A Letter to My Church
Dear Church,I want to start by saying thank you for the ways in which you lead your congregation. You love and serve well, and always aim to fully and deeply understand God's will for our community. It does not go unnoticed. I am grateful to have been a part of this church during some of my more formative years.However, as I examined the way that we chose to use media and the motives behind some of the decisions being made, I have come to the difficult conclusion that a lot of it is simply not based on Scripture and as a result, our God-given gift of community has suffered.In the last seven years, I have experienced a youth pastor who desperately wanted to grow his youth group on his own, so he gave significant leadership roles to an 18-year-old, who later went to prison for sexually assaulting six of the sophomore girls. He was willing to trade a healthy community and the safety of his students for a youth group that was large in number. I have experienced strife among church staff members which led to a forced exit of a senior pastor and worship director, after the other staff told the elders, “it’s us or them.” The staff was not united because they were not held accountable to one another and to the congregation. I watched as my pastor started a new church without taking time to heal, simply because he was worried that if he waited, people would choose to go to another church. He did not want to lose any of his “followers.” I experienced our holiday services being changed to outreaches, eliminating any opportunity for the body of Christ to celebrate these important days with one another. Bringing in more people became the most important part of celebrating Christmas and Easter. During my internship, I worked with a communications team who prioritized quantitative feedback so heavily that they refused to listen to what our congregation wanted.I am sure you can recall these scenarios and understand that there were consequences. Not only in my own life, but the larger life of our church body. Truthfully, the last thing I want to do is cause further pain. But from what I can see, our community has been deeply affected by these choices, and I would encourage you to think about how.In light of all of these things, I would like to encourage you in something. I would encourage you to carefully dissect every part of our church. Anything and everything that communicates something. This includes how we worship, why we preach every Sunday, and most importantly, why we use the kinds of media that we do, specifically social media. For everything that we do, I would encourage you to ask these questions:
Why do we feel the need to do this? Is it because we feel like it makes us look good, because it is what everyone else does, or because we are commanded to do it?What does the Bible actually say about it? Are we commanded to do it whenever we gather?What does our theology say about it?What does it communicate to others?Considering all of this, do we still want to do it?
Our church community is supposed to be a family, built on strong connections and united in our goal to exhort, encourage, and spur one another on. Considering this, I would strongly urge you to reexamine your theology of community. I would then encourage you to articulate it and make certain that every ministry is united.This was never a letter I wanted to write, nor is it simply a compilation of years of unaired grievances. If there is anything I want to communicate, know that it is this: I love you deeply. My life has been changed and impacted and stretched and grown in ways which I cannot begin to describe within the four walls of our church. The last six years of my life have not been a waste, and I would never want anyone to think that. I have said to some recently that I feel almost completely fed up with evangelicalism and desire to spend some time attending a small liturgical service. I am not entirely joking. The love that I have for the people within our church is the only thing holding me back from jumping in the car on Sunday morning and driving anywhere else. I exhort you because I love you. I want the church in which I have grown and found ways to serve to survive and for its community to flourish. For the people that walk through the door to be truly seen and loved as humans made in the Image of God. I want our ministries to be united in the theology of community and the effort to form one that is biblical. Please hear my genuine concern and love and know that there is nothing I desire more for you than to understand God’s vision for community and reject any kind of mindset or practice which does not help to accomplish it.Your member and friend,Catie