Jonathots Daily Blog
(2041)
Elder Ralph was working on a crossword puzzle he had hidden in his Bible.
Deacon Dan was dozing on the third row.
Martha, the church piano player, was thumbing through a Life magazine.
The teenagers sitting around me were passing notes, giggling and trying to time their levity with the jokes infrequently being offered from the pulpit, as Pastor Norm continued to preach on a subject matter which no one seemed to care about.
Suddenly in the midst of this ongoing Sunday night antipathy, it struck me. It was so phony, so contrived and so meaningless to my sixteen-year-old mind.
I quietly rose to my feet, moved past a few of my friends and headed toward the back of the church. Everyone thought I was going to the bathroom. Some people probably thought I was headed to the fellowship hall to see if there were any treats to eat after the service. But actually, I passed on both of those opportunities, headed out the door and walked home. Even though I still believed in God, I had lost confidence in the system that was arranged to represent Him.
For three months, I stepped away.
- I didn’t go to church.
- I didn’t stay in contact with the people.
- I also didn’t go out, get drunk, smoke grass and curse the heavens because of my disillusioned condition.
Various emissaries from the conclave of the righteous were sent to me during the ninety days to tell me how I was missed or what I was missing or how it was absolutely necessary for me to be there–otherwise I would fall into iniquity.
I joyously ignored them.
Instead I took my stepping away hiatus to accept a role in a play at the high school, as Joe Ferrone in Up the Down Staircase. I also worked on my piano playing, which had become as rusty as my Grandpa Ford’s barn door latches, and I practiced singing. (I had convinced myself I was a bass, but actually had enough range to be a tenor. Why not both?)
During my stepping away period I discovered I could do things–yet realized they were more fun when I was tapping the mind and spirit of God to achieve them.
Eventually one of my friends from the youth group came to see me and said, “Jonathan, you may not need us, but we need you.”
Those were the magic words.
It wasn’t an issue of ego–it was the fact that I could no longer attend church because I was afraid not to. I couldn’t go to church because it “made me a better person.” And I didn’t want to go to church to fake it, in order to get heavenly tickets.
I took my newfound drama talent, my expanded singing and my better piano playing back to the “house of people”–to simply enjoy my heavenly Father.
I stopped looking around the room to see what Elder Ralph, Deacon Dan, pianist Martha and all the other kids were doing.
When I disagreed, I chose to simply live differently. And if it got boring, I challenged the ideas.
That three months of stepping away sowed the seed of the man I have become. It was a season of time when I realized that I don’t need to be in church to find God.
But the church needs me ,,, to make sure we don’t lose Him.
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Jonathots Daily Blog 