin plays with his toy soldiers or also putty. Dan reads and we talk and ask questions and it isn’t always the same structure or same length or same time or same place. That is what you get when three out of four of your family members have ADHD. Bless Dan’s soul as he manages his circus of wayward monkeys.

We have also connected more with our neighbors. I wouldn’t want to have endured this past year without them. One family in particular has become family to us and guess what. They are atheists. We don’t share the same relationship with God. I will tell you though, I know she was placed right next door to me by God himself. I absolutely love her whole family and consider even her daughters to be my friends, my own mini BFF’s.

Eventually things might start just going back to the way things were for the rest of the world. Dan and I are talking about what that looks like for us.

Who is the better Christian, the one who went to church last Sunday or the one who found a Rick Warren sermon on Youtube? Do you realize, that isn’t even remotely enough information to make that kind of judgement. Are we even supposed to be making that judgement?

Also, Rick Warren’s sermons on Youtube are so great. Check them out.

Back to the glasses. The nice, tidy packaged glasses, the ones with the original legs and the ones that have green thread both work. My glasses still work whether they have those legs or at least until I get the new pair. Dan and I don’t intend to do what we are doing forever. We know having a church to fellowship with as well as some structure is important. We also know that we need to find the balance to lead our children in a way that helps them have a good relationship with the church and God. The number of young adults leaving the church after high school is horrifying. We continue to talk and pray about what that will look like once this dang Covid-19 is behind us whenever that may be.

To sum up, there is no sum up. I don’t have any answers or pretty bows. Finding the way to be involved in the church isn’t about right or wrong. Obviously Sunday church and Wednesday church works for thousands of people each week. I also know that I am not unique. I am pretty sure that if I am struggling under the “norm” of the American church structure then others may as well. Maybe somewhere there is a dialogue going on and someone will have some ideas. This is me telling you that we can’t go back and moving forward means finding a way to exist as members within God’s church, the Church and thrive.