A Clarion Call To Return To God

By J.E. Nickerson

A dire situation in America 

If you have been following the news or spent any time on social media and in society, you probably know or can sense, that there are many problems in our society. Commentators may advocate for a change in leadership, community action or social justice and equity programs to redistribute resources among minority groups. 

These suggestions are often seen as a solution to the problems of our society. But the issues we are dealing with, run much deeper than the ideas that commentators usually like to debate. The issues we are dealing with aren’t just social, they are also spiritual. 

According to the February 2023 article, Why Women Leave The Church on Influence Magazine, there has been a sharp decline in church attendance among women, over the last several years. Barna Group, a polling and statistics firm, that tracks church attendance and Christian issues in America, is quoted as saying that church attendance among females, fell from 48% to 31% from 2003 to 2019. Church attendance among males fell from 37% to 31% during the same period of time. 

The article goes on to say that women tend to leave the church at nearly three times the rate that men leave the church, within recent years. While men tend to be viewed as the bread winners and an important source of physical provision and resources in a family, women usually tend to provide the spiritual and religious nourishment for their children. 

As a young man who grew up in a traditional family, I saw this truth in full display. My father went to work during the week at a job outside of the house and then worked at the church on the weekends, often with very little interaction with my mother and I during the week or weekends. 

In my formative years as a child, this meant that my mother took over the responsibility of giving me spiritual teaching through bible reading, answering my questions about the Bible, explaining to me the principles of Christianity and taking me to church. Even into my late twenties and beyond, this pattern characterizes my family and church life. 

Some people might shrug their shoulders and consider it to be unrelated to the issues currently plaguing America in the 2020’s. 

But this would be a very serious omission of one of the problems that has lead our country to its current state.

When women leave the church, they also tend to take their children with them. This means that while pastors talk about raising up the next generation of people and raising up church kids to become the next great leaders of the church, the mothers are taking the kids and heading out the back door. 

According to the Pew Research Center, an American think tank that collects information about social issues and public opinion in America, the mothers who are leaving the church, are more likely to be the ones praying, reading the Bible and making their faith the most important part of their life, for now.

The church has long been compared to a tree that is planted in the community to provide spiritual nourishment to everyone. The branches of the tree, are seen as church members and attendees. What happens when one of these “member branches” takes their children and leaves the “tree” of the local church? 

Anyone who has ever done gardening, knows that when a branch is separated from a tree without any reattachment attempts, it dies. This is a fact of life and nature. It also applies to people or “branches” that have left the church. 

So even though these mothers love God and still read the Bible to their children, how long can they thrive and flourish in their Christian faith, if they are leaving the church? What does this mean for the generation of children they are training up and providing spiritual nourishment for, while the men are working in their jobs and then work in the church?

One reason provided for the exodus of women from the church, is pain or emotional abuse. As a young man who left churches because of mistreatment, I have seen this problem in churches for many years. Sadly, while Jesus instructed us to love each other as he loved us and gave his life for us, I have seen an appalling lack of love for women in the church. This lack of love and respect, has been shown through crass and disrespectful comments, decisions that marginalize the role of women in churches and leadership decisions that do not put women in positions of authority in the church. 

It is not my intention to criticize the pastors and other leaders in the church. It is important to consider the possibility that since women are leaving the church and taking their children with them, are the men of the church practicing a way of doing church, that does not make women feel welcome? 

If you are the head of a ministry or a man who works in a ministry, you should ask yourself if the comments you are making and the positions of authority you are filling, are showing women as much respect and value as Christ showed the women he reached out to, during his ministry. When Jesus walked the earth, he reached out to women who the established religious community and the men of his day, considered to be disposable and less important than other people. 

This was not the example that Jesus set forth for us to model. Mary Magdalene and Mary the brother of Lazarus were two women who Jesus considered to be of great value. When the men around Jesus criticized Mary Magdalene for the way she worshiped Jesus, by pouring expensive perfume on his head, Jesus told the men to leave her alone and that her worship and gift was valuable to him. 

