Transitions

If you read yesterday's post about the need to intentionally pursue community, you've probably come to a couple of conclusions. One of those is that we are not nor will we be attending church. Since stepping down as pastor from our last church, one of the most popular questions asked of us now is, "Where are you guys going to church?" We usually answer humorously with something like, "The First Church of The Living Room" or "Guthrie Memorial Home Church". I have a some friends who are now pastors without a flock and I have asked them the very same question. They have or currently are experiencing the same situation I now experience - the weird transition from being pastor/leader of a church to a guy who sits in the pew.

It's not an easy transition. I talked to one colleague who spent over a year and a half searching for a new church home went he entered early retirement. He never found one. Nothing ever felt right. Currently he is doing some interim pastor work. I haven't asked him, but I bet he feels the most comfortable he's felt in almost two years.

When I have talked to these other pastors, they all detail similar experiences. Like any other person searching for a church home, they are looking for church where the Holy Spirit is moving, the worship is uplifting and quality, the preaching is solid, and hopefully even a place where they can get involved in ministry. When we first resigned our last post and began searching, we too looked for all these things. The difficulty for us was we felt like after a year or so of healing, we would be starting a new church. We felt awkward searching for a place where we did not feel right about becoming too comfortable because we knew we would be leaving. I'm not saying we had the right perspective, but it's the one we had.

I'm discovering that my transition goes beyond moving from clergy to layperson. I'm undergoing a transition in what I understand church to be. We have faithfully had church services in our home for our family. In fact, we hope to add people to our group and eventually expand into a network of house churches. Those church services looked just like the ones held in all the brick and mortar churches around the country. We had some music, prayed, and expounded on Scripture. Does that make it church? If we did it with one, two, or even three other families, would that have made it church?

I've got some thoughts and opinions, which I'm reserving for the moment. I want to be able to explain them better after they have more time to ruminate. I will share this thought - it's amazing how trapped we allow ourselves to be by forms.

BTW, about the conclusions re: our church attendance. We'll stop by the traditional brick and mortar church on occasion. We're not avoiding church but we are coming to a new understanding of what it is.