I quit church, but I can't quit the type of community it taught me

In June of 2020, I left my church of 6 years. Its response to George Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests laid bare the racism that had always been dormant, underneath all the anti-racist small groups and book clubs that were constant, but somehow never led to lasting change.

By the end of 2021, I had quit church entirely: not in any explosive blowout, but with a soft, slow taper. First, there weren’t any churches meeting in person (and being a newcomer at Zoom church just meant watching a glorified Youtube video). After that, as I moved cross-country and my marriage fell apart (slowly, then all at once), those red-state churches didn’t know what to do with me – a liberal almost-divorcée getting ready to come out to my family as queer.

So, I was left grieving the gaping crater church had left in my world. I didn’t want to go back, but I missed the community there deeply and urgently. After many, many therapy sessions where I griped about the lack of community in my life, my no-bullshit therapist (bless him) asked me to define my terms. He pressed me until we got to the root of what I missed about church, and I’ll be grateful to him forever for that.

In the end, I was able to articulate two things that I felt would satisfy me:

• Loose ties: a wide range of context-dependent relationships (i.e., folks I might not stay friends with if one of us moved, or stop participating in a shared activity), but who would theoretically say yes if I asked for a favor (and crucially, vice versa!), plus:

• Close friends: the folks whose couch is always open for me, who pick up my call, who know my secrets and love me deeply all the same

I don’t miss the weekly pulpit diatribes about how gay people are cool as long as they commit to a lifetime of celibacy, or the fire-and-brimstone that pastors try to soften but never fully decry.

I do miss being on a listserv that hardly ever failed: calls for dog-sitting, a couch to crash on in any major city, a guest room for a new-in-town friend, someone to take an old couch off your hands. Every need was met, as long as someone had the courage to ask.

It’s been almost four years since I’ve sat in a pew or received communion. My relationship with Christianity, the religion, is still complicated. I miss much of the structure, ritual, and ceremony, and could write several thousand words¹ on it.

But, entirely separately from the incense and liturgy of it all, church offers community in spades.

• You’ll see the same people, week after week, including folks you love and folks who are kind of annoying. Mostly, people who are both! Loving annoying people (and being loved through all your own quirks) is community.

• You’ve got a shared history and shared norms.

• There are people to gossip (ideally, gently) about and with. Gossip is how you create shared history and norms² so, imo, it’s integral.

• If you run into each other in the grocery store, you’ll say hi.

• Everyone around you has at least a little obligation to you, by virtue of your shared presence.

• You have at least a little obligation to everyone around you. Community is always reciprocal. Not evenly; it’s not an exchange. But: everyone is held, everyone holds.

None of this means I’m going back to church any time soon. I’m pretty pleased to have decoupled my own spirituality from the hierarchy and demands of any institution. As a queer person, I’ve been burned pretty badly by the evangelical church writ large, and the white-nationalist-patriarchy of it all has pushed me to create some big boundaries with my family of origin. I don’t think organized religion is a good or healthy or safe decision for a lot of people. If it is for you: I’m so happy for you! Go with god!

But, for non-church folks, there’s not a default institution that fills this particular need. You can find it, but it takes a little more energy and presence.

As I continue to try and rebuild what I lost when I left church, here are some things I’m looking out for:

Regular, recurring gatherings.

As a baseline, community requires seeing the same people over and over again. I think in-person is best for this, but where there are barriers (like a disability or compromised immune system), there are great online alternatives.

Also ideally: something without an end date. In a pinch, a class or short-term volunteer commitment³ can meet this need, but you’ll be stuck searching for a new option once it’s over.

A value system that you can live with.

There will never, ever be a group of people that eternally and precisely matches your exact set of values⁴ and beliefs. If you find a group that does, rest assured: it will not last. People change their minds. Circumstances change. People are endlessly and gorgeously nuanced.

So: find something you can tolerate. Ideally, find something that can tolerate you, if (/when) you change.

A community is made up of actual people with actual lives, experiences, connections, and beliefs. A sustainable community is full of people who agree on the big stuff, and can tolerate all the other details.

Non-homogeneity.

This is one of the big places where a community diverges from a friend group. Community has to expose you to people who are different from you in meaningful and uncomfortable ways. That can include class/wealth, race, age, culture…and so much more.

Your community doesn’t need to be a representative sample of your city or state, but it should force you into proximity with people other than those you’d choose. And people who wouldn’t choose you, either! I’m not saying stick around someplace you’re not wanted. I’m saying: learn to care and show up for a wider range of people. Let them show up for you, in return.

Some expectations around how you spend your time, energy, and yes: money.