Instead of making women feel inferior and not recognizing their worth and value in the church, not letting them fill positions normally held by men only, or not listening to their concerns and insights when they speak, the men of the church should give women the same respect and recognition that Jesus gave to the women who interacted with him and spoke with him. Even when Mary, Lazarus’ sister questioned Jesus about why he had not come to heal Lazarus, Jesus did not speak harshly to her. He did not demean her or devalue her. 

The shunnamite woman approach to rekindling our passion for God

As a young Millennial who went through a season where I felt like a Christian outcast from the church, I would like to address the women and their children who have felt ostracized and unwelcome at church and have subsequently left the church they were a part of, even if their husbands and other family members stayed at the church. 

This situation happened to my mother and me several years ago. For various personal reasons, we found ourselves in the position where we did not attend the same church, that the rest of our family attended. We love God and we continued to read the Bible, listen to audio books of the Bible and pray. But we did not attend a physical church. 

Finding yourself on the outside of church life, looking in through stained glass windows, is a very disorienting and isolating place to be. Only a few years before my mother and I entered this season, we had enjoyed the weekly fellowship of people we considered to be close acquaintances in the church. We enjoyed working in the church, the atmosphere of worship music and the feeling of being connected to people who loved to worship God. 

Suddenly, my mother and I found ourselves dealing with the pain of being hurt by church friends and were not able to explain to our family what has caused us to leave the church. The few people who we tried to explain things to, informed us that we were being too sensitive or that we were seeing problems that did not exist. 

Because we did not want to cause a rift in the church or put enmity and discord between the church members, we chose not to discuss our situation with anyone else. 

But what do you do when you see a problem in the church, but no one else wants to see it or even cares if it exists? How do you keep the faith in God and not grow cold or drift too far away from God?

These are very difficult questions for a Christian to ask themself, when they are a part of a church, let alone when a Christian feels cut off from the church body. In addition to finding a church to attend through online streaming and listening to Christian content on our smart devices, we took what I call the Shunnamite approach. 

I am choosing this name because after reading 2 Kings 4:8-10, a few weeks ago, I realized that there were some similarities between what we did in our personal relationship with God and the method that the Shunnamite woman used in her life. 

In 2 Kings 4, we are introduced to a woman who recognized the importance of creating a place in her daily life for God. We are never told if this woman went to the synagog, what her history with synagog members was or if she had anyone she could turn to, when she was struggling with family issues. 

We are told that she had an encounter with Elisha, the prophet that God was using at that moment in time, as a way for people to connect with God and hear his will for their life and ask God for favor. 

We are told in the narrative, that the Shunnamite woman recognized God’s spirit on Elisha in verse 9-10. “She said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.”

The woman valued the spirit and influence of God in her life and her family so much, that she made a place for God to be in her house. In many ways, this is a pattern for how we can help to make sure that God’s spirit is always welcome in our life. While we are not told what it took to “make a room” for the man of God in the shunnamite’s house, we can with some degree of certainty, imagine the steps that it would take. Choosing the best room, clearing out whatever was in the way, creating or purchasing furniture and keeping the room swept and ready for whenever Elisha was in town, would have been part of what “making room” required. She would also have to make sure that there was time in her schedule to serve Elisha, when he staying with her family. 

This practice of making her home available, meant that Elisha was possibly more inclined to visit Shunem, the town she lived in. After all, if you know that every time you travel to a city, you have someone who has made a place for you to rest and refresh yourself, you might be more likely to visit the area more than other places. 

Getting back to how this relates to the topic of this chapter, when we look at our life as Christians who might be going through separation anxiety from the church or dealing with hurt and abuse from Christians, we must look at things from the shunnamite’s perspective. While there were many prophets in Elisha’s day, who prophesied out of their own imagination, the Shunnamite woman had discernment to recognize that God’s spirit was on Elisha. 

She valued God’s spirit on Elisha enough, to make a place for God in her life. 

