Sojourner writes...

Share your deconstruction stories"

Ria responds with: I'm in the first stages of deconstruction, but here's how it started:

Christmas last year fell on a Sunday, and since we were visiting my in-laws, we went to their church. The service had already gone on for at least an hour when the pastor got up for the sermon time and invited all the kids up front. “I’m going to talk to the kids,” he said, “and you adults can listen in if you want.” We brought the girls up front, where a handful of school-aged kids had already gathered. The pastor started off well, with some interactive questions, but after about five minutes he was off into his regular 40 minute sermon. Meanwhile, our oldest had grown restless and my husband took her out. The younger girl, who was 2 ½ at the time, was amusing herself dancing around in circles there in the front of the church – until a woman in the front row leaned over to me and complained that she found her a distraction!

That morning I left church feeling like I’d been thoroughly set up – which I still believe, even if I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt and put it down to poor planning. If you’re going to welcome children, then you have to welcome them as children, not as pint-sized grownups. And if the pastor says he’s going to talk to the kids, then he ought to talk to the kids, and do it for no more than 10 or 15 minutes! And what’s with the woman who has been so trained to focus in on the sermon as some great educational moment that she’s “distracted” by the simple joys of a toddler delighting in Christmas morning?

When the emotions of that day cooled a bit – clearly they remain fresh in my heart and mind even now – I found myself asking questions about the nature of faith, discipleship and church that I’m still wrestling with. The average evangelical church service is organized on the pattern of an educational event, with some singing to get everyone in the mood to listen to the pastor’s dissertation. It’s the college lecture hall, with dutiful parishioners taking notes. Granted, that’s an environment I’m very comfortable in, but has my life ever been changed by a sermon? Do I even remember a single sermon I’ve heard in the past 25 years? Do I remember even one point of last Sunday’s? What does the whole sitting-in-church-staring-at-the-back-of-someone’s-head model have to do with the life of the Kingdom of God? Do I want my children to be socialized to be good church attenders, sitting quietly through the whole business, or am I raising citizens of the Kingdom who are out to change the world?

The Planter: I invite you to share your church deconstruction stories. Let's give it a try, will you?