Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

church

Church Doesn’t Always Have to Happen in a Church

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I skipped church last Sunday. I wasn’t sick or out of town, and I didn’t have a scheduling conflict. I simply decided not to go. Instead, while the kids slept in, I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, slid on my running shoes and slipped out the front door. I jogged down the bike path with the sun warm on the back of my neck and the sound of birdsong in my ears.

Fifteen years ago, when I started attending church regularly again after a two-decade hiatus from both religion and faith, I couldn’t get enough of it. I sprang out of bed every Sunday morning, eager to immerse myself in the worship experience. I drank in every part of the service, from the scripture readings and the sermon to the hymns and the communal prayers, like I was drinking a tall glass of cold water on a scorching August day. I loved the anticipation I felt almost every time I opened my Bible or walked through the church doors. The weekly ritual of liturgy and community became the rich soil in which my faith grew and flourished.

More recently, though, I admitted to my husband that attending church has come to feel less imperative. While I’m always glad I went, and I am especially grateful for my church community, which nudges me out of my comfortable places to connect with people whom I might not ordinarily cross paths, the truth is, the spiritual practice of weekly worship doesn’t enliven me like it once did.

In some ways this feels like a loss. I miss the freshness of my new faith. I miss the energy that zinged through my heart, mind and soul on Sunday mornings. I miss feeling invigorated and inspired after nearly every church service, eager to do my small part in furthering God’s kingdom on Earth.

At the same time, though, I am aware that both my experience of church and my faith itself, while mellower and a little less sparkly, have also matured into something deeper and wider.

My understanding of church and God is less contained. There is an openness and an expansiveness to my faith that feels right in this season of my life. And I know this faith that is both more grounded and more expansive has its roots in all those years of weekly church. Those 15 years of Sundays are the foundation upon which my faith of today continues to change and grow.

Last Sunday morning as I ran along the bike trail, I prayed for friends facing health challenges, for loved ones traveling overseas and for people I know who are grieving, lost and lonely.

I inhaled the scent of freshly mowed grass and noticed the orange flash of an Oriole swooping overhead.

I smiled and huffed a breathless “good morning!” to the runners, dog walkers and cyclists traveling in the opposite direction.

I gave thanks for the cool breeze on my face and for a body that can run (albeit less quickly than it used to).

Last Sunday morning I didn’t sing hymns or pray aloud in unison with others. There was no bread and no wine, no scripture read, no sermon preached. I didn’t wear heels or mascara or sit in a pew. But there was communion, peace, prayers and the presence of God.

Last Sunday morning, out running on the trail, I was at church.

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This essay was originally published in the Lincoln Journal Star on June 8, 2019.

Backyard Church

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There were hymns and a reading from the Book of Hebrews, prayers and a children’s message. But despite those familiar elements, it wasn’t church like I’m used to. In fact, there was a time I didn’t consider the church service I experienced a couple Sundays ago church at all.

I’ve been attending the Haukebo Reunion with my husband Brad’s family in Brainerd, Minnesota, for about fifteen years now. The first year, when I overheard one of the Haukebos announce that the church service started at 10 a.m., I assumed we would all pile into our minivans and head to the Lutheran church in town. Imagine my horror when I saw Brad’s aunts, uncles and cousins arranging the mismatched lawn and folding chairs under the striped tent, pulling out Aunt Carolyn’s Bible and placing it on the sun-weathered picnic table.

Church? Right here in the backyard? I thought to myself. You have got to be kidding me.

We sat on lawn chairs, beneath a tent, on a patch of matted grass in a regular old back yard. There were no pews; no stained glass or steeple or vestments. No altar – unless you consider the picnic table near the front of the tent. No organ or choir or minister. Not even a loaf of bread or a cup of wine in sight.

Fifteen years ago I wasn’t a church-goer. I didn’t even believe in God at the time. But I knew enough to know that church held in a backyard just a few feet from Uncle Jim’s garage, with Cousin Tony ministering from the picnic-table pulpit — unordained Cousin Tony for heaven’s sake — was wrong, if not downright blasphemous.

Besides, it was terribly awkward. Newly married into the family, these aunts and uncles and cousins were virtual strangers to me. As I watched Tony set a boom box on the picnic table, I realized with horror that I was going to be forced to mumble my way through the lyrics of “Amazing Grace” and pray the “Our Father” aloud with Brad’s entire extended family.

I considered fleeing to Aunt Carolyn’s bathroom, locking the door behind me and hiding amid the rumpled hand towels. In the end, though, I stayed, slinking into the back of the tent and settling into a folding chair in the very last row – but only because I figured someone would notice if I wasn’t in attendance.

A couple Sundays ago, as I listened to Cousin Steve and his son Emmett strum twin ukuleles near the “altar,” I smiled as I recalled my first Haukebo church service. Fifteen years later, the scene has changed a bit. The boom box is gone, replaced by lyrics emanating from Tony’s iPhone. We are missing more than one beloved family member, their absence palpable as we all gather under the tent.

But much of the traditional backyard church service is still the same. We sat in makeshift rows of folding chairs beneath the tent near Uncle Jim’s garage. We read from Aunt Carolyn’s well-worn Bible. We prayed and sang as the loons chortled from the lake at the bottom of the grassy hill. We gave thanks for family, for sunny weather, for good food. And during the short service I was reminded once again that church doesn’t require a lot of accoutrement. A fancy sanctuary, orderly pews, an elaborate liturgy and holy communion are nice, but they aren’t necessary —  because God is present everywhere…even in a backyard tent.

This post ran last weekend in the Lincoln Journal Star.