When the Pews Don't Fit

My Search for Church Community

What is “church”?

“It’s the people!” you enthusiastically shout.

Who is church for?

“Everyone!” you say.

I wish that were true. Sadly, I can’t say that when I walk through the church doors on Sabbath morning, I feel like I belong. Why is that?

There are several aspects to my experience.

First, I was raised by extremely controlling and abusive parents. My parents moved my family of origin to Collegedale, Tennessee when I was 8. Collegedale is an “Adventist Mecca” thanks to the presence of Southern Adventist University, one of our largest universities. My dad worked there in Campus Safety.

But I didn’t know we were in an Adventist Mecca until I entered high school. You see, we did not attend church in Collegedale. My dad drove us 30-45 minutes to other neighboring churches on Sabbath mornings. He could maintain a certain level of control in small locations. Plus, he stated that he couldn’t worship with the “hypocrites” that he worked with.

From ages 8-14, my church experience was tiny churches in the middle of nowhere with one or two kids near my age.

After a couple of years, my dad would get upset by something that a church member did and move us to a different small church. I never established any friendships during this time because those people were all too far away and we moved too frequently.

I learned in this era that “church hopping” wasn’t for me. I saw so many downsides, from not establishing deep relationships with people to never working through conflict. My dad was the type of person who believed he was always correct, and those who didn’t see things his way were sinning. We couldn’t worship with sinners.

My parents also chose to homeschool my siblings and me, leaving us even more isolated. I craved connection and friendship, so I begged to go to a real school. I didn’t understand how emotionally abusive my parents were at this time, but I deeply felt the lack of human connection. Children, especially isolated ones, don’t blame their parents for neglect and abuse. Instead, I focused on finding connection outside of my childhood house, which meant begging to go to a school or camp.

When I got to high school, my parents finally gave in and let me go to the local Adventist high school, Collegedale Academy. Because of my isolated upbringing, I experienced a deep culture shock in high school. I had rarely been allowed to interact with anyone growing up, so I struggled socially.

I started attending Collegedale Church, the university church, which was mostly attended by local Adventists and their families. There were hundreds of kids. The building was beautiful, huge, and chaotic. I did not feel like I belonged.

In this era of my life, I tried so hard to adapt socially. While the other kids were just being, I was always trying. My extreme social isolation left me struggling to understand everything from fashion (which is very important to teenage girls) to pop culture. Who was Britney Spears? What was Friends? (I wouldn’t learn until my 30s that I was also neurodivergent, which added another layer of social difficulty.) High school is an extremely difficult time for a lot of kids to navigate, but I was an alien on a new planet trying not to give away my secret identity.

How did all of this impact my relationship to the church? Church went from being acquaintanceship with a few old people who knew me as one kid in a large homeschool family, to being alone in a loud room packed with cliquey teenagers. I didn’t feel like I fit in or had anything in common with them.

When I graduated high school, I went to Southern Adventist University. There wasn’t a huge shift in what church felt like when I transitioned to college. I slowly made some friends and didn’t feel as much like an alien on a new planet. In this era, I would meet Matthew. We would get married during our early 20s—me, 24, him, 23.

The next huge step in my church experience was becoming a pastor’s wife. I learned in this era that pastors and their families are held at arm’s length by many church members. Some of them see the pastor and his family as being there to serve the church’s needs. It’s a purely transactional relationship. Others seem wary of being judged, so they remain closed off. And most people realize that the pastor and his family are only there temporarily. They know the conference is going to move the pastor in a few years. Perhaps as a way of protecting themselves, they don’t get too close to the pastor and his family.

As a pastor’s wife, there was an invisible fence around me that hindered me from forming those deep connections that my heart had craved since childhood. I tried anyway, but you can’t always build a successful bridge from one side of a canyon.

After a few years of being held at arm’s length as a pastor’s wife and moving around every few years, I was once again craving those deep connections. I was craving being known and being seen. So I started writing.

I wrote about my struggles with narcissistic abuse on Matthew’s side of the family (because that was what our big crisis was at that time). I felt isolated and alone. A woman with narcissistic characteristics started dating and eventually married one of my husband’s brothers, and it broke relationships with the entire family. I became the scapegoat for the conflict. Horrible rumors were told about me. I was publicly snubbed at their wedding. Nearly all Matthew’s relatives still view me as a villain even though this woman is no longer part of the family (they’re now divorced).

This loss of family hit me really hard because I craved deep family connection. I thought I had finally found that connection in Matthew’s family, but it was ripped away by one manipulative person and a lot of enablers.

People who don’t have loving and supportive families still need to find human connection somewhere. The church is often upheld as the place where they can find it. But I had never found that deep connection in church. I don’t know if it’s possible. I certainly I wanted it from my church.

As a result of sharing my story online, I actually began building deep connections with people who have been through similar experiences. Many people privately messaged me to say they related to my story. It was really meaningful to them to see a story like this written. And it was meaningful for me to finally feel as though I was being seen.

