Six months after I graduated from seminary, I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper. A radical group of New Testament scholars, operating under the name The Jesus Seminar, had come to town for one of their annual meetings. Their audaciously self-appointed task, as a group of “biblical experts,” was to decide which teachings of Jesus were authentic and which, according to their research, had been fabricated by the early church. I was concerned that their claims might adversely affect people’s faith, so I wrote a disparaging letter about their meeting to the editor of our local newspaper. To my surprise my letter was placed at the top of the editorial section. The response it generated was beyond anything I expected.

Dozens of Christians from all over the county tracked me down and sent me notes congratulating me for my boldness. I was swamped by phone calls both at the office and at home. I also received some hate mail, including a quasi death threat. It came sealed in a package with an FBI cover letter that read, “The sender of this letter is under federal investigation. Please alert us of any unusual activity.” I thought, Oh, that’s wonderful! That next Sunday a man came into our worship service with a crowbar and sat near the front. When one of the ushers noticed him sitting in his seat angrily tapping the crowbar onto his palm, he alerted a few off-duty police officers in our congregation, and they forcibly removed him from the church building. I’m sure little kids watched this and thought, Church is awesome!

The problem with my letter was that it was only partially accurate. I listed all the reasons why I felt the words of Jesus in the Bible were trustworthy. I conveniently forgot, however, to include that I had lost my faith just a few years earlier and still had lingering doubts that plagued me. I’m sure that because of my lack of humility, my letter appeared condescending to many of the newspaper’s readers, including our church’s crowbar visitor.

Writer G. K. Chesterton once said that a madman is someone who “is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity.” In my early years I felt my job as a pastor was to defend God. I felt it was my duty to present a non-wavering spiritual front, even if that meant not being completely honest about my own misgivings. I felt it was my job to shove my suspicions deep down inside and lock them in a corner closet of the basement of my soul. This, I was convinced, would inspire people; my certainty would rub off on others and give them certainty as well.

A few years of serving people in churches cured me of that. Helping the chronically unemployed, visiting six-year-olds with leukemia, praying with women who had been raped, and taking groceries to quadriplegics has a way of removing false pretenses. I quickly learned three words that I find myself uttering a lot these days: “I don’t know.” I don’t know why you lost your son. I don’t know why God gave you the parents he did. I don’t know why a lot of things happen anymore.

Somehow I don’t think Jesus envisioned his followers sending patronizing letters to newspaper editors or acting as if they have the answers to all the world’s questions. I believe that as Jesus uttered those final words in Matthew 28, he knew that a good dose of occasional doubt would give his followers the healthy hesitation and healthy complexity we all need to stay humble.

Years ago I started a bereavement support group for people who had lost family members and friends. Our church had an unusually high number of people grieving the loss of a loved one, so I recruited a wonderful Christian counselor to come and lead an eight-week session. One week after the group was announced, we completely filled up the number of available slots on the sign-up sheet. I was thrilled by the response but also somewhat disappointed, because there was one elderly lady’s name not on the list. She and I had become friends, and I knew she was still struggling to let her husband go, even though he had passed away fifteen years earlier.

I called her on the phone and said, “Mary, did you hear that the church is offering a support group for people who have lost loved ones?”

“Yes,” she said. “I did.”

“Well, would you like to go? The group is full, but I think I can still get you in if you’d like to attend.”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “I’m not going to go into a room full of strangers and talk about my man,” and she hung up the phone. I assumed we had been disconnected, so I called her right back and said, “Mary, this is Brian again, I was wondering if-” Click. She had hung up again.

I shouted into the phone, “Crazy old woman!” and dialed her number again. “Mary, this is-” Click.

I couldn’t believe it. I dialed her again. “Mar-” Click.

I tried once more. She didn’t even bother talking this time; she just picked up the phone as soon as it rang and hung it up again.

That Sunday Mary smiled at me and said, “I’m sorry, Brian. I just can’t. I can’t bring myself to do it. I hope you understand.”

