Resignation

Today, as my husband and I crossed the parking lot from church to our car, we heard someone calling for us.

We knew her: she is part of the church leadership.  And she approached with great enthusiasm, shaking our hands and introducing herself.  After a bit of small talk, she asked, “So have you been visiting long?  A few times?”

My husband told her with great politeness and delicacy we’ve been at the church for over a year.

She clearly didn’t expect that response, and I could tell she was embarrassed.  I didn’t want her to feel that way—and at the same, the whole interaction left me feeling so resigned and disappointed I’m not sure what to do with all the thoughts and feelings I’m experiencing right now.  Because it’s not just her: the struggle we’ve experienced at our previous churches is happening again, and I’m not sure there’s a remedy.  I’m starting to believe this is simply how church is going to be.  And that makes me sad.

We hoped, this time, it would be different.

Struggling with feeling “invisible” in previous congregations, my husband and I tried to be practical and strategic attending this new church.  We recognized the burden can’t be on a congregation to learn what they need to know about every new member or visitor; part of the responsibility lies with us.

What does that mean?  For us, it meant:

• Sitting in the same place every Sunday so we could get to know people around us
• Attending with great regularity, and even attending “extra” services when offered (Maundy Thursday, etc.)
• Going immediately to a church social event (no one introduced themselves initially but the pastor – still, our small table filled up and we eventually left with phone numbers and emails.  When I reached out through those channels to say “nice to meet you and looking forward to seeing you in church,” I received no response)
• Following up on an introduction the pastor made to an individual in charge of a particular ministry.  I was actively solicited for the ministry, which I was enthusiastic about, and was told that I would hear about the group next they met…which has not been, apparently, for a year and no other announcements I can see)
• Attending a book club where we got to know and discuss topics and themes over a matter of weeks with about fifteen members of the church
• Participating in a devotional group

A year later, nothing has changed from our initial entry into the church.

It is not because this is a neglectful or unkind church at the core, I don’t think: I witness their ministries, the way they engage with the community and each other.  But I also don’t know how to mend this issue we perpetually encounter.

The thing is, I’m not looking for friends.  I have those.  I’m not wandering into a church expecting weekly coffee dates or frequent texts or phone calls or anything else, really.  I learned long ago to get those social needs met elsewhere (and painfully, the secular community is sometimes better at that than Christ’s church).  What I crave, primarily, is something much simpler: Christian brothers and sisters who know a little about me, who know me well enough and whom I know well enough that I might feel comfortable periodically asking for prayer (or praying for them), sharing praises, offering encouragement, or sitting beside them at church events.

That’s it.  That’s all.

And I am just so tired.  I’m tired of, when I need prayer, calling a) my motley assortment of Christian friends from other places and b) believers at the old home church of my childhood.  I’m tired of realizing that if, God forbid, I or my husband was in the hospital, I’m not sure anyone from our current church would even know us well enough to visit (or to be someone we might call to inform them about it!)   I’m tired of showing up only to find myself talking to my husband when we attend events because everyone else simply passes us by or…says hi and passes us by, or responds to our efforts to engage with pleasant conversation and then…passes us by.

I’ve wondered if it’s us.  I really have.  Are we bland, indistinguishable?  Are we not outgoing enough?  Are we too outgoing?  Do we smell?  Is our politeness coming across as snobbery?  Are we spending too much time talking to each other?  Is it because (and sometimes I really wonder about this one) we don’t have children, or family in the area?

But my husband is so tall that perfect strangers regularly comment on his height at the grocery store: he, at least, is recognizable.  We make concerted efforts to engage, to be open, to remember names and have welcoming body language.  We respond with warmth and enthusiasm to outreach of any sort.  And the weird thing is, in almost every other venue except church, we make connections of significant depth with astonishing ease.

At work, and in other secular settings, people engage.  Introductions turn into small talk that turns into conversations.  I come away with names and phone numbers and emails and people respond.  We make coffee dates and Zoom dates.  I’ve been invited to book clubs and social clubs and gatherings for so-and-so from these engagements.  These connections know where I work, know I have one living parent, check in with me when they don’t see me for a while.  I don’t think I’m repelling people, or doing something egregiously wrong or offputting.  I’m not even looking for a tenth of that from church, and yet.  And yet.

Maybe it’s not a problem to solve.

My husband seems more or less fine with it: he’s a less social creature than I am as a general rule, and so doesn’t mind that church can be this way, though he thinks it’d odd.  He’s content to show up to services, say hi to a bunch of people who may or may not know or remember us, and go home.  We’re there for God, after all, to draw up what we need to go out and serve.  He’s content to rely on non-church (and occasionally non-Christian) folks to know and engage with us.  He’s unbothered that for prayer and praise and encouragement we still rely on a church five hours away that we last attended regularly two decades ago. 

I suppose in the end I’ll have to cultivate that attitude, too. But it makes me sad.  I know from my experience at other churches in my past that it doesn’t have to be that way.  That very little effort can make someone feel welcome, seen, and noticed—like a part of the family.   For whatever reason, though, it’s not happening here.  And it hasn’t happened in a really long time.

I wish it was different.