Out of all of our relationships, perhaps the most complex is the one with ourselves.
As Benjamin Franklin once said, “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”
Humans are complex beings. In one moment we can treat people with the quiet compassion of St. Francis and in the next we can become a raging monster. In one breath Dr. Jeckyl and in the next Mr. Hyde. The famous French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, looked into this paradoxical dualism that is humanity and saw evidence of the Bible’s depiction of humans as at once royalty and also as utterly fallen. We are simultaneously children made in God’s image, created with a desire for beauty and charity, and at the same time children of the fall, selfish to the very core.
Humans are fascinating creatures; full of variety, ethnicity, color, talent, skill, weakness, virtue and vice.
Yet walking into a church service you wouldn’t know it.
In church we all sit down and face forward. In church we conform. In church we literally lose our very self.
Of course the church Jesus left us was primed for variety. It was a church of participation; a church where every voice mattered, every gift found use and every culture found value. Jesus didn’t give us a style of building or a liturgy that would be culture-bound. He gave us a meal to remember him by. And what culture doesn’t eat? Therefore the church—the living, breathing people full of God’s Spirit—could spread throughout the cultures of the world and become embodied within a colorful variety as multifaceted as the world itself.
In my last post I talked about the basic job description of the church. Church is supposed to be a place of restored relationships—four relationships brought from the pain of separation back to the peace of healing; with God, with self, with others, with the natural world. If this is not happening in your church then we are failing our most basic job description as agents of reconciliation.
Jesus came to restore us back to God.
Jesus also came to restore us back to ourselves.
In my last post I gave practical advice for surviving church regarding our relationship with God. In this post I turn toward the next relationship; our relationship with ourself.
Is church helping you to know yourself better? Is church helping you to love yourself? To have compassion on yourself despite your failings? To understand your strengths and how you are wired? Your unique place in the world? Your unique gifts and how to make a real impact in your community? Is church helping you to be at peace with your darker sides and helping you find deep internal healing for your fears?
I’m guessing the answers to these questions are mostly, “NO.” Why is that?
Because our churches are structured for conformity, not for variety. Not on purpose of course. There is no conspiracy theory here, we’re just doing what we think is normal. Yet, there it is… The very design of the building, with chairs or pews facing toward a stage, speaks a very clear message: “There is one voice that matters here, and it is not yours.” If you want to understand the history of how we got our basic venue-based/preaching-centric design for church services, read Out of the 4th Place. Our designs did not come from Jesus, but from 4th century Rome. Churches were designed not to empower people to be the best version of themselves, but to keep Rome and its conquered peoples in line.
How many cultures can you represent on stage? How many emotions? How many thoughts and fears? Church is not a place of dialogue, but monologue. And what do you do if you disagree? Complain? Suck it up? Does it really matter? No matter what you do, your voice will not be heard in any meaningful way.
You need to face this sooner than later; your church leaders are so busy doing their church thing that they likely have no time to enter your world in any meaningful way. It’s not all their fault—they are just doing what they inherited as the normal ministry life.
So what do we do about this?
First we need to recognize that we may be expecting our church to do something for us that it simply wasn’t designed to do. In the book, The Critical Journey, Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich help us see that out of the seven stages of spiritual growth, the modern church is really only designed to get us to stage three.
Here are the first stages:
1—Recognition of God: We realize our need for God.
2—Life of Discipleship: We look up to and copy someone we think has it figured out.
3—The Productive Life: We work for God. We get involved and serve.
But what about when we start having tough questions?
What about when we don’t get as excited about another building campaign as we once did?
What about when we realize the pastor doesn’t know it all?
What about when we get sick and prayer isn’t working like we hoped?
Churches are notoriously terrible at helping people walk through the next stages. Here they are:
Between 3 & 4—The Wall: What used to work in our faith isn’t working anymore. A lot of people get stuck here. They get frustrated. Easy answers aren’t working anymore. Showing up to yet another sermon isn’t doing it for them anymore.
There has to be more, right? Yes, there is, it’s just very difficult to find it at a worship service. People will often change churches to look for what used to work. They hope a better preacher will help or at least a new youth program for the kids’ sake. But what about you? What about your growth? Is God done with you? I hope not!
4—The Journey Inward: We come to peace with the fact that our relationship with God will never go back to what it was. Sometimes this feels like losing faith. What we actually lose is a faith that’s all about us and our selfish needs. We learn to trust God in the midst of pain and reality. We learn to be ok with uncertainty. We begin to understand ourselves in relationship to God apart from some organization or human intermediary.
5—The Journey Outward: Now that it’s not all about what we can get from God, we learn to live from a sense of “being” rather than “doing.” We are ok with grey areas and unanswered questions. We live with more uncertainty yet a deeper trust in God. We understand who we are and who we are not. Knowing ourselves deeper, we are also able to love others deeper.
6—The Life of Love: We are now content with who God is and who we are. We don’t need to live up to some external version of success. We have compassion on ourselves and deep empathy for others. We serve others not for what we can gain, but out of truly humble love and compassion.
Does your church recognize these later stages as significant?
If not, the next step we need to take is to decide what to do about it. If your church is not helping you move past stage three, here are a couple practical suggestions to survive church and continue to grow in your relationship with yourself.
1. Invite a couple people to join you on your journey into The Wall and beyond.
You don’t need Sunday morning for this. You just need a friend or two and an agreed upon time and place set aside to be really honest with each other. Consider reading through The Critical Journey together. There are plenty of options out there for discussion questions. Go stage by stage and share what you identify with. This will give you a safe place to start to express your journey to others. You’ll likely be surprised to find that others share very similar concerns and questions. It makes all the difference to find out that you aren’t alone and, in fact, what you are going through is a normal part of spiritual growth.
2. Find a Spiritual Director
We all long to be known—to have people who understand us deeply, capable of helping us get in touch with ourselves. People will go to counselors, therapists, life coaches or even palm readers to find someone who can touch their deeper questions.
One role that has been lost over the years, at least in the Protestant Church, is that of the Spiritual Director. This is a person dedicated to listening to you and to God simultaneously and helping you process your life. These people are trained to help you walk through The Wall and into the later stages of spiritual growth. Their job is not to give advice, but to ask questions; to help you listen to God and to yourself.
If you want to know yourself and what God might be doing in your life, consider finding a trained Spiritual Director near you.
3. Get to Know The Enneagram
This isn’t a pentagram. It isn’t some eastern voodoo. It’s a time-tested personality test to help you understand the way that you and others are wired to reflect the very nature of God.
In church it’s easy to feel unknown and/or guilty. Churches are often great at telling us what we are not or what we can do better, but do you have anything in your life to help you understand who you truly are?! Humans are not all wired the same. We have a variety of personalities and what might be a helpful sermon application for one person would be a terrible idea for another person. If you want a better understanding of yourself, your tendencies and your hang-ups, the enneagram is a great tool. If you want a personalized growth path for your specific personality type, look no further. It may take some initial investment of time to understand the types and where you may fit, but so many people are finding it a rewarding and life-changing process of self-discovery, myself included.
Here are a few books I recommend to get started:
The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective
Jesus said, it is better to lose the whole world than our very self; our soul. How is your soul doing? If it is feeling parched, in need of a spiritual drink, I hope this post has been helpful. God is not done with you. He is just getting started!
Next post I will move from the relationship with self to our relationship with others. Church, by definition, is a group of people in life-giving relationship with each other. If church for you is an event you attend where you feel alone and disconnected, it’s time for a change. More on that next time!
Matt