Rebuttal.

There was a blog post going around earlier this week by a well-loved Mormon blogger about 5 reasons no one should leave the church. 

The first reason on the list was being offended. We had a RS lesson recently in which someone posited the same thing, and after biting my tongue through the whole lesson I thought about writing this post then, but other things happened that shifted my attention away from the topic. So I'm going to write it now. And I am going to defend forever my, or anyone's, right to be offended. And/or to leave the church for whatever reason makes someone need to leave.

When a person can give a list of 5 reasons no one should leave, it merely points to the fact that the list-maker has not personally encountered those reasons. And in my experience, it's a good idea never to make blanket pronouncements because in my experience, I often end up eating them.

The interesting thing about the Church is that every person's journey in it is so different depending on what ward he or she is in, and what stage of life, and a hundred other variables. That old saw about "Isn't it wonderful how the Church is the same everywhere you go" is simply not true. 

The gospel doesn't change perhaps, but the Church is as many different churches as there are wards and people running and attending them. So until I've been YOU attending your particular ward, I won't pretend to really know anything about your experience in the church.

Even if we're supposedly getting a lesson out of the same manual every Sunday. Because as we all know, those "same lessons" can vary wildly.

I grew up in a ward where people actually stood up on Fast Sunday and bore testimony that it was "the only true ward in the church". That's a fact, and you can ask anyone who was in Federal Heights Ward in Salt Lake City between the years of 1968-1982 or so. (I admit to having no idea what it's like now.) When the ward was eventually split, after dodging it for years, the weeping and wailing about the impact on property values was intense and very real. I remember visiting my cousin's ward as a young child and feeling sad for everyone there because they were not members of my clearly superior ward. I remember looking around their unpretentious chapel and wondering how they could believe. 

Yikes. I'm not proud of those feelings.

I've always been a little sorry that I grew up with that kind of warped perception. By the time I was an adult, my perspective had shifted and I instead envied people who had the privilege of growing up with a humbler ward experience. Getting some of the puffed-up, myopic ward-pride focus corrected made it easier for me to see the gospel at work in the lives of the people.

As we've moved around, I've loved discovering the ways the gospel can thrive in so many different types of ward families. But I don't for a minute agree that the church is the same everywhere.

The Federal Heights Ward chapel

The ward I grew up in has very little in common with the ward I just visited this week in Panama.

Our new, non-air-conditioned ward in Panama, where I understood very little but still managed to sing the hymns in my usual awkwardly loud way

I was delighted to find my mom's hymn, 

despite the language barrier, and was quite proud of myself (and her!)

Every ward has its own personality, and having lived in many, and in many areas of the country, I have come to understand that sometimes we play well together and sometimes we just don't get along. I've found value in both of those situations, and one of the things I like best about the way our church is organized is that we don't get to choose our congregation but are instead assigned based on geographical boundaries. It can help us learn to love others when we have the opportunity to worship and serve with people we wouldn't necessarily seek out by choice. I have always felt that's an inspired model.

But being in the wrong ward at the wrong time can also cause serious and lasting spiritual damage. I've come as close to leaving as a result of problems in my ward as a person can come, and we did actually go on "church vacation" once while we waited for a move to materialize just so that we could avoid walking away permanently. We had to save our testimonies by not attending for awhile. If that seems like the wrong choice to you, all I can say is that you haven't run into the right kind of challenge yet. We did, and there are a few lasting scars. But once we moved, we were able to pick up in a new ward and carry on. I've always looked at that move as a very real blessing. 

To be honest, the church vacation was in some ways a blessing, too. We spent many whole weekends of quality family time in an attempt to put our weeks away from ward engagement to good use, and it paid dividends. The whole experience has become a meaningful part of my personal faith story.

Our lives as members of the church are neither static nor absolute. They shift, they change, they move and grow with us. So I'm never going to tell anyone how to feel about their ward or their interactions with the people in it. And since I believe the ward has such a tremendous impact on our overall church experience, I'm pretty sure I can't speak to that for anyone either. 

I'm just going to hope for everyone reading this that if it isn't being good, something is going to change to make it better.

If you've never felt marginalized as a woman at church, good for you. If you've never been offended in any deep or meaningful way, I hope your streak continues. If you've never felt the sting of people being straight-up mean, that's the way it should be. If you've never felt like the misjudged misfit in your ward family, I think that's wonderful. 

No one should feel those things. But people do.

If you have, or you do, well then I understand. And I'm sorry. And if there's anything I can do to help you desire to hang in awhile longer, please let me know. Because I've been there. For me, just having people in my life who were willing to allow me to tell my story, and mourn with me, and comfort me with the assurance that it was no reflection on my worthiness or faithfulness or anything about me, helped me survive and want to stick around. 

I think there's only one real reason no one should leave the church. That is as a result of our unwillingness to do everything we can to show them that they're loved and valued, they belong to and with us and for those reasons, we truly want to keep them in the fold.

- S.