Searching for Christian Community

I was born on a Sunday and attended church weekly starting the next Sunday, a pattern which continued for many decades. Mom and Dad were involved in pastoral and lay ministry and there were no excuses accepted for missing a service. As we got older we participated in music, youth programs, Sunday School, missions conventions and more and attended several services a week. Our upbringing was strongly fundamentalist, rules were strict and doctrine was not questioned.

When I started dating my husband, he left his Lutheran church and joined the church my family attended. After we were married we attended another Pentecostal church for over 40 years where we raised our children and served in many capacities.

In the past few decades, many changes have occurred in evangelical churches across North America. Churches copied the marketing styles of megachurches with seeker-sensitive programming, prosperity gospel teaching, entertainment for children, music performance teams, and thematic lifestyle sermon series. Christian "self-help" books are published on multiple topics and are often used in small groups rather than Bible studies. Sunday Schools were disbanded, evening services stopped and mid-week Bible studies were replaced with small groups. In spite of these changes, church attendance dropped off gradually and the average age of many congregations became older. I taught Sunday School for over 25 years and few of the children who were in my classes attended church as adults. 

We became increasingly put off the self-centred focus of the songs and messages, the stage show, the increasingly casual demeanour of people running the services, and the focus on numbers, money and programs. By the time the pandemic started in 2020, we were attending church only a couple of times a month. There was little focus on prayer or scripture during the services. In the end, our pastor resigned in 2020 and the church property was taken over by another congregation. Many loving and faithful Christians attended our church over the years and we still count them as friends. 

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I transferred to a new unit at the hospital when Mom was in her final illness in 2012. One of the unit physicians was a devout Anglican and the other doctor was an ordained Lutheran pastor. They both ministered and prayed with me as I struggled emotionally and spiritually with the fall-out from Mom’s death. The “fall-out” was significant and a trigger for questioning everything I believed. The Anglican doctor gave me a wonderful devotional that followed the church calendar. I have used it every year since and it was my introduction to liturgical worship. I also started using the Book of Common Prayer. In May 2020, I attended an online prayer school hosted by Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. It combined elements of liturgical prayer and scriptural reading into a framework for daily worship. I would not have made it through the stress of 2020 and onward without this daily prayer focus.

Since things have opened up again, we have been looking for a new congregation to worship with. I attended a couple of evangelical churches but made no connection with anyone in the darkened seating areas. The “worship” left me cold.

A couple of months ago we decided to attend the church my husband was confirmed in. It is a liturgical Lutheran church and we have been warmly welcomed and absolutely love the services which have a Christ-centred focus on scripture and prayer. We have started attending catechism classes where we have found more similarities than differences in our Christian faith. This congregation is sponsoring several refugee families including a lovely young Ukrainian couple and their toddler who arrived in Canada this month. I have learned a lot about the struggles of the Ukrainian people in a time of war. Whether we stay here or not, it is the right place for us to grow and share at this time.

Christians in North America are increasingly divided along denominational and political lines and in too many cases, hatred has supplanted love toward people who are marginalized in any number of ways. In too many instances, the church does not look like Jesus. For these reasons, I find it difficult to identify with the charismatic and evangelical arm of the Christian church. But I can see how God has been with me on my spiritual pilgrimage, bringing me to where I am today. And for that, I am very grateful.