Lessons from a “churchless” season

Through the vagaries and circumstances of life, I have found myself officially “churchless” for the past 18 months. Or, to put it more accurately, “congregation-less.” Since last Easter, my family and I have continued to attend Sunday services regularly without belonging to a specific group of Anglicans.

While I’m looking forward to the next phase of life when I’m rooted once again in a particular community, this season hasn’t been without its charms. And of course, as with all things, I’ve gained a few insights along the way.

1. Visiting new churches is life-giving. This has been the biggest blessing of the past many months. It didn’t surprise me, but it was nice to be reminded again of the many gifts congregations can offer – and we barely scratched the surface!

It’s a joy to belong to a community, and it’s a joy to see how other Anglicans worship. During this churchless year, my family has returned to congregations familiar to us where we were sure of a warm welcome, but we’ve also stepped through new doors, not always knowing what to expect. Rooted in a familiar liturgy, we’ve observed the different ways communities live out their call to worship God and serve the world.

Not everything was to our personal tastes; nor should it be. The congregation with unfamiliar music had the warmest welcome. The one with very few kids had the best activity bag. No congregation was perfect, no congregation was the same, and yet in every one we found a community of faithful people praising God.

Familiarity is good. It’s comfortable and comforting. It provides a safe space to ask questions, and companions with whom to learn to follow Jesus. But it’s also valuable beyond measure to get out of that bubble every now and then, to remind ourselves that our way is not the only way, and that we are part of something much more vast than our little corner of God’s kingdom.

2. It can be a gift to stay home. There are weeks in all our lives that are packed with activity, when we arrive at the weekend breathless and exhausted. And for families with kids, weekends can be just as busy, with swimming lessons, birthday parties, dance recitals and family gatherings. And then there’s a subway shutdown.

For several years, my daughter and I would walk down the street to church in-person every Sunday, come rain or shine or snowpocalypse, my husband having left home hours before to lead the early service. Interruptions to the pattern, usually caused by illness, were less breaks than long hours of pure survival mode.

So this past year we decided, on occasion, to give ourselves a real break. Often we tuned into livestreamed worship, a wonderful outcome of the pandemic that many congregations have continued to invest in. And sometimes we didn’t. Some weeks, we gave ourselves a slow morning to simply enjoy time at home with each other. We knew church would be there next Sunday.

The weekly rhythm of worship is important, and faith grows stronger in the context of a community. But the freedom to choose not to go to church, when exercised judiciously, is no bad thing.

3. Giving doesn’t have to stop. Despite not attending the same church every week, we’ve still been able to give to ministry we feel called to support. Tools like pre-authorized remittance and CanadaHelps make it easy to give even when we’re not physically in church, and to give to more than one congregation. Electronic giving also lets us support the communities we’re visiting when we don’t think to bring cash, which is almost always.

No doubt the amount and direction of our gifts will shift with the changes in our lives, but it’s a comfort to know that we can find easy and predictable ways to give no matter where we are.

4. Faith formation needs to happen at home. This also wasn’t a new thought, but it did become more real. During our churchless year, my daughter morphed from a kindergartener with rounded edges to a gangly first-grader, all sharp knees and elbows. Her curiosity and critical thinking have taken off, and she has started to appreciate that her Christian faith is something that most of her friends don’t share.

Relying solely on Sunday School to teach my daughter about God and Jesus was never the plan, still less so when we’re not visiting the same place every week. She’s at an age when she wants to learn from her parents and share her thoughts. For now, at least, we are the most important people in her life. And her faith won’t deepen if we don’t take the trouble to help deepen it. Just as we need to help her practice reading and writing, math and problem-solving, we need to help her practice her faith.

It’s not always comfortable, and there’s still part of me that feels unqualified to disciple anybody, but it’s much too important to neglect. We shouldn’t leave our faith behind at the church door on Sunday. It should follow us home, shape how we grow, the choices we make, the ways we live our lives. There’s no way to predict what decisions my daughter will make about faith as she grows up, but I can hope that providing a space where we ask questions, have tricky conversations and grow together will help nurture in her a faith that is curious and active.

This nomadic year wasn’t something I had planned, and I didn’t necessarily welcome it. And yet, there have been valuable experiences that I can’t regret having, and valuable insights that I can’t regret knowing. I may not have another year like this again in my life, but I hope to remember that faith is formed not only where we put down roots, but also whenever God invites us to look beyond them.