Today, I met a couple of people from my old Church, and they asked me where I went now. I lied, saying me and my husband occasionally visited X Church, but we often weren't well enough. I had to say that, to satisfy them. So they didn't feel like they had a rescue mission on their hands to bring me back from the "dark side".
I already have people in my life who think I have fallen astray because I no longer attend Church - if anything, I have a better relationship with God than ever.
Up to here, I have used the word Church to refer to that building at the end of the road where Christians gather. That is merely a Church building.
Real Church? Where two or more people are gathered in God's name. That's me and my husband, that's our marriage.
Church is there to bring Christians together, to outreach to the world. Church is there to encourage, uplift and inspire. To worship together. Church is there to teach. Church is there for debates, and to help those in need. And yet, I have struggled to find that in a Church building - I have found that in the people around me.
In a Church building I feel hurt, I feel pain. In a Church building I feel lonely and out of place. I am misunderstood and neglected. I feel uncomfortable.
I have found Church in my marriage. I find Church in my everyday life. Not just something that happens on a Sunday. And I have found it at a level which works with my health. Yes, me and my husband aren't well enough to attend a Church. After our last visit there I nearly had to take my husband to A&E as the sitting up made his back so bad. [Ironically the service that day had been reaching out to people in need in the community. Obviously, because we had pushed ourselves to attend the service, we can't have been in need.]
The Church building lacks debate. It festers indoctrination, bringing a generation up with beliefs they don't understand.
Breaking free has allowed me to think for myself, make my own decisions on right and wrong and be responsible for my own beliefs. I have found out so many things that I have been told are in fact merely tradition, and they have no mention in the Bible.
The Bible! Christians think that stepping away from the Church building equates to stepping away from the Bible, worship, prayer… Not for everyone. My husband and I read the Bible. We pray. Together and on our own. And worship, man, worship is every moment of our lives! Worship is waking up and knowing that whether or not I can move from bed doesn't matter, because God is amazing and has given me this day and this life. Wow?!
Attending Church every week won't help me bring anyone I know to God. But loving every single person I meet might make a small difference in this world. Stepping away from Church has enabled me to have a relationship with Jesus rather than being a Christian.
My husband and I serve each other, as partners and through love. We may not be helping the community, but without each other's support we would need carers. We encourage each other to pray, to love, to worship and to read. We debate, oh how we debate. We challenge each other's upbringings and beliefs with our own, and with other peoples. We open our minds to see things from other angles, and we accept what the Church struggles to: the disabled, the depressed…
I may not attend a Church building, but my relationship with God? Amazing. When my husband and I had no where else to go, we found our own Church. Just because it's just the two of us, and just because we don't have a spire, does that make it any less important than the one at the end of the road?
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