Entry #9

This series was originally published on my socials in 2021. My beliefs and opinions have changed in some ways since then, but these words are still meaningful and relevant to who I am and what I believe today.

I met Hannah several years ago when both of our kids were little. We lived down the street from each other and just happened to meet one day while taking a walk.

Her humility was refreshing. There were no pretenses, no facades. If she didn’t know something, she wasn’t afraid to admit it or ask.

She had just started going to church for the first time ever a few weeks before we met. She knew not one drop of theology. Her marriage was in trouble. She had little to no support from family or friends and had stories that would make you sob.

Yet, she was one of the best moms and friends.

She was incredible. And she had no idea.

We started meeting once a week and reading through the Bible together, one book at a time. It was so refreshing, seeing the story through her eyes, trying to answer her questions but also learning alongside her.

Hannah’s church was a solid 45 minute drive so I invited her to ours one week, hoping it would be more convenient for her and the kids. She wanted so badly for her husband, Mike, to join, but was pretty sure he wouldn’t. Church wasn't exactly "his crowd." We prayed together about it. He and Clark had hit it off so she thought there might be a chance.

A couple weeks later, she and her husband loaded the kids up and followed us to church. She had warned me that even though it was 100 degrees outside, he would be wearing a long sleeve button up because he was afraid of the looks he would get for the tattoos that covered both arms.

When we walked in, my senses were on overdrive, so aware of every little detail of our church for the first time ever.

How bright the lights were. How crowded the sanctuary was. How much everyone in the congregation looked more like me and Clark than Hannah and Mike.

After getting their kids signed up in the children’s ministry, we were a bit late to “big church” so we had to walk down towards one of the first few rows to find four seats together. I could feel both of their insecurities swelling next to me.

Mike didn’t know any of the songs, and I wished so badly the lights were dim so he didn’t feel people’s eyes on him—even if they weren’t.

Then, one of the ministers walked to the front to announce it was Communion Sunday, and respectfully asked that if you had never been baptized, please do not partake.

I knew, in that exact moment, they would never come back.

We passed the plates around, Clark and I taking the cup and cracker and awkwardly thumbing them in our hands, patiently waiting to take it “communally” with the rest of the church.

And I watched as Hannah and Mike passed it across the aisle, hands empty, holding (or not holding) a physical reminder that they weren’t “in.”

It was one thing to tell my “life’s not fair” kids they have to wait for communion, it was another thing to slap the hands of a full grown searching, questioning, seeking, desperate-to-know-Jesus adult.

I smiled at Hannah and wrote on the back of a “Guest Information Card” something in an effort to soften the blow … I don’t even remember what it was. I just didn’t want them to feel shame.

They never came back.

I looked up the theological reasoning behind that tradition when I got home. And after I read through it all, I wasn't even sure it mattered.

I get it, I really do. We want to make sure we are always in line with scripture, and sometimes that's uncomfortable.

But it all came back to one thing: they never came back.

I just couldn't imagine that being the goal.

I had gone to church my whole life and never thought one thing about the way it would feel to walk through the doors as a newbie, all the ways church feels like a “Members Only” lounge.

Know the lingo. Know the soundtrack. Know the traditions. Know the rules.

I do, so I always felt comfortable. But what if I didn’t?

A year or two later, we visited a small town Church of Christ one Sunday. When we were introducing ourselves in the foyer to two elders, one of them asked Clark what he did for a living.

“I’m a football coach here,” he said, which received raucous applause.

Then eyeing our three small children, one looked at me and said, “And do you stay home with the kids?”

“I do,” I answered, trying to un-raise my eyebrows.

“Oh, that’s WONDERFUL. WONDERFUL!!” he said enthusiastically with a congratulatory pat on the back.

I debated whether to add, “But I’m also a work-from-home writer and have spoken on actual stages a few times. From the pulpit. As a woman.”

Instead, I smiled, grateful I “fit the mold" and reminding myself that a statement like that is more generational than religious. Right...? Grace, I thought silently, show grace.

Throughout the service, one white man after another took the stage, led singing, prayed, made announcements. And when a procession of eight white men walked to the stage in two rows of four to pray over communion, instead of being nostalgically transplanted back to my grandparent’s church, I was reminded of my experience a couple years before with Hannah and Mike.

And because I was in the middle of Season One of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” I probably had too strong of an emotional response.

We can’t go here, I thought, even though everyone is SO welcoming and kind and good-hearted. I knew I could never bring someone to church here that wasn’t already IN THE church. It would almost be offensive in a world where women and people of color were fighting for equality, where they could be CEO's of a company but couldn't so much as say a prayer in the church building.

What would an outsider think? Would it make sense? Would they be able to see past the tradition to see Jesus?

It all reminded me of Jesus saying he came for the sick, not the healthy. Which has a million implications, but in those moments my heart cried, “WHY ARE WE ONLY SERVING THE HEALTHY? WHY HAVE WE MADE CHURCH ONLY COMFORTABLE FOR THE CHURCHED?”