The Agnostic Pentecostal

I sometimes realize the little things I ignore. Recent Sundays have reminded me of one of those little things: How I feel and what I think when I skip church. Growing up, I usually hated going to church. Come to think of it, for most of my life I usually hated going to church. I hated waking up early on a weekend. I hated dressing up. I hated being around people who I thought were fake. Sometimes even when I helped lead services, I hated having to show up and put on my smiley face, sing like God was the only thing in my life, and encourage thousands of people to worship God with all their hearts (which, I must admit, sometimes actually helps… “Fake it ’til you make it,” I used to say)… Anyway, until the last few years, if I intentionally skipped church at least the first half of that Sunday would be clouded with guilt.

Like many Christians (or Jews or Muslims too, I presume), I was taught (by implication at least) that church was essentially equivalent with God. “Church is the house of God,” we were told. And with that thinking came all sorts of ideas that were impressed on us: You wouldn’t miss an appointment with God, would you? Or, for the youth: You wouldn’t skip out on a date would you? Why skip your date with God? Well into our adult life, we were taught things like the importance of dressing up when going to church. God is the King and you’re going into his throne-room when you’re going to church, so you’d better treat God with respect and look your best….You wouldn’t wear shorts to a meeting with the President or a king would you? And the thinking was extended to nearly everything associated with church: You would never be late to a date with God would you? You would never slouch in your chair if you were in front of God would you? Or, my favorite, You wouldn’t skip on tipping your waiter in a restaurant…so why would you skip on your gift of money to God? And that, my friends, is how motivation by guilt works. If you associate anything with “God,” you can at least keep the kids in line…for a couple hours anyway.

And so today when I stayed home, I noticed that those feelings of guilt were still hardwired in my mind. I’m part of a church that I actually love attending because it is understood well in our faith community that the “church” is not a building or a service…the Church is all of us and within all of us, and if you miss the gathering, well, it must have been the best thing for you to do at the time.

But even with this, the guilt thinking seeped in, so I felt a need to justify my absence: I was at the church building yesterday for a meeting for my Haiti trip. Plus, I’ll be there this afternoon to paint banners for our participation in the gay pride parade. And my wife is sick and I need to stay home with her. And we’ll be going to our small group meeting on Tuesday night. And besides, I’m tired and just need a rest.

In my past, most of these things would be met with thoughts like, “Well, sometimes if you want to be close to God it takes dedication and hard work…and if the President told you he needed something done, would you just slack off or would you do like the Bible says, ‘Whatever you do, work at it will all your strength as if you’re working for God and not for men.’” …And so the cycle of guilt-thinking goes, supported by scripture and everything.

It’s nice, though, that I have people in my life that remind me that I really don’t have to do anything. And God won’t punish me for it. But sometimes it’s still hard for me. My thoughts get conflicted now because I do like showing up and being with friends that are honest, and getting either encouraged or empathized with or called bullshit on. But I also really love staying home on a Sunday, something I rarely got to do for most of my life…even in college we were required to go to church and we would essentially get grounded if the R.A. caught us in our dorm rooms on Sunday mornings.

But I’m learning that, like one of my favorite Office Space lines, if someone were to say something like, “I’ve noticed you’ve been missing church lately, Dave…” I can at least reply without fear of hellfire, “Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob.”