My Children Have Stopped Going To Church
For sixteen years, we had the same Sunday morning routine. Occasionally, we’d adapt it to accommodate another child, maybe taking the odd break to go on holiday or briefly abandoning it, if vomiting visited the house. I never ever thought about just having a Sunday off.
Sabbath after Sabbath, as if on auto-pilot, we’d rise excessively early, punch drunk from a long working week supplemented by a whirl of Saturday activities, fritter away a few hours inhaling strong coffee and then around 10am, we’d launch into a full-scale military operation to get four children ready for church. No rest for the wicked, I‘d think. There’d be tears as we forcibly extracted them from CBeebies, screaming, huffs, rows about outfits until we eventually made it out the door, running back in to grab the nappy bag, then we’d drive at excessive speed, circle to find a parking space, and slide into our usual pew just as the minister was stepping up into the pulpit. Our image remained intact - mum, dad and a quartet of beautiful little girls, socially acceptable. We were there, marked present. I never questioned it - none of it - not the exhaustion, the guilt, the functionality, the niggly doubts, not even that overwhelming need to ensure everyone was dressed in their ‘Sunday best’.
I must have listened to hundreds of sermons, bowed my head endlessly in prayer, repeatedly asked for forgiveness, sometimes I even agreed to read the scripture passage, but most of the time, I wasn’t fully present, my mind was always somewhere else - the to-do list, the Sunday evening nit check, the ironing, the week ahead, how I was never getting it right. For at least a decade, I went through the motions. I remember an external gloss versus an internal turmoil.
I’m not sure anyone ever asked me how I was, I’m not sure I’d have told the truth anyway, I might have grabbed their legs and said I was tired. I remember how hard it all was. I think of Lucy’s navy leggings and red stripy top she was forced to wear instead of the football kit she desperately wanted to wear. I shiver at spending a whole year sitting on a cold hall floor because Alice was terrified of being abandoned, I was relieved when Lydia finally stopped having nightmares about the adults dressed-up in the dramas. I struggled with the constant waste from well-intentioned arts and crafts, wondering why there wasn’t a bin on the way out. I yearned for there to be more talking and storytelling, more vulnerability, more opportunity to let my guard down. For a long time, church was stressful. When I wasn’t battling with my own children and my own demons, I was looking after other peoples’, sorting juice and biscuits for Créche, gathering cookery ingredients for Girls’ Brigade, leading a Home Group. I was spiritually hungry yet constantly overwhelmed with administrative busyness. I had no energy for growth. It was all about doing rather than being.
And then in March 2020, everything changed. The routine wasn’t just broken, it was ripped apart. It coincided with transitional periods in the girls’ lives - Lydia on the cusp of double-figures felt too grown-up for the kids’ programme, Ella was whole-heartedly embracing teenage rebellion, Alice was on the verge of adulthood. None of them were deeply connected into a church friendship group, they’d never quite fitted in, they definitely didn’t want to go to anything awkward online. Lucy, honest as usual, said, “they’re not really my type”.
That first Sunday in lockdown was a one-off novelty. We tuned in, put the service on the flat screen and watched it together. It didn’t last. I failed quite quickly at making church a family occasion in the living room. I was distracted, multi-tasking, I didn’t feel like worshipping, my concentration levels were zero, I couldn’t get the girls to switch from entertainment YouTube to evangelical YouTube, I couldn’t even get them up before lunchtime.
And then I began to question everything, not my faith, just how I was living it out, where I was exercising it. I started church channel hopping, watching a range of services, never at the same time as anyone else. I felt both stifled and unrooted. I wasn’t sure if I was being called to move on. Propelled along by a warm welcome and a divinely-orchestrated set of events, I made the decision to join a new church. “Have the children settled in ok?” everyone asked, those I’d left behind and those I’d just met. For a while, I fudged the answer, made excuses about exams and homework, explained how unsettling the last two years had been. Now I just say no, they have stopped going to church.
Part of me believes I have failed. I look at lots of other families on Sundays whose teenage children still sit alongside them and wonder was my daughters’ upbringing not holy enough. I mull over the example I set, did I model anxiety rather than peace, rules rather than grace. I realise they have to develop their own faith, not hang on to mine. I would never want them to be at church out of duty or compliance, solely for my benefit. I am keen to explore whether the traditional corporate structure just doesn’t suit them - is it not relational, relevant, realistic enough for the world they are living in? I particularly understand their desire to belong, I need to find my earthly tribe too.
In my most disheartened moments, I even ponder whether it would it be easier if they played a musical instrument, their sporting talents seem useless at church. I am comforted by the fact that they haven’t lost all spiritual ties, this is not complete disconnection, not the wilderness, not yet anyway. Just because they are not at church on a Sunday does not mean they are not anywhere. They still attend Girls’ Brigade every Tuesday, in the same small inner-city church, that became my second home as a teenager. I never needed to be a voting member to be welcomed there and history is repeating itself for them. They do life, they laugh, they chat, they engage in Bible study, they enjoy the communal McDonalds on the way home, they belong, they are loved for who they are not what they can do. I am grateful to those dedicated leaders who keep going despite declining numbers, despite being threatened with closure, who do it for Alice, Lucy, Ella and Lydia who have stopped going to church.
Note: Writing on faith, church and spirituality will appear under a separate section on 'Days Like This'. You can see more under the ‘Faith, Church, Spirituality’ tab on my Days Like This Homepage!