I’m not going to budge on this one. Community requires reciprocity: that means that you can expect certain things of it, and it can expect certain things of you in return. That means showing up to keep the group itself running, setting an alarm to answer texts that your ADHD made you ignore, and/or sharing your money and other resources with other community members that need them.⁵

No single point of failure.

A community is a net. When one knot breaks, a dozen others are holding strong to keep things together and start the work of repair.

If the whole system could break down if one person stops initiating gatherings, or has a bad mental health month, or decides to leave, then your community is extremely fragile. So: distribute responsibilities. If you’re the one holding everything together, explicitly and intentionally hand off some of that work to others. If you’re a participant and you see that fragility, try to step in and become one of those backup knots who can catch others when something snaps.

My own active participation

What is “community” to one person can be an annoyance, an obligation, or utterly meaningless to another. The community comes directly from the quality of your own participation. If you show up annoyed, or tired, or distant every time, you will never, ever reap the rewards, even if everyone else around you does.⁶

Show up. Sign up. Ask to help. Ask for help. Show up on your good days, so the community can show up for you on your bad ones.

So: what counts?

I think the list here is long, and I’m sure I can’t exhaust it. An existing organization can be helpful from a sustainability/longevity perspective, but a group can self-organize too. Here’s a handful of ideas:

• A standing weekly potluck dinner

• A recurring volunteer commitment, like serving at your local soup kitchen or reading to kids at your library

• An as-needed but ongoing volunteer commitment, like volunteer firefighting or wilderness rescue teams.

• Mutual aid groups

• Churches or religious organizations

• AA, Al Anon, and other recovery-related orgs

• Support groups

• Gyms (esp. small, locally-owned ones)

• Art co-ops

• Summer camps (“annual” still counts as “recurring”!)

• Holiday festivals

• Community gardens

• Writer’s groups

• Run clubs

• Rec league team sports

• Etc.!

No single item off this list will meet all your needs. And the option that meets your needs won’t necessarily meet someone else’s! That’s the whole point of this: your “community” is made up of whatever you commit to, whether that’s one big thing or a dozen small ones.

Small delights:

• The Cringe Matrix: do not fear the cringe; embrace the freedom of wholesome cringe

• My parental leave from my 9-5 just kicked in so this was me on Friday afternoon:

  

  (Except not really because now I have to learn how to be a parent?? Has anyone perchance written a book on how to do this I am afraid I’m going to mess it all up!!!)

• The Oscars are tonight!! I don’t care that much about movies but I do care a lot about celebrity red carpet fashion⁷ so I am giddy.

• This piece by my dear friend Krystiana! Has art ever changed your mind?

What I’ve salvaged this week whoops, month:

• For Valentine’s day, instead of buying gifts, my partner and I exchanged collaged boxes full of free collected treasures: stickers, small rocks we found at meaningful sites, an acorn from a 400-year-old tree…⁸

  

• Obsessed with this fancy fine art print from Goodwill – I had to clean up some scuffs from the frame but now she’s got a prized spot on the wall in our dining room! I love my weird art collection, which is half-secondhand, half-art from artist friends.

  

1. Could, and have – you’ll never find my college blog!

Krystiana Kosobucki-Howell

and I have been blogging together and separately since Wordpress was the platform du jour.

2. This is my read on what Normal Gossip’s ~big take~ is, and I’ve adopted it wholesale as my own deeply-held belief. Fight me.

3. I’m not saying don’t do these things! I’m saying: these aren’t where you’ll find sustainable, long-term community. But you might very well make new friends, or have a nice time, or learn something new: all positive things.

4. Value system ≠ a mission. An art co-op could be a perfect example of this, where the value is something like “Making pottery.” That’s kind of self-serving for the members, and that’s ok. The point of a community can just be human connection and creativity. Those are two of our most basic needs, which makes it automatically “enough.” The expectation of perfectly-matching belief systems is the root of many, many group breakdowns.

5. There’s this episode of the podcast Other People’s Pockets where an episcopal priest is interviewed about her finances. I don’t agree with some of what she says here, but I also haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for several years. In short: if a member of her church stops or decreases their tithing, she asks them about it, because 1. this can be an indicator of a need for care, and by asking, she can then mobilize the community to meet that need, and 2. financial commitment is a big indicator of overall commitment. Someone ceasing their financial contributions could signal that they’re distancing themselves from the church too, and she wants to address that head on. This doesn’t 100% sit right with me, but I also don’t think she’s totally wrong. I don’t know what to think!! Please listen and then tell me what you think.

6. Please DO show up annoyed or tired or distant sometimes! A big part of community is letting others in so they can support you when you need it.

7. Just wait til the Met Gala, I will be insufferable

8. See Wholesome Cringe note, above