I Skipped Church Today

“Church time!”

He marched out the coffee shop in his polo and slicked back hair; not bothering to hold the door and wait for his girlfriend. Leaving women in the dust was nothing new for him though. I bit my tongue. Didn’t I just see him and his friends rubbing up against other women, beers in hand, when my friend and I were out for dinner? Didn’t I see him roll up to a side street bar in his souped up car and walk a woman young enough to be his daughter inside, while I was on a run? Faithfulness and respect and commitment to one person were not on his menu. His bachelor lifestyle always irked me, but especially when it filtered into my work life and personal life. You could say that he and I exchanged some words. I knew too much. He embodied a modern day Hugh Hefner; minus the silky robe and mansion. Bunny ears would have been fitting though.

Yet here he was, paying his godly duties, checking the evangelical checkbox - going to church - because church was clearly going to salvage his salvation.

Last week, I walked into that same coffee shop.

“Sundays are the hardest day for me,” the barista confessed, fixing my iced americano, “I think it also has to do with the idea that it’s supposed to be a day of rest, but they always feel chaotic.”

She wearily smiled, handing me the iced coffee. I felt for her. I’d been mentally debating skipping out on church that morning as is. Coming off a week of being around people all day, every day, consumed by tasks and work and being powered “on” all day, every day, I needed a break. I craved solitude more than the iced americano. I dressed as though I would attend church and spritzed some perfume. I also purposefully slid on some bright blue shorts that would not be considered appropriate for a service. That way, I could dress code myself out of it. Technically I could still go, but my young legs would definitely get silently judged. I believe in dressing well and respectfully in certain, environmental dress codes and standards, such as church services. Therefore, the tiny blue shorts gave me my church exemption card for the day. I felt very much like Bilbo Baggins and his frustrated desire to be alone and write his books. I loved everyone at my usual church of attendance. I had authentic connection. I felt at home. I had no problems with it, specifically. But today, I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to be around anyone. I didn’t want to be real and respond, “I’m not doing so great,” when the usual, kindhearted faces asked me. I wanted a date with my journal and ink pen. If God was truly omnipresent, existed outside of time, and the idea of Emmanuel - “God with us” - was alive and well, surely He was with me just as much on a coffee shop patio as He was inside corporate worship.

The western world, growing up as a PK, experiencing an array of churches and services and denominations and rules and boxes of doing things…I’ve learned a lot about 21st century evangelical norms. Your corporate service attendance directly reflects your salvation and levels of holiness. It doesn’t matter if you’re a shit of a human outside the 90 minute service. As long as you roll up on time, or at least scurry into the back five minutes late, your salvation won’t get a tardy. You can yell at your wife, berate your husband, lie to your neighbor, cheat on your significant, gossip about people whose lives you subjectively dislike, post yourself half naked on Instagram, snapchat yourself half naked to someone else, get hammered and get lucky with some loser the night before, grab some Playboy bunny ears, but as long as you show up to church the next day, you’ll be fine. If you raise your hands during the service, sign up to volunteer for something, or copy and paste Jeremiah 29:11 in your bio above your shrine of filtered selfies, you can do whatever you want. Corporate church will save you. 21st century, western evangelicals will also likely host a breathy worship leader or pastor in Nike Airs to reassure you they won’t judge you and to “come as you are”, because stagnancy and enabling unhealthy behavior always leads to change.

Be a whore. Be a glutton. Be a liar. Be a life sucking loser. Be whatever you want, do whatever you want, live however you want, because they won’t judge you. Attending church - and especially their church and its morning service, noon service, early afternoon service, and Facebook Live - is ultimately what dictates your depth of faith and salvation.

Maybe they would encourage me to shove a finger down my throat instead of running off my body image issues too. After all, I’m perfect the way I am. How dare they judge me, or the man in the coffee shop whoring out women’s hearts? If you dare explore the idea of experiencing God outside the walls of corporate church, and especially honing in on the idea that the Church really is the people, called to live in Love, you are a backslider; a lukewarm heathen. It doesn’t matter if you have rich spiritual community in other places - maybe it’s a coffee shop or work or your friend’s backyard - forgave someone, helped someone, encouraged someone, listened to someone, meditated on Biblical truth, fasted, prayed, partnered with a local nonprofit or humanitarian effort, sat with someone in their grief, shared your story, shared a meal, shared your home, shared your time, if you didn’t go to church, it all wasn’t enough. Your membership will eventually expire. Your name will go on a list. Your faith will be questioned, because your faith doesn’t quite feel the same as the prerequisites of the western evangelical, checkboxed mentality.

I sat criss cross in my tiny, blue shorts; sun warming my skin. For the first time in months, I felt like I was fully present; both with myself and with God. I could authentically gut my soul on paper without restraint. I had no trajectory other than to just allow my mind to unravel, word dump, and be alone with my thoughts. I took off my shoes. I shuffled Spotify to Lana Del Rey. It was settled. I decided on the inevitable:

I’m going to skip church today.

I skipped church, but:

I was honest with God and my chicken scratch pages. I observed lovers walking to and from the coffee shop, and in turn, got my mind pondering the idea of love and biblical love and existing in Love. A friend encouraged me. I encouraged her. Two little girls ran and embraced me, unaware their purity and genuineness was like balm to a broken heart. I had a heart to heart conversation about brokenness, pain, and suffering with a man with beautiful sleeve tattoos. I heard his story of God rescuing him from agnosticism. I processed and reconciled burdens of my heart. I felt intellectually and spiritually and creatively stimulated. I cried watching an old couple hold hands; the husband shakily opening the coffee shop door and then her passenger door. True love doesn’t die.

I skipped church, yet I experienced church all around me. To be “in love” is to exist in it, and if God is love, then do we not carry His love with us, and is it not a natural overflow from our DNA that functions as a temple for Him…without requiring the walls?