Thoughts from the Back Pew

I’ve been in the back pew for longer than I realized. One foot out the door of the church, but never quite willing to take that step. I’m closer to taking it now than ever, but still I hear a strange, small voice.

The voice says that the back pew is where good theology happens. At the margins, or in the kitchens (as theologian Kosuke Koyama would say), it’s a little easier to hear the gentle whisper in the wind (I Kings 19:12).

I used to assume good theology happened and the pulpit. Sometimes it does. But the best sermon of the Bible is given by a guy who is about to crushed by rocks by a bunch of theological insiders (RIP Steve, Acts 7). I also used to assume that good theology happened at seminaries. Then I went to seminary and the reading lists were permeated by the works of old white guys - just like that every other higher education degree path.

When relationships were broken at the last church I attended a few months ago, I let weekend business take over my Sunday mornings. When the Indiana church bells rang, I found myself out of town or recovering from being out of town. I tried listening to podcasts instead or labeling my small group meeting as my primarily church.

But I miss it. I’m sad every Sunday morning without my liturgical fix. Like any twelve-step program, church forces me to confront my addictions—self-absorption, isolation, anger—at the weekly check-in. I love skipping that confrontation, reveling in the indulgence of sleeping in or eating out or just plain flipping church the bird from my pants-less state on the couch drinking coffee.

But I miss it. Because I belong there, with other people who also feel like they don’t belong, all trying to make a community of belongingness in a world in which both community and belonging are desperately thin on the ground.

So, I hope you’ll join me—those of you who sit in the back pew or the front pew (or the pulpit, you crazy people willing to be pastors)—in some conversations about theology and culture, community and scripture. I love the Bible and I love church, and even though the numbers are saying the American church is dying and white culture has taken over what once was a vibrant Evangelicalism, I believe the Spirit can revive even the most lifeless of corpses. God works among those of us with one foot out the door, those of us with broken hearts and minds plagued by irony and self-absorption.

A blessing for you, if you also sit in the back pew: may the sun call you from behind the doors to the world outside. May you see God there, in the sun and in the world beyond the church doors, and may you come back to pew telling of what you have seen.