If you consider yourself a Christian and often even if you don’t you’ve probably heard the quote “going to church doesn’t make you anymore of a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.” I’ve seen it reblogged on here time and time again, I’ve seen it and tweets and in status updates on Facebook, heck I’m sure there’s even a ‘like’ page for it. Now I’m not disagreeing with the quote at all, I find it to be very true but if going to church doesn’t make me anymore of a Christian then how does not going make me any less of one. I fully understand that church is meant to be a place of fellowship for other believers, but what about when fellow believers act in a not very Christ-like ways? What about when they’re fake because they think they should act as if they like everyone? What about when they gossip? What about when they talk about their friends behind their back? What happens then? Is that how we’re called to act?
I stepped down as a youth leader in October for a number of reasons, one of which being that my fellow leaders gossiped worse than most of the students. It was hard for me to sit in on our weekly staff meetings before youth group to have the main topic being who’s dating who and what trouble so and so got into over the weekend. Gossip has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, although I admit that I have fallen into the habit more than once, but the fact that some of the leaders, who are meant to be an example to the students, talked more trash than I had heard as a student broke my heart. Another big reason I stepped down was for my own mental health, as many of you know I’ve struggled with depression for most of my life and on youth staff I stopped taking care of myself to focus wholly on ministry and my students, I guess you could say I had tunnel vision when it came to youth ministry. I would spread myself too thin to fill in holes where no one else was because they were too busy gossiping to one another and it got to the point where I didn’t see myself fit to help students. I was angry and bitter and flat out sad. I didn’t want to be there anymore. Rather than my leaving being a good thing for both my students and myself, it was looked upon as though I didn’t love my students, I was less of a Christian than they were. A majority of the leaders even went as far as to shun me and that hurt.
Not only did I step down as a leader, my church attendance slipped somewhat for whatever reason, maybe because I don’t remember when it started to feel obligatory. Going to church should never feel like an obligation, at least that’s what I’ve been taught. I was always the go every week type of girl but as I left youth ministry and began to see how people treated me because of that I took to listening to podcasts and spending time with God alone. Once I missed three weeks in a row and that was seen as a big deal apparently and rumors started, that I had left the church completely, so I was taken off the child care rotation, which I have been of for five years straight. When I came back from my three week hiatus, a few women took it upon themselves to “talk me off the ledge.”
Am I really less of a Christian because I don’t go to church every week? My relationship with Him, I feel is between Him and me, not an entire congregation. What’s changed? How I spend my Sundays is really about it. I don’t love God any less. I don’t feel as though He loves me any less. My time with Him hasn’t changed. He is still the number one priority in my life. I carry the same devotion to Him as I did before, just not in a church.
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