Two weeks later the group started with a room full of hurting people. Women who were grieving miscarriages joined the group. One woman had lost her sister in an airplane crash. My friend Philip from chapter three was there; Claire had gone home to be with Jesus. The group grew so close that they didn’t want to disband after eight weeks. They kept going. Two people who met in the group actually ended up getting married. It was an amazing experience. Yet I always felt a twinge of sadness whenever I thought about that group because my friend Mary missed out. The group could have changed her life if she had just given it a chance.

Don’t make the same mistake my friend Mary made-make a decision to take a risk. C. S. Lewis once said in his masterful book The Four Loves:

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

Don’t let this happen to you. Make the decision right now that you’re going to step out and risk living in Christian community.

We were rather nervous when Melissa got pregnant for the second time. Our first born, Benjamin, was eleven weeks premature and, because of the difficulty surrounding his birth, we didn’t want to put another child through a similar situation. So, needless to say, our discovery caused much anxiety for the two of us.

But God, being good, walked us through the first eight months without many issues and sooner than we realized we were in the hospital for the second time. Only this time, the situation was much healthier than before. Melissa would spend a few weeks in the hospital gearing up for the baby’s entrance while the doctors and nurses watched over and cared for her. Our daughter would be brought into this world a few weeks early but God was working it all out. We definitely noticed.

The night our daughter was born was both triumphant and tragic. For our family, it was joyous. Yet for another family, it was jaded. Excitement was brewing in our little hospital room for a life soon to be born but, in that same moment, echoes of mourning could already be heard for a life that was ending. Doctors and nurses ran back and forth, grabbing this thing and that thing, running down the hall to a room with a mother, just a few years older than my wife, who was dying.

Personally, I found myself in a difficult position. As I walked down the hall, past the room where the mother lay dead, my heart broke; a feeling that usually accompanies such an enormous loss. “What if that was my wife, my mother?” were the thoughts going through my head. But at the same time, I was filled with joy and anticipation because this night would be the night I’d meet my beautiful daughter, Bella, for the first time. It was as if my own personal universe was being thrown off its axis and into a whole new dimension. Little did I know this difficulty would drastically elevate the moment I stepped outside.

Our daughter was born in a small hospital in a small town in Oregon; the kind of place where everyone knows everything about every situation going on everywhere. So when I walked outside and saw a man trying his hardest to hold his composure, yet failing to the extreme, I knew it was the mother’s husband.

He was pacing back and forth talking to someone on his cell phone. One moment he was talking. Another he was weeping. And the next he was shouting things like “Why?” and “How am I going to take care of the kids by myself?” His world was falling apart. His kids wouldn’t grow up with their mother. The same day I celebrate the birth of my daughter is the same say he mourns the death of his wife. If you think about it, and if you have lost someone close to you, you can understand just now tragic it can be.

Two hours later, my daughter was born. She was beautiful and healthy and alive. And I boasted my newest treasure for all our family and friends to see. I took pictures and helped print her little foot on her birth certificate. It was triumphant; everything but tragic.

People die. We weep and mourn. People live. We leap and dance. Death and life – there is nothing new about either of them. They’ve been around for, well, the beginning of creation. We understand this. We live and cope and continue and refocus and move on but we still grieve and mourn and cry and remember. We are surrounded by death as soon as we enter this world, so from a young age we gather a common perspective of what death looks and feels like.

But what if we changed our perception concerning death? What if we look at death as the greatest gift that life can give?

For those who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, this concept of death immediately becomes attainable. Our new awareness of death gives us the ability to turn our mourning into dancing and our sorrow into joy; a revived and renewed hope that our lives are not lived in vein. We hold fast to the promise of Revelation that “God will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

So we will continue to weep and mourn for those who have passed away, only because we will miss their time here with us. This is good and normal and right. But our strength isn’t based on our situation. It comes only from knowing that God is good and that He’s making all things new. And we’re equally thankful that God’s goodness isn’t based on our situation. It’s based simply on the fact that He is good. He is holy and wholly righteous. And knowing this beautiful nugget of truth should change our situation.

