We Need to Stop Eating Our Own

If you have never been told you might be dying, I highly recommend the experience.

For me it turned out to be a lifesaving and life-altering experience. Up until a few years ago, I was immortal. Death was a scary little troll that visited other people, but not me. I had lived a charmed life. I had worked as a professional firefighter, a motorcycle was my mode of transportation, and I enjoyed hobbies that leaned towards the risky side. Never once did I feel that I was close to the end.

But life has a funny way of reshuffling the deck.

I was dealt a new hand one Friday morning in a hospital room in Denver, Colorado, as several doctors made their way in to deliver their theories of my sudden illness. You see, over the previous four weeks, I had been putting on massive amounts of weight and experiencing swelling. I had already gone to one hospital; they misdiagnosed me and sent me home. I shrugged the whole thing off and was convinced that it would work itself out. It didn’t.

One hundred pounds later, my caring wife and friends rolled me into a car and drove to Lutheran Medical Center on a Thursday evening. Twenty minutes later, I was told that I was in complete renal failure. My kidneys were no longer working, and the 100 plus pound-weight gain was actually water soaking into every crevice in my body, including my lungs.

“What? I have never had any major health issues. Ever. I drink tons of water. I exercise. I don’t smoke, and I wear my seat belt. I hug my kids, read my Bible, and not once have I killed a unicorn. Why me?”

Of course, none of this information changed the fact that I was in bad shape.

The first and best outcome would be that I had a very rare type of syndrome. It was highly unlikely in people my age, but it was very treatable. I was hoping for this prognosis. Seeing the hope on my face, the doctors made sure to drive home the fact that it was statistically improbable. The other theories were less hopeful. One in particular got my attention because of the words they used. I was told it might be an “aggressive form of cancer.”

The word cancer sucks all by itself, but when you add the word “aggressive,” it brings it to DEFCON 1. It’s like being told you have a really gifted cancer. Yes, this cancer is smart. It takes all AP classes. It’s really disciplined and focused on killing you quickly. How come I don’t have the lazy cancer? I wish they’d said, “Mr. Cheshire, your cancer is passive aggressive. It’s going to make a veiled shot at you, but will never come right out and attack you. Odds are, it will just hang out in your body.”

Why can’t I have that cancer? Nope, I may have the aggressive one. And so with these two likely scenarios, they needed to do a biopsy to find out what it was.

Later that afternoon, before the biopsy, I was informed that they would have the results sometime on Monday. With that, the blizzard of white coats filed out of my hospital room and I was alone again. It only took me a few minutes to realize I was going to be lying in this bed for three days with the idea of an early death marinating in my soul. I immediately thought of my three young kids and wife. I said over and over to myself, “But I had so many more plans.” It took a while to quiet my mind and do something productive. By that afternoon, I was making all kinds of lists: lists of my favorite things in life, lists of things I wanted to do if I didn’t die. I made lists of the things I would improve as a husband, father, and friend. And then I came to my job.

Farewell, ministry

I am a pastor. Anyone who does this job will attest to the massive highs and devastating lows you experience in this calling. While making my list about church work, I was carrying a lot of anger about how Christians treated each other—and I was no exception. My memory was clogged with stories of relationship fallouts and vicious exchanges.

I came to see I too was guilty of devouring my brothers and sisters in the name of God, truth, and my rights. It was uncomfortable to realize that the idea of church for me, once so full of life, grace, and friendship had become a place of war, backbiting, and pain.

The message really hit home as I began to page through my journals from the previous 10 years. I was amazed at all the friends I had lost over such petty things. Sometimes it was my fault. Sometimes it was theirs. But most of the time, it was a combination of misunderstandings and offenses.

In that hospital room, reading my old journals, I began to understand how easy it was for our enemy to divide us. I saw in myself the pettiness and bitterness that I had collected over years of being in ministry. I discovered how much unforgiveness and anger I had for people in my church, for how they had treated me, my family, my staff, and each other.

I may have been in the hospital with a kidney issue, but it was clear God was doing heart surgery on me. In fact, I began to rethink my career altogether. By Sunday night, Amy and I had decided that if God did give me more years to live then I wanted out of church work. My wife and I talked well into the early morning hours about other career paths I could take. We talked about the hurts we carried and even the ones we had caused. It was very cathartic. I felt a massive wave of relief crash over me. I was done pastoring.

Like a dam that gave way, Amy and I started pouring out all the wonderful things that would come from leaving the ministry and never attending a church. We would no longer be responsible for anyone else’s life but our own. No more giving half of our income to single moms and people who lost their jobs because the church is tapped out. We would use all our money to care for our kids and family and even buy toys like ATVs.

We could defend ourselves when Christians were rude to us. We could talk openly about the movies we saw and which president we voted for. In fact, if we wanted, we could even vote for a party that Christians normally don’t! Perhaps we wouldn’t vote at all if we thought both the candidates were massive asses. Hey! We could use the word “asses” and we wouldn’t get in trouble.

We could be proud that our kids go to public school, and simply walk away from the angry homeschooling mom that tells us we are a bad example to the body of Christ. We could now openly listen to music we like and I could even wear my Def Leppard T-shirt in public. Now I could read the Bible for myself and not always be thinking of a sermon I have to build for others.

I’d get to watch all the football games on Sunday and not just the night games because I would no longer get stuck, after church, counseling the same couple who continually refuses to work on fixing things. I could now openly be a fan of cage fighting without a lecture on violence.

That night my wife and I felt like we were walking out of prison after years behind bars—and it was glorious! Like the movie The Shawshank Redemption, we had tunneled through a sewer to arrive on the other side free in Saywatanayo.

