In Every Dream Home a Heartache

I had a meeting with my pastor yesterday. I have been fretting about this meeting, because my wife and I have been considering leaving our church of the past several years. Thinking I would avoid further pain from confronting my pastor with our decision, I had hoped to simply fade away. We have only been two or three times in as many months, so we were already in this process when my pastor called for a meeting with me. I ducked his assistant a few times, but finally resigned myself to seeing him and we set the appointment.

My wife and I have been going to our church since just before we were married in 1998. The pastor of the church married us in December of that year and the next year we were baptised together by him in the waters of Lake Austin. I had already accepted Christ and been baptised when I was young, so perhaps more importantly, it was under the guidance of this pastor that I first learned about the joy of serving the church. I found a deep fulfillment in using my gifts and creativity to further the church’s mission. Under the further leadership of our creative arts minister, Phillip Sandifer, this culminated with my service on the church Programming Team, which planned the first half of our Sunday services (the second half belonging to the pastor and his message.) The programming process deserves its own essay, but over the years, the team became very close and the Wednesday afternoon meetings with my friends became the best part of my week. We would get wired on Starbucks coffee and Round Rock donuts, check-in with each other, pray, and then proceed to push the creative envelope as far as we could in our church. At our peak, we were writing all original material for Sundays, producing our own one-act plays and even making our own long-form films. Our work was well received and edifying. For years, it was a joy in my life.

Then something happened. There was a disagreement outside of the group. Then there were more disagreements. There was a push and a struggle. There was unresolved conflict. Finally, after many months of unhappiness, Phillip resigned. Changes to the Programming Team loomed on the horizon and I knew it was all over. The circumstances of Phillip’s resignation had left me bitter towards the church. I found I could be easily stirred into an angry froth over the matter. How could this have happened? Unhappy and despondent, I did something very uncharacteristic of me – I abandoned my friends and quit the Programming Team only two weeks after Phillip left. I was the senior member of the team and one of the older members of the team, as well. Though not by title, I was one of the three de facto leaders and I left when they probably needed me most. Beth Welge, who was the actual leader of the team, quit only a few weeks later. The rest of my friends stayed with the team, new members joined, the pastor began to attend programming meetings and one of the Sunday service directors was tapped to fill the leadership vacuum.

Since then, my wife and I have mostly stayed away from church. We each attend a regular Bible study and I attend a weekly men’s group where we worship and even take a monthly communion. So, most of my “church needs” were being met outside of church. I was satisfied with that arrangement, but my wife wasn’t happy that we weren’t worshipping together, so we have had to revisit the notion of either returning to our church, or finding a new one. We decided we would leave.

I was distraught at having to confront my pastor with this news. As I said before, Will Davis, Jr. has been a friend, teacher, leader, and sometimes mentor to me for many years. We have served the church side by side. We have prayed together, I have eaten in his home, and he has seen my wife and me through some very difficult times. Now I was faced with having to end our relationship, at least as we had known it. I was so upset while driving to the church office, that I got careless and was nicked for speeding for the first time in years. Thank you, Satan, may I have another?

I arrived at the church office and Will greeted me with a hug, like he always does. Then we went back into his office. Our conversation was too personal to recount here in any kind of detail. However, it was a blessing. We said what we needed to say and we heard what we needed to hear. He understands that we might leave the church and he passed along some wisdom concerning that, which I took to heart. We left on such healthy terms, that we were able to joke about our leaving just a few minutes later. I walked out of his office and into the office of another friend of mine who is in my small group, but who I haven’t seen in weeks because she and her husband just adopted three children! I sat and talked with her for about half an hour, when Will came into her office for something. He saw me and smiled.

“Yeah, SURE you’re going to leave this church. You can’t even get out of the building.”

I put on a serious face and slapped my hand on the desk, “I’ll leave! I have had it, Will! I swear I’ll leave this church!”

He just rolled his eyes at me. He’s right. If I leave, it will be one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Then, as if to further prove Will correct, I went and saw another friend of mine, JR Taylor, who also happened to be in the church office because his wife works there. JR was on the Programming Team and I hadn’t talked to him since I had quit, months before. Just to prove that I could at least walk out of the building, JR and I went to a Starbucks and caught-up over iced coffees. That conversation was also too personal to fully recount here, but I must make one exception and I hope JR will understand. We were discussing the tumultuous events of the previous months and he mentioned something about having to deal with feelings of abandonment. It was a moment that I had hoped would come. I asked him point-blank if he felt like I had abandoned him when I left the group. He couldn’t conceal the tears welling-up in his eyes when he looked right at me and said, “Yes.”

It stung, but not as much as I thought it would. Partly that was because I had already known what I had done and had long felt the guilt from it. JR confirming it was almost a formality. But it was the feeling of relief I felt that surprised me. Without saying anything else, JR was telling me that I matter enough to him to admit that I could hurt him and our relationship is important enough to allow me to address that hurt. It was that thing which so many of us have had such difficulty with in our lives – it was intimacy. The older I get, the more I have been lucky enough to stumble across it and the more I have appreciated the beauty of it. I know in my heart it is how God wants us to be with each other. It felt good to be able to tell JR that I was sorry for hurting him.

Phillip just called as I was writing this to tell me that he was thinking about the good times we used to have every Wednesday at this time. Me too, pal. Me too.

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