Grieving the Death of a Church

The raw nerve endings I feel so intensely during this dying process make sense, given all that we have shared, been, and done together.

By divine design, we were an organism, a living entity that moved in harmony, sensing each other’s needs with a shared, unseen spirit.

This unity, however, did not shield us from the undercurrents of uncertainty and offense that often brew in a close-knit community.

Like a sneaker wave, it comes on shore, snatching peace, unity, and understanding, and leaves in its wake heartache alongside the busted remnants that were once our lifeline.

Miscommunication, misunderstanding, and disagreement led to the inability to patch up the vessel meant to weather the storm.

This sputtering, sinking, dare I say, drowning of something life-giving is severe and raw, akin to losing a limb. And losing a limb is never without cost, the phantom pain, I’m sure, will haunt me for years to come.

After all, we did life together.

We broke bread, gluten-free and regular, and allowed sacred words and others, not so sacred, to fall before us. We sat in spaces where questions lingered long, and answers weren’t always necessary.

Tables filled with the Holy Book and holy hands were surrounded on Sundays and several days in between.

We battled the unseen here; words lifted, heads bowed, and hands raised toward the only One who could bear the burdens of our hearts.

Tissues and tears were abundant, oh, so many tears.

My eyes betrayed me more than once when I shared hard things; they leaked too often and made me feel weak.

But somehow, I found what I had longed for, unashamed permission to cry in front of others.

At first, I apologized for my wet cheeks and fumbled words, but I finally found the strength to unload my hurts unapologetically.

We shared in the ministry of tears and held one another’s burdens as we held hands.

I lost my dad when I was meeting you.

You stepped into complicated spaces without fear or awkwardness.

Your strength became mine when I had none of my own. You encouraged me when I could not take another step and reminded me to endure when endurance felt impossible.

“So this is what vulnerability looks like,” I whispered one cloudless morning after tears and embarrassment at my raw emotion.

I was beginning to understand that something was shifting and changing within me.

In unity, prayer, and pain, we shared hurts, triumphs, questions, and laughter, lots of laughter.

We were learning how to allow another to enter sacred spaces that had been kept tightly shuttered for far too long.

For all of this and more, I’m in awe of you, Christian.

You taught me how to worship, I mean, really worship.

You gave this former legalistic girl permission to lift her hands, even if only to my neck.

You have shown me how to bow to a King I can not see with unabashed devotion, to give when it hurts, and to go where we don’t always want to.

Because of you, I’ve witnessed sacrificial living, learned how to believe in miracles, and seen what living in agape love looks like.

Just as a parent goes before a child, you’ve modeled what faith through works looks like.

Through your actions, I’ve seen that the Christian life isn’t always comfortable and was never meant to be. You’ve shown me what it looks like to follow Jesus with abandon, whether in faraway countries or on local street corners.

You’re the best of them. I mean that.

You are soldiers in the trenches, unashamed warriors for a kingdom just beginning and old as time, and for the King, who is already here and yet returning.

I admire your love for Jesus and the kindness you’ve shown me. That will never change, even though our seasons have. You have left a mark on my soul that can never be erased. I wouldn’t want it to be.

Why can’t we figure out how to live this Christian life together?

How do we bring back what we have lost and pick up pieces we can’t find? We know how to live this Christian life well; unfortunately, we have yet to figure out how to do it together.

How can we be so in love with Him and yet forget to give grace to one another?

Was this “just a season” or a chance at something new that we’ve snuffed out, leaving the dying embers from a fire that once raged?

Whichever it was, it was a season to love in a way we had not known and a time to care in a way we hadn’t before. And now it seems it’s a time to tear apart.

We don’t have funerals for the death of a church.

That removed limb is aching today. I feel it there, still moving and motioning with every step.

Although the severing is complete, it’s still felt in everyday, mundane movements. It aches with what once was in all the places we walked and moved together.

Endings, leavings, and separations are deaths of a different kind.

There is no funeral for the death of a church.

Instead, we put on our Sunday best, move to the next gathering, smile the best smile, and shake the nearest hand in hopes that it will fit better than the last one.

And if it doesn’t?

There’s always the option to wrap ourselves in apathy and cynicism.

How much easier is it to surrender to self-preservation and stay on the island where we washed ashore?

This may be where we burn the remnants of the broken ship, nurse our wounds, and remain isolated, where no one can hurt us again.

Or we go back to church…

I’ve discovered something about the Church: It is a strange, necessary, but often uncomfortable thing.

To be a part of a church is to be hurt. It feels hopeless, like we are destined to crash and burn with every coming together.

But thankfully,

Jesus is Hope.

And,

Jesus is the church.

As the head of the church, He calls us to vulnerability. It’s not just a nice idea; it’s a necessity, even when it results in hurt.

The church is a group of people who gather in a building, home, tent, or even stand in a field under a tree to say, “I need.” “Not only do I need Jesus, but I need you.”

Walking into a church isn’t just for worship, comfort, or closeness to Jesus. It’s a humbling, vulnerable, often heartbreaking experience.

We may never get it perfectly right on this side of glory, this whole thing called church.

But what I do know is that we can’t stop trying. Jesus promises to meet us when we acknowledge the pain inflicted on us in community.

He doesn’t stop lavishly loving each of His children just because we can’t figure out how to love one another well.

So, choosing to try again with the possibility of it going sideways is choosing hope. And hope, my friend, is the business that Jesus happens to be in.

We trust in God’s promise to renew all things and to bring beauty out of pain.

Because of this, we are brave enough to return: back to community, back to possibility, and back to vulnerability with those who are called his people: the church.

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