Church Shopping

It’s not like anyone said it to me, directly. It was probably mentioned in passing conversation with other Christians. Dropped into a sermon or two. Recommended in an article somewhere.

Don't go church shopping. You're not picking out a new pair of jeans, you're joining a community. A family. Stay and commit. It's more about what you put in and give. It's about obedience. Worshipping God shouldn't be about making it suit you.

Again, no direct quotes. This is just the miasma I've inhaled over the years breathed back onto a page.

I even see the truth of it from an angle. Can nearly see the outline of the personality type it was directed at. It was, perhaps, directed at someone who sees church as more of a social club, has a stiff stylistic preference in the worship, and folds their arms in the front row seat, daring the pastor to make them the least bit uncomfortable. Or maybe it's someone looking to be part of ten different outreaches, needs a fog machine to get hyped, and can't focus if the message is longer than ten minutes.

I caricature slightly, but my point is, there probably is a sort of person who should take to heart the idea that being at church isn't all about them and they need to stop hopping around, searching for one that checks every box on their wishlist.

The problem is, that message is missing a chunk of people who might start thinking they've gone insane after long enough.

To illustrate, let me take you through my attempts to find a church in Tokyo.

The first church we found seemed like a good church, focused fervently on evangelism. Very few Sundays went by when we didn't hear about how important it was that we should reach out to those around us. A few people were friendly with us and recognized us as we returned.

But three months in, and we were still largely unknown. Invitations we made to socialize with other members were often turned down. And the message continued to be hammered that the people around us needed to be saved.

It wore me down. I wanted to stand up and ask, "We just arrived in Japan. With what language skills? With what cultural knowledge? With what personal connection?" We had no tools and we, ourselves, were soul-sick with many questions about our faith still, but we were being pressured to share before our own foundation was firm.

Slowly but surely, I came to dread Sundays. I became more lax about waking up, was more willing to extend an early-morning gaming session through the time we'd need to leave to get to church. Shamefacedly, I took myself off the hook about going every week.

One Saturday night, completely burned out and looking at a to-do list that took up two pages of my journal, I wailed to Sergey that going to church was just "One more damn thing on my list and it shouldn't be like that!"

We'd been in talks with the pastor about joining. We'd even made verbal commitments, more or less. But we never went back after that.

The next church felt promising, at first. The worship was off-key–which, oddly enough, encouraged me as to its authenticity. The people were friendly and spoke to me immediately, trying to engage me in conversation. But from the pulpit, the pastor spoke only about revival and how many people each person in the congregation should be able to convert. He sprinkled in a couple verses that felt horribly taken out of context to illustrate his point. The spirit of it felt all wrong. I could not stay here, either.

The third was perhaps the only Messianic congregation in Tokyo. It is a tiny little community that was quite warm and engaged me kindly, but I could not find what I was looking for, though I was getting a better sense of it as time went on.

It is a hard thing to describe accurately. I am rarely able to do more than point to symptoms and draw the outline of the concept I'm trying to communicate. I can tell you what I have seen–both in these Tokyo churches and churches in the States–that has left me cold and averse to coming. Understand that these are not checklist items, these are clusters of symptoms that point to a miasma in the church system that suffocates me the longer I attend.

Addressed as if speaking to these churches:

• Production quality. You have screens pointed in every direction, perfectly placed. Your music is like a rave or a rock concert, with some combination of smoke machines and lasers. Worship becomes about harnessing the emotional energy of the crowd and trying to spread it, not about thanking Jesus.
  
• Timing. Your countdown timer is God. Your service runs like a perfectly crafted clock. There is no space for God to do something intrusive, or even for you to stop any part of the service and ask him to do it. Is the countdown timer a guide? Totally cool. Is the countdown timer Master of Ceremonies? It feels like you've got something other than the Spirit of the living God at work.
  
