{"id":26548,"date":"2020-04-14T21:33:58","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T04:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=26548"},"modified":"2020-04-14T21:33:58","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T04:33:58","slug":"the-path-of-the-exile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-path-of-the-exile\/","title":{"rendered":"The Path of the Exile"},"content":{"rendered":"

In David Kinnaman\u2019s books Unchristian <\/em>and You Lost Me<\/em>, he details the saga of why young adults leave the church.\u00a0 While Unchristian <\/em>is focused primarily the way those outside of the church see Christianity (i.e., Christians are hypocritical, they care only about people getting saved, their sexual ethic is too prudish\/antihomosexual, Christians are sheltered, judgmental, too political, etc.), You Lost Me<\/em> is focused on the issue of church drop outs (many of which coincide with the research from Unchristian<\/em>).\u00a0 While the issue of why younger people leave the church is not new, it is still something with which the church needs to wrestle.<\/p>\n

In You Lost Me<\/em>, Kinnaman gives the profile of the \u201cExile.\u201d\u00a0 Kinnaman defines the Exiles as \u201cthose who grew up in the church and are now physically or emotionally disconnected in some way, but who also remain energized to pursue God-honoring lives.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 For an important part of my own journey, I resonate with the Exile.\u00a0 Toward the end of 2017 and into 2018, I found myself in conflict with leaders at the church I was attending at the time.\u00a0 To keep the story short, I was a small group leader but had people from other churches in it.\u00a0 We had been meeting as a group like that for over a year when the small group pastor suddenly approached one of those member\u2019s fianc\u00e9 saying that she would need to find a new small group.\u00a0 When the fianc\u00e9 asked why, the small group pastor said it was because he was about to implement a new policy that if small group members didn\u2019t attend this church, they wouldn\u2019t be allowed to be part of small groups associated with the church.<\/p>\n

I found out about this new policy through this girl in my small group and was taken aback; no one had talked to me about this issue before.\u00a0 I sat down with the small group pastor and tried to come to an understanding and compromise, but the conversation led to if I wasn\u2019t going to support the decision, I would be asked to step down.\u00a0 Ultimately, I decided to step out and in doing so, I stepped out of the church emotionally and spiritually.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There were some others who were part of another group this pastor led who were asked to leave because they didn\u2019t attend the church (although they had been part of his small group for many years).\u00a0 One of them contacted me about starting a new group that consisted of them, to which I reluctantly agreed, but half-jokingly called ourselves the \u201cExiles.\u201d\u00a0 This began a journey of disillusionment with the church; although I never stopped attending physically, I may as well have stopped that as well.<\/p>\n

But what hurt so much during this time was feeling as if I had lost my identity.\u00a0 I had grown up in the church and the church was my life.\u00a0 To paraphrase Paul, I was the \u201cGeneral Baptist of General Baptists.\u201d\u00a0 But the reality is the extent to which I loved the church far exceeded the love I had for Christ, something I didn\u2019t realize until I suddenly had no foundation for my identity.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 So for me, when the church had metaphorically (and not so metaphorically) given me two middle fingers and said \u201cDon\u2019t let the door hit you on the way out,\u201d I didn\u2019t know what to do.\u00a0 My cynicism toward the church grew and I felt alone in a way I couldn\u2019t explain.<\/p>\n

And then a random conversation at Shake Shack occurred.<\/p>\n

My housemates in Hong Kong are all Christians and, at some point, had been connected with the small group pastor I mentioned earlier (one of them was still part of his small group at the time before he moved to Oxford).\u00a0 As a household, we had made a commitment to meet up once a week to check in with one another and see where we were spiritually.\u00a0 I initially wanted nothing to do with it because of the angst I felt toward anything Christian.\u00a0 One night, I suggested that instead of meeting at our flat, we go to Shake Shack (with the hopes that the conversation wouldn\u2019t make it to anything spiritual) and to an extent it worked.\u00a0 Somehow we got onto the topic of political assassination and whether it was ethical, when my housemate brought up Dietrich Bonhoeffer.\u00a0 In the past, we had talked about Bonhoeffer quite a bit and I wanted more context to the question we were asking.\u00a0 So I downloaded Eric Metaxas\u2019s Bonhoeffer<\/em> and began to read.<\/p>\n

This journey through Nazi Germany and the life of one of Christianity\u2019s greatest figures ultimately brought me out of my spiritual exile and onto the path I\u2019m now pursuing.\u00a0 The question I kept asking myself during my time of exile was, \u201cWhat is the church?\u201d and I would argue that ultimately, this is the question that Bonhoeffer pursued until his death.\u00a0 To journey with Bonhoeffer\u2019s questions in conjunction with my own was key to bringing new life to my spiritual journey.<\/p>\n

What are we supposed to do with young people who leave the church?\u00a0 Although every story is different, here are some of my observations from my own time of walking the path of the exile (and as the resident 28-year-old):<\/p>\n