When my mother and I found ourselves no longer going to a physical church during the week, it would have been very easy to allow ourselves to drift away from God. Not going to church could have shifted to not listening to a bible chapter every day and eventually filling up our schedule to the point that we did not have room for church online. After all, it is not pleasant or comfortable to see everyone in the congregation online, cheering the pastor, raising their hands in worship and interacting with the worship team, while we were sitting at home watching on streaming and asking God how we should handle the things we had seen in the church. 

Instead of allowing ourselves to follow this path, we purposely made time in our schedule for God. Making room for God’s spirit, meant making time to read, pray, listen to services during the week and arranging our schedule to accommodate church online. 

While I love to text and spend time with my friends online, it meant that on nights that had a church service or during online church conferences, I shifted my nightly time with my friends, to accommodate attending a church service. 

I took notes on my tablet while I listened to church services and followed along with the sermon. Many times, the notes I took, became the basis for articles and even the book you are reading. 

When you find yourself outside of church life, it will take extra effort to maintain a spiritual life and grow in Christ. Even if you love God with all your heart and have spent years inside the church being very devout, when you are not in a worshipful atmosphere of church every week, it will take more effort to stay close to God, than it did before. 

To aid our spiritual growth, my mother and I purchased worship music videos and played them regularly on our TV and smart devices. When we were struggling with situations, we put on worship music and we praised God for the answers to our problems. Praise became our weapon against the emotional and mental attacks that we had to deal with. 

This did not mean that we did not enjoy listening to other types of music or stopped watching the movies and series we enjoyed. It simply meant that we made room in our schedule to spend time with God and welcome his spirit into our life. 

Earlier I said that women who leave the church, often take their kids with them. This means that many Millennials and Generation Z members, grew up outside of the church. According to Barna, almost 61% of the people who fall into this group, were female with 14% being Millennials and 44% Baby Boomers. Almost 71% of the people polled fell into the category of saying they loved Jesus, but not the church.

If you are part of this group, then you are not alone. As a Millennial with Baby Boomer parents, I have great empathy for you. But there is hope. If you have been hurt by the church, it is important to remember that the church did not save you, it did not die for your sins. The church never raised anyone from the dead. And the church is not coming back one day, to set up its kingdom and remove sin from the world. Those are all the things that Jesus did or will do, as the Bible says he will. 

When Jesus walked the earth, the men who would become the disciples who spread the words of Jesus to others, struggled with the problems of humanity. They had to overcome jealously, anger, petty disagreements and they even turned on the very person who entrusted them with the truth of who he was.

When Jesus stood at the gates of hell, a place in the Valley of Hinnom, south of Mount Zion, he and his disciples were looking at an area where people went to worship various gods. The worship practices included sexual perversion and child sacrifice. Various archeological excavations have uncovered the bones of children there. 

When Jesus said that he would establish his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it, he was not referring to the establishment of a physical building or programs. 

He was saying that no matter what happened in life and no matter how people behaved, the truth of who he was and his saving power, would not be overcome. 

While the church of fallen and sinful people who were saved through faith in Jesus, will hurt us and make it hard to understand how people called by Christ’s name, can treat us the way they do, Jesus is always greater than those who bear his name. 

Many Baby Boomers, Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alphas (people born after 2010), still love God, but do not approve of the way the church has acted. 

The way that we can maintain faith in God and Jesus, is to realize that only Jesus died for us. Only he promises to never leave or forsake us. And only Jesus has the power to change our lives. Some people come to church with a very idealized view of Christians. While Christians should treat others with the love of God and should not disregard or demean people, we should all remember that every Christian is still a sinful person who was saved by faith in Jesus. No  Christian is perfect. Every person who says they are a Christian, will still make mistakes and still needs God’s forgiveness when they sin. 