Then Matthew and I got a phone call from his bosses. They had received complaints about my blog. Though they wouldn’t say who had complained, we suspected it was someone in Matthew’s family. They didn’t come right out and say it, but we could read between the lines and discern that my blog was a problem for Matthew’s employment. They “requested” that I take down the blog. They couldn’t force me take it down, but at the same time we didn’t feel like we had a choice. This is when church once again became a place where I didn’t have a voice. I learned that I wouldn’t belong if I caused trouble, even if it was the good kind of trouble.

Learning about narcissistic abuse also helped me realize how dysfunctional my family of origin was. We had begun to rely more on them after the conflict in Matthew’s family. We were young parents desperately in need of both physical and emotional support. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but we had no village.

Unfortunately, I began to see that my parents treated my boys the same way they treated me, and my eyes were finally opened to how abusive they were. I set boundaries, which they walked all over, until finally I chose to go no-contact. Abusing me was my normal, but to see them abuse my kids was horrifying.

This was when I really learned why I craved deep connections from my church. I began to understand why acquaintanceship and small talk would never cut it for me. I needed to be known and seen. I needed to be loved.

But in my experience, I couldn’t find that kind of connection at church. First, I couldn’t really be myself. I had to hide part of who I was. For example, I couldn’t write about my own personal experiences on my personal blog without running afoul of Matthew’s employers. I even worried about things like posting on social media that I did yoga, because some church members might be offended. Both inside and outside of church, I filtered everything through the question, are church people going to approve?

Second, the traditional worship service format isn’t really conducive to building relationships. I don’t find what my heart craves by quietly sitting on a pew facing towards the front while a handful of people with varying levels of enthusiasm trudge through the same order of service, sing the same handful of songs, and give slightly different variations of the same sermons over and over again.

My neurodivergent side also questions “why” a lot. Why do we do all of these things like sit on pews, face one direction, read a Scripture, say an opening prayer, an offering prayer, an elder’s prayer—all of it. Why? Tradition is the answer. Most of what people think of as church is westernized Protestant tradition. There’s nothing holy or necessary about it. And speaking personally, these rituals do not fill my heart. They do not connect me with God or my fellow Christians.

I have also seen my neurodivergent kids struggle with staying engaged in church. They don’t see the point of going through the motions, and they don’t enjoy sitting still for over an hour, doing nothing. The traditional worship service is not geared toward children, and it is certainly not geared toward neurodivergent people. If you learn in ways other than just sitting and listening to someone talk, there isn’t much for you.

Since Matthew was fired, we have been attending a biweekly gathering with others who have struggled to find connection in the traditional church. It is essentially an informal house church. I love the lively discussions in a room full of blankets and pillows (because there’s never enough seating). We all talk and share together. No one is required to sit still and listen while someone else drones on interminably.

My kids enjoy it, too. They play with other kids of varying ages, and they like the informality of it. They also like that we do fun things together like going swimming or hiking, or having bonfires to roast hot dogs and marshmallows.

It makes me happy to see my kids look forward to attending these gatherings. I’m glad they have the opportunity to interact with emotionally intelligent Christians who don’t expect them to fit inside a box they were not made to occupy.

This is the church that my heart has craved since childhood. These people know me; really know me! I don’t have to hide any part of myself. I don’t feel judged for anything that I’ve worn. I feel connection with the people there. And I feel God in this group.

I started attending this group with absolutely no social energy left. I was burnt out in every way possible. They understood and accepted me anyway. People didn’t say, “Look on the bright side!” when I started telling my story. They sat with me where I was in the darkness and listened. And I’ve done the same while others tell their stories.

I know there are people out there who are craving the same things that I’m craving from church. I don’t know how to make Adventist institutional churches meet those needs. I’m not saying that they can’t. I just haven’t personally experienced it.

If you’re like me, and you have struggled to feel at home in a traditional church setting, know that you are not alone. There are others who have a similar experience. And the problem is not you! Many times, the church blames those who don’t fit in for not trying harder. But if we can find the relational connection we long for elsewhere, is the problem really with us?

Church has a particular culture. Some people find it easy to fit into that culture without changing who they are or making a concerted effort to belong. They find it difficult to understand those who do not fit into that culture without great effort, and who may never feel like they belong there.

If you have never struggled with feeling out of place in the traditional church, understand that not everyone has the same experience as you. There are many people who find it difficult to attend a traditional church: people with social anxiety; people who are neurodivergent; people who have been hurt by the church or have suffered abuse in the church; people with depression; people who are grieving (because they are in a season of lament, and traditional church is focused on rejoicing).

Instead of expecting people to behave a certain way to fit inside the little box they are expected to occupy in church, make the box bigger.

We call the church a family. What kind of family do we want it to be? A healthy one where people find belonging and acceptance of their authentic selves? Or a dysfunctional one where people put on masks and pretend to be something they’re not in order to fit in? That’s the question with which the church needs to wrestle.