The Beginning, Continued

A little more than 5 months ago, a house church and church plant I was a part of dissolved. We'd been together for 4 years, which is not too bad of a run for a small, non-corporate organization. We had no preacher. We had no elders or deacons. We were truly democratic in nature, with everyone being involved in decisions as well as planning and execution of worship. We were also all friends before we formed this church, which is part of how and why we did so. It was also really nice to worship with the people you already knew well and cared for. It did sometimes get in the way when we didn't agree on things or when other complications arose. It's hard not to get more hurt by people you are closer to than those you aren't, because you care more about what those people feel about you, since you want to go on being friends.

Anyway, it was all going well until the end of October 2007, just after our 4-year anniversary. Each fall, we had a business meeting to take care of logistics and to reflect and evaluate on our mission and our processes. This last business meeting went on for weeks. We kept having issues presented that people wanted to discuss. We made a huge list of wants and needs and abilities on a huge office whiteboard. After weeks of discussion, and three newer members leaving because they didn't want to get in the way of our process, we realized that we had more needs than we could meet and that we could no longer exist in our current format.

We still exist as an entity, in most peoples' opinion (not mine), because we still meet every other week in book groups and a film group, but it doesn't mean the same to me as it does to some of the others. In my opinion, we are no longer a church, because to me, church is defined by a weekly worship meeting and always has been.

I'm okay with us no longer really being a church. I guess a part of me knew it couldn't last. Unfortunately, others have not come through the dissolution unscathed. One of those people is my loving husband. After reading his blog tonight, I realize that he is much worse off than I thought he was. He is having a major crisis of faith and it really, really scares me. It makes me want to cry very, very often and it infuriates me, and I'm taking that anger out on my husband, which I don't mean to do. Actually, once I'd realized I was doing it, I did my best to stop, but I'm still just so angry.

But more on that later.