Church is boring. I don’t ever recall hopping out of bed on Sunday morning jazzed about the sermon, even when the preacher was good. I’ve never driven to church in anticipation of hearing the choir or the worship band, even when they included remarkable musicians. When I went, it was to see my friends. I wanted to talk. Sunday school and Bible study were okay, but breezeway and parking lot conversations were the most invigorating. My utmost communion with the Body of Christ didn’t even happen on the church premises. That happened in some loud restaurant that offered free refills of Diet Coke that helped me power on past noon and large portions that would render me unconscious fifteen minutes after I got home.

Now that I have kids, I don’t really get to have church anymore. Our four year-old quadruplets (all natural, so step-off, octo-haters!) keep us scurrying during the breaks. I go to church for them now. Statistics on church attendance, especially for men my age, suggest that I’m not alone. Maybe the problem isn’t me, after all. Maybe something is wrong with church.

As much as postmodern evangelicals bandy about the word “community,” our gatherings have changed very little. Stylistic alterations might add some hipster flair, but the focal point of the liturgical week remains theater. A dozen or so people perform for a few hundred that sit, stand, kneel, pray, and sing on command. We squeeze real community into the gaps, between events with a hierarchical structure. Not only is this a long way from Biblical models of the early Christian church, it’s a breeding ground for messy group dynamics. And, again, it’s boring.

Church today, whether a cathedral, a mega-aluminum warehouse, or a little wooden building in the country, has little in common with the New Testament church. In the first century there was still teaching, prayer, and worship, but the early church was about community. Paul’s letters paint a picture of people living together and collectively figuring out what it meant to follow Christ. The authority of the leaders and teachers wasn’t a forgone conclusion. They were in dialogue with their congregations. Paul himself often had to defend his position of authority and many of his letters are part of an ongoing doctrinal debate. You get the sense, however, that even theological issues were somewhat secondary. The focus was a meal, not a class or a worship service. Some early Christians enjoyed the community meal so much that Paul had to tell them to tone it down because they were partying a little too hard.

Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine most Christians getting too carried away having a good time together. Church is an adjunct to professional and familial communities. We get up on Sunday, drive, park, sit, listen, sing, pray, chat, and go home. Even if we’re involved in a small group, the relationships are usually secondary. The early Christians learned and grew through relationship. It’s plastered all over the New Testament. Yet, we still structure our religion around one guy, and it’s not Jesus.

Churches often grow for the wrong reason. If you don’t find church boring, it’s probably because of a talented preacher. He’s smart, but moreover, entertaining. Big, active churches are cults of personality, not communities. Try to imagine Mars Hill in Seattle without Mark Driscoll. Try to imagine the other one without Rob Bell (though at least he had the wisdom to abdicate his throne). Try to imagine Lakewood Church without Joel Osteen. You can’t. When the focus turns to Christ, it’s because a showman gets our attention first. We don’t find God in each other. The Body of Christ has an enormous head atop a weak, flabby body.

Though pastors give “servant leadership” lip-service at leadership conferences, few enter the ministry out of a desire to submit and suffer for others. How could they? How can we expect our leaders to be authentic when theater is the center of our religious week? How can someone consent to shepherd the flock as a Man of God without being narcissistic? Any leader in the modern church needs at least a little bit of narcissism to survive. No one is drawn to such a job unless they enjoy power and attention.

A little narcissism isn’t really the problem. We need to like ourselves and have a healthy sense of entitlement. But when these traits reach a clinical level in the form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), it’s poison to the body of Christ. In my fifteen years as a psychotherapist, I have encountered few human systems so consistently dysfunctional as church staffs. I’ve heard of pastors doing things that would make the most ambitious CEO’s blush. Though most of us only hear about this when a high-profile church leader’s grandiosity leads to recklessness, most of the time acrimony and dysfunction continue behind the scenes for years. When we rely on the talents and titillating vision of one man instead of the slow, silent life of community, it’s easy for people to get hurt.

