Churchish

I have been talking about writing this post for a while and haven't gotten around to it yet because I still have so many thoughts running through my head. I still probably won't be able to adequately articulate my feelings, but I need to at least try to get them out. Last week, in Sunday School, someone came and spoke about "Why I'm a Wesleyan" and I'm pretty sure it was the last straw.

Growing up, I went to church of Christ, Presbyterian, Baptist, nondenominational, and now Methodist churches. My sister and her family now go to a church of Christ. My dad is at a nondenominational church and my mom has converted to Catholicism. All that to say, my faith journey and relationship with God has been impacted by many different sources. Denominational diversity has shaped my views of Christ and Christianity as a whole.

When my mom first talked to me about converting and my thoughts on it, I told her that as long as she loved Jesus, it didn't matter where she chose to worship. And I still believe that! As I've heard it said, there are rights and wrongs and there are rights and lefts. There are essentials and nonessentials and I am discovering more and more about myself through all of this.

So... back to my "last straw," there are been some red flags for me from early on in visiting this church, but I continued to go because I valued the community and felt as though the Bible was being preached. Those were pretty much my only prerequisites when I was looking at churches. But as I have gotten more involved and want to feel more connected and am thinking about joining a church, I have some concerns.

I don't know if all of my issues are related to the Methodist church or to this specific church. I do know that these are just my opinions and they are all on nonessential issues so take this all with a grain of salt...

Methodists seem very proud of their denomination- more so than any other church that I have attended. Maybe I'm just being hypersensitive, but there is something about it that rubs me the wrong way. In Sunday school last summer, people took turns telling some of their testimonies. Every single person started off their story with "I grew up in the Methodist church..." and it just seemed unnecessary. My testimony also starts with the fact that I grew up in church, but the denomination is irrelevant. In my story, the church as a whole takes a back seat to the incredible, God-fearing, influential people in my life. I just felt as though there was an weighty importance placed on the denomination of the church. Throughout the past few years, we have talked about various topics and we obviously talk about the Wesleyan view of things, but I feel like there is always a side note about how "others" do things.

I am not a Wesleyan so I don't know all the terminology, but there is apparently some sort of "Book of Disciplines" that Methodists follow. (I just googled it. It's legit.) I don't fully understand this. I believe in the Bible. I also believe in the priesthood of all believers. I struggle with the tension between the fact that I can approach the throne of God on my own without a "higher authority" interceding for me, but there is still a governing body that forms opinions on the Bible and tells me how I'm supposed to think on certain issues.

So there is apparently a conference coming up soon to discuss this book. From what I understand, the conference is on homosexuality and how it is viewed in the church. My understanding is that there is a lot of tension around this issue in the Methodist church and that it could even lead to a denominational split. And that is why the speaker came to talk to our class about "Why I'm a Wesleyan." (It took a while, but I made it full circle!) In theory, I don't have a problem with talking about what the Methodist church believes, but I do struggle when it is pitted against other denominations. I felt as though the talk came across very much as "this is the right way to think and this is what this or that denomination think." It felt very "us versus them." And I think that is what rubbed me the wrong way. Especially on nonessential issues!

There are other things I'm struggling with within the church too. Some of them are the church issues and some are internal issues. I miss diversity. I hate feeling overscheduled. The narrow worldview. I could go on. Feel free to ask me about it in person sometime...

So where does this leave me? I honestly don't know. I'm taking some time to reflect. And pray. And see where God leads me. I think I am going to go to the exploring membership class to see if I can ask some questions and get a better idea of how the church views the "others." I may go visit some other churches. But mostly, lots of prayer.

Thoughts?