Five months ago I left my home church as many of you know.
I've experienced more emotions over these past few months than I had in quite some time. I've felt them to an extent that I haven't known since high school when everything was poignant and I wasn't so guarded.
I didn't realize it then, but when I left the building I lost more than a service every Sunday. I lost a community I had grown up in. I lost teenagers I had known since they were toddlers. These same teenagers I had been a youth pastor and friend to for a short time. I lost most of them. I lost friendships and mentors, sisters and brothers, people who were my second family. I lost children I had known since they were born. These children and teenagers I loved and still love as my own children or little brothers and sisters.
In a true community of faith relationships go deeper than "it's good to see you again" and transcend into a sacred place that cannot be explained but only felt. I spent hours with my community. I cried with them, celebrated with them, learned with them and they with me. Before the merger and the severe changes that ultimately caused us to leave my church was the one people that hated church loved. People who didn't go to church saw the community we had and said "that's not so bad."
One of the deepest emotions I've felt is anger. This anger stems from pain and fear. Pain in what's been lost and the fear that I won't find community like this again. I still feel this. Everyday. I struggle with my thoughts on the church. I've realized in the past few weeks that the mark of true community is being able to be vulnerable with one another without fear of judgment. When we're not given the chance we need to be fully vulnerable to a small community there is something that's lost in our personal lives. Something I've been lacking. Something I still don't feel I have the strength to seek out again.
The reason this post is more therapeutic and less sermon is because I know not the preach from a wound. All of this is still, admittedly, a wound for me. I am too broken to be vulnerable. I have to put on a shield just to walk into any church now. As much as I love the church I found and the "feel" of it, I am terrified of trying to become close to it. I am terrified of community. Sweet Jesus, help me.
