Some Thoughts on Leaving Church

By Becky Kiser

This essay is the third section of a three-part discussion, beginning with Kendra Irons' review of Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith."

Reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith was, for me, a series of “ah-ha’s” and “me, too’s.” From early experiences of wonder at creation and love for God to talking my pastor into a re-baptism at 16; from entering seminary totally in love with God (“Where else would I go?” Taylor writes) to a joyful discovery of Native American spirituality; from the attainment of the dream of ordination to the midlife disillusionment with the organization of “church”; from the joy of belonging to the awareness that I no longer fit well, I felt a keen identification with Taylor as a sister journeyer of faith. I like the style of spiritual memoir writing, hearing truth and experiencing companionship in another’s story— although I can also hear faith and struggle even in a more straightforward theology.

Others have pointed out that Taylor really didn’t leave church; she left parish ministry. In my Presbyterian denomination’s words, she found her call in “specialized ministry” through teaching, speaking, and conferences. My current presbytery, in addition to the called and installed parish ministers, has clergy members in many different specialized ministries. Some teach undergraduates, or serve as chaplains in hospitals and retirement communities, or are specialists in interim ministry. Others are social workers and counselors, or are “tent-makers” (supporting themselves through “day jobs” as the Apostle Paul did with his tent-making), or may simply go by the generic term of at large. None of these necessarily work in a parish in any capacity, although some may volunteer as do other members. Each year, however, all non-parish minister members of presbytery report on their work to the respective committee of oversight. Technically, they have not “left church.”

Many ordained and non-ordained people have found themselves in the same place as Barbara Brown Taylor, finding the gap between their own faith journey and the proscribed faith of particular churches so wide as to be uncomfortable. They have “left church” in the sense of not having a regular place of attendance; while at the same time not really leaving church, as in faith in God and a love for the people of God. There are whole networks of folks who feel disenfranchised from “church” as it is today, who yet still hold deep devotion to God and convictions of Christian faith, who long for community, and are creating ways to find each other and be together. Probably a good many readers of Christian Feminism Today find themselves in such a position. As Taylor says, “I may have left the house, but I have not left the relationship. After twenty years of serving Mother Church at the altar, I have pitched my tent in the yard....”(222).

The memoir traces Taylor’s relationship with God and the church from the childhood that led her to the ministry to her joys and struggles in fulfilling her calling. Although she had thrived as an Associate Pastor in an urban setting, Taylor yearned to serve in a particular rural church where her creative spirit and outstanding preaching gained her renown far beyond her small community. But she describes a gradual burning out as she loses herself in the day-to-day work of this solo ministry, responding to needs that truly never quit, and not finding a way to feed her own soul. This crisis leads her to say goodbye to a parish that initially seemed her perfect ideal, and move to teaching. And so the Spirit moves.

Taylor is not alone in her struggle with the demands and ardors of solo pastoral ministry, in her feeling of isolation from collegial support and in her search for inner sustenance, while giving out to others day after day. Nor is she alone in her feeling that she has moved out of the main current of “church” and is somehow on the fringe. In my favorite chapter in the book, the last one, “Keeping,” Taylor summarizes what this shift or growth means. She writes, “For most of my adult life, what I have wanted most to win is nearness to God” (218). I echo that, although without the opening phrase, because that has been the desire of my heart for all the life I remember. Like Taylor, I assumed that meant I was called to ordained ministry, and then was shocked to discover that serving God’s church as a clergy was not the spiritual be-all and end-all of my search. The longing and search are not satisfied by the vocation.

However, the lessons of the vocation can and do lead on down the road of faith, as the Spirit of God uses the” stuff” of our lives to teach and lead into a fuller humanity. As Taylor learns in her struggle, “You have everything you need to be human.” She talks of “feeling her way into faith” after her father’s death, as opposed to religious certainties, and she values the companionship of those who have undertaken the same journey. She realizes how much she owes to the traditions of the church, and says, “We would not be who we are without them, and we continue to draw real sustenance from them, but insofar as these same traditions discourage us from being with one another, we cannot go home again” (225). She ends with expressing hope that the Spirit who has led thus far will also lead us into a new way of being church together.

Perhaps an answer is learning to separate the work of ministry from our personal journey of faith—a difficult task because they are also intertwined. Surely someone along the line must have explained this difference to me, although I obviously didn’t get it nor remember it. Perhaps not all clergy feel the same disconnect; perhaps for some of us the pilgrim/seeker/journeyer metaphor is dominant, and for others it is not. Perhaps women clergy have talked and written more about it as we now have begun to have women who have spent years in the ministry. Perhaps I just never read the right books, or wasn’t at the place where I could receive their wisdom. Whatever the reason, I had a real struggle realizing that the church wasn’t heaven and its people were still growing into the sainthood that Scripture credits us with.

I’m ready to see that new way of being church together that Taylor hopes for. The church provoked and nurtured me through years of my own faith journey, and still does the same for others. That level of church and ministering still speak to many, and are not trite. Perhaps letting go of trying to get my own needs satisfied by the church can actually free me to go back and consciously minister like I never did as a younger woman. Perhaps it’s not so much about my own needs being met at church (I can find other ways) as it as about being there for one another in community and enjoying the ritual of worship and the dance of relationships.

I wonder.

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Becky Kiser is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA. She lives in Norfolk, VA, and presently serves in an “at large” ministry.

Photo credit: Letha Scanzoni

© 2007 Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus