Ticking the Christian Box by Joy A. Mead

I could feel my blood and emotions starting to boil as I had a chat with the pastor’s wife from our previous church.

One of the high schools we are looking at for our daughter is faith-based and requires the pastor to sign off on regular church attendance. In all honesty, our church attendance has significantly dropped since the covid pandemic, so it’s been my intent to have our current church sign off on our inconsistent time there. Meanwhile, I thought I could have our former church’s pastor sign off on my consistent women’s Bible study attendance, maintained even five years on since being at another church.

However, in one quick instant, I was informed that there would be no possibility of my faithful Bible study attendance counting toward overall church participation. I even double checked with a friend who works for the previous church who confirmed that because we as a family have left the church to go to another one, the previous pastoral team is free to treat us as if we are complete strangers.

Even though we live just behind our old church and are attached to their associate pastor’s house.

Even though when we switched churches, I never once stopped going to my women’s Bible study in a decade.

Even though the school of interest accepts Bible study as a form of worship.

Just regarded as strangers.

Lately, I’ve been wrestling within myself on our faith journey over the last four years. It’s been easy to mentally beat myself up about poor church attendance and why we couldn’t have just “played their game properly”. Then we wouldn’t be in this awkward mess, without the pastor’s sign off approval toward our daughter’s school application.

But then, I have stopped my negative thoughts as I remember the details since the pandemic:

Churches were indeed shut for some time with a rocky start to opening up again.

Our current church was also having building works done, so the children's church wasn’t available for quite a few months.

Our marriage went through the deepest valley of challenges in the first lockdown.

With counseling, we started to pick up the pieces and slowly heal.

The core issues to deal with in our marriage were especially painful because a certain ideology of faith living had contributed toward bad decisions and hurt caused.

And Christian faith was truly shaken in that fragile season—faith that was never made absent but rather incredibly delicate.

Strict church attendance just hadn’t been the priority.

When I think about the restorative work God has been doing over the past four years, I remember that I have nothing to be ashamed of. And so what if our previous church refuses to “know us” anymore, even though we are certainly within the neighborhood community? I’m not sorry for how poorly my church attendance might look on paper—my faith in Jesus has never been stronger than it is now.

If we have to face a ridiculous rejection from our previous church, then so be it. I wasn’t prepared to show up every Sunday for the sake of being a “tick box” Christian. No, I would rather face whatever consequences lie ahead, knowing that my faith journey has always been genuine. And if more people could own up to admitting their difficulties and struggles, even sometimes struggling to attend church regularly, we would have a more real, honest faith within the Christian community instead of a “looking good on the outside” culture.

A true faith walk is filled with ups and downs—sometimes it’s even quite messy.

Yet, God still has a plan for all believers, even the ones marginalized by fellow Christians.

Wherever you are with faith, remember that God is really the one in power. The most important part of faith living is going deeper in relationship with God—not worrying about how much you do or do not attend church.

And going to church isn’t, and shouldn’t be, some exclusive club or box to tick on our “good Christian” list. I am very much supportive of the church at large and people attending to worship God collectively and have fellowship with other believers. But regularly going to a church building or not, every believer of Jesus is equally part of God’s greater church at large, and we only need God’s approval in this life—no one else’s!

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God graciously made a way for our daughter’s acceptance into the Christian high school that we had wanted after all! Sometimes, we have to be okay with just trusting Jesus when we cannot see a way forward and knowing that his ways are best, no matter the outcome.

Joy A. Mead is a Jesus-loving, American mother living in the United Kingdom with her British husband and their two wonderful children. Author of Taking Care of Mama: Learning to Look After Yourself While Simultaneously Raising Your Little Ones, Joy encourages Christian mothers in their special God-given role. Connect with her on Instagram @joyamead, Taking Care of Mama book page on Facebook, or on her blog: www.joyamead.com