In the first two weeks after my church's last service (which I felt was more like going to a funeral where the participants refuse to mourn than the celebration the leadership wanted), I was an emotional wreck.
I had been talking to people I had met online at a place called theooze, who comforted me and helped me as much as they could, but ultimately, I was left with the shattering realization that 6 years of my life, and the friendships I had developed in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as a result of my church, had been for nothing. I spent the first week of churchlessness in shock, staring at my bedroom window most of the time, and binging (after several months' discipline) on x-rated dvds. I didn't go to church the next Sunday, and the day after that, my shock gave way to something else . . . self-destruction.
I mentioned something about this in an earlier blog entry, but to make a long story short, the fact that I am alive today (given all the means I considered, and attempted to use, in order to kill myself that first full week of September 2005) is a miracle. I went to church the second Sunday (September 4), and after 6 years of memories regarding song ministry, I couldn't sing without crying. At the end of the service, a guy who didn't know me from Adam (or anyone else, for that matter) walked up to me and invited me to his small group. (My first thought was, "What the hell?")
That small group meeting was the most wonderful experience I had ever had in church. The people were exactly the opposite of what I expected--they were warm, friendly, they liked being together, and most of all, they were open, vulnerable, and real. They didn't put on a facade--no ridiculous platitudes, no irrelevant allusions to Christian literature or songs, and no "admonishing" of those in distress. They prayed together, and they cared about each other--it was the first time I remember being in a church setting (other than my parents' church) where I could actually feel the power of love.
Through the compassion and friendship offered by the men and women in this group, as well as a Sunday School class I began attending afterwards, I began to realize that the God of the Bible was a God I knew very little, if at all, during the previous 6 years, and I began a long journey toward healing.
This journey included a friend of mine whom I had met on theooze a few months before my church closed its doors, who has now become something more. Through message board posts, email correspondence, and IM's, we bonded in a way that two people seldom bond--as soul mates. We've been together for several months, and it has been the most wonderful relationship I have experienced in my life. She and I grow together, challenge each other, and carry each other when we're weak.
All of these steps forward didn't come without costs--those friendships I'd had before went by the wayside as I decided to create a new life for myself--but I am glad to say that I am better, not worse, for the experience, and with the help of a new church family, Jessica, and God, I am beginning to see that losing a church isn't (and doesn't have to be) the end of a dream. If we are honest, vulnerable, and willing to move on and forgive whatever took place in the past, it can be . . . a beginning.
I had been talking to people I had met online at a place called theooze, who comforted me and helped me as much as they could, but ultimately, I was left with the shattering realization that 6 years of my life, and the friendships I had developed in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex as a result of my church, had been for nothing. I spent the first week of churchlessness in shock, staring at my bedroom window most of the time, and binging (after several months' discipline) on x-rated dvds. I didn't go to church the next Sunday, and the day after that, my shock gave way to something else . . . self-destruction.
I mentioned something about this in an earlier blog entry, but to make a long story short, the fact that I am alive today (given all the means I considered, and attempted to use, in order to kill myself that first full week of September 2005) is a miracle. I went to church the second Sunday (September 4), and after 6 years of memories regarding song ministry, I couldn't sing without crying. At the end of the service, a guy who didn't know me from Adam (or anyone else, for that matter) walked up to me and invited me to his small group. (My first thought was, "What the hell?")
That small group meeting was the most wonderful experience I had ever had in church. The people were exactly the opposite of what I expected--they were warm, friendly, they liked being together, and most of all, they were open, vulnerable, and real. They didn't put on a facade--no ridiculous platitudes, no irrelevant allusions to Christian literature or songs, and no "admonishing" of those in distress. They prayed together, and they cared about each other--it was the first time I remember being in a church setting (other than my parents' church) where I could actually feel the power of love.
Through the compassion and friendship offered by the men and women in this group, as well as a Sunday School class I began attending afterwards, I began to realize that the God of the Bible was a God I knew very little, if at all, during the previous 6 years, and I began a long journey toward healing.
This journey included a friend of mine whom I had met on theooze a few months before my church closed its doors, who has now become something more. Through message board posts, email correspondence, and IM's, we bonded in a way that two people seldom bond--as soul mates. We've been together for several months, and it has been the most wonderful relationship I have experienced in my life. She and I grow together, challenge each other, and carry each other when we're weak.
All of these steps forward didn't come without costs--those friendships I'd had before went by the wayside as I decided to create a new life for myself--but I am glad to say that I am better, not worse, for the experience, and with the help of a new church family, Jessica, and God, I am beginning to see that losing a church isn't (and doesn't have to be) the end of a dream. If we are honest, vulnerable, and willing to move on and forgive whatever took place in the past, it can be . . . a beginning.
posted by Brian Bly at 9:49 AM
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