Why So Disturbed About Corporate Church?

How do we reconcile our faith, founded on love, when, in actuality, we don’t love being in traditional fellowship situations which the Christian church has historically mandated? 

How do we repent of hearts torn asunder by the conflicting “should” of gathering together while at the same time internally wishing we could solely honor Jesus’ need and modeling of going away to a quiet place (Luke 5:16; Mark 6:30-31)? 

What if we, as introverts (for lack of a better term), are committed to the lonely and thoughtful places of Christ and service, while wanting to jettison the corporate church part?

Introverts, like extroverts, love people; but unlike extroverts, we don’t love them all at once (in groups where people take it upon themselves to own us) or all of the time (meaning, we don’t love to always do everything, most things, or even a lot of things, together). 

We might get along fine one-on-one with other introverts or those who are more even-keeled, but struggle with excitedly enthusiastic or high energy individuals or crowds. 

We may take a long time to develop relationships and trust, and freak out if we sense being “glommed onto” by people who exert social expectations that make emotionally draining demands of us, and to which we lack the assertiveness to politely say “No.”  
Consistent and long-term exposure to intense and coercive eagerness, and the assumption that we want to live every aspect of life in aggregate, wears out the introspective and reserved to the point of mentally shutting down. That’s when nothing could be better than a one-way trip to the Faroe islands to find solace among the Puffins!

The opposite is true for extroverts. The more physical, exuberant, busy, impassioned and people-infused they are, the better. To spend an hour or two alone causes them physical and mental aggravation, creating a desire to go start a committee or track down members of their small group to have a picnic with.

The tragedy is that the “you-rah-rah” joined-at-the-hip church has become the predominant construct of evangelical Christian interaction, and is often set in stone as being the only “truly spiritual” way: (not to mention the “holding one another accountable” thing, which is commonly just another way of saying “be in church on Sunday and come to all of the organized events”). 

It looks something like this:

“You must get involved in multiple whirling dervish ways and come alongside and live life together laying yourself down sacrificing all the time for others so that you will never have one free minute to yourself and why would you ever want to be alone that is selfish look what Jesus did for you how could you ever not want to come to church or join a weekly small group and what is your ministry—where can we sign you up?

The above is all in fun with a large dose of truth as to the way it actually is. And to the introverted, this is how it is filtered: Now I am being forced into someone else’s idea of what “spiritual” and “community” is, and it isn’t always Biblically balanced or founded.

The thing is, introverts don’t want to be left alone; we want to be left alone to be the people we are, with the temperaments and personalities God imbued in us, and encouraged and accepted in that capacity to worship, serve and fellowship. 

Over time, for some if not many folks, the sense of being talked at (because we can never find the words, courage, assertiveness or space to verbalize our perspective—and it’s never really asked for since everything’s already been set in stone by the extroverts!) creates in a more quiet person the desperate need to take a time-out in order to rescue and salvage our Christian sanity.

For me, this has meant a lack of desire to ever set foot in a church. 

I make this admission fully aware of the push-back it elicits, because I’ve already heard it: I’m not wanting to be held accountable; I’m not willing to get out of my "comfort zone"; I must not believe in God, really, if I’m not an active member of one particular church. 

It’s as if the extroverts who make these claims against the socially awkward, subdued folks don’t know us at all, or refuse to want to know and relate to us in a manner that goes against their “shoulds.” And yet they expect introverts to interact with them on their terms all of the time.

It is the proverbial one-way street. 

I have spent oodles of time with quiet people. Somber people. Really fun when-you-get-to know-them-intimately people. 

They are some of the most committed Christians I have ever run into. 

They live their Christian life as strongly and consistently as any more effusive Christian. Not as visibly, in the traditional corporate church sense. But under the radar. Often outside of the "church."

Perhaps the corporate church will never endorse these so-called “loners” and their ways. But God has clearly created them, for no less a purpose than He created extroverts. 

And it is God, not the outspoken cajolers in the church, who will have the final say on private hearts (Psalm 139:1; Jeremiah 17:10). 

And I believe God endorses the socially less-engaged as faithful servants right along with the others, because He most of all knows we need them, and in fact, is why He created them with their gentle, behind-the-scenes, frequently-awkward natures (1 Thessalonians 4:9-11; 1 Peter 3:3-4; 15). 

Sadly, the corporate church has done a huge dis-service to many a person’s walk with Christ by taking that walk and translating it into extroverted terms, saying these are Christ’s expectations. And introverts have let it happen.

But left alone, and by that I mean, released from extroverted peer pressure and the expectation to be someone they are not—and can never pretend to be—they are free to indeed live out the being of the apple of God’s eye that they in fact are. To be who they are in Christ, with Christ setting the parameters, not the socially one-dimensional corporate church with its one-size-fits all demands of people in the name of Christ. 

Copyright Barb Harwood