When to Stop Believin'

So, somebody on my Facebook shared this article recently:
http://tv.msn.com/mom-pop-culture/10-reasons-we-have-stopped-watching-glee/photo-gallery/feature/?photoidx=6

"10 Reason We've Stopped Watching Glee"

If you are or ever were a "Gleek", as they call 'em, you might enjoy reading that list. Or it might depress you a little. But even if you're not, the Glee phenomenon casts an interesting light on we who love(d) it.

I've always been a musical theatre nerd. I sing constantly, I acted in high school, I cry like a little girl pretty much every time I see a musical production. So when Glee came on the air, back in 2009, I was all kinds of excited.

And the show didn't disappoint. Between a clear love for classic rock (Journey, anyone?), a predilection for mashups (love!), and an unrelenting message about tolerance and be-yourselfiness, Glee was clearly the entertainment that the Chris Geigers of this world were seeking.

In case you weren't aware, the show became a cultural landmark. We were inundated with media, from iTunes Glee-album releases to a 3D feature-length concert in movie theatres. People were fanatical about this show - I among them.
People watched Glee religiously. It was a spiritual experience for people. It hit them deep in their core, the way that love and hope and joy can do when you wrap them all up together with music.

For many people, the story of coming to faith has a similar ring to it. People come to a world that they had never before imagined, with a new sense of joy, of belonging, of exuberance in all of Creation.
It happened to me. Even though I grew up a Christian, grew up very much "in the church", I still remember the awe that I felt when I truly began to discover my own faith, my own love for the God revealed in Jesus Christ. During seminary, when I rediscovered my love for the church, I could hear Journey playing in my head.

Don't stop believin'...
Hold on to that feelin', yeah...

Top of the world, man! In God, all things are possible. With God's people, gathered in holy spaces, all things are possible.

But the reality for many people, in many churches, is that the feelin' is harder and harder to hold on to. They may continue believin' in Christ, but they stop believin' in the church - for all sorts of reasons, good and bad - until one day we look around and the churches are empty. There's basically nobody left. Sure, you see the occasional concentration of folks in megachurches, but even a handful of 10,000-person services doesn't change the fact:

Church is dying.
Churches are dying.
Hundreds, even thousands, of churches and church people are struggling each week with the growing suspicion that they must either allow their church to die, or abandon their devotion to Christ in favor of devotion to the church itself. Either give up your true missional faith, or give up your place of worship and fellowship. Your home.

I feel sometimes like our culture suffers from "Don't know when to quit" syndrome. Like the folks who made Glee have built up this institution and now must maintain it, must maintain its brand and its philosophy and its performances, long after they cease to build up the world around them, long after they bring the joy and exuberance that they once did, to old generations or new. Like the folks who make churches, and make them run, are working their butts off to keep these institutions running, long after they cease to ignite people's passion for God.

I've talked many times about the need for "church hospice" - a way for churches that can no longer maintain their institution to come to terms with its death, to rejoice in its long life and find a way to turn their passions for The Church into passion for the next thing that God is doing.

What we need, as a society, is a better understanding of death and transition. A better understanding of grief. Yes, we need to prolong life, be it the life of a person or a church or even a TV show. But when that life has ended, we have to learn to let go of what we have loved about it, and turn that love into a New and Beautiful Thing.

I've quit watching Glee, just as the authors of the article above have. There are time when I've wanted to quit church. I suspect some of you have wanted that too. Maybe you have quit church, once upon a time or altogether. I've occasionally gotten disillusioned about church in general, and there are some churches that we all understand would better serve God by closing their doors. But what we can always do is to constantly re-evaluate ourselves, so that we can better focus our passions and our energies on the ways that we can better our world, better our lives, and better serve God - today, tomorrow, and always.