In Which I'm Pretty Sure I Know Exactly WJWD

The little Free Methodist church in our hometown was a great place for us when our girls were little. Attendance there was under 100 even in its best years, but there were enough people so that our daughters got a good Christian education through Sunday School and mid-week programs. We enjoyed being in a small choir, having a group of close friends who were also raising children at that time, and assuming leadership positions that we never would have held in larger churches (I’ll come back to that in a few paragraphs). We went through several pastors, but the last one stayed for eighteen years, and he became important to us both as a friend and as a counselor during difficult times.

            During our time as Free Methodists, my own faith underwent considerable transformation. The change was gradual at first, reflecting changes in the culture at large. In just about every cultural movement or social issue, I found myself tending toward views that were more liberal and more Democratic than those typically associated with conservative evangelicalism. Interestingly, this didn’t feel to me as if I were rebelling against my faith, but that I was embracing views that were shaped by Jesus’ teachings. For a while, the catch phrase “What would Jesus do?” was making the rounds. I’ve never been a joiner, so I didn’t wear the WWJD bracelets, but my tendency toward inclusion, compassion, peace, and acceptance seemed to me the epitome of what Jesus would do, and that was the kind of faith I wanted, while evangelical culture (it seemed to me) was grasping exclusion, harshness, violence, and intolerance.

            As I said—the change was gradual for twenty years or so. And then a horrible accident involving my youngest daughter and a consequent life-altering disability shattered everything I’d ever believed. Everything faith-related seemed like so much white noise, and I backed away from it all for a while, trying to sort things out. I’d be content and at peace for a time, but then other troubles would intrude and I’d wrestle with faith again.

            These things were all happening in my inner world, but things were changing pretty rapidly in the outside world, too. Politics, social evolution, my own eye-opening relationships with people who were poor…Hispanic…LGBT…alienated…disabled—all these changed me, to the extent that over the past 5 – 10 years, I’ve set aside the evangelical label altogether. I don’t really have a label that fits me now: progressive is close, but it’s not a perfect match. I do know that it’s lonely being a label-less Christian. (On a sad side note: I’ve been more judged, criticized, and ostracized by evangelical Christians than by friends who are of other faiths, agnostic, or atheist. It has taken me a long time to find a tiny knot of Christians who I can trust.)

            Back to our Free Methodist church, then. Over the years, attendance there shrank considerably. There were a number of factors: our little town was becoming a resort community with fewer permanent residents. Those who were still here were getting older, while fewer young families were taking the place of folks who moved away (or died). The economy dipped and stayed low for a while, sending people in search of jobs and homes elsewhere. And while Ben and I stayed on as the congregation dwindled, we had to pile on more and more hats. We were each doing several jobs in the church, and taking on still more as people continued to leave. It was wearying and discouraging—but if we didn’t do those jobs, there was literally no one else who could.  

            Then our beloved pastor announced that he’d accepted a different job. Immediately, I knew that it was time for us to go, too. The church wouldn’t last long without him—maybe it could struggle on for another year or two with a part-time pastor, and with Ben and I still doing all those jobs—but the handwriting was on the wall. Besides, I was worried that a newly-assigned pastor would be one who holds opposing political views to mine. In America of a few decades ago, that wouldn’t have mattered. In today’s America, where politics and faith are absolutely welded together, I could not be pastored by such a person.

            When we told the few remaining people that we intended to leave with the pastor, that was the beginning of the end. Those few families could never support the needs of even a part-time pastor. The church closed in early June, and our search for a new place began.
(This blog is running a few weeks behind the actual search--I'll probably run one midweek in order to catch up.)