Jesus the captain of our salvation

So how do we navigate through life and still stay true to the one who created us and died for us? The only way is to let Jesus be the Captain of our salvation. When people board a ship of any kind, they entrust their safety and their lives, to the skill and abilities of the captain of the vessel they are boarding. They are trusting that the captain has the ability to guide them through the water without running it aground, capsizing or losing the vessel because of a storm. 

In our life, Jesus is the Captain of our faith. Hebrews 2:10 says the following, “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”

This means that no matter how much suffering is in life through the way others treat us or the decisions that are made outside of our life that affect us, Jesus is able to keep us safe and keep us from being spiritually lost. 

The only way that we can make it through life and have peace and hope, is not through give away programs and social action. During the days of the apostles, the Roman government abused the people they ruled over. Social actions against the Romans was very common in the form of uprisings. Some of the people who followed Jesus were part of the group of Jews called zealots. They believed that social action and fighting the government, was the answer to solving the problems they were facing. But Jesus told Peter that the person who lives by violence, will also be destroyed by violence. Jesus told people to love each other and to trust God. Kingdoms and governments changed throughout history, but Jesus never changed. 

The church we look to for spiritual support, is not the same as Christ who died for us. Jesus does want Christians to live by the standards he set up. But he never told us that the church would be completely free of problems. To say that church life is messy and difficult at times, is an understatement. 

If you have been hurt by the church and find yourself on the sidelines or the outside, looking in, you are not alone. Jesus is with you. He did not kick you out of the church. He did not reject you. He did not demean or dishonor you. Instead, he is calling out to you to embrace him. 

His spirit wants to issue a clarion call to you. A clarion call is defined by Google, as a strongly expressed demand or request for action. The action that God is calling you to, is a return to him. Paul said in Romans 13:11 that our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. He was talking to Christians who were struggling with the pressures of life and the church. The Romans were hostile to Christians, burning them for torch light in the night. People who said they were Christians, were struggling to keep the faith and not attack each other. Paul reached out to the new Christians, those who had fallen away from the church and those who were scared and who had been injured by the people they trusted. 

If this describes you and your family, then I encourage you to heed the call that Paul gave in Romans. Do not abandon God or leave Jesus. Ask him to help you deal with the pain that you suffered from the hands of other Christians. Ask him how you can stay close to him and make a place for him in your life. Life after church is not easy and it may take years before you return to a physical building. But Jesus is not the church. He never was. 

Jesus Christ is the only person who will come after you when you are hurting and will never leave you. He will visit you in the night through peace in your heart and mind when you pray. He will help you to understand how the words of the Bible apply to your life, when you are reading or listening to your devotionals. 

For the Millennials and younger individuals, Jesus is there to keep you safe. He will give you a future and hope. His Spirit will lead you and help you to develop a better understanding of what God wants for your life. 

If you have fallen away from God and lost interest in him, then God wants to reach out to you too. He wants to send his Holy Spirit to you and help you to return to your first love for him. He wants to reconnect with you and never let go of you. 

Over the years when I have felt far from God, I found that turning on worship music, putting on scriptures on my smartphone and creating time for him during my day, helped me to return to him. 

If you want to return to God and rediscover what you lost when you drifted away, say the following prayer. Lord Jesus, I come to you with so many questions and issues. I don’t like what has happened to me in church and I have allowed that to cause me to drift away from you. I am sorry. I want to come back to you. Please come back into my life. Please draw me close to you again. Help me to return to my first love for you. Heal my heart and take away my pain. Be my lord and savior again. In Jesus name’ amen. 

If you have been hurt by the church and are looking for direction and guidance, say the following prayer. Lord Jesus, I come before you in pain and brokenness. I have been hurt by the church and Christians I thought would be there for me. I still love you, but I don’t love what the church did to me. Please come into my life. Please heal my brokenness and pain. Please don’t let me drift away from you. Show me how to make room for you in my life. Continue to move in my life and be the Captain of my salvation. Lead me through this season and fill my life with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, amen. 

From the upcoming book “God is with you Inspiration for life” by J.E. Nickerson. Coming Fall 2023

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