Tonight a small group got together to watch Groundhog Day and talk about ecclesial dreams. It was a great group of people. Some I have known for a while, others I have only recently come to know and one I met tonight for the first time. It was another step in very long ecclesial journey. This particular film has long been one of my favorites but tonight it hit me in a new way. I am beginning to see that in a strange way I have been living the same day over and over. Unfortunately, instead of improving each time around, I seem to be getting worse.
I thought back to the days of my first church plant in Denver. I still remember the day I left that church. I was tired. I felt completely drained of anything meaningful and I was completely disillusioned about what an ecclesial community should be. I remember the tears that I shared with my wife as we attempted to discuss our shared dreams of any kind of ecclesial future. That future was dim. Most of all I remember thinking to myself that I would never be involved in church at that level again.
Years later I woke up and found that even though the clock had rolled from 5:59 to 6:00 the day was still the same. But this time things would be different. We had all the pieces in place. We owned our building. We had a good core group of people. We had a leadership team that “got it.” I remember vocational changes pulling important people out of the mix. I remember sitting at a table with the pastor and worship leader sharing the vision of the ecclesial dream and having my wind knocked out as my pastor announced his plans for resignation. I remember the demons of ecclesial politics reminding me once again that churches are places of power. I remember the morning after a meeting of the pastor search committee meeting when I realized that, for some, that power was a thing to be grasped. But mostly I remember going home after my last Ten Commandments class at that church and shaving my head. I remember sharing more tears with Janell, seeing the ecclesial future go from dim to dark, and saying to myself that I would never be involved in church at that level again.
Two weeks ago I was kindly told how much God has blessed that church since I left. This morning that was echoed again as I wrestled with the idea that the problem is me. And tonight I felt the ecclesial dreamer clock roll once again to 6:00.
Tonight I reflected on our journey with my wife. Not much has changed since leaving that first church plant. I am getting better at holding back the tears, but I have to avoid certain topics to pull that off completely. I still have a lot I want to say and share but I guess I feel like I have lost my right to say it. I am pretty confident that I will work through my own private existential turbulence because I have been here before. And I am equally persuaded that I will wake up tomorrow and be living in the same damned day. I have learned not to say I will never be involved in church at that level again out loud — but I still think it. I am sure that my convictions and context will make that a realilty whether I want it to be or not so it is really not relevant whether I say it.
Of course, I do not deny that God’s blessings are new every morning. But maybe my friend from my old church is right. Maybe those blessings are meant for somebody else.