Will You Go to Church on Easter?

Will I go to church on Easter?

I guess it’s only fair to answer that question honestly myself before asking readers their take on the question.

The best answer I can give today is probably? (And yes, there is a question mark in my voice when I answer).

Like many progressive Christians, I often struggle to go to church.

Why go to church?

It’s not really the getting up on Sunday mornings instead of sleeping in or relaxing or reading a book or talking a walk. I like to do all of those things and I find all of them restorative and sometimes sacred acts. After all, I’ve getting up and going to church on most Sundays for fifty years now.

I know its popular to say things like, “I feel as close to God in nature as I ever could in church” or some such variation. And I know that to be true too. There are many places where I feel the presence of the sacred and where I feel it is possible to celebrate and praise that which I experience as holy and numinous in the world.

But there is more to going to church than praising God. I know, right? Given the dominance of “praise music” it’s sometimes hard to remember that these days. Maybe that’s one of the reasons “praise music” annoys me so much (well, that, and the insipid, patriarchial, Jesus-centric lyrics).

So, of course, one aspect of church is praising God or the divine or the sacred or whatever you choose to call that which you believe/revere. But it is so much more than that. To think that the divine needs or desires our praise is so anthropocentric. The holy does not have an ego that needs to be stoked, folks – that’s us – humankind.

I believe that going to church is largely about two things – being community to one another and opening ourselves to hear the divine word from others. Neither of which we can really do by ourselves, in the woods or wherever else we might choose to spend our Sunday mornings (or whenever your worship time might be) by ourselves or with our intimate others.

Read the rest here