"Meeting together...and being accountable and real"

Julie R. Neidlinger explains "Why I Walked Out of Church", and, although she references certain stylistic things that she finds offensive, she isn't actually attacking styles but what she thinks they represent in a lot of churches. Trendiness, salesmanship and manipulation are some of her targets.

Today, I went to Bismarck Evangel Temple, sat through the worship and most of the sermon, and then...walked out before it was done.

I don't blame that church; it is my own inability to fit that literally forced me to leave. I don't really doubt their sincerity, and that many people love the programs and opportunities that church provides. I've even found, in the past, a few sermons to be interesting. But...

I believe what I believe - my Christian faith - not because of tradition or because I was raised that way. Not because I want fire insurance or hell-avoidance. Not because I want to find a group or place to belong. I believe it on my own, I believe it to be real, I believe it to be important and valid, and I believe the way we have made Christianity out to be is completely wrong. And that's why I have such a hard time going to church as it is now done. ....

I'm not going to be one of those starched-collar Christians who, based on personal preference, say that this is a sign we're going to hell in a handbasket and that all things are wrong unless they are done as they were with the Puritans. What I'm saying is that I can't stand the phoniness, or trendiness, or sameness - or whatever I'm trying to say here - that the church seems to catch onto at the tail end, not even aware of how lame it is. The fact that this is not only actually successful in appealing to people, but attracts them, also disgusts me.

It makes me want to throw up.

It's buying into some kind of lie or substitution of cool culture as being relevant when it isn't.

If I see another cool Bible college student or pastoral studies major wearing the hemp choker necklace, flip-flops, open-at-the-collar shirt that's untucked, and baggy jeans, saying words like "dude" and "sweet", I will kick their ass. It's like the Christian version of annoying hipsters, an overly-studied and homogenized "with-it" faux coolness. ....

I'm not looking for starched Baptist legalism, but Casual Friday Church is as equally fake and disgusting.

I miss my own, small church, from back home. It's filled with uncool, normal people who just want to help and talk and connect and be real and accountable to each other. It's filled with people who want to go to the Dairy Queen after service and maybe have an ice cream cone. People who help change a flat tire in the parking lot. The building isn't huge or fancy. The church doesn't have programs and any other accessories to attract sub groups, like teens or kids events or anything that smacks of entertainment; there's no program there to attract me to stay, but instead, it is the real relationships that have done the trick. We greet people not as a job or because we're the assigned greeter, but because we see they're new and we want to get to know them.

I feel more like part of the body than an attendee when I go there. I have a place, an integral part, just like all the rest of the people. As it is, the more I attend these larger churches and hear about programs and activities and see places to sign up for classes and possible facility expansion projects...the less I want anything to do with it. I feel like a barcode in the pew, and little else.

I'm having difficulty putting this into words.

I hate to church hop. I don't want to waste my time here going from one church to the next. I would like to find just a small group of people and meet and talk about our beliefs and struggles and study the Bible and connect on a real level, and let that be church. Because isn't that what the church is, meeting together with other believers and being accountable and real with each other in our walk?

Thanks to Mark Olson for the link to The Thinklings whence I was guided to this post - which I appreciate and would never have found otherwise. There are lots of comments following the article and most of them actually respond to what Julie Neidlinger says.

Why I Walked Out of Church