You’re not religious? You don’t believe in a Great White Father in the Sky who watches everything you do and is just waiting to pounce when you break the Ten Big Rules? I get that. But there are other reasons to join a faith community. For example:
1. You will make friends. Friends who have insight and depth. Friends who know how to listen, who can empathize, and who, like you, have more questions than answers. These are friends who will watch your cat when you have to go to the hospital and run you to the airport so you don’t have to pay a week’s worth of airport parking fees (and might ask you to do the same for them).
2. You will laugh. A lot. People of faith are hilarious. They how to frame the ridiculous within the perspective of the sensible and make it funny. They appreciate irony and just plain silliness. They can laugh at themselves and you will find yourself doing the same. They can bring out the child in themselves, and play, and goof around, and relax. These people are no uptight fuddy duddies. People of faith love to have fun.
3. You get to sing! Did you know that when a group of people sing together, their hearts beat in unison? You will sing old stand-by’s and contemporary music. You’ll sing what was hot in the 15th Century and stuff that was published last year. If you are lucky there will be people singing harmonies and descants that send chills down your spine. If you love to sing, this is the place for you.
4. Nobody will expect you to be perfect. You don’t get report cards or evaluations. Most church people will accept you just the way you are. (Okay, you will meet a few churchgoers who do have a judgmental attitude, but you can ignore them.) Church folk know they themselves are not perfect—that’s the reason they come to church. The old saying is that the church is a hospital for sinners. It’s not hypocrisy when broken people pray together. It’s how we survive.
5. Do you have kids? You know that thing about a child needing five caring adults in order to be successful? You will find some of those five in the faith community: church school teachers, youth group leaders, pastors, nursery attendants, the nice man who pours juice for them at coffee hour or the sweet lady who holds your toddler on her lap during the service. If you are concerned that church has been a place where child abuse has occurred, know that many denominations insist that anyone who works with kids in their churches require those persons to take a course (Safe Church, Safe Sanctuary, or something similar) and have policies designed keep kids safe. Ask if the church you visit has a child safety program.
6. Do you want to grow as an adult? In the faith community there are oodles of opportunities to practice leadership. You can read passages in worship or participate in social action committees. You can initiate programs you want to see happen: a climate change awareness group, a book club or a dance class. Good faith communities are eager for new life, new programs, and new leadership. And yes, you can put that stuff on your resume.
7. Are you artsy-craftsy? Many churches have groups for knitting, quilting, beading or other forms of creative activities. Or they would be pleased to have you start one. You could offer to design the bulletin boards. If cooking is your thing, boy, will you have chances to show off your abilities: church dinners, coffee hours, bake sales, dessert auctions. People of faith like to eat.
8. Are you healing from a divorce, a broken relationship, or getting fired from a bad job? Church is a place where you will get sympathy but you will also find joy. When the faith community lifts up its hearts and hands in prayer, in song and in praise, your own will rise with theirs. It may take a while but you will find yourself connecting to a greater good (and possibly a great God) that will bear you up on its wings of love.
9. Sometimes when we get wrapped up in our own struggles and concerns we begin to stumble under the weight of it all. It can be a relief to find that “it’s not all about you (or us)”. The universe, the heavens, the spiritual realm are expansive places in which our own loads can become lighter, our dark places brighter, and where holiness breaks into the drab and the dismal. The faith community is a place where we find hope, and perhaps you will, too.
• Rev. Caroline F. Malseed is the priest-in-charge at St. Brendan’s Episcopal Church in the Mendenhall Valley.
