Away from the Word and the Local Church

I have been away from some parts of my faith.

One part I've been away from is the daily discipline of reading God's Word. After approaching Bible study with tremendous intentionality and expectation for two decades, I've become burned out. Yeah, that's a weird place to be--especially considering how many people do not read their Bibles at all.

I actively began believing Jesus is God in my early 20's. After enduring a Catholic childhood with few functional examples of active faith, God felt distant if not unreal. If I am completely honest with myself, I have not released some of my hestitations in becoming a Christian--or perhaps I released them and found them again.  I'm not entirely sure.

As a Catholic child, I watched a lot of people going through the motions of their faith weekly. The motions are one of the most obvious aspects of the Catholicism. How can you attend a service weekly and miss this?  There are words to say at the right time, gestures, body postures.  There is a sense of needing to do things in the right way so as to do it right and blend in.  

In fairness, the Catholic church of my childhood was contemporary. The architecture and vibe of the church was new, not old.  The priests seemed friendly enough. Their educational programs were organized.  As churches go and as Catholic churches go, it was a good enough place.

There was some emphasis on the Bible---they gave each of us children one as we pursued our first communion and had our weekly CCD classes.  At 53, I just looked up CCD to find out what it means--Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. This case in point is what I experienced often as a young Catholic--terms that seemed far away and without context, motions that I went through.  I longed for real engagement. I think I got the morality clearly enough, but my understanding of God and His Church was limited and limiting.  That's primarily how I felt about it as best as I can recall.

It didn't help that my father was not a person of active faith, and that my mother's faith was as fragile as the rest of her.  My sister, who is ten years older than me, became a "born again Christian" as a young adult and pursued her faith as a Protestant.  I watched this from the sidelines with a good bit of skepticism. My parents didn't seem to be a big fan of it, and blamed it on her boyfriend, eventual husband.

I started this entry with the intention of exploring my relationship to the Bible and its connection to my faith journey, but like the magician's hat full of scarves, so much more spills out and who knows where the bottom lies?

I stepped away from my local non-denominational congregation in the summer of 2020 during Covid. For me, our church's approach to Covid strained and broke open cracks that were there long before then.  But, Covid pushed me to push upon them, ultimately revealing a brokeness underneath that was toxic disjointed leadership.  Yes, I do mean toxic.  

This after pursuing my local church community and life as forcefully and faithfully as God's Word. In my church journey, I've endured churches led by pastors with controlling egos and impure hearts.  I've witnessed a lack of humility in many and a tendency to lead a dual life. I've also endured lazy congregations that do not pursue an understanding of the Word at all--or, they do so in very literal, limited ways which doesn't allow for mystery and space.

I've been away from any church membership since the summer of 2020.  To this point, I truly have not been able to even think of returning.  The combination of my frustration with the local church combined with Covid and my Bible fatigue have led me to a long pause.