Free Range Christians

I know a lot of people who love everything about the church. They spend their time in its ministries, give their money to it, and schedule their lives around it. Sometimes, they even choose to live in a particular neighborhood because it’s close to the church they love. I know a few who are more ambivalent – they can take it or leave it – but mostly just hoover around the periphery. I could be wrong about this, but I think it’s easier for these folks to stay marginally affiliated than it would be to completely disconnect. Family pressure, local cultural expectations, maybe even a little nostalgia factors into their ambiguous alignment. Or it could just be habit.

Then there are the folks who once loved the church but now they don’t. Most of the folks I know who are ecclesiastically disinclined don’t really hate the church. But they are definitely not ambivalent. If you ask them to give it another try, they’ll respond with Nathaniel-like misgiving; “Can anything good come out of . . . “ a Church of Christ? (or Baptist, or Methodist, or you name it). It’s a rhetorical question when they ask it.

The big thing church researchers are talking about these days is the “Nones;” people who do not affiliate with any religion. I guess you’d call the people I’m talking about the “Dones.” They are just done with church. No thank you. Don’t ask again. Next subject.

You probably know a Done. Or maybe you are one.

This may sound pretty odd coming from a preacher, but I think I understand how someone would reach a point where they just throw up their hands and be done with church. (You’d be surprised at how many ex-preachers and/or their spouses — or ex-spouses — are themselves, done.) I’ve been a churchman a long time and while I’m certain I haven’t seen it all, I’ve seen enough to know that we have the potential to do and say some mighty ugly things to one another. I have been the recipient of some of our ugliness. And, to be straight about it, I’ve perpetrated some of it, too.

The Dones I know tell me that they decided to become Free Range Christians when they or someone they love was badly treated. Or they were hurt by the way the church responded to them, or didn’t, when they were in a bind. The specifics are all unique to the people involved, but it often comes down to a failure of grace. When they needed a gentle touch, they got a punch in the mouth. When they needed a comforting embrace, they got a cold shoulder. They needed someone to step in between them and the consequences of a bad decision. The church stepped away and left them to face the fallout alone.

Two things here: If you’re deeply committed to your church, if you love it, love it, love it, then pay attention to the people who are hurting. They ARE your church. When they are hurting, we have to show up. When they sin, we have to lean in with superhuman honesty and grace. “Neither do I condemn you . . . go and sin no more.” Life is hard, so the church needs to be a soft place to fall when people buckle under the pressure. Sin is devastating, so the church needs to be a safe place to heal when people bleed from its cuts.

If you’re done, if you don’t ever want to have anything to do with a church again, thank you for reading this post. I’m hopeful the fact you are virtually engaged means that your heart still beats for God, that you love Jesus, that you want to be filled with His Spirit. So I’m going to ask you to do something really, really hard. Maybe the hardest thing anyone can do.

I’m asking you to extend grace to people who didn’t extend grace to you. To show grace to the graceless. That doesn’t mean you pretend nothing ever happened. Grace doesn’t rewrite the past; it offers the future the chance to be free from it. It doesn’t mean you don’t confront those who wronged you. Grace doesn’t conflict with truth; it offers healing for what truth reveals. And it doesn’t mean you are right about everything and they are wrong. Grace knows that two people can experience the same event in different ways.

Being a Free Range Christian sounds kind of organic and original and hip. I think a lot of the folks who identify with that, though, aren’t really pioneering a new way to do faith. I think they are withdrawing from an old hurt. The people who hurt them need grace. And if you’re the one who was hurt, you need to give it. That’s another thing grace does – it blesses the one who receives it almost as much as the one who gives it.