This past year I have been struggling with my religion. I kept asking myself, “Am I a bad Christian because I don’t go to a regular service?” I work at a church on Sunday mornings but I don’t necessarily attend a service. So… Am I bad Christian? Earlier this evening though… I think I was shown the answer. I had been praying for God to send me the answer, to show me the way, to give me a sign if I was indeed a bad Christian. What I believe was my sign came in the form of a tiny piece of paper wrapped inside of a fortune cookie. “You are following the right path,” it said. And since then I have been contemplating my upbringing, as to whether this fortune cookie is actually the sign from God that I have been praying about.
Growing up in the Bible belt you are taught that you should go to church each and every Sunday, that’s how you build your relationship with God… Right? Just that one-day and maybe on Wednesday evenings if you want some extra Jesus points. My parents, while religious in their own way, worked 40+ hours a week and Sunday was the one-day of the week that they got to themselves. So most Sundays we stayed in, we did things together as a family.
I grew up Southern Baptist, but I don’t claim that title. I’ve struggled between picking a denomination that best suits me; do I want to be Catholic? Protestant? If so which church? Episcopal? Methodist? Stick with good ol’ Southern Baptism to make my mom’s family happy? Some people have even suggested to me to go to a church that doesn’t claim a denomination, which is still great. I mean why label it? Only problem is the largest non-denominational church in the state of Alabama isn’t a church, it’s a corporation.
Church is about community, the local faces you see at the grocery store or at the movie theatre. Church isn’t about having ten different campuses just to watch one pastor preach. I’m sure he’s a mighty fine preacher, but what happened to walking up to your pastor at the end of the sermon, shaking his hand and entertaining a little bit of small talk. Not saying that big churches are bad because that’s simply not true. I’m just saying corporations shouldn’t be disguised as churches.
Another reason I have refuted this local church is because of the way I have been treated by the people that go to this large campus church. I used to work at a bakery and every Sunday right when we opened we had to hand over a catering order. The order would fluctuate sometimes, but for the most part it remained the same. Let me just say I was sixteen at the time and I had no problem getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning to open this bakery, not many sixteen year olds would do this. But the fact of the matter is I loved working there, even though I have left this bakery I worked there for almost four years and I still miss it sometimes. I loved my regulars and I loved the atmosphere. But every Sunday at 6am when we opened I dreaded whoever was going to pick up that catering order. Because believe it or not that person had no problem being rude to a sixteen year old girl who was just doing her best.
The people who would pick this catering order up wouldn’t even return a smile or “I’m good, how are you?”
Maybe that’s just what it’s like working in food service but I’m sure anyone can agree that Sundays are the worst days to work in food service. Because the moment church gets out people come out of their chapels cranky from sitting for an hour or two ready to pounce on anybody that they’ll never see again.
The bakery I worked at was just next to one of the corporation churches in Alabama. Some of them were nice Christian people, what you’d expect. I’m not saying that all of these people are bad, I know many people who go to this church and they’re lovely people. I even know someone who goes to their college and he is one of the best people I’ve ever met. But when you walk into a restaurant wearing a name tag with the name of your church plastered on it and you scream at me just because I wanted to know if you had a rewards card, you need to reassess what it means to be a Christian. When you throw bowls of soup at people because ‘it’s not hot enough’ you need to go and rediscover what being a Christian is all about.
Being a Christian is about being kind, and compassionate to all of those around you. To LOVE and accept those who are different from you, to be humble when others praise you. These were the values that were taught to me. And so when I leave at 12:30 after working at a church on Sundays and I go to a restaurant and the service isn’t top notch I tell them not to worry. Because my food will get here when it does. Because I have been that person who ran out of cinnamon flavored bagels before 10 am and have had to endure the wrath of customers, because no we can’t just ‘bake more’. Patience is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity, and I gladly give it whenever I can.
So yeah I practice my religion in private, but does that make me a bad Christian? I don’t think so. My relationship with God is very personal. I talk to him all of the time, maybe 3-5 times a day. I know it should be more but he’s always there to help me and give me strength. And to be honest I didn’t even know if I wanted to be religious until after my Grandfather passed away. When he passed away was the first time I genuinely prayed and talked to the Lord, and what he showed me was incredible and I haven’t stopped talking to him or wavered in my faith for him since. Because during one of the darkest periods of my life, he was there for me. He gave me the strength to continue on in a way my Grandfather would have wanted. And yes, the pain hasn’t disappeared. No matter how much I beg for him to take that away I know God won’t, but he helps me manage it. My pain becomes bearable because I have God to lean on, and that’s why I practice my faith in private. You shouldn’t just open your bible or pray while in the confines of your church. You should open that door whenever you need to, want to, not just when you’re sitting in a pew.
I’m not the first of my generation to question the faith they were raised in, and I think many millennials are like me. They practice their faith in their own way, in a private way. Just as it is written in John 3:16, “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” I trust Jesus in the same way the thief who was being crucified next to Jesus, I love him and I have complete in utter faith in him. No, I haven’t found a church yet that I would like to be a member of but I don’t think that makes me a bad Christian. I know God has a plan for me and he will show me the way that he feels is best for me. So hopefully I’ll be able to find a church soon that will allow me to become even closer with God.
