Children and Church

My husband took the kids to church twice this week. There is nothing that will give me the heebie-jeebies like that. It's not that I have a problem with it in theory, but I so very much don't want my kids to be religion-damaged like I am. But in trying to prevent that, am I damaging them in other ways?

I know church has it's value to kids. For one thing -- they absolutely love it. I know that ideally they should get all their faith training at home, but realistically there is something to be said for the group-activities, wild and crazy Veggie Tales kind of stuff.

I don't know how to give them all the benefits of church without all the baggage. I know it's confusing for them when I don't go to church with them. But I don't want them to grow up legalistic about church and the things they learn there, any more than I want them to grow up altogether faithless.

I don't want them to learn that worshipping God best practiced by several rounds of " I Can Only Imagine". I don't want them to learn that people who don't plant their butt in a pew each week are slacker Christians. I don't want them to learn that there is only one way to believe -- the traditional conservative evangelical one. I don't want them to believe their Pastors are supermen. I don't want them to learn to judge people who are different from them, especially in matters of faith. I don't want them to learn that church is something we take people to rather than something we take TO people.

I know I probably have more influence on their faith than the church does, but I still worry. I worry that my influence has been bad rather than good, even though I know I have more patience and love and grace than ever before. Do they see that? Or do they just see "mommy doesn't go to church anymore?"

I know it doesn't help that I'm not particularly motivated to attend church at all, let alone the church I left. For me, it's not just about what's wrong with the church we left. It's about what's wrong with church as an idea. If I could just get over that, I know they don't care where we go. I know if I went out there in the world and found a gathering that had the good without the bad, they would willingly go there with me. I also know no such place exists.

I'm an idealist. I want it all without all the side effects.

I'm so afraid of losing my freedom. Call me an anarchist, but I believe for me the best faith is the disorganized kind. The unplanned kind. The kind that has been liberated from all the constraints of modern church. I'm not saying that it's best for me to be completely devoid of body-life, I just haven't found the body I belong to. [Some body somewhere is missing it's rectum]. But then again, maybe it's not up to us to choose. Maybe we should "bloom where we're planted". I don't know.

I certainly never imagined that this season would last so long for me. Maybe I've just become too comfortable in it and am being lazy. Maybe I am more bitter than I think I am.

My husband says I expect too much. He was telling me that at the church his parents just started, in the months where there is a 5th Sunday, they arrange the chairs "in the round' rather than "speaker-centric" and then they "share what God is doing in their lives".

I said, "I hate those words". He says, " You hate everything". I replied that "I hate christianese. I hate anything that you couldn't say to a non-believer and have them understand what you meant." He did agree with me on that point.

Then I told him I don't know the answer. If I knew the answer I'd be doing it. And them some.

I used to be angry, asking God "why the hell did You do this to me?!". I used to be impatient, "Alright already. I GET that I'm supposed to rest in You. Now can we get on with it?" I used to be ready to move on, run ahead, like in the Point of Grace song "Like a child tugging daddy's hand", trying to get God to move with me. I used to worry that I would miss the signs, that I would miss what He wanted me to do.

Now, I just have become an expert at being patient with God. I have no idea what He's up to. I try to track with Him, but I just get lost, like trying to follow someone in the dark. Maybe I'm just out-of-touch, lazy, self-centered ... or worse, completely crazy.

But in any case, I don't know what to do about my kids. It kills me no matter how you slice it: I hate having them not get some kind of church. I hate them having to go without me. I hate to go. We've tried the "family church" thing, though not recently. I just felt too contrived. Like we were force-feeding them Bible lessons. Like vegetables -- "It's for their own good."

And then I wonder -- I try to remember church when I was their age. We were Baptist then. (When I say "then", it's a long story.) I don't remember anything I disliked about church, except the fact that my parents always ended up yelling at us or each other on Sunday morning while trying to get 4 kids off to church, each dressed appropriately with hair combed. But church itself was something I looked forward to. It was fun. I had friends there.

Maybe it's not a bad thing for kids.

I mean, I didn't really begin to suffer the fallout until I was in my 30's.

So how can I provide my kids with faith-leading, and yet prevent my kids from entering the religious minefield?

Any thoughts you guys have would be appreciated.