This post is response to the question on Jim Palmer's Blog that asks, "Does the Institutional Church (IC) do more harm than good?"

Given my experience with church, my first response is to say that yes, institutional church does more harm than good. Often, when I hear about people giving their lives to the Father within the confines of the church, my first response is skepticism or panic-- do they realize what sorts of constraints they have submitted themselves to? I wonder.

I often wonder what my life would be like if I had not needed to wade through all the extra bureaucracy that was built into my faith through the influence of the church. Many times I have observed that perhaps my faith is deeper and stronger due to the questions I had to ask in response to the life I was living as a result of my church environment and influence and that my faith has been enriched by this strange background of hurt and mess that is often the church.

If I were going on simply my own experience, I would have to say that yes, the IC does more harm than good. But then I have to stop and look at the lives of some around me. I have at least a few friends who found themselves years ago confronted with a question like, "If you were to die today, do you know where you would go," and not long after were swept into fundamentalist bible classes and membership sessions. However, these same people have found their way out into the bigger world outside church walls and we have to ask together-- where would they have been without the first church stepping stone?

The catch I always find myself contemplating is this: although there are a number of truly meaningful instances of God encounters that happen perhaps even in spite of all the church has become, is this the best way? Is it necessary to bog down who God is in all the dressings and trappings of the church or is there a way to simply have a meaningful encounter with the Father?

I've had a number of conversations both with and about people who don't seem to "get" why someone would have such a problem with the IC, why anyone would want to leave the warm confines of its womb. Sometime ago, in the midst of a decision to stop my involvement with a particular church, I remember coming to the conclusion and later sharing with someone that I don't want to waste my time with all the extra "stuff" the church seems to pile on so readily. A lot of energy is wasted on keeping your smiling face on and studying certain aspects of theology that do little to drive me towards the love of people and love of the Father.

As I was discussing this idea of "wasted time and energy" with this friend, I had to assess my own history and my own psyche-- perhaps the things that go in the traditional evangelical church have such an ill-effect on me are in part due to a plethora of painful experiences that accompanied such activities. Perhaps due to my tendency to throughly and exhaustively analyze every idea that passes my door, the energy I spend on the material covered in church is ill-placed in contrast to those who may enjoy the luxury of being able to simply slough off that which might bog me down.

To say the institutional church always does more harm than good is a very risky statement because it is too often a case-by-ase situation. Do I think the world might be a better place if the IC were perhaps not so evasive and all-consuming? Maybe. Do I wish that I had never been involved in such a thing? Hm. The tricky thing about wishing our past experiences different is that we never know where we would be without them nor do we fully understand all that we are because of them. Without the pain of my own church experience, I do not know if I would have the same compassion for the marginalized. Without the pain of my own church experience, I don't know if my faith would be as vibrant and as deep as it is today. Do I hope that others never have to go through what many have as a result of the IC? Only if it means they will never find a way out to learn that there is an even better way.

I want to finish this post with something that I've been wanting to write about for quite some time, but haven't quite found the space or time to speak of it. I haven't written about a church journey, nor have I found myself asking as many "church questions" as I used to. The reason for this is perhaps I've found myself in a place that these are no longer questions that I need to ask or perhaps I am in a place where I no longer need to ask them alone.

When I returned from Idaho, I started going back a place on Sunday mornings I went to off and on the first year or two of college-- technically, it is still "church," but I have a hard time calling it that because it feels real and vibrant and meaningful. When I tell people what I do on Sundays, it often seems more right to say something like, "I'm going to see my family," or "There is a group of people that I cannot be away from." It is this place that I go to be refreshed before I go back out into my crazy life and go after my dreams.

And this is not to say that this place, this group of people are free from conflict or hurt or questions-- the difference is simply that as a group of people, we are not afraid to talk about these things openly. Often, on Sunday mornings, we have open discussions about how things are going, we are honest about the things that just don't work and when things hurt or get broken, there isn't some great panel of policians that we must wade through to say "my heart is broken."

And so, maybe for this reason, I hesitate to say that all IC does more harm than good because I know there are still at least a few places out there of healing. There are some groups of people who meet together in the name of the Father and provide places to heal and forgive. And sometimes those are the places that we need to go after sitting through systems of control, marginalization, and abuse. My hope that is the midst of everything, people find their true hearts at least once in their lives.