Feeling Lost

About a year or so ago, I wrote (as part of a longer post) about how our church was to be welcoming a new rector in the near term.

In the first weeks of the new rector’s leadership, I thought he was nice enough though a little stiff and felt confident that we’d all get more comfortable over time. That hasn’t happened.

Now, I’m not in church as much as I used to be because I teach Sunday School a couple of weekends a month. I’ve noticed that when I am not scheduled to teach, my desire to go to church at all is just not there – and times I am in church I am not particularly engaged in the sermon and the rite seems to plod along. I realized during the period of unemployment this winter I felt particularly disconnected from church, like I couldn’t seek support there. I thought it was just me, and certainly, a good portion of it is. But.

Yesterday I was in church, not teaching – and I walked out after the sermon.

The rector – R – related a vignette that took place in the Charleston, SC airport on Thursday at 4:45AM. Yes, morning. R was trying to come back early from the annual youth group Missions trip to the South Carolina low country (where the kids help build houses), and witnessed a mother (travelling without another parent) lose her cool with one of her four children. Apparently she yelled, and harshly.

I don’t doubt that it was a strong, disturbing scene. I don’t know the words that came out of the mother’s mouth, I don’t know the entire circumstance. Nor did R.

Yet R proceeded to spend seven minutes on this vignette discussing how the child was going to grow up to be angry and a danger, and what a bad parent this mother was, and how there is so much bad parenting in the world and let me give you more examples, and kids just need love, not more rules, and aren’t our kids great, they go build houses for disadvantaged families in South Carolina, and let me reiterate about how much bad parenting I see.

Then R went on to something else but I couldn’t even hear him at that point. I waited until the sermon was officially over, and left.

There was so much judgment in his words. I was horrified. That mother may well have been a mother for whom verbal abuse is par for the course, but she also might have been having a really, really bad morning. There was absolutely no compassion for the entirety of the situation – which, silly me, I thought we as Christians could bring to the scene. God knows I’ve had times that I have lost my cool with the kids. I’m not proud of those moments. I work hard not to, but they do happen. Here was a moment when he could have tied a difficult situation in everyday life back to Christianity: how can we use what we learn in church to help head off such angry moments in every day life? How can we be witnesses to love in these moments? How can we return to God when we lose our way? And, if the mother was an abusive mother, how can we know to do the right thing and help break the cycle?

As I thought about this sermon that so disturbed me, I also thought about the disconnect I feel between myself and church leadership – namely, R. I figured out that R has never really let down his guard. He talks AT us in his sermons, not WITH us. He is putting on a show, like it’s a marketing presentation, not really communicating. Even his “personal asides” feel scripted and showy. For the most part, I think those of us who go to church are looking for connections between Sunday and everyday, between religion and the secular world. We aren’t looking to be pitched like it’s a sales presentation.

I know I am not alone. As I waited for C and S to be done with classes, a couple people asked me why I left the service and when I told them, they nodded knowingly and verbally agreed with me.

R’s background looked great in part because of his business background (before he went to seminary). Two years ago, we were faced at a booming church needing some business leadership to go along with the religious and pastoral leadership. But he needs to leave the business approach in the business offices, and take things back to the heart, without pretense, in the sanctuary.

The church is not quite as full on Sundays as it was a year ago (and most of the moms with younger children are teaching Sunday School, so don’t hear his sermons such as this….the sermon seemed to play well to the older generation, though – those much further removed from the reality of parenting). Pledges for the current fiscal year are down, and we who are still there have been asked to make additional donations to cover expenses.

There are parts of the church I do still enjoy. The Director of Christian Education is a blast, C is having lots of fun in choir, and the other families are wonderful. But is it enough if I don’t want to actually go to church?

I don’t know how to begin to say anything – or whether I should. I certainly don’t feel comfortable approaching R directly. The son of one of the vestry members is on C’s baseball team this season. Maybe I can get a conversation going with her on the bleachers some evening.

In the meantime, I’m feeling pretty bleh! about this church that I’ve so loved, and that’s making me feel sad and lost.