Heathen Speak

My father and I recently had a long discussion about the effect that being a Pastor's Kid for the majority of my childhood has had on my perception of the church. It seemed he was concerned that my lack of interest in attending church at this particular time had to do with some latent repressed frustration that I was holding onto from my childhood or early adolescence. I humbly (or not so humbly) begged to differ, and tried to explain that my current disinterest in church has very little to do with the church itself, and a lot to do with the people in it. I include myself with this lot, just to be clear. I am attempting to define, of late, how to be involved in a setting where people are so often fake, hypocritical and lacking in almost all of the things they profess to have in abundance. Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful people in the church who imbue the very essence of what I think a person of faith should, but there are so many others who wear their faith on the outside, and then yell at their kids, kick their dog, have severe road rage, and worst of all DO NOT TIP THEIR SERVER'S at Sunday lunch. This is where the rub comes in.

I am crystal clear on the idea that no matter where you go in life, you are going to run into the bad seeds, the angry and the hurting and those who lash out at others. My problem occurs when this becomes an acceptable practice in the church and these people are not called out on their actions and continue to damage themselves and those around them, not to mention tainting the view of anyone who comes into contact with them and hears that they belong to "the church" and are still allowed to act the way they do without consequence.

I suppose I know deep in my heart that we are all responsible for our own actions, and ultimately will be judged on that, and that I don't have to answer for the person sitting next to me in the pew looking at dirty pictures on their cellphone during communion, however, I'm not sure I'm ready to jump on the bandwagon of church, where this continues to go on. How can we make a difference when the people working side-by-side with us are sabotaging our efforts on a daily basis?

And yet, I still feel the need to sustain my spiritual growth in some way, by talking and learning with others. is there a way I can have the best of both worlds? Is there a place that I can be honest and open about who I am and all of the bad things that I do, and learn how to overcome them? Is there a place where we don't have to keep the ugly a secret and where we can learn to deal with our issues so that even through our own growth we can make a difference? I just don't know yet.