Good churchin'

Everybody needs some good churchin' from time to time, whether they need the God aspect of it or not. It's good to be able to sit still for an hour and face forward and be quiet and let somebody else be in charge of the talking.

I, personally, am in need of some good churchin', and more to the point, am in need of a good church.

I am a member of a church that's good, but it's no good for me.

I sure was good for it, though, because I'm full of energy for their outreach programs, and I want to serve the least of these our brethren, and I want to be surrounded by like-minded people.

I'm a lonesome animal in a church – that church, anyway – because I'm single and straight and middle-aged and female and I don't have any children.

I am The Only One Like Me in the whole church.

They don't have a Sunday school class for me, even.

It's not like I'm going to church looking for husband, and truth be told, I wouldn't want to meet one there, because I don't want to give the false impression that I'm going to go every Sunday.

I quit going to the church I'm a member of, and it was both an easy and a hard choice.

I haven't felt included since the old pastor and his family left.

I talked to the two co-pastors about how I don't feel that there's a place there for me and they...just agreed. 

I chose that particular church because for one thing, I have historic ties to it, in the form of my late Aunt Virginia, and for another, it has an excellent outreach program, and that means something to me.

But every Sunday, I sat there alone. I did not feel the sense of community I think you're supposed to feel in a church. I did not feel that those other people were my people, let alone my friends.

Every few days or so, there would be an email, a prayer request for this person or that person in some sort of need. It's a pretty well-known fact that I can fend for myself, but not once, not one, single, solitary time has anyone asked me, "How are you doing, Susan?"

So today, just like that, I cut my last tie when I unsubscribed myself from the church listserv.

My heart is heavy, but it was as simple as falling off the pew.