The Seeds of the Church

Hello friends! It has been awhile since I have posted something but I thank you for sticking around and for reading my posts. It means so much to me!

I haven’t been thinking much about what to write for the Sex Project because life has been crazy. Being involved in church work, school starting fully online, missing my friends and in-person connections with people, I think you all know what I’m talking about very well. But I have also been playing around with several ideas in my head that I want to discuss with people.

We’ve seen how COVID-19 has affected churches. They are falling apart either because they aren’t meeting in-person or because they are. Church people are dying to be back inside a building forgetting that church doesn’t exist inside walls. Pastors are clamoring to figure out how to move forward and what church life is going to look like for now and in the future.

I think of all this and some things I have been reading about for my classes so far. There’s been a lot about heretics. And let me tell you, I kind of love them. For those who don’t know heretics are people who have been deemed by the Church as having opinions contrary to “right” doctrine. These people have ideas, creeds, practices, beliefs that are in opposition to the Church’s official stance. Their imagination and ways of thinking beyond what they are given is so fascinating to me. I wonder how many heretics I encounter everyday!

But to get to the point in a book I was reading, heretics were described as the seeds of the church. Because from these people (some of who were killed) thoughts took hold, people paid attention, and if it garnered enough, a reformation ensued and/or it forced the Church to respond in new ways. 

So what if we are planting some seeds now? I built these blog to be a place of de-stigmatizing and de-shaming sex and sexuality. That is what I plan to do in dialogue with you and guest posts. But let’s look at the reason this idea of a de-stigmatizing blog is even necessary in the first place.

Church has become a place where many are not accepted. They are not affirmed for who they are. They are not represented by people who look like or think like them. Church has become a streamlined thought process that you either conform to it, or you leave. And what do a lot of people do? They leave. If we stick to topics of sex and sexuality, I would venture to say that most churches are not LGBTQ+ affirming. They do not welcome, support, or love those in the community. So why would LGBTQ+ individuals want to stick around? 

This makes me think of how the church is dying and I want to pose this question: is that really such a bad thing? Maybe it is just forcing us to look at what needs to reform, calling us to a reckoning of sorts? Maybe our “heretical” views of letting people love who they want to love, do with their bodies whatever they want to do, is forcing a reckoning of sorts in the church. The church is either going to have to listen to us or continue on its path (which doesn’t look good). 

Maybe in this current climate, we are planting the seeds of the church. Forcing its hand into remaining stagnant or forcing it to grow. Maybe we are forcing a new reformation, one that declares Black Lives Matter and that lets people love whoever they choose. That cares for the immigrant looking for a better life and helps those who are experiencing lack of healthcare, housing, food, whatever. Maybe we are forcing the church to take a good, long look in the mirror and help it get to the basics of church: love. 

A church isn’t four walls but it is nothing without people. Maybe it isn’t such a bad thing to make it think a little differently.