Disconnection from Church by Amber Beuschel

Everything about Christmas 2020 was thick, dark, and distant.  

Christmas season is arriving again in 2021, perhaps not quite as early as it did last year, and I am eager to re-enter the events I missed a year ago, but I wonder how many others perhaps still struggle with the space in between the lights, bustle, and peppermint mochas. How many are suffering from feeling disconnected from Church…and from Christ?

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Can one experience the depths of Christ and communion with the Trinity beyond the church doors? I have before. 10 years ago, we spent months apart from the church family. That year we ended the year bound by the circumstances of four weeks on bedrest, five in the NICU, and six after that at home with an oxygen-dependent newborn.

At that time, Church came to us.

We were surrounded by loving hands and hearts delivering meals to us daily. Friends and family walked into our home and dropped off cards, convos, hugs. And even in the NICU weeks, when I faced the prospect of losing our daughter, the rootedness I sensed to my faith came through hospital visits and incubator-side chats with yet another group--students of mine, coworkers, friends of family--these too felt very much like Church to us. And home, in the throes of newborn life when I did return to "normal," Church and Christ were visible to us as we prepared for the Nativity with all of our family around us.

In the months apart, the distinct time when my family wasn’t in Church, we were still connected to Christ.

And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. (Hebrews 10:25)

How was it then at the height of the pandemic my sense of connection to Christ felt like it was fading?

We hadn’t had a personal loss.

Nor a significant trial or hardship.

Of course, I mourned the loss of normalcy--the vacations, the road trips, live performances, date nights...and my husband’s magnificent beard that had to go to ensure the skin-tight hug of hospital-grade masks.  

None of these seemed reason enough for the disconnect that rose up.

Yet I felt my personal Church and Christ connection was being eroded throughout the pandemic.

During the lockdown that year ago, I had eagerly jumped online to stream church at home. I had kept up with online devotions and through virtual meetings, even stayed connected to Bible studies and my mom's group. There was no lack of momentum to staying plugged in, this time, literally.

But in last year’s December, in the very month when historically I’d long for moments to escape the hustle and bustle, the escape I remember longing for was one out of the darkness back into Church. And it wasn’t only a longing to walk back into the physical doors. It was the growing time of separation between myself and others that made me weak and disconnected.

DISCOVERED AT THE DINNER TABLE

Last year around the holiday dinner table, where normalcy wasn’t ever disrupted, our kids counted down to Christmas, calling out Christmas Eve and Christmas Adam, a silly tradition my brothers and sister and I partook in as kids.

"Which day comes before Christmas Eve?" my husband asked the kids. Then, "Which day comes before Christmas Eve according to your mother?" All eyes glittered at me. They know. They've seen the calendar.

"Christmas Adam!" they said in unison.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Because Adam comes before Eve!" they returned.

I watched as if a person outside of the conversation, realizing in that moment that the story of the garden had lost its strong feeling for me. To my chagrin, the joy of the Adam, Eve, Christ-on-Christmas-Day had felt dim.

Our countdown to Christmas started in November that year, but by December 15, the few in-person moments I had been enjoying had dwindled to none. Though I wasn’t locked in, it seemed all at once there were few places for me to go, with nearly every one of my friends in quarantine. Then I walked into a coffee shop only to learn that they weren't accepting in-person orders that day. I felt like my last tie to people had been cut.

I had never longed to stand and listen to the racket of a coffee machine.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” (Matthew 25:25)

During that season of separation, I had experienced joy in dropping meals off at doorsteps, goodies in mailboxes and connecting by video chats. But I desperately missed being invited in. That's where, I believe, the darkness crept in.

So, on my childhood Christmas Adam a year ago, I found myself in a battle between apathy and guilt, without a desire to connect to Church or Christ. Yet the blessing of confession and honesty is that I recognized these as momentary feelings.

I leaned into my longing and asked, How can I again experience Church and Christ as the loom of loneliness presses in?

I heard, There is work to be done.

RECOVERED BEFORE THE LORD'S TABLE

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)

I reflected I could travel to a place of this kind of beauty and gaily "live in the sunshine, swim the sea, [and] drink the wild air," as Emerson once wrote. Nature was a source of restoration, but I realized it would not be enough.

I wanted what comes as the product of the spiritual work of intentionality among a body of worshippers. The thing that springs up from the back-and-forth between mentors and mentees. Yes, even the lessons learned from missteps, misgivings, and misunderstandings during normal times--I missed it all.

It was hard work to persevere, but I turned my longing into hope. I believed that I could recover my connection to Church and Christ.

The blessing was that Christ invisibly drew me in... though I felt stuck in spiritual darkness.

Perhaps you feel that trapped feeling this season now.

The lyricist in the famous Joy to the World, cries, "Let every heart prepare Him room.” This was the place where the hard work is and where the next step for me lay:

Preparing room to meet Christ even before I met Him at His table, and to return to the simple manger.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it. (2 Timothy 2:14)

Maybe you, like me, felt a growing disconnection last year. Perhaps you’re in a tough place this year at Christmas again. But tie up the temptation to remain lost, disconnected from Church, from Christ. Memorialize what you have lost by celebrating how people, events, places have brought joy in a different time and way. And begin to look for hope.

Christmas truth remains among us, even on the darkest week of the year, even in the most unprecedented times. It remains in hope, and inspired by divine love. It is experienced like a candle glow, sparked by faith as tiny as the proverbial mustard seed.

After all, it started from something very tiny, as the God-in-flesh baby we celebrate on Christmas Day.

Or as my kids call December 25--Christmas Jesus. 

Amber Beuschel is a stay-at-home mom of five and is obsessed with all things words, books, and faith. She has recently completed an inspirational Christian novel, Dreamchaser. Amber writes to share her family’s journey with other mamas, telling her unique perspective as a mom of many, a physician spouse, and most importantly, a Christ follower.