When Your Church is Broken

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Special to United Methodist Insight | Sept. 5, 2024

There were once two families who lived side by side on the same street. The two men worked for the same company and rode to work together in the neighborhood carpool. The two women worked in different buildings downtown, but always managed to meet for lunch in the middle of the week.

Their children played together, they shared lawn tools and loaned each other sugar and eggs. In the warm months they barbecued, boated and camped together. During the school year there were long conversations over coffee after chauffeuring the kids to basketball games and school dances. They were the best of friends. They shared their hopes and dreams, their joys, their worries, their heartaches and their disappointments. And when they worshiped together in the same church on Sunday mornings each one gave thanks for their wonderful friends.

Then one day something happened at church which brought an end to their friendship. No one remembers the details of the incident. It may have been something the pastor did or didn’t do – or something someone said at a meeting. It all came to a head in a shouting match in the Fellowship Hall after a potluck dinner. Neither family was directly involved in the dispute, but it was such an unseemly scene that both swore they would never go back.

Several people from the church, including the pastor, came to visit to try to persuade them to change their minds. One man even came to apologize and one of the families did change their minds. They decided that the church meant too much to them to let differences of opinion and a few unkind words keep them away. But the other family never went back. They said, “If that’s the way the church is going to be, then we want no part of it.”

This little once-upon-a-time scene happens all the time. The world is full of people who have had their hearts broken in church. I am one of them. You might be, too. And let’s be honest, this happens in every church community on a regular basis. It has been this way from the very beginning of the church.

The disciples quarreled at the Last Supper. Jesus told them that one of them was going to betray him and they argued about which one of them would do such a thing. They argued about which one of them was the greatest. Can you imagine? Jesus is getting ready to endure public execution in the most horrible manner ever invented, and the disciples are worried about their place in history.

What does Jesus do? He must have been tempted to leave, to let them go on with their self-serving bickering while he sought to do God’s will. But Jesus does not leave. He keeps breaking the bread and passing the cup. He demonstrates a commitment to staying at the table---to staying in community. Jesus points to God as the giver of the kingdom and he calls the disciples to service.

We can only rely on God to make real community among us. If we rely solely on ourselves and our human shepherds, our Christian communities will remain in a constant state of brokenness. Our churches will continually decrease in vitality and numbers.

Ironically, this continual church brokenness, which is more the norm than the exception, is not all bad. It teaches us to rely on the Holy Spirit. It is a kind of paradox. As we become disillusioned with our brokenness and more dependent on God, we become more open to true community with each other. The community we long for is available to us in exactly the measure that we allow the Spirit to work among us. Discovering and accepting that we always make a mess of things on our own, and all the misery that goes with that, forces us to turn to God.

Churches are made up of people like you and me who make foolish mistakes, who say and do hurtful things. Some of us are able to forgive ourselves and others and stay with the church. Others give the church up for good. And no one can blame them.

Acknowledging the brokenness that exists in our Christian communities can be the beginning of healing. Those of us who have chosen to stay despite the brokenness are no better than those who choose to leave. Humble confession of our complicity in church brokenness is necessary if a church is to be restored to wholeness.

My own United Methodist denomination has been broken by divisions over homosexuality leading to the disaffiliation of almost 8,000 local congregations, which is about a quarter of the total number of UMC churches in the country.

Lovett H. Weems, who is the senior consultant at the Lewis Center for Church Leadership says, “Those continuing as United Methodists are what some today call 'compatibilists,' meaning they both honor their moral convictions while remaining connected with those whose convictions may differ. What that means in the current division within the denomination is that they have firm stances about potentially divisive issues, yet they can still live in faithful ministry with those who differ in those positions.”

Weems adds, “We do not need to mimic the polarized politics of our nation. We’ve been down that road before. In 1844, Methodists divided over slavery before the nation did.

What a pitiful example the largest denomination in the country provided to the nation in a time of turmoil…. In a country seemingly irreconcilably divided today, is not God calling us to put aside the accumulated acrimony and bitterness from years of words and deeds for which we all could have done better and wish for each other God’s blessings for the future?”

The Rev. John Sumwalt is a retired United Methodist pastor and the author of “Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives.” A noted storyteller, he offers a variety of programs for churches and community groups. Contact him.