I occasionally recuse myself from the socialness of Facebook, sometimes for months at a time. Part of it's that I just get tired of the same three posts (be outraged by this! look at how cute this is! ME ME ME!), but part of it is that I just don't feel all that connected anymore to some people with whom I am supposed to be 'friends'. Not actually seeing some of these people in the flesh for over thirty years will do this to you, I guess.
So this weekend not far from where my parents live there is a big Church of Christ event (actually on their website everything is church of Christ, and if you are part of this fellowship you know why, but that's for another post). We are going to be at my parents' house this weekend because they are getting ready to move and we want to say our goodbyes to the house I grew up in, check out the new house, and basically try to be helpful however we can. We have legitimate reasons for me to say that I'm too busy to attend the church event this weekend, but the reality is that I'm just not that interested. It's not that I think the speakers are bad, or the topics are bad (though there does seem to be a bit of the 'the one true church is us' within it), but I just feel numb to much of it these days. I've never been one to go just for the networking angle of it, and considering how far out of the normal circle I am now, I can count on one hand the number of people I would probably actually know.
And it's not just this. When I read the Christian Chronicle (our 'Church of Christ newspaper'), I don't feel the connection with other churches like I used to. I don't really have a desire to go back to some of our college lectureships, and many of the books written by our people or the issues I have thought long and hard about just don't appeal to me anymore. Now, the local church here? Absolutely...I am passionate about our little group here. The Word of God in Scripture? Daily I want to know more, and Scripture is never-ending in what it does to me. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? I want to know Christ, be filled with the Spirit, and be in covenant fellowship with the Father. And the church universal, with its variety and even sometimes its mistakes? More and more I feel drawn to it. I love its history and its traditions and for all its faults I know that God's kingdom is doing great things both here and around the world.
But there is a part of me that feels like I am going the way of some of my dear friends who grew up in Churches of Christ. They left for non-denominational churches, Christian churches, and other similarly Bible-centered churches. They didn't leave Christ, but somewhere along the way they decided that the foolishness and the same three issues were no longer palatable to them anymore. I don't think I could ever leave at this point...for all our problems, this is my home and my heritage, and I love this little local church and all of God's people here. But the periphery? Not so much.
Adulthood and maturity is in part about expanding options and also narrowing down options. Years ago I gave up college football because I developed an interest in soccer. I rarely watch pro sports on TV these days, as I'm more interested in what my kids are doing. Maybe it's the same thing with the church universe around me...I just don't have time for some of these things anymore. Those things are not bad things, but life changes. Shouldn't I be more excited about what the future holds than what the past binds me to? I'm not casting aside everything...but I am being more selective about what I hold onto. And I think this is a good thing.