After spending a thousand words twitting the Sunday service, I should probably come up with an alternative. But I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m too narcissistic as it is, and I don’t want to be the one to tell you how it’s supposed to be. We need to decide. We need to figure out, once again, what it means to follow Christ together. This is a plea, not a prescription. I want church to be fun again. By fun, I don’t mean entertaining or topical or cool. I can get that at concerts and movies, and they do a much better job than the church ever will. No, I want to talk. I want to listen, but to a friend instead of a sermon. I want to be taught, but only if I can ask questions and participate in dialogue. Mostly, I just want to eat, drink, laugh, and enjoy other people. That’s where I find God.

One door shuts.
Another door is opening.

Have you heard that message? Doesn’t it sound exciting? Easy? It’s a message I’ve heard in the church a thousand times. Every time a chapter is closed another is beginning. Every time a season ends, another is starting. Every time a door closes, another is opening.

“ing”…

Until you’ve been there, until you’ve managed to find yourself in the “ing”, this message makes perfect sense – a perfectly timed progression of events, moving from one door to the next, from one place in life to another.

Instant. Easy. Exciting.

But it’s the “ing” we don’t want to talk about. It’s the waiting, the moving, the happening, the progressing…

It’s the time spent in the hallway, when one door shuts and the next door hasn’t opened yet. It’s the waiting, the moving. It’s the trying, the proving, the growing, the questioning, the doubting. It’s the listening, the hearing, the knowing, the planning, the building.

No one talks about the hallway.
Yet it’s a familiar theme in the Bible.
It’s called Exodus.

Israel. David. Joseph. Jesus. The list goes on. They all spent time in the hallway, in exodus.
So why don’t we talk about it? Why does it feel so wrong? Why does the hallway get such a bad wrap?

The first question you’ll get when you decide to walk out the door is, “So where are you going now?” And if you don’t have an answer to that one, be ready for the follow-up, “Then why are you leaving?” The hallway can be confusing and uncomfortable. The hallway can even feel like punishment. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Exodus is a departure, a leaving, a movement. It’s motion, energy, action. An exodus is something you do, something you’re caught up in, somewhere you’re going, something you join because you don’t want to stay where you are.” –Rob Bell

The hallway is hard, but it’s a necessary part of our walk with God.
The hallway is where God speaks and gives direction.
It’s a time of growing, maturing. It’s a time of preparation.

We like to have things figured out, perfectly planned and put together. But God likes for us to rely on Him. We like to know where the closest and safest open door is before we let the door behind us slam shut. But God wants us to step out in faith and rely only on His all-sufficient grace, mercy and wisdom.

In the hallway we may look confused and misguided, but that’s exactly how we maybe ought to look, because in that, the light of God’s perfect way shines that much brighter. Besides, who are we to pretend we’ve got this all figured out?

In the hallway, after you’re finished complaining and groaning, doubting God and questioning your lot in life, make an attempt to just stop and listen.

God speaks in the hallway.

And when He has finished leading you and the next door finally opens, the light of God’s perfect way shines that much brighter and our past steps and seemingly misguided ways begin to make perfect sense in the scheme of God’s unchanging plan.

The hallway doesn’t always make sense, but in the end, it’s a necessary part of our walk with God. And when one door shuts another will always open. It’s not our job to have our next move all figured out. That’s God’s knowing. He’ll let us know when He’s ready. Just be prepared to spend a little time in the hallway.

Listen.
Follow.
A door is opening.

Chad has spent the last decade as a youth pastor and worship leader. In the past few years, he has successfully led and developed of one of the largest and fastest growing youth and college ministries in Northwest Ohio. Chad lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife Katie and two daughters, Morgan and Macy. He is co-founder of the Columbus Church Project and leads a growing team of 20-something young people committed to planting a new church in the Columbus area in 2010.