Church people

What does the phrase above mean to you?

I can imagine many answers, but here’s a stab at a common enough picture that comes to mind when the phrase is used.

Church people are the people who have their you-know-what together. They have happy marriages, healthy households, thriving children, good jobs, and dense networks of friendship. They’re not rich, but they’re well off enough. They’re not self-righteous, but they’re not unaware of their uprightness. They are the sort who show up, not least to church, because their lives are full of faith, piety, love, and a spirit of service. They aren’t perfect, but they possess what many wish they had: that wonderful mix of temporal and spiritual happiness that few attain but all strive to acquire. Above all, they love God and out of that surfeit of love they do their level-headed best to love others in his name.

I don’t want to deny that people like this exist. It takes all kinds to make a world. Occasionally people really do seem to have it all together; life has worked out for them, and they’re not worse for it, but better, in terms of their character and the way they treat others.

But to the extent that this description has popular purchase, it’s an image, in my experience, that fosters resentment, anxiety, envy, frustration, and disappointment. And here’s the thing. By and large the image is wrong.

Church people aren’t the ones with their you-know-what together. That couple or family at church that looks like all is well? Like they could star in a 1950s sitcom? One of their siblings is homeless. Or one of their parents is an addict. Or one of their children has a congenital condition you don’t know about. Or one of them works a job that is sucking the soul right out from him. Or, failing all that, they’re wondering what they’re doing here in the first place. They grew up Christian and now they’re not even sure what they believe. Attending worship is muscle memory more than anything.

Every week they show up, and every week they feel observed, feel watched, feel pre-judged for having it all together. Yet they’re lonely and stressed and confused just like everyone else.

“Everyone else,” after all, is also “church people.” Everyone at church is church people. Church is filled with nothing but people; people at church are church people; but people at church are just people. People always and everywhere and without exception includes people in pain, people with problems, people who don’t have it all together. Hungry, broken, needy sinners, in other words. Us. All of us. That’s it. That’s church people.

When I was a young and foolish and excitable student, an uber-Christian who knew all the answers and had big ideas about how the church should become more “radical” (Lord help me) in its commitment to following Jesus, I remember sneering at how “family friendly” churches try to be. It was all so suburban, so bourgeois. Get a grip, y’all! Let’s drop the Starbucks act and stop catering to the middle-class crowd.

It was—no shock here—having children that woke me up to why churches “cater” to families. Not because of their status or their money or their demographic or whatever else. Because it is really, really hard to have young children and belong to a church. Every family with multiple pre-school children that makes it to church on Sunday morning should get a prize. Single moms who do it should get a $1,000 check and the keys to the city. It’s no small thing. Imagine, from the time you wake up to the time you arrive at church, having a small rubber mallet knocked against your skull at random intervals, on average three times per minute. That’s what it’s like corralling, feeding, clothing, and driving multiple young children to church early on a Sunday morning. Except that diapers are involved. Also toys, snacks, tights, and bows. It’s a struggle, every time.

God be praised, I’m nearly out of that phase myself. It’s been just shy of ten years at this point. Now I know. Now, when I see twentysomethings with a baby or a toddler plus a newborn walk into church, I want to throw a parade for them. I want to crown every mother as she enters the sanctuary, lift her up in a seat of honor and carry her hither and thither in triumph. She certainly deserves it. They all do.

But more than anything, I want to remind myself that we are all of us barely scraping by. Making it to church is a victory in itself. The car payment that might not be met this month, the niece who has to live with you for a while, the old friends who filed for divorce out of nowhere, the parent in hospice without insurance—all of it weighs down the soul to the point of exhaustion and despair.

These are the people who straggle into church on Sunday mornings. Have mercy on them. Give them a hug. And if they don’t reach out to you first, don’t assume it’s because they’ve got all they need: friends, faith, money, health. The church people you eye, wondering why they don’t give more out of their abundance, may lack the very abundance you project onto them. They’re wondering why you (along with everyone else) don’t reach out to them. We’re all wondering it about each other. None of us is a position of strength. We’re all operating out of weakness, out of need, out of yearning for contact, connection, presence, friendship—something.

If that’s how you’re feeling, take it as given that that’s how they’re feeling, too. Realizing that will make a difference. Church people is you.