This topic contains 24 replies, has 20 voices, and was last updated by 
David Hayward 3 weeks, 6 days ago.
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Stepping away from the church means several things. First and foremost it means I don’t feel so obligated to go to Sunday morning service. But that brings up another thing: now I have Sunday mornings to myself more often than not. And it’s a trifle weird having a whole ‘nother morning to myself on the weekend.
I’m used to doing my washing on Saturday and generally bumming around the flat. Occasionally, I never even make it out of my pyjamas. Can’t do that two days in a row!
How do people cope with this change?
I was outta the church a couple years before I left the faith – but I grew very accustomed to sleeping in on Sundays, with my work schedule it’s very nice to have at least one day to sleep an extra couple hours and then get stuff done around the house.
Today, however, I’m heading to a UU church about an hour away, fellowship with some very nice people is never a waste.
I sleep in and take my time moseying into the day. I take my dog to dog training and maybe go for a run… and I wonder that it took me so long to give up all that time going to church on Sunday mornings. It’s so much more peaceful now.
It has now been 18 months since I stopped going regularly on Sundays and I have found that I have cycled through:
curiosity…I hadn’t missed two Sundays in a row in over 30 years and wondered what to expect.
anger….I went from preaching to MIA and nobody bothers to call and find out what’s up? really??
apprehension and questioning….is this really what I want to do or am I throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
fear…had I been ‘deceived’ and pulled away from God’s will in my life? Will she/he pull away from me? Additionally, i had a fear that y finances would tank since I stopped tithing.
loneliness…all of my social life as attached to the church and I lost it all in a heartbeat
dis-ease…what would I DO? I historically worked most of the day (worship, teaching, meetings etc). How would I spend my time?
feeling self-indulgent…coffee on the patio, long drives, making love, hot baths (the list could go on!)
clarity…i find the more I stay away, the clearer my vision is when I peek back inside. I am able to see my former life with better perspective and horror at some of the things I was involved in.
guilt…how can I give in to my ‘selfish’ pleasures instead of spending hours of my day following someone else’s spiritual agenda? How could I abandon ‘Gods call” on my life?? I also feel a twinge of guilt on days when I have my grandkids around and i dwell on how my example has changed
self-awareness…I have found the time to discover myself. I have reconnected with my hobbