Two misconceptions that lead to disillusionment with the church
Church is hard to do. Anytime you live as part of a community of people, it’s hard. The closer the community is, the greater the challenges. And when that community calls itself a family, as the church calls itself the family of God, the challenges to participating in that community are as great as can be.
We all know how family is. Some of us have wonderful experiences with family, others not-so-wonderful. Some feel a closer connection to family than anyone else, and others feel ostracized and abandoned by their family. It’s not so different with the church.
As such, a lot of people have given up on church. The church has a lot of public black marks: There’s the publication of countless infamous stories of pastors and evangelists and televangelists who abused their power and bilked their followers for money and engaged in sexual affairs. And there are also the stories of everyday people who feel betrayed and neglected and burned out by church.
It’s not like people hadn’t been abandoning church before my generation. They had been. But mostly it was due to apathy or unbelief. But these days, even Christians are abandoning church, and sometimes it has nothing to do with apathy or unbelief. It’s not unusual at all to find a devoted, Jesus-loving Christian with what appears to be an active and vibrant faith — who doesn’t go to church. Often, if you ask them why, sometimes it’s due to feelings of disillusionment, betrayal, neglect, burnout, hypocrisy. This is especially true of my generation, and if you read the books my generation grew up on in the 2000s, these themes are prominent in many of them.
So what’s the problem with church? I think it’s that two different expectations prevail about church, among both leaders and laypeople. These two ideas seem opposite, but they are both true. Yet, without the other, either one of them inevitably leads to the crumbling of anyone’s relationship with the church. I think a lot of people’s disillusionment with church stems from holding one of these two ideas in isolation:
1… The church owes you. Some people come to church expecting something out of it. They want to go home feeling good, uplifted, and encouraged. They want to feel affirmed in their beliefs and lifestyle. They want to meet with their friends and feel like a part of the community. Some want the church to have good programs for their kids or their age group. They may want the church to be big or small or have a sports program or a 65-and-up group or to sing contemporary music. If a particular church doesn’t check off all the boxes on their list, they leave. Some call these sorts of people “cafeteria Christians.” They pick and choose churches based on what they get out of them. What you’ll find such people talking about after church is usually how it made them feel or what they got out of it. And they may become disillusioned with church because they find something else that makes them feel more fulfilled, or seems to meet their needs better than any local church does.
The problem with this is that if you are a Christian, you don’t just go to church. You are the church. So if the church’s purpose to serve those who go there and meet their needs, then that’s your purpose, because you are part of the church. It’s not just the church leadership’s job. It’s everyone’s job. Paul says that the Holy Spirit gives everyone gifts to be used for the common good of God’s people (cf. 1 Corinthians 12). Everyone who goes to church expecting to be served by the church, but not to serve the church, is never going to experience what the church is meant to be. They will only see how the church falls short of their expectations.
2… You owe the church. Some people swing to the other side. Recognizing that the church doesn’t exist just to make people happy, and that God gives each person gifts to be used for the good of the church, they say that you need to serve the church with those gifts no matter what the church gives you in return. Church leaders in particular, frustrated by the number of people who come to church as “cafeteria Christians,” seem to swing this way in their philosophy. Such people look for fulfillment in serving the church, and don’t expect much from the church in return. This is especially true of people who work in churches or have some kind of leadership position in the church. They are there to serve, not to be served.
This sounds very noble. The problem is that when you pour yourself into something and get nothing back, you end up burning out. God didn’t create a give-and-take hierarchy in the church where the takers are built up and affirmed and the givers are left on their own to find edification and affirmation elsewhere. Or, it’s expected that some devote their days to serving others and meeting their needs, while they should receive all the upbuilding they need from a simple thank-you or the “privilege of serving.” Yet that’s what it seems like for some people in churches. Eventually, going to church becomes a burden, because whenever they go, someone is expecting something from them. This is a recipe for disillusionment.
Neither of these two ideas are false. The church does exist to serve each of its members, and each of the church’s members do exist to serve the church. But only if that relationship is mutual will people experience church as it was meant to be.
So if you’re finding yourself unsatisfied by a lot of churches because they don’t offer what you want, then perhaps it’s time to offer the church something. There’s no doubt you have something to offer. Indeed, perhaps the very thing you think the church lacks is something you can help provide, or supervise, or spark an idea in someone who has the power to make it happen.
And if you’re finding yourself disillusioned by church because the church seems to take but never give, then maybe it’s time to step back a little from giving, or ask a little more of the church. I don’t mean asking for a little more of your time back or even asking for a raise (if you’re a paid worker). That would simply be asking the church to allow you to have some more time to yourself or exchange more of its money for your services. Neither of those is really giving. But I mean, identify what it is you need to keep you going, make you stronger in your relationship with God. And then ask that of the church. If you help meet the spiritual needs of others, then it makes sense that you could have your spiritual needs met too. And there’s probably someone who would be glad for the privilege of meeting your needs, just as you may be glad to help meet others’ needs.
I think that the more we recognize that the relationship between the church and each of its members is meant to be experienced as a mutual one, not one where one gives and the other takes, there will be less disillusionment with church. Certainly there are other issues that cause problems and hurt, but the failure to make the relationship a mutual one is, I think, the root of at least some of it. So it would benefit all of us to ask: Am I in a mutual relationship with the rest of the church? If not, what can I give, or what can I ask?