Freed to be a pastor

On Monday morning the doctoral blizzard of white coats returned with the results. I was diagnosed with the rare aforementioned syndrome. I had Nephrotic Syndrome, and I was going to be fine. I asked if they could just stab and drain me, like a Capri Sun. But from the illness had enlarged my heart, which meant we had to be careful taking the water out too fast. It was going to be a long process; it would take several years to be completely restored. Getting the kidneys up and running again was a relatively quick fix. Within a few weeks, they were improving, but I’m still healing from the damage it caused to other parts of my body. But I was just excited to be given more years to live, and I wasn’t going to waste them.

Then another doctor walked in: God. I could feel he wanted to discuss my plans, but I was not having it. “No way,” I told him. “I’m free now. I gave you a solid 15 years, God. It’s time to let me enjoy life.”

I was expecting a rebuke, but God will always surprise you. I felt he was calling me to stay in ministry, but that he was freeing me to be who I was as a pastor. He encouraged me to try it as a real person this time around. Be authentic. I would be Mike, not Pastor Mike. I would challenge our church to be authentic, to be loving.

As a staff, we decided that even moral failures would not get you fired. If you said sorry and worked to fix what you broke with your bad behavior, then we wouldn’t make you go sell shoes. If it all went south and everyone left, then at least I gave it the old “college try.” It’s a funny thing about being a real, authentic, and grace-filled church. It’s a little messy, but way easier.

Sure, we knew some people would leave.

One couple walked out mid-sermon because I told our church to try to befriend the gays in our community, not to change them but to just understand them. But the best part of that story is that after making a little scene on the way out, they got to the car and realized she had left her purse under her chair. She sent her husband back in to fetch it. Talk about doing the “Walk of Shame.”

I began to find real passion in teaching and leading my team again. And the church began to grow. I was now part of the church and not just the leader. The church has to be the church for the leaders, too.

Stemming the tide

People will fade out of a church, a club, or a movement. But people don’t fade out of their friendships; friends would notice and come after them. Yes, the mass exodus from our churches is continuing and spreading. Those leaving, for the most part, are not mad at God; they’re mad at his followers.

Despite what you will hear from some religious leaders in today’s church culture, the average Christ-follower walking out the door is not weak, unwilling to commit, or intrinsically selfish.

The vast majority of these Christians are leaving for two main reasons: First, and foremost, they are tired of being treated harshly by other Christians. Second, they feel the church has lost relevance to its community and to what they are going through in their everyday lives.

Often the way we treat each other within our faith communities is still stunningly poor. You don’t need an in-depth study to find out why so many are leaving the church. Just have some conversations with the people who have left.

I spent this last year having hundreds of conversations with great Christians who have walked away from the church. I actually placed an ad on Craigslist to interview some, and boatloads answered. Most were in their late 20s and early 30s. They were more than willing to meet for coffee and share their hearts. I found out some surprising things.

Most missed attending a local church. They didn’t miss it enough to return, but many felt a longing to try it again. Many said they were happier now and felt more authentic about their faith in Christ. One of the most startling things I discovered was they almost all shared their faith way more with their friends since leaving church. When they weren’t trying to close the salvation deal, or get their friends out to a church services, their conversations just flowed.

During this time with my de-churched friends, I always liked to end with a question about what it would take to get them to connect again to a local church. The answers almost all centered around two things: First, they would have to see a church actively do real things in and for their community without being pushy about attending their church. And second, they would need to be convinced that the Christians in that church were nice. That’s the word they used most: nice. We must be nicer.

Dropping our weapons

Now please don’t check out because I’ve said something you disagree with. One of the reasons we continue down a divided road is because we can’t seem to have conversations without turning them into wars. I think we can choose to be not so thin-skinned. And it starts with the leaders. We can discount every movement, denomination, and church with broad judgments. Maybe you have even heard some for yourself: The Seeker Church doesn’t disciple people, the Teaching Church doesn’t reach the lost, the Mega Church is all about the show. Small churches are insular. The house church is a joke. Seminarians are too educated to relate to everyday people, and the pastors with no theological training are heretics.

This fault-finding isn’t confined to church movements. You’ve heard it: Homeschooled kids will have social issues, the public school kids will sleep around, the mother who works a job is uncaring and inattentive, and the stay-at-home mother is stuck in the 1950s. Those who watch R-rated movies are worldly; those who watch only G-rated movies are legalistic. If you drink alcohol, you’re a drunk. If you don’t drink, you’re a prude. If you vote for a Democrat, you are a baby killer. If you vote for a Republican, you hate poor people. If you get involved with social justice, you’re a humanist. If you don’t, you’re self-centered. And on and on it goes.

I firmly believe that by finally dragging our differences and petty arguments into the light of day, it will be a massive first step in breaking our mean habits. For far too long, while we have been waging a war within our own foxholes, the real enemy has had the run of the place. He has been unchallenged because Christ’s army is too wounded from friendly fire to even crawl to the battlefield for the real fight. And an enemy who is unopposed is no longer your enemy. He has actually becomes your ruler.

Jesus said a house divided could not stand. We are bitterly divided, but we don’t have to stay that way. It’s never too late to start loving each other. For some of us, that will be hard. But I don’t want to stand before God one day explaining why I was too busy taking down other Christians to take his message of love to a hurting world. I’m guessing you feel the same way.

This article was adapted from Why We Eat Our Own, (First Punch, 2013) by Michael Cheshire.

Michael Cheshire is the senior pastor of The Journey Community Church in Conifer, Colorado.