“I go to church in the woods now,” a friend told me recently, and then she described her love for Sunday morning hikes in the forest preserve.
That same week, another friend added #gardenchurch to her Instagram post. In her photo, I can see her waterproof clogs just peeking into the frame. A concentrated beam of sunshine, like the kind that featured heavily in the Baptist Sunday School art of my childhood, seems to spotlight the white clover at her feet.
Like my friends, I spend as much time as possible walking in forests and working in my garden, but last Sunday, I went to ordinary church with other people. Regular church? Real church? I’m not sure what to call it, but I went to my church which meets in a building shaped like an upside down boat complete with pipe organ and stained glass and a great dark cross, and when the priest said “this is the house of God, this is the gate of heaven,” I believed him. In this place I have experienced the mystery of faith in a way I never quite have in a forest or in my own garden, even on the first truly beautiful day of spring when it feels as if the world has been baptized in golden light. Even–and here I pause to search my soul a bit, but yes, I do think this is true–even on those perfect days in those rare years when our ancient magnolia tree opens a thousand perfect butterfly blossoms. Even then.
Offering worship each Sunday with other Christians has begun to seem like the most-real thing I do in the most-real place, and lately I can’t seem to stop puzzling over why this is and how it came to be.
My forest church friend asked me the most wonderfully honest question recently.
She asked, “What is the point of church any longer?” and in her question I heard her own church hurt, I sensed the collective shrugs of all those who stopped attending church during the pandemic and saw no need to return, and a whole modern shift away from organized religion toward more private, individualized forms of spirituality. What is the point of the Christian church these days? Why should we bother to show up and enter a church building on Sunday mornings? These aren’t easy questions to answer. At least, it isn’t easy for those of us who have tried church and found it lacking, found it wounding, found it boring, or found it irrelevant.
My friend and I grew up in Christian traditions that emphasize personal devotion above all else. The daily “quiet time” with God was sacrosanct. That discipline has stood me in good stead, yet it wrongly impressed on me that my personal relationship with God mattered most. I had no vision for the church as the gathering of God’s people. No awareness that communion with God was necessarily bound up with communion with other people. I thought of church as something more like a meeting. Valuable for learning and accountability, but much less important than my own private time with God. I think a lot of people my age who grew up with that religious mindset have decided, I think rightly, that solitude in nature nurtures their connection to God more than a Christian meeting would do.
On Sundays, as I sit and stand and kneel in church alongside other believers, my heart is full of gladness and grief. I am glad because this is no meeting, and it is such sweet relief to be gathered with others like a river of life flowing up toward the table of the Lord. I am glad because in church we name particularly and personally the God whose glory animates forest and garden. But the other side of this gladness is grief for those who are drawn to Divine Love yet hold themselves apart from the messy, beautiful ways this Love reveals itself in community. I understand why they do this. In some cases, I’m not even sure they are wrong to do this. Real life is complicated in ways a brief essay can only begin to address.
I will go on seeking God in the garden. It is the place God first prepared for us; it is our past and our future. But on Sundays, you’ll find me singing, in my own tuneless voice, with angels and archangels and with the whole church, including the living and the living who have died. I’d like to think that you are singing with me, no matter where exactly you are.
One of the most ancient hymns of the church, probably dating at least to the fourth century and still offered by Christians today, is called Te Deum laudamus. It is lovely to pray or sing alone. It is even better sung with others.
You are God: we praise you;
You are the Lord; we acclaim you;
You are the eternal Father:
All creation worships you.
To you all angels, all the powers of heaven,
Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
The glorious company of apostles praise you.
The noble fellowship of prophets praise you.
The white-robed army of martyrs praise you.
Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you;
Father, of majesty unbounded,
your true and only Son, worthy of all worship,
and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide.
You, Christ, are the king of glory,
the eternal Son of the Father.
When you became man to set us free
you did not shun the Virgin’s womb.
You overcame the sting of death
and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
You are seated at God’s right hand in glory.
We believe that you will come and be our judge.
Come then, Lord, and help your people,
bought with the price of your own blood,
and bring us with your saints
to glory everlasting.
Image: a detail of worshiping angels from "The Coronation of the Virgin with Adoring Saints” (1407-1409) by Lorenzo Monaco; taken by me in the National Gallery, London
Thank you. It is what I needed today. (from a former pastor's wife)
I was so very disappointed when the Out of the Ordinary podcast ended last May so I eagerly signed up for your sub-stack publication. If this first entry is any indication, it will be a worthwhile investment.
Thank you for so eloquently putting into words what I have felt for the last several years as I have witnessed writers I follow as well as extended family members leave the church for a variety of reasons. (Some reasons seem valid, others...not so much). I have often felt old-fashioned and out-of-touch as I struggled to understand their mindset because I cannot imagine not attending church on Sundays. Not out of obligation or self-righteousness, but because there is something about corporate worship that simply cannot be duplicated elsewhere and you have so beautifully described that in this entry.
Thank you again. I look forward to reading more of your words.