Dear Church…
I’ve had a long week…
Work’s been pretty crazy lately. I sit in a tiny 5 x 5 cubicle to do my 20 x 20 work. I have several different unrelated duties, so I get pulled in a lot of directions. I have to work hard to keep all the threads neatly tied together. Because of the Coronavirus, there’s a lot of video conferencing now. Sitting in a 5×5 space, directly surrounded by people in other 5×5 spaces is not conducive for optimum concentration on a video conference, or while you try to input information. Maybe age is just catching up to me, and my focus is not what it used to be. I’ll never go full-on postal, but I had a busy and stressful day this week where I went postal “enough”, and my temper got the best of me with one of my co-workers. I really hate that it happened, though I didn’t quite convey that to him afterwards. I tried to apologize, but I somehow miffed that as well. So much for humility.
I had a heart attack a year ago, and a few weeks ago I developed bells palsy. It’s clearing up now, but sometimes I just sit in my worn out couch cushion waiting for the next big thing to drop, barely moving or speaking. I have to wonder if death by red meat could be considered a self-inflicted wound. It’s been hard to eat better. I’m used to what I like and don’t want to change. So, while some people take the quick and easy way out, am I just doing the same thing, except slower? I know I’m rambling, but like I said, it’s been a heck of a week. This is probably about whether I feel like I have anything genuinely worthwhile to offer.
On top of all of that, I’ve still got so many flaws and hangups. I’m finding it hard to find a reason to do anything at all, though I try. This is why I’m here church. Why I’m writing to you. It’s Friday night, and the weekend goes by pretty quickly. Before it does, and I miss another Sunday, I’d like to come visit you. But I need the right place. I’m not talking about the right people. I know they’re as messed up as me, even if they won’t admit it. That’s true across every denomination. I could throw a stone in church and hit a broken person every single time. That’s actually kind of a comfort to me.
Here’s where I need your help:
Find me a place that will give me hope after a long and difficult week. Find me a seat in a church that points to something outside of me. Give me the address of grace and mercy.
I know you can send me to hundreds of different places all within a 20 mile radius. But this week, I’m begging you to find me someplace that I could drag myself into, all bruised and battered, and find a comforting balm to treat my wounds. I know the tendency nowadays is to tell people how to dress their own wounds and get back out there, but that’s not what I need. What I need is the great healer to come and heal me. I want to walk into a place that sees me hungry and parched and feeds me bread and wine.
That’s what I need this weekend. I don’t need to be told how to measure up, I’m a mess after this week. I feel unworthy and empty after this week. I need someone to tell me Christ has measured me for the sweetest fitting robes of righteousness, bought and paid for by him.
So where is that place Church?
I have to tell you, I’m not the only one looking for it. There are others out there, the walking wounded, looking for refreshment. They are looking for grace and mercy. For Christ to call them his, apart from works. I know so many who need that something to be given to them. It’s not a something to do, but a something that was done.
Please Church…
This Sunday, point me in the right direction. Don’t drive me inward towards good behavior, but outward towards an obedient Son. Drive me to something greater than I, Drive me to a baptism where the promise is found. Drive me to absolution where my sins are forgiven. Drive me to a meal that fortifies me in Christ. Finally drive me to a cross that validates it all!
Then stop…
Where is that place I can go to this weekend?
Where can I find a Gospel that’s not just for the unsaved to come to, but for the Christian to come to again and again?
Where is it? Tell us.
We are desperate for it.
Please.
The Defeated Victor 
I hear you. I live in an area of mega churches juxtaposed to tiny, almost non-existent churches. Finding one that preaches straight gospel has been hard. We finally found a church where the pastor teaches straight through the Bible cover to cover. He doesn’t sugar-coat the messages, and doesn’t twist them to fit what’s going on in the world. But somehow, many days, the messages fit exactly what the church needs to hear. I attribute that to God and having a Pastor that isn’t willing to bow to the whims of secular culture. I hope you find your place. I think we all are feeling wounded right now, but most don’t know where to seek their healing, their comfort. At least you’re ahead of the game in that respect. I pray you find your place. Blessings.
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Thank you for the feedback. It’s not always easy to find that right fit. I know it’ll work out. I often try to speak in ways I know others have struggled as well. This was one of those times..
