Sundays can offer brilliant refreshment to a heart eager to experience the relief. It can also be a dark place where hurts are nurtured instead of healed. Individuals have a part in the way it works out, but they are not the only figure in the equation.

Seeing the darkness can cause me to be disillusioned, disappointed or just plain disgusted. It can be hard to work out the semantics of the feelings. The only sure thing lies in the fact that the current organized religious situation in the world today does not offer the calm peace that it should.

The past has not always provided me with wonderful religious encounters. It may be that the hurts of my past can cause a cloud of confusion around my ability to see and experience the now. It may just be the hypocrisy that can be viewed in the pews and pulpits of churches in the community, on the television and on the internet. My current desire may rise up from the stirring of God for ME to go and do and be more than I am right now. Sometimes I think my frustrations stem from my lack of sleep the night before.

My family and I have attended the formal ceremonies of the Episcopal Church, and we enjoyed bits and pieces. We have been a part of the Pentecostal movement and have found parts that were exactly what was needed and expected. All the denominations and experiences in between have been a part of our family Sundays. Every place we have been blessed to experience a service, there has always been a sense that something, that little extra, was missing.

When I was a child, I attended a small Episcopal church. When you walked through the doors, the sense of warmth and peace hugged you. Outside the doors, that same feeling followed you around. The people who attended the church were a family, a community, a “group of one.” This body stayed connected with visits to each others homes, outings together, phone calls, and letters – all outside the “church” functions.

Today the world is too hectic to stay attached. No one wants to commit to the people around them because it requires sacrifice of self. Many are willing (and eager) to commit to regular attendance. Others may feel that offering up a tithe is sufficient. But when the service ends and the money has been collected, do NOT be standing in the doorway or you might get trampled from the people rushing away from that building.

My prayer is that my discontent is just in my own heart. God is doing something in my life and my family that requires us to see beyond the building. Unfortunately I suspect that the reality is the church – every denomination and every corner of the country – is missing it. They have taken the plan that Christ laid out – the church body coming together to lift up and support one another – and made it into a set of rules.

There is a place where the biblical reality of church still exists, and I am determined to find that home or work at connections until I make that home where I am today.