avoiding vulnerability, pt 2: not even on sundays

I realized sometime in early February that, since moving to Japan, I had not listened to any new contemporary Christian music (in English). A marked difference from my life back home, when regularly going to church, small group, and assisting with youth ministry meant that I was mostly up to date with whatever new Hillsong or Chris Tomlin or Bethel music was out at the time. I remember when Spotify used to recommend me new worship songs. It’s been a very, very long time since that has been the case.

On the surface, in these last 2.5 years I haven’t stepped away from the church. I have tried to attend one here in Ishinomaki semi-regularly, at least a couple times a month. Our services are mostly in Japanese, and we sing Japanese worship songs together. With the pandemic keeping us in place, I found a silver lining last spring and summer in that I was more able to attend community events, explore the region more deeply, and be present at church for consecutive weeks. I’m honestly so grateful to have a Christian community available here, as I know that isn’t always the case in other parts of regional Japan.

But during the darkest points of my depression I did not find any comfort in the church as an institution, and in fact tried to avoid it altogether. Even if on Sundays I didn’t have to work, through a lot of January and February I would deliberately elect to not go to church and instead go on drives and explore locally, chill at home, or go to Starbucks and read. This is by no means the fault of anyone at my church, and if anything, is the “fault” or culmination of unresolved internal debates, for reasons listed below.

I knew that if I went to church I would feel like I had to share how I felt (there’s likely a more eloquent way to put this). I’m a pretty straightforward person, so if I was asked “How are you doing?”, I would likely not be able to suppress my feelings, leading to a high risk of ending up a mushy sobbing mess in front of others. I wasn’t ready to do that in front of Christian community; selfishly, I wanted more time to myself to collect my thoughts better and to process and wallow in my depression without what I anticipated to be the oppressive cheeriness and optimism of Christian remedies. I didn’t want a Bible verse, an emphatic “trust God”, a prayer circle, nor an eerily relevant worship song.

Part of me remains jaded with my experience growing up as Christian, going to retreats and revivals and services where it can seem like the atmosphere is primed so that your emotions are heightened to the max, and one altar call later you pour out your innermost thoughts to a waiting prayer warrior in the wings. Not to say that those experiences (my own and others’) were necessarily inauthentic, but sometimes it can feel contrived and manufactured — and then when the high of it all dies down, you’re left wondering if what you felt was real or not.

I don’t necessarily find the Church with a capital C as an institution to be all that helpful anymore. Christian organizations, media, music, even sermons are starting to seem less helpful, less relevant, and riddled with hypocrisy. As a fairly progressive liberal (liberal progressive?), I also find myself sometimes struggling to reconcile certain beliefs with the conservative, literal interpretation of the world that I grew up with. But I find church with a little c — a borderless community of people who believe in, love, and follow Jesus in different ways — to be invaluable, and still a group that I identify with.

Intuitively I am aware that not all of institutional Church is rotten. There is of course my jaded attitude and depression providing the backdrop to all this and coloring my judgement at this point in time. In light of this, I am making an effort now (very baby steps) to listen to more Christian music (loosely-termed), with an open mind and open heart. I’m finding Kirk Franklin’s gospel music to be very uplifting and refreshing. I’m even lending a reluctant ear again to Elevation Worship’s music, trying to take the somewhat repetitive melodies and choice of words in stride.

Unfortunately that positivity has not changed my internal exasperation at how long the bridge of Oceans is, but that can’t be helped.