Looking outside the church bubble
I am back at work after an opportunity afforded few people—a 12-week sabbatical that offered me a balanced time of rest and renewal. An unexpected benefit of the time away from my day-to-day work was that I came to see how I have been in the church bubble since I started seminary 22 years ago. While that is to be expected of a priest, the skewed perspective of life in the church matches neither the lives of most of the people one serves nor the folks with whom we want to share the Good News of Jesus.
In these few months away, I have spent more time in conversation with people who just don’t give the church a thought. This is not to say I talked with people who are not ethical or even spiritual, but people who find themselves in church only from time to time for a wedding or funeral or to appease a grandmother’s wishes when family get together. During this time, I was also reading on evangelism (as well as books that had nothing to do with the church) and could see the stark disconnect between the lives of the people with no religious affiliation and the church’s ways of reaching them.
While my wife, Victoria, and I did worship, well, religiously, while away from my work here, we could also hear how others find meaning and even spiritual connection. This can be through nature, of course, but also in family and friends, especially through shared meals. While I wish I could report that I have descended from the heights of sabbatical with The Answer, the opposite is true. I have said before that there is no Silver Bullet that will save the church, now I just see more clearly why that is true. Mostly, I found that the people outside the church are as spiritual and in many ways religious, even if they don’t think so (praying routinely for example) as those in our pews.
What those on the outside looking in do not see in the church is people whose lives are better. That doesn’t surprise me, but it does leave those not in church wondering why we bother. It’s not that those with no religious affiliation don’t know Christian churches. They do. They are just not that into us. Photo of Frank and Victoria Logue is a cooking class given in Spanish only at the language school they attended in Costa Rica.
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None of what I have written will surprise most readers of this Loose Canon as you no doubt spend less of your days in the church bubble than I do. But I return happy to be back at fulfilling work and ready to assist our congregations in being healthy, effective means of grace. For while I rediscovered how the other half lives, I am no less convinced that the forgiveness, mercy, and love found in our churches is what those on the outside need no less than us within the church. And I have some glimpses at how it is we can and do connect to some folks and am interested in working more at sharing those best practices as we seek to be the Body of Christ in a lost and hurting world.
Peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue, Returned wanderer
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