Are You Feeling Disconnected At Church?

“Is it me?”. I’ve been asking myself this question for quite a while now and yes, to an extent, it probably is. I’ve just finished writing a piece for a denominational magazine on what it feels like to be an introvert at church. At the service I attended last Sunday morning, I reckoned I could have played ‘church bingo’, checking off items on my list of introvertist anxieties – from not knowing the songs to saying the benediction over each other (awkward eye contact moment) to passing the communion glasses to simply being in a room full of strangers. In the article, I asked for understanding. Us, highly sensitive, keep to ourselves, sit-in-the-back-row-close-to-the-exit introverts aren’t unfriendly, anti-social or even odd. We do like you. We just find it hard to show it. We prefer one-to-one conversations, a long lead-in to building relationships, small group hospitality around a table, a bit of notice about people approaching us from stage left to ask us when we became a Christian. Most of us don’t even have a decent testimony. I included a conclusion from someone who has written an entire book on the subject. The church really needs introverted evangelists because they understand what it's like to be on the outside of a community looking in, the author said.

Somewhere in the middle of the pandemic, in between the sanitised, masked, registering for track and trace, two-metre social distancing after the first lockdown in July 2020 and the full resumption of in-person worship on Easter Sunday 2021, I decided I needed to get out of my comfort zone. In retrospect, perhaps a cataclysmic global event which brought immense mental and physical suffering and left us with mountains of unprocessed trauma maybe wasn’t the best time to make such a church-changing decision. But I still maintain that those who didn’t make any adjustments to their religious habits when forced out of their routines, may have missed some sort of divine messaging.

I had realised as I scanned the galleries and the vestibule and the pulpit and the carpark on a Sunday morning, that I knew everyone’s names, and everyone knew mine. I was well enough in to offer ideas and organise events. I had leadership responsibilities. I had social circles to mix in, I had my pew. I was even comfortable walking in to tea and coffee. But the comfort zone is a psychological state where a person feels at ease because they are not being tested. A familiar environment is valued over new experiences or challenges. That seemed at odds with the Great Commission and so after much wrestling, I decided God was calling me to move on. My family and our possessions would have to come too. I’d be Abraham setting out into the desert, only I’d stay within East Belfast, somewhere within walking distance. A formal process meant I jumped and transferred quickly rather than (heaven forbid) look like a backslider or deconstructer. A form was completed, my disjunction certificate signed and I was now a member of somewhere else. It gave me the right to vote for people I didn’t know. First time, you come in here you’re a visitor, second time, you’re family was the message from the front. There was love and good intention in it, but it was a bit of a fanciful leap for me, who never seems to see the same people twice. Whilst Biblical, the language of family can be even more discouraging to those who feel no sense of belonging whatsoever. They only wonder what they’re doing wrong. Eighteen months later, I am still very much on the fringes and becoming increasingly weighed down by my lack of ability to infiltrate anything, to have an outlet for my gifts.

“Is it me?”. Yes. My attendance over the last few months has definitely been erratic. It is a vicious circle, disconnect leads to apathy and apathy to disconnect. I have plenty of excuses though, some that have taken me out of the country during the weekly corporate gathering – a visit to Auschwitz, a once-in-a-lifetime Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam, a cabana in the Algarve. Others have involved me prioritising my health and the goodness of God’s creation – a run on the Greenway, a run by the sea because I really want to be outside in the fresh air when the sun shines. It also doesn’t help that I’ve been supporting a second church with some admin and trying to commit to more than one place is a bit like that story about Solomon and the baby. Cutting myself in two is not the answer. For a while, I called my church behaviour peripatetic. After all, the Lord Jesus was one. But now I’d probably prefer to settle down somewhere, somewhere that needs me because well, in the end, we all want to feel useful.

Sometimes, I think this is all mixed up with the midlife questioning which has impacted various other areas of my life and left me a tiny bit dented. I’ve become particularly conscious of religiosity when it comes to my children. “Mummy, will you come and watch me play? All the other mums are coming”. The pre-pandemic me would have heard the voice of a preacher telling me tennis matches that clash with sermons on a Sunday are a sin, the post-pandemic me doesn’t want my teenagers to see faith as a set of church rules. I don’t want them to have a repeat of my childhood, where church is somewhere you are sent, to keep you from doing anything else. And then, there’s the whole confidence thing. The pandemic has knocked our confidence, beaten us down, made us all ever so slightly disconnected from each other. I’ve written at least twice on how hard it is to walk through a church door. There are times when in spite of being a long-standing churchgoer, knowing exactly what I’ll find in the sanctuary, I just don’t have the energy to continually brave that walking in.

Ultimately, I am left pondering how someone once so connected could so easily become so disconnected. If it’s happening to me, it could be happening to others too. I’m a midlifer, no longer bringing my kids to organisations, too young for the soup club¹. There is a danger of falling between the cracks. I’m not sure anyone is looking for me. There’s no league of church loyalty for adults. The problem is that if I am not connected, not part of a community, I am not part of a movement and really, that’s the whole point, to be working with others towards that bigger picture, that vision that Christ gave us.  

Is it me? Not totally. I can count on the fingers of one finger how many people have reached out to me, invited me for a coffee, taken an interest in who I am. On Tuesday, a woman at the gym showed me photos of her holiday in South Africa, a man at the traffic lights on his bike chatted about the weather. It’s so easy to start a conversation. Why is it not happening at church?

“Would you not come back?” some people have said about my old church. I could slip back into conversations there. We miss you, they say. Yes, sometimes, you have to leave to know what home is, where your family is. I’ve been tempted but then Lot’s wife and Don Henley are always there to remind me. “Don't look back, you can never look back”.

I still believe it has been worth it. If I hadn’t made the move, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what I’m telling you now. I wouldn’t know what disconnected at church feels like, I wouldn’t understand what it's like to be on the outside of a community looking in and I wouldn’t care about making it better.

1. I’d like to write about midlifers at church, those who find themselves in this position. Please get in touch if you’d be willing to talk to me.