Church is Like Middle School

(excerpt from The Popeye Chronicles: Becoming my I am)

Church can often hinder us from becoming our "I am" because...let's face it...Church is like middle school. I love church. I love worshiping with the saints! But if I'm not careful, it can become a place for fitting in...doing things "right"...and other traps that hinder me from being my true self.

This last year of my life has been one of the hardest in terms of my "Christianity" because I have not belonged to a church. We moved to a new state, and just haven't found a place that feels like home. I have been without the safety net of "belonging". I have been made painfully aware of how much I want to fit in. I feel out of place without my people...I feel very "different". As we visit various churches, it seems I don't really fit anywhere here.

Remember the comfort of having your own group in middle school? Remember how relieved you were in the lunchroom when you found your friends, when you found the group where you felt you belonged? If you're female, you probably all dressed alike, even shared your clothes. You liked the same music, boys, and fast food. Rarely did you voice a differing opinion. It was "safe" to follow the group. It brought you a lot of security. And I'm not saying it was a bad thing.

But this past year has made me aware of how much of my comfort and security came from "belonging" to a church. I was around people who worshiped the same way I was comfortable worshiping, and who believed things that I also believed about God and His Kingdom. Sometimes in that security, the fear of being "different" threatened my I am.

Have you ever noticed how "alike" church bodies are, yet how different from the others? There are groups who prefer to dress up on Sunday mornings, and some who choose jeans-casual. There are some who raise hands in worship. Some who don't. There are groups who dance and get rowdy, and some who hardly sing.
Are you catching a theme here? But within each church, there are few who dare to show their own individuality...either that, or the "different" choose to go someplace with more of their kind.

It's like it was in middle school. We gravitate to the people most like us. We don't want to stand out. We don't want to be different. We don't want to wear jeans to the dress-up church. We don't want to raise our hands if nobody else is. We don't use our prayer language if it is frowned upon. We try so hard to fit in that we often lose our own essence, the very essence of God in us. Our I am. 

I don't want to make waves.

Could God be in this season? Am I right where I'm supposed to be?

What am I learning? God is my home. He is where I fit. And if I am looking for acceptance from any group of people, I am going back to middle school...

God is solidifying me even more deeply in my I am. 

I might be a wave pool in a park full of lap pools, but that is how He made me. He doesn't need or want me to be anyone but me. This is my gift to Him. 

 

The great I AM lives in me. He expresses part of Himself that can only be expressed through my own unique self...my I am.