• Evangelism first. Your message supports evangelism. Your message encourages evangelism. Your message pressures evangelism. Your message is so focused on evangelism you forget to talk about why it matters in the first place. You do not lead the flock to understand why they should love Jesus, or what loving Jesus looks like. If they don't know why they love Him, if they haven't experienced the change that is promised for themselves, what is evangelism but parroted talking points? Who are we even introducing the lost ones TO at that point? It seems like we're inducting them into church, not bringing them into a life-altering relationship.
  
• Community. Related to the prior point, but, you are so focused outward on those in need that you don't really seem interested in addressing the needs of those within the church. Or, if you are, it's not for those who first knock on your door. We came to the first church, afraid and alone, with no knowledge of how to navigate the many transitional issues confronting us. When we emailed the staff of this church for help, we were shunted off to one of their small groups or prayer meetings. Where is the network of church members whose skills are known, who have signed on to help with various problems that other members or would-be members have? It seems like if one is not an unsaved Japanese person, one is of no interest.
  
• Size. Most churches want to grow, and it's hard to fault that. Larger churches means you are taking in more resources that enable you to do more (and more varied) good. But if you are so large that your members can't recognize most other members, what kind of community are you? Are you so focused on growth that you don't pay attention to what you already have?
  

Now, sometimes God may tell a person directly to stay at a church where they aren't being fed and God is barely present, to be the reminder and the invitation to others that there is more to relationship with God. I accept that is a situation that exists, but I have never heard this directive.

If you have not heard this and you are crushed under the load that religious leaders place on you, then I say leave. Find a place where every face is pointed toward God, however imperfectly. You'll disagree with parts of the message, and you may feel the worship drags a bit too long, and you'll wonder why they can't get their act together and shed the chaos that keeps barging into the service and the lives of the members, but you'll recognize the spirit of love between the congregation and the Father.

I was studying and attending Japanese language classes an awful lot. I was keeping an apartment clean. I was trying to get out and see my few friends from time to time. I knew that church isn't supposed to feel like a self-help group, but I also knew it isn't supposed to be a crushing burden to go.

So I didn't. Because it's very hard to sit in a place, starving for something you can't name, and being shown a feast that you're not allowed to eat because–you are told–it's for the people outside. Or worse, you are handed a few stale crumbs and told to be grateful for what you get, because once upon a time there were full, golden loaves of fresh bread but that was a long time ago.

God has granted me mouthfuls of bread and rivers of living water at different times in my life, and so I cannot accept it when people tell me that crumbs and trickles are all that I can expect.

I spent some time in the States, in a little church that Sergey and I have come to love. They are imperfect, and we don't always agree with what we hear, but we see the spirit we have been looking for. And once we were reminded what it looked like, we were able to carry that back with us to Japan.

Our fourth try we found it. It's a tiny church that takes up 2 small floors of a multi-story shared building. The worship and sermon has to be streamed from floor 4 to a screen on floor 5. It has a little cafe that runs most of the week as an outreach. Most members sit on the floor so the elderly can sit in the few chairs. The worship is roughly three songs long that are sung for about an hour.

It isn't any one thing I can point to. It's seeing some of them on their knees. It's hearing the messages spoken by people who seem like they actually love Jesus. It's the sense that it's just as encouraged to rest in the Master's embrace as it is to go out and tell everyone about how He embraced you. It's the staff member who, after three weeks of us darting out at the end of service, darted out to catch us before we left and get to know us a bit. It's a quiet knowing that God's presence is here in a joyful, restorative way.

This place, too, is not perfect, but it has what Sergey and I have been looking for.
To those of you who are looking for the picture perfect church that suits every one of your needs, I say this: Stop. Stay where you are. Learn something from commitment, even if it isn't forever. Stay a year, or two. See if that shows you something you never saw before.

To those of you starving, withering, wondering why you can never find God or get fed, I say this: Leave. Find a church that seeks his face first and lets all else follow and flow from that. And don't settle for less. Your soul is no less important to the one who came to save.