Why I left the church.

Last night, my husband shared a book called The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? It’s a great title, and I thought I would answer the question from my own experience.

At first, I wasn’t sure about the term ‘dechurched.’ It is an odd word, but as I’ve sat with it, I think it fits, especially for those of us who have left fundamentalist faith systems who feel like we are ‘deprogramming.’ We initially use ‘deconstruction,’ but in the end, it leads to being dechurched for many of us.

As a disclaimer, I haven’t read the entire book, but I have looked through the Google Books version available online. It is written to address the exodus of people from churches in America. I am Canadian, and I am writing about my experience. My intent here isn’t to interact with the book but to reflect on my journey using the title as a launching place for this post that I think is long overdue.

Who’s leaving the church?

Many of my friends have left the church. I’m talking about women over 55 who were once actively engaged members. They were not casual attendees. They saw themselves as Servants of the LORD.

Let me tell you about my faith story. I was ‘born again’ in my early twenties. It was a significant shift for me. It was the early 1980s when I became part of the fold.

My upbringing was a mixed bag. In my early childhood, my brother and I went to Sunday School. I think that lapsed somewhere along the way. Maybe when my sister was born, seven years after me.

Religion wasn’t something we talked about much at home until a local pastor going door to door evangelized my mom. She ‘got right with the Lord’ and became a devoted follower of Christ. From that moment on, her desire was for her children to become Christians, too. My older brother followed quickly. He got involved with the church hockey team and youth group and built his life around the church. My father was vocal that he had no use for God or religion. He didn’t attend. My sister was young and fell into what was expected of her.

My mother started putting new rules in place. Church attendance became required. She put other restrictions in place as well. I wasn’t allowed to go to school dances. Everything not offered by the church was seen as sinful. I didn’t feel like I fit into the church culture. I was a rebellious teenager by any standards. I was kicked out of high school at fifteen. All I wanted to do was party and hang out with friends.

My rebellion didn’t happen in a vacuum. My mother took the ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ adage seriously. There was a time when I had so many bruises on my body that when I was swimming at a friend’s house, her mother sounded the alarm. I told her I was okay. I was also sexually abused as a child by my grandfather. He was very active and well-respected in the church. I understand now much more that my rebellion was about escaping the pain of my childhood.

Still, I felt spiritually lost during that transition from teen to adult. I couldn’t answer any of my existential questions about the meaning of life and my purpose for being here. I started talking to people, including random strangers. I eventually found my way to Jesus. Like my mother, my conversion was dramatic.

Within a few years, I was in bible college considering being a missionary. I didn’t really want to be a missionary, but women had few options at the time. You could be a missionary or work with children. There was one other option, and that was marrying a man who was going to be a pastor. Four years after my conversion, I ended up living in a new city in the role of ‘pastor’s wife.

I spent the next 25 years submerged in church and family life. I held eight positions at one point in our first church, working part-time and having two children under five. We had people over for meals regularly. I wanted to be liked, and I worked hard to win God’s approval - the goal of the good Christian in the evangelical culture. Who leaves the church? People who invested their lives in the institution. People who invested heavily in being good disciples. People who never thought one day they would walk away and never look back.

Why are they going?

Our last church was challenging, and after 14 years, they finally fired my husband, and for the first time in my adult life, I felt free. I was burnt out, and I was disillusioned with the institution.

One of the last times I talked to an elder at our church, he told me, “I love you, but I don’t get you.” I was angry. We would run into people in the grocery store, and they would walk by like they didn’t know us. People we had raised our kids with disappeared from our lives, never to be heard of again. For the first time, I understood we were hired help - not part of the community.

Eventually, I realized that I wasn’t a victim in the system. I had been a willing participant. I also realized that I hadn’t been living in integrity. I didn’t believe that homosexuality was a sin. I drank alcohol but not publicly because most Christians at the time thought it was evil. I felt women could hold leadership roles. I didn’t take the bible literally. I resented giving 10% of our income to the church while we struggled financially. I was complicit in going along with everything for many reasons, including my husband’s job security. One day, I realized that the elder had been right. There was no way he could ‘get me’ because I wasn’t living truthfully. He didn’t even know me. I didn’t know myself.

I also realize now that I was in a spiritually and emotionally abusive system. I’ve written elsewhere about the abuse I have experienced within faith communities. The failure of church leaders is well documented.

For several years, I tried other faith communities before calling it quits. I’ve never regretted being ‘dechurched.’ Ultimately, I left because I have found many alternative ways to connect with others and the Divine. I have discovered that I can trust myself and the Spirit within me to have a healthy spirituality.

What will it take to bring me back?

I don’t think this should be the goal of faith communities. The church today doesn’t need to try and be relevant to another group of people. I believe the church as we know it will eventually cease to exist.

People who still believe in the teachings of Jesus will find ways to deepen their spiritual connection. Technology has made it possible for people to connect and learn together outside of religious institutions.

I meet regularly with a group of women on a similar journey. We challenge, support, and find ways to live our beliefs authentically. One of the first things I did when I stepped away from religion was to develop a discernment process to guide my life. I believe the truth has set me free. The truth is that the evangelical church is not a life-giving place for me.