You get what you need . . . in church

June 5, 2013 | Young Voices
Peter Epp |

A discussion among us thirty-something Mennonites has been heating up online. It’s a discussion that cuts to the heart of nearly everything the church worries about us. The discussion question is the first one you’d guess: “Why don’t we go to church?”

The discussion, to my knowledge, kicked off when Mennonite World Review reposted an entry from a blog entitled “Motley Mama” on its website. In it, Kate Baer, a fellow millennial, responds to a question from one of her readers. The reader asks Kate, an articulate, creative Menno­nite writer, why she doesn’t go to church.

The question is posed as it often is these days. It’s asked carefully, as if the asker is anxious that the wrong words may chase us even farther away. And it ends by indicating an almost-total devotion to making church work for young Mennonites: “Is there anything the rest of us can do to welcome [you] back?”

Kate’s response to this question is deeply honest. It also reflects some of my feelings, and those of many of my peers as well. She begins by admitting that church can feel boring and that it’s easier to stay home, eat blueberry pancakes and stream online TV shows instead.

She also goes on to specify what she feels we want: “We want a church less about church and more about community. We want a church with reached-out hands instead of clenched fists. We want real. We want relatable. We want compassionate and inclusive. We want to talk about things that matter now.”

I’m glad Kate was so honest. But her honesty, by itself, reflects an aspect of my generation that I’ve grown increasingly nervous about.

Our generation tends to be great with honest reflections. We were brought up to tell the truth and find our voices. Our love of blogging is a testament to that.

Unfortunately, though, we haven’t always been so great at allowing our honesty to be evaluated. We haven’t been great at this because we haven’t been sticking around to receive it. We casually inject our honesty from the outside and then move on. So even if we’re right, we’re not committed or vulnerable enough to be a part of actually making those concerns mean anything.

Right now, if I assess my generation’s honesty, I see this: a lot of sincere, valid, prophetic insight. But I also see a generation asking the church to bend over backwards for them while light-heartedly hinting that they might still prefer to relax at home every Sunday. I see a generation saying seriously important things, but without doing enough to deserve to be taken seriously.

Yet we are taken seriously. Our parents, our parents’ friends, our grandparents, our grandparents’ friends and so many Mennonites over the age of 40 have listened anyway.

They’ve nodded, chosen their words ever more carefully, and time and time again have asked us if there was anything, anything at all, they could ever do to keep us. More and more, they’ve acted like people who know that the future of their church depends on us. They’ve acted like people willing to consider just about anything just to keep us.

I’m not saying the church hasn’t been frustratingly rigid sometimes. I’m just saying that much of that church is asking us to help them overcome that. They’re no longer asking us to be just like them. They’re no longer asking us to give up our ideals and our concerns. They’re no longer asking us to sit quietly in the pews in our Sunday best, pretending. They’re just asking us to come out and help them fix the problems we’ve told them about.

Lately, when I’ve been asked why I still go to church, my first answer tends to be this: Where else would I be required to build community with people I otherwise—and usually inaccurately—label too conservative, too sheltered, too naïve or too closed-minded? Where else would I be required to coexist with and learn from my elders? Where else would I learn the humility that my elders model every time they listen to me?

There may be a lot I want from church that I’m not getting yet. But, thankfully, it’s still providing even more of what I actually need. And the more we all choose what we need, the closer we all get to the inspiring, thriving church we want.

Peter Epp teaches Mennonite studies in Gretna, Man. This column first appeared in the May 2013 issue of The Mennonite under the title ‘Why young adults don’t go to church.’ Reprinted with permission.

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