My wife and I stepped out of the organized, institutional church years ago. We haven’t given up our faith … we are still Christians … we still love God and pursue Him. It just that we, like many others Christians, were just done with the institutional church.
There are many reasons why some Christians don’t feel at home in institutional churches. I frequently meet people that have been so hurt by the institutional church that just walking into the building, or hearing the worship songs they used to sing, remind them of the trauma they experienced in that environment. That’s not the case for all of us. For some of us, we just outgrew the command and control leadership style prevalent in American churches today. For others, we just want to experience God in community with other Christians unburdened by organizations, budgets, building, agendas, taking attendance, keeping score.
There are also many reasons why some Christians feel perfectly at home in an institutional church and cannot imagine life outside it. I am not trying to convince you to be one or the other. But, if you have found yourself in a place where the institutional church doesn’t fit you any longer, and you have stepped out of that environment or are considering it, we want to share what we have learned on our journey with the hope that you will find encouragement and some answers to the question we are all asking once we step outside the organized church structure – what is the path forward?
I wanted to start by giving you some encouragement, and maybe even permission to be OK with where you are in relation to the organized church. Let me say this – you are not sinning by not going to a church building on Sunday and sitting in a service. It is OK for you to step away from the institutional church. For some of you, you need to step away for your own physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. And that is why you find yourself outside the church building. As the true church, we need to address the abuse that is just starting to come to light in the evangelical church in America. I want to be clear on this – you are under no obligation to attend, much less support in any way, an organization, religious or otherwise, that has been an environment of abuse for either you or someone you know. And anyone who tells you that you should does not understand the heart of God. If you have been the victim of abuse inside a church organization … I am so sorry. That organization and its leadership did not represent our loving Father and do not speak with His authority. Jesus was never on the side oppressor – he was always on the side of the victim.
Abuse is not the only reason we Christians find ourselves no longer at home in the organized church. For my wife and I, it was more an issue of values. What we valued most, was not aligned to what the institutional churches around us valued. We have come to value:
- Relationships & Community over Organizations & Hierarchy
- Demonstrating Compassion over Experiencing Power
- Celebrating all the Gifts over Centering on Teaching
- Character over Performance
It’s important to note I’m not referring to one church organization here. I am talking about the sum total of our experiences. We both are Bible College graduates. We were leaders in these organizations. I was a youth pastor, a missionary, an elder, a teacher, but the institutional church left us filling less then, lost, and unvalued. We learned a very important lesson that holds true for any organization you are involved in or leader you serve under – if you do not share the same values, every day feels like servitude. But when you do value the same things, you feel the joy of co-laboring with people who are on the same page and going the same direction.
Finding yourself outside the organized church, or contemplating your departure from it, may be exactly where God wants you to be. This may be the point at which you transition from servant to co-laborer. It might not be an easy path – the institutional church has made it difficult for us to contemplate any another way – but you will find the community you have longed for.
When my wife and I look back at our almost three decades of life together pursuing God, our most exciting and life-giving experiences where not in organized churches, but in a community of believers that went beyond the church walls. Our most fulfilling times spiritually involved people from different church congregations meeting together as friends, simply doing life together and caring for one another. As we stepped out of institutional church, we remembered these times in our lives and longed for them.
So we took the time to remember, pray, research, and ultimately write down what made those experiences truly life changing. We wrote it down to keep us centered on what really mattered so that we would not get distracted or sidetracked. These words would help us decide not only what to do, but who to do it with. We want to share it with you, help you understand the basis for it and the why behind it, in hopes that it can serve as a model for your path forward. Its our blueprint for how we want to build our lives in relationship with other Christians. We hope it gives voice to what you are already thinking and feeling but maybe just couldn’t but into words.
I hope you are encouraged that you are not the only one on this journey, and that there is a path forward. We are going to share how we and others are navigating this process of finding our spiritual home outside the institutional church. We would love to have you along for the ride.
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