leaving church

i have watched people leave our church over what i thought to be the most superficial of reasons. they have left over trees being removed; they have left over disagreement over the approval of a design for a chapel; they have left over the consecration as bishop of a gay man living in a committed relationship. i have watched them leave over legitimate reasons, but reasons i did not have to cleave to: they left over the lack of leadership provided by the priest; the left over the dearth of spiritual nourishment available in the church; they left over the ineffectual nature of the priest in his job. i watched one person leave because her child was not being served effectively, and with that one person, i could agree. i thought, "i'd do the same thing, if my child wanted to go elsewhere."

i find myself contemplating the same thing at this very moment. i brought my family to this church in december of 2001, and insisted that we make it our home, the people our family. my daughter was nine years old at the time, and i thought, "oh, how wonderful, she'll get to grow into adulthood in a healthy church, as a christian." the church was struggling with their youth program, but they were working on it; i had found out about a program that i thought was phenomenal called journey to adulthood, or j2a; i asked the vestry if they would consider trying it out, and they pooh-pooh'd my suggestion, saying they had already tried it and it didn't work. later i was told privately by some parishioners that the program had not been learned or run properly, thereby ensuring it's failure.

when the priest left and we called a new priest, things went downhill fast. he didn't do his job. he couldn't, perhaps did not know how to do his job, but the effect was the same: the church nearly died. the attendance dropped by two-thirds. the survival of the youth group was now secondary, as the survival of the church was foremost in everyone's minds, at least the minds of those who remained. we remained. the vestry tried to deal with the priest. the senior warden destroyed all their work by not following through with their decisions. it was two and a half years before things finally got to the point where the vestry called in the bishop. the priest was gone in a month.

it took two months, at least before i even began to see my surroundings again. i had become so hopeless, my actions merely rote repetition, that i had not even realized i had stopped looking at my surroundings, was just forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other, figurally speaking, for the show to go on. in another month i began to feel hope. it seemed like more light could get into the nave, and that worship had taken on a multi-dimensional quality again, something i'd missed sorely. and our numbers began, minutely and slowly, but surely, to increase.

now this all sounds well and good, except for one aspect. my only child, a daughter, is now almost sixteen. she has served as an acolyte since she was six, and been a good and faithful child. the former priest had a daughter the same age, and i had so hoped they would be friends, but it was not to be. my daughter knew she had best be nice to the priest's daughter, at school and at church, or she would hear about it from me. they did not get along. initially, the priest's daughter would act sort-of nice to my child at church, but then act as though my child were invisible at school, she "dissed" her. repeatedly. they very definitely were not friends. i told my daughter to be polite and stay away from her.

all this time i was picking up this child at the same time i picked up my child and taking her home two days a week, as a favor to her parents. the child would be all simpering and sweet to me, but then treat my child with disdain again at school. the dislike my daughter felt for this child only grew.

the priest's daughter is pigeon-toed, and quite clumsy. she falls a lot, and hurts herself frequently. my daughter made a remark to a friend that she thought that this child was faking her injuries in order to draw attention to herself. the friend repeated it to the priest's child, and i was called by the priest. i explained to him that my daughter would be made to apologize, and that that behavior was not condoned in our family, but that he might also want to take a look at the behavior of his own child, which has not been reported to him, in an attempt to get the girls to work it out on their own. my daughter did apologize, but it made no difference. from that point on it was not merely dissing, but outright antagonism.

when the priest left, we were told that he and his family were invited to attend another church in our town. we all rejoiced that they would be welcomed elsewhere where they could do no further damage to us. unfortunately this was not wholly correct; the ungainly daughter chose to continue to attend the youth group at our church. my daughter had tried repeatedly to make amends, both in and out of church, but the priest's daughter refused to even exchange the peace with my child, in church.

my daughter began to refuse to attend youth group, citing the presence of this child as the reason: "why does she get to stay when the rest of them have to leave?" i had no answer. the christian politically correct thing to do is to be pastoral. which means do nothing about the aberrant behavior. i pressed both the youth group leader and the interim priest to consider the matter, and the best answer i got was that if the girls could not get along, BOTH would be expelled from the youth group. i cannot begin to describe the depth and breadth of my indignation and anger.

the priest who was fired, no, allowed to resign, had offered an incredibly lame, shallow class based on the book Those Episkopals. the book is a rudimentary introduction to the episcopal church at best, and not suitable for any indepth study. he later stated that this was in fact a confirmation class, and that because his daughter had attended, she was confirmed in the spring of 2007. this was not offered to any of the other youth, nor was it explained that it was a class that was to lead to confirmation. nobody on the formation team would have considered it adequate for anything more than an enquirer's class.

the furor over this action caused the priest's wife to offer a confirmation class for the youth that fall. half the time she did not show for the classes, and they were rescheduled time and again. the formation director wound up having to finish the class after the priest was, er, allowed to resign. to this date none of the youth have been confirmed, it should have been done in the spring of this year; it is now september, almost october.

so i brought my family to this church to make it our home, the people our family; the church has not met the needs of my child, in any way, shape, or form, aside from communion each week. it has been a site of continued abuse from the priest's daughter, and remains such even though the priest was "allowed to resign". now my daughter may be expelled from the youth group, if she does not agree to continue to accept disdain and dismissal from the former priest's daughter. this does not seem fair to me.

okay, life is not fair. but it seems ludicrous that this should even be considered. but we have to be pastoral to the child. while we are doing that, who is being pastoral to my child? who is caring for my family, every member of which has served above and beyond any reasonable expectation in this church. yet the slacker former priest's mean daughter will determine the future of my daughter's attendance. ever wonder why people leave the church?