Finding Turangawaewae

Several years ago Alan Jamieson, a New Zealand pastor and sociology Ph.D., wrote A Churchless Faith, a book which studied the phenomenon of increasing numbers of New Zealanders and Australians leaving the institutional church which he called the EPC (Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic) church. In 2004 or 2005 I encountered an article on the Assembly Reflections website, titled “In Search of Turangawaewae.” That article was an excerpt from Jamieson's book.

I found the article to be fascinating, especially as I had somewhat recently left an abusive church and was now more or less “churchless,” not having found another church in which I felt comfortable. While Jamieson's article acknowledged that people were leaving church for very legitimate reasons, his main point was that everyone needs a place to stand, a community in which he or she can say, “I belong,” and that it was important for church leavers to find such communities or to make their own. He then explored characteristics of some of the communities and associations springing up among church leavers, and how these communities functioned for mutual support and encouragement of the participants.

Within the last few weeks I found the article again on the Web and re-read it. (If anyone else wants to check it out, it can be found at http://www.reality.org.nz/articles/34/34-jamieson.php.) Now I must say that there are certain overtones and assumptions of the article with which I disagree. For one thing, there are those who characterize themselves as “emergent,” who say that church attendance is falling in the First World because society is shifting to a “post-modern” mindset in which there is no absolute truth, and the Church is unwilling to change its message to allow for the questioning of objective truth. To that I must say that according to the Bible, Jesus Christ is the absolute Truth, and the Church is to be the pillar and support of the truth (John 14:6; 1 Timothy 3:15). There may be those who leave church because they no longer believe this to be true, but I cannot in good conscience become a fellow traveler with them.

There are also those who say that people are now quitting the Church because in some mystical sense the Church is out of step with the times, and God is mystically raising up a new manifestation of church suited to the times. These people point to the way the Church is perceived by the modern (or post-modern) world, its failure to market itself effectively, and its failure to be “relevant” (as in, trendy). Though I haven't read his writings deeply, I must say that George Barna seems to fall into this category (but if anyone knows better, please feel free to correct me).

To me the reasons why many people are leaving church are neither mysterious nor mystical, but plain as a two-by-four. I believe that much of the Church has become unsafe, run and/or exploited by leaders who crave money, power – whether political or ecclesiastical – and opportunities to indulge their lusts. These leaders are decimating their congregations, wounding and defrauding many and ultimately driving many away from church altogether.

But there are many aspects of Jamieson's article with which I still agree, and overall I find it just as fascinating now as I did when I first read it. (I also intend to find a copy of his book, by the way, even though it's out of print.) All people, Christians and others, need companionship in this earthly life. After all, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” (Genesis 2:18) I agree with him that Christians who become church leavers, yet wish to live as Christians, need companionship and mutual support on their pilgrimage from earth to Heaven. And community done right is the highest earthly expression of the love of God in Christ (Psalm 133; John 17).

But for those who are just coming out of an abusive church experience, or who are still hurting from an abusive church experience, the thought of Christian community can be frightening. After all, we survivors experienced an environment in which our church leaders deliberately screwed up the experience of community and distorted its Christian character to serve their own ends. Now we have escaped, and the places to which we are told to look for community are themselves frightening as these places increasingly take on the same abusive character that was found in our abusive churches. After an abusive experience, who wants to start attending churches whose pastors believe that they are to be unquestioningly obeyed like Moses? Or churches who don't tell their members how church finances are handled, because that's “the pastor's concern?” After attending a church where subtle racism was practiced, what Christians from minority backgrounds want to get involved in a new church which rabidly supports the Religious Right?

Of course, there are those who exit an abusive church environment only to jump as fast as they can into another such environment in a different church. But there are those of us who upon leaving have said, “Whoa! Not so fast – I've got to take some time out for myself to sort myself out, to decide what my values and beliefs are. I need to take my time and check things out before moving back into any sort of church involvement. I don't want to rush into another situation where my beliefs are being spoon-fed to me.” Those of us who think thus are evangelical expatriates – by force more than by choice, but expatriates nonetheless. Yet while we are separated from the institutional church, we still need the experience of companionship, camaraderie, fellowship and mutual support. We need to find our own “turangawaewae.”

But to find it, we must usually make it ourselves, since there is no institutional church to provide it for us. And while the Internet is a great way to hook up with people of similar interests, I believe this “turangawaewae”, this place of belonging, is best experienced in face-to-face encounters with other people. Therefore, we need to begin reaching out to each other in a personal way.

I propose that we survivors of church abuse start our own “Turangawaewae” groups, if you will. The groups would be a first step for survivors in re-integrating themselves into community. The groups would not be large, nor highly structured, and might consist of nothing more than friends who agree to meet in a certain place on a regular basis to talk, to hang out or to do something fun together. Whatever group activity there was would be decided by democratic vote. Such groups would not even need a leader. But as the members of such groups got together regularly, they would hopefully learn to trust each other, to lean on each other to an appropriate extent, and to pray for each other. And as they swapped life stories, they would see powerfully that they are not alone.

Whether such groups evolved into something more would depend entirely on what each of the members was comfortable with – there would be no pressure to start a “ministry” or new “church plant” unless everyone agreed over time that such a thing was what they believed they should do. On the other hand, all the members might agree that this “first step” was the best, and that there was no need to take it any further. Moreover, such groups would be free to dissolve if the members all felt the need to move on to other things. Above all, such groups would be non-threatening, non-demanding and non-constraining (no ax-grinders allowed, no pushy arguments over nonessential doctrines, for instance).

If anyone is interested in starting such a group, feel free to leave a comment on this post. You can tell your name and where you live (generally – don't give a street address), and where you'd like to meet. A coffee shop seems like a good location for a first meeting. And if anyone reading this lives in the Portland Metro area of Oregon and wants to hook up, feel free to leave a comment.