Here’s why I’m leaving the church.

It’s lunch time.

Oh wait. You thought I…

Oh no! I’m not quitting. Not renouncing. Not giving up.

Don’t worry! I’ll be back in an hour or so.

I’m just grabbing a bite to eat.  I mean, you can’t expect me to stay in here forever, can you?

It’s a nice church and all, and I’ve even cleaned my office, but these days I get a little claustrophobic.

It reminds me of…

Let me tell you a story.

Back in the 90’s, when I first was able to get online (can you say dial-up?) I was the biggest fan of America Online.  AOL.

I lived for that little voice that said, “You’ve got mail!”  I loved their preselected news stories, their handful of games.  It was the whole world to me.

Except, it wasn’t. There was a whole other world looming out there.  The web.

Slowly, friends of mine stopped subscribing to AOL.  They started just logging right in to the Internet, via one internet service provider or another.

They were just…out there on the world wide web, with no structure, no platform.  Just…surfing.

To me, the idea sounded ridiculous.  “How would you know what to look at?  What would give you a framework?  Wouldn’t you feel isolated?”

Eventually, I came around.  Where I once felt liberated to be on AOL, I started to feel constrained.

Like I was hiding out from the rest of the web.

So I took the plunge, and it’s been great. Nowadays I still have my “safe” places, (my sanctuaries) on the internet.  I check my Facebook page many times a day, for instance.  But I’ve become a surfer myself, not afraid to explore without a safety net.

That’s why I’m leaving the church.  The building, anyway. For lunch.

I’m ready to interact with all kinds of people in all kinds of places.  I don’t need an artificial framework to act as training wheels anymore.

I still need church, but now it’s like my home page.  My launch pad.  My networking hub.

It’s where I get spiritually focussed for the real world around me.

So that’s it.  I’m out of here.

But I’ll be back…

In an hour. Or two.

Have a great week,

Mitch

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