Staying or Leaving
Whether you stay or leave a place is not always up to you. Sometimes choosing to leave is more like being shown the door. This has been a relatively constant struggle for me over the past 3 years or so to know if I should leave my particular denomination of churches of Christ and, furthermore, how I’m supposed to know that I know it’s time to leave.
Mostly for myself, I wanted to try to be a little more transparent about where I’m at in the decision. My growing circle of friends who are traveling the same sort of path I’m on have reacted to this decision very differently. Some are still discerning what’s right, some feel pressured to fly under the radar, one says if they leave it’ll be to a non-denominational church, and another is moving the opposite direction towards a high-church, liturgical tradition. At different points I’ve felt drawn to all of these options.
This is a growing and developing situation and I’m sure it won’t stop with my most recent epiphany, but in the past few weeks my wife and I went through a time where we were right on the verge of shifting denominational allegiance–-but we balked.
Maybe later down the road I’ll look back and think it was only weakness, an act of cowardice or fear that make me hold back from the change. But, right now one thing has continually been running through my head, or perhaps has been put in my head:
If I believe in the living Spirit of God, and I am truly ecumenical or pluralistic, how does it make sense to change denominations? If I truly believe that the Spirit is alive and active not only in churches of Christ, Pentecostal, Catholic, and Baptist traditions, but also in Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam, then why does it make sense to switch traditions?
There are some legitimate reasons to change denominations, but I don’t think I have one—at least for now.
A new acquaintance said the main question I have to answer for myself is this: Whatever church I work at/attend, can I love that church as it is? I believe the Spirit is active in churches with long and deep traditions but also in those churches with shallow, undeveloped traditions and poor theology. If I believe the Spirit still moves and can move through me, then why would I run away from the things that I find problematic or even flat-out wrong and unhealthy?
