Finding Jesus and the Church in a time of farewells
Well, our family is again without a church home. We recently left a community we’d come to love with heavy hearts, but not broken ones. I suppose going through something similar to this once before has a silver lining. Say what you want about all us folks who have church hurt, but we can smell institutional rot and abuse from miles away. Not a bad skill to have these days.
There wasn’t a single reason for our departure. It boils down to a series of unaddressed and entrenched cultural problems in the church compounding into each other. There were many muffled explosions: verbal abuse and a failure to listen by some elders against other leaders behind closed doors, followed by a sustained and mostly quiet exodus of staff. Slow disintegration as some of the past and present elders refused to repent of their poor behavior and incompetence, with members trickling out the doors for months and taking most of the ethnic, theological, and cultural diversity with them. Apocalypse as these underlying issues were unveiled more fully when news broke that the controversial former senior pastor had substance abuse issues and his wife was physically abusing their children. It’s likely that at least a few past and present elders had some knowledge of the darkness and chose to cover that up, too.
I’ve previously covered poor cultural conditions in the American church world so won’t be beating that dead horse. These kinds of experiences are a dime a dozen in churches today. I’m not posting a tell-all, but I do want to reflect on some new things I learned as this season comes to a close.
Lessons learned about working for change, and leaving better
The last time our family left a church it was by virtue of survival. There was a campaign of psychological warfare against me in particular by several people that we could no longer bear the brunt of. During that dark time I learned something about myself that I really did not like. I had placed more of my faith in that local church’s culture than I had in Jesus, just like most other folks there unknowingly had. It made leaving feel like pouring salt into an open wound. There wasn’t a good way to leave because of the nature of the situation, just bad and less bad options.
I’ve since done a lot of work in this area. It’s a mistake I never want to make again (don’t worry, I still have plenty of other flaws). These last several months were the first time my progress was tested. I learned some new and interesting things in this time.
First, I’ve underestimated how much of a gift it is to be able to make a clear distinction between Jesus and the local church. It certainly helps in not taking too personally being lied to, misled, or having your intentions and views misrepresented (all of which happened), but it can also provide a lot of extra time to figure things out. You can see problems sooner and get to their root causes faster. It’s easier to discern fact from fiction. You know more of the kinds of questions you need to be asking and who you should be addressing them to. It feels more natural to find and work alongside potential allies. It just makes everything…easier and less stressful.
Second, I had a much better sense of what was expected of me as a follower of Christ. I have a better understanding of how Jesus worked for change and who he worked with: victims (Matthew 5:11-12), those with less of a voice or who felt they didn’t have one (John 4:1-42), and people who were willing to roll up their sleeves and do the right thing (Mark 14:3-9). I spent nine months working with people who were hurt and being silenced, chasing down root causes of specific conflicts, and building and joining small coalitions of leaders and members to pursue tangible change. We focused mostly on exhibiting healthier ways to embody our faith. I made real friends along the way —lifelong friends— some of the best men and women I’ve ever met. They made the struggle worth it. The Church was still present in a local church that was failing.
Sadly, no one has been able to get the more malign aspects of the broken church culture under control. People we love had been and were being hurt and neglected. Like hundreds of folks before us, we eventually realized that our continued presence would only validate the injustice and incompetence we sought to address. Leaving became the only real choice we had left.
And that’s the third thing I think I learned from this season: how to leave well. Most folks who leave a church seem to do so quietly, often never having made a sustained effort to fix something. That may be their best option depending on the circumstances, but when that happens enough times those who stay start to feel frustrated and anxious. They can sense there are problems but can’t pin down what they are because the folks who left never raised their hand to explain. We left openly and transparently. Based on the number of thank you messages we’re getting from folks who are still there, I feel good about our decision to do so.
There’s understandably a lot of talk these days about how to leave a church. Most all of it is centered around those final moments: if you should tell people, how to go about that, etc. Those things are certainly important, but the Scriptures hold a lot of wisdom that point to leaving being more of a process than a decision. We’re called to try to repair relationships (Matthew 5:23-24). We’re called to try to make peace when there is conflict (Matthew 5:9). We’re called to try to do better and call others to do the same (2 Peter 1:3-8). With some obvious exceptions, such as when issues of physical safety are involved, leaving a church without doing these things isn’t leaving. It’s bailing.
We did our part to try to fix things. For whatever reason it was not enough. We were still able to help people in real ways though, and they helped us. Thanks to them we left with a clean conscience. Sad, but no anger. We followed Jesus as best we could and now rest in the peace that comes with it.
The last time we left a local church we couldn't see Jesus or his Church. This time, we see Jesus and his people everywhere.
Closing Thoughts
I’ve thought a lot this year about what a strange time it is to be a Christian living in the American South. There’s so much in flux here.
Institutionalized American conservative Christian culture is either in broad decline or being absorbed into neo-fundamentalism. Desperation abounds in both camps and it shows, often loudly and destructively in both word and deed. Sincere Christians of all ages and stripes are just as likely to walk away from a church because of an older generation of leaders’ utter incompetence as they are over theological and cultural differences. More and more folks my age and younger are moving away from the white cultural Jesus we had drilled into our heads and toward a more holistic view of our Savior. Sadly, there aren’t too many churches that seem capable of truly embracing us.
What a mess.
I used to think what a mess in a depressed sort of way, but now I do so with a slightly saddened laugh. Perhaps that’s little more than an internal mechanism to help keep myself from losing my mind. But it’s a lot more than that. I think at some point one has to laugh in this way, because it acknowledges the truth that there is just as much openly-embraced insanity in this moment as there is the death and destruction stemming from it. Like doing church and faith the exact same ways we’ve been doing it the last several decades is magically going to produce better results now. History tells us it won’t, yet many will try anyways. Something good will eventually emerge from these dark times, but God is still pruning out the diseased branches from His Church. Apparently there’s a lot of them.
What a mess, in depression. What a mess, in sad laughter. What a mess…
I can’t say for sure what the next iteration of what a mess looks like for me, but the hopeful trajectory I’ve been on these last several months will continue despite this setback. As much of the broader church culture around us collapses under the weight of its own decadence, there is joy and hope to be found in following Jesus through the wastelands of American Christendom. Because true faith is a life of adventure. Adventures zig and zag. They’ll carry you away to new places, dark and bright. They have highs and lows, but such an embodied faith —as chaotic as it can be— is far superior to embracing the death that comes with a stale one, in which we sing “hallelujah” to a God who is further down the road and looking back over his shoulder, asking why we refuse to follow Him.
What a mess, indeed.
If you’re a member of Fellowship Memphis and want to know the detailed reasons for our departure, feel free to reach out and ask to see our resignation letter to the elders. You can call or text, email me at markchristopherhackett@gmail.com, or hit me up social. Don’t be a stranger. Love y’all.
I explore faith and American church culture from Memphis, TN. Never miss an article by signing up for my free newsletter or becoming a member to keep this site free and open to all. You can also subscribe to the podcast.
