I have struggled with how to keep things positive on all sides when dealing with divisive issues like the role, purpose and importance of the church from the perspective of those who have found themselves skirting its edges. I have concluded that it just isn't possible. On the one hand, I dearly love the church and have very close friends who are church leaders and devoted members. On the other hand, as difficult as this may be for some people, she has problems. That certainly isn't a surprising statement for most people. However, most people are content to say, "She has problems over there." It's a bit more difficult when someone suggests that perhaps the problems are right here. In some ways the problems may be universal - the problem might possibly have to do with the way the church is not just in what she does.
I've recently compiled some thoughts on creedal and doctrinal statements that I wanted to post but was afraid would be read as an attack by some of my friends. I re-wrote it several times but still couldn't phrase it in a way that didn't have the potential to rile somebody up. In the end, I refrained from posting it. I've done that several times.
So here's the deal. I don't claim to have all the answers. I don't even claim to have any particularly original questions. My opinions may be wrong. They probably are wrong. But many people I encounter struggle with many of these very things. I myself struggle with these things. And the shrink-wrapped answers provided by so many in church leadership do not help. Of course, neither do unforgiving and uninformed accusations by those outside the church. So, I'm trying to consider the issues from someplace in the middle. As I find myself actually in the middle (trained and educated for ministry but troubled with many of the same questions and concerns of those outside church), I feel like I have a somewhat unique perspective.
So, to my friends on the "inside" of the church, take these things as the well-meaning if occasionally painful observations of a sometimes wayward brother. It has not been my intention to offend. To my friends "outside" the church or dancing along her borders, I share with you my own thoughts and struggles not that you will use them as fodder for anger and bitterness toward the church, but that you might not abandon her, that you might find some measure of reconciliation with her and that perhaps you might kindly and lovingly help her find her way forward.
As my fortieth year hovers on the horizon, I myself am still finding my own place "inside" the church, "inside" ministry and occasionally I question if such a place exists! But I have hope. I believe in the "people of God." I believe that God has chosen to work - though not exclusively - through the church. I believe that the answer is never to walk away from the church, but to walk beside her until she is ready to let us walk with her. Of late I have taken greater hope and consolation as I have taken broader interdenominational steps of faith, that there may indeed be a place for everyone. It just may take a while to find it.