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Beautiful letter, Dominick. And I wish I had the map with the highlighted route to lead you there. But I trust God will…
And until that appointed time, please remember when we ourselves place ourselves (our own woundedness) within the wound of Christ it is miraculously made a womb for us to rest in. From wound to womb – we can be born anew.
I believe you already know this and I just want you to remember once again; the hope/respite/peace that is His, is waiting to be found in every place you enter – sometimes it is just harder to find.
Good luck with the food plan! PS: “nothing tastes as good as healthy feels!”
Hugs & blessings!
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Thank you Dawn. To be honest, I have places I can go and I’m nourished, but the desire for community is always closer to home. So as much as I don’t mind driving 60-70 miles for “nourishment” The hearts desire is immediate and close. Definitely harder in some places than others.
nothing taste as good as healthy feels? Hmmm… I’ll have to trust you on that… LOL
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I’d love to come to this place, too.
Peace x Light
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Thank you for responding. So many people have this struggle to find a place where Grace freely reigns and is dispensed to us in the midst of our struggles of life. Where in the world do you live? I’d love to see if there are connections that I could help make so you might find that place.
Blessings to you…
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I wish I could express my feelings and quandaries as well as you. My morning scripture reading really whacked my face. Psalm 42, it’s about when everything sucks, but looking to God anyway. Verse 9 sums it up well, “I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”” A couple nights ago I watched this stupid movie, marginal acting, bad special effects and extremely predicable, called “I am Gabriel.” Regardless of all that I cried like a baby through the whole thing, because wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where an angel would show up and fix everything wrong in your life and town? Nevertheless, I sit in church week after week, listening to sermons (I love my pastor) that are more like group therapy than Divine deliverance and I will keep going back. It’s all we’ve got to keep the flame of hope flickering in our hearts that one day the trumpet will sound, whether just for me or for us all, and every struggle in this life will be forgotten, love will triumph and I will spend eternity with other strugglers and cool people like you. Thanks for helping me process my thoughts with your well written blog.
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Sir,
First, thank you for taking out some of your precious time to read anything here, and that you left a comment is an double honor for me. I’ve been amazed as I’ve gotten older, what kind of things reduce to me to tears. For me it’s nearly anything related to a type of redemption. Of all things, Netflix’s Cobra Kai (the series based on the old Karate Kid) really gets me in that way. My old church was a plant in NYC. After three yrs, we were unable to sustain it, thanks in part to Coronavirus and how hard it is to even sustain a new church in a big city. I was blessed to be a right hand man to a great pastor who had a way of regularly doling out the Grace of God from the pulpit with proper weight, un-watered down. Now that the church has closed we converted the website to a place that carries all his content, for people who need that good news. The link is below. Thank you again. This has been my own kind of rough day, and your words have lifted me as well.
Dominick
Link: http://www.pastorerick.org
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First, let me say I came here to read this post thanks to Insanity Bytes = https://insanitybytes2.wordpress.com/2021/03/20/dear-church/
Second, I greatly appreciate your willingness to share openly and honestly (right? you weren’t pulling our legs, here? No, I don’t think so.). As you say, the challenges you describe are widespread in general, and among most of Body of Messiah, though many are trained to pretend otherwise.
Third, like all of us, my story can be told in complex intricacies, with many apt analogies and metaphors, including way more details than you need cluttering your comment section. Bottom line: I will not stop learning and discovering, and His Word truly is a light to my path – really His path. Ultimately, we are called to Love God and Love Each Other. That is all. “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these.” (Matt. 22:40)
May His shalom embrace you, Dominick!
boromax aka Ed
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I made my way here also thanks to Itsy at insanitybytes2
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IB has been awesome and a blessing to me… I can’t thank her enough for sharing my words on her site.
AND thank you again.
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Ed, Thank you for you’re message and for reading. I’m fortunate in know places I can go, but there is nothing like being in a place that fits. It’s always been a struggle for me. So, no leg yanking here. Despite all of that, I Know Christ is my ultimate home and thankful he calls me his.
IB has been awesome and a blessing to me… I can thank her enough for sharing my words on her site.
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