Where do you go to church?

DISCLAIMER: This is not an attack on the spiritual life or practices of others. This is an attempt to provide a personal answer to a specific question. I do not wish to cast shadow or doubt on activities that others find valuable and life-giving. This is simply a description of my own journey.

“Where do you go to church?” I am regularly asked this question by students, co-workers, and acquaintances, new and old. The question is simple, straightforward, and seemingly innocent. However, the question, no matter how casually posed, makes me nervous every time. I know that behind the conversational tone of the question lie assumptions, expectations, and judgments. I know that my answer may result in openings and closings, definitions and boxes. I will be labeled, categorized, defined. I may be embraced with a smile, rejected with forced niceties, stared at in bewilderment, or later vilified behind my back. All of these have been my experience.

Sometimes I simply give the name of a church down the street. This is the answer that most often satisfies the interlocutor. It is a portion of the truth; certainly the most easily understood and accepted version. When we go to a church building on a Sunday morning—once or twice a month—that is the congregation we join. We have several friends there. My girls enjoy the classes. The church has a global focus and an excellent guitarist.

But, honestly, merely giving the name of an institutional church betrays the complexity of the issue and the years I have spent wrestling with the nature of the church. I spent my first 27 years in a variety of church settings: fundamentalist, evangelical, Baptist, not-so-Baptist, charismatic, non-denominational, community, home groups. When we moved to Central Asia, we lived without the structures of Sunday services, church buildings, and paid clergy. In Kyrgyzstan, friends and friends of friends came to our home, ate meals with us, slept in our guestrooms and on our couches, talked about the mysteries and trivialities of life, played with our daughter, read the Bible or watched movies or washed dishes with us. We shared life together. It was natural and mostly unintentional. When we returned home to Texas, forced to stay due to family health, we tried to slide back into the Sunday morning church routine. We tried. It didn’t fit anymore. It didn’t satisfy. The dissatisfaction, of course, was accompanied by the necessary guilt and the requisite confusion. Anger, cynicism, doubt, despondency, obligation, fear. I sat through a year’s worth of sermons, suppressing my critical spirit and grappling with the question: “If we jump ship, where will we land?” If we leave the institutional church (there was no thought of leaving one for another), what kind of Christians will we become? Will we survive? Can we find relationship and wholeness outside the four walls of a church building? One Sunday morning, on the drive home from a service, I said in peace, “I’m done.” The clouds of confusion and fear had lifted and I felt free to step away.

“Where do you go to church?” Today I have a broader definition of the church than the preponderant cultural understanding that is closely tied to buildings, scheduled meetings, hierarchical relationships, and set doctrinal statements. My church life is a patchwork experience, an open adventure of meals and conversations and shared experience, an unpredictable blend of e-mails and phone calls and houseguests and dinners and cry sessions and laugh-fests. Hanging out at the Thai restaurant with three guys, quoting Tommy Boy and Thessalonians. Phoning a friend who is struggling to see the next step forward. Sitting, during my lunch break, with a student who is being brave through his parents’ divorce or her dad’s unemployment. Asking questions. Encouraging my students to think critically, creatively, and compassionately about themselves and the world. Getting up early on Saturday mornings to dialogue with a few guys who share a common interest to positively impact the world. Listening. Traveling to Colorado, South Dakota, South Carolina, and England to see scattered and beloved friends. Inviting folks for dinner. Attending a Sunday morning church service. Hanging out with friends at a festival. Dancing and singing and playing with my girls. Giving missionary friends space to voice their greatest joys and deepest frustrations. Playing tennis with a co-worker. This is my life. This is church for me.

The church is relationship. The church is shared life. The church is loving God with others. “Where do you go to church?” Where should I start?