Entry #17

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.

Several years ago I went to church with a friend. In the middle of service, we paused for a “special song.”

The worship minister stood on stage behind his keyboard and quietly played the first few bars of a worship song I’d never heard.

After singing the initial couple stanzas solo, his upper body started bouncing off the keyboard as he began a steady crescendo towards the chorus. AND THEN, the chorus hit. And he wasn’t singing. But there was second voice. Where was it coming from? Who was this mystery singer? What is going on? Why didn’t this person just start on the stage? This is very dramatic.

I looked to my right to see the preacher, Britney Spears mic taped to his face, rise up from his seat one section over, arms wide, striding up the steps to the stage with a grin that might have visibly twinkled. The build-up just seemed so awkwardly spotlight-y. Were we supposed to gasp? Was this supposed to be a surprise guest appearance, like Justin Timberlake had just arrived to an N*Sync reunion concert unexpectedly?

My mind immediately cut away to Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell operatically singing rap music at a High School Prom on Saturday Night Live. Is this church?

There's something that's always felt hard for me about the “Christian” scene. Even as a child, something about it felt cheesy. And cheesy is fake. And fake shouldn’t be church.

I can appreciate a touch of cheese in campy movies or Old Navy ads but church cheese stinks.

Church shouldn’t be plastered on smiles in our Sunday best, how-are-you-good-how-are-you-fine, showing off our best sides and keeping our ugly parts hidden.

Church should be raw, defenseless, sacrificially honest, meaty, gritty, here I am arms wide open without pretense or pride. Church should be dropping to our knees, admitting our weaknesses. A realizing that I need God and you do too. A reaching across the aisle in gratitude that I don’t have to walk out my need alone.

Many, many years ago we paired Christianity with Purity. We strapped ourselves with this burden of impossible perfection. Then, we doubled down by armoring it with Judgment towards the rest of the world.

“Don’t let those sinners in... "

We didn’t say it, but we didn’t have to. They heard it. And then we realized we were talking about ourselves and decided we’d better keep that to ourselves.

It sparked a church culture of surface level sin sharing. Just tell enough to feel relatable, but not quite so much as to feel like a pariah.

Sure, we talked about Jesus and the Cross and Grace.

But we talked just as much about avoiding sin. And the language of it all seemed so ... threatening.

And then, just as we started realizing that maybe this wasn’t the best strategy, like the cherry on top of our exhausted, striving souls, our churches grew and grew until intimacy became nearly impossible.

And therein lies the catalyst for Cheesy Church.

We don’t want to admit we’re caught in sin because our fear of sin rivals our understanding of grace. We love Christ in an abstract way, but we fear the condemnation of our peers in a real and present danger way.

Satan has taken something good (sanctification) and turned it into something impossible (perfection).

So here we all are, faking it. Because we don’t know how to admit we failed at it. All of it.

We slip in and slip out. We put a preacher on stage we all think is somehow less human than we are and doesn’t struggle the same way we do (poor guy ... the pressure is real). We go to life group and smile and hug and join hands in prayer.

We pray together for our sick friends when our hearts are the sickest.

We pray for safety for our upcoming family vacation when we fear our marriage might not survive it.

We thank God for our children but don’t mention we feel physically sick by the exhaustion of motherhood.

Then we head home, saddled with the weariness of faking it one more week.

But I want real. With God and with you. I want to stop complaining about the depravity of the rest of the world and start talking about my own. I want to cry with you and listen to your deepest fears and be honest about the parts about life I just don’t get without fear of judgment. The parts about God I just don’t get. I don’t want your answers. I want your questions. I don’t want your rightness. I want your longing.

Church should feel like the most natural place in the world for confession.

Why is church the place confession is left at the door?

Of all places, shouldn't church be the place confession is most welcome? most comfortable?

Of all places, shouldn't church be the place our weary, striving, purity-chasing souls find rest and contentment? Because God’s grace is spoken softly and tenderly over and into and through us. Because we know our struggles will be met with love and not shame or condemnation since there is none in Christ Jesus.

THAT is how we are made new and pure.

THAT is how we are sanctified. Through the grace of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Not through a fear of Hell or an avoidance of sin or a striving towards purity.

"Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,

Calling for you and for me.

Come home. Come home.

Dear Church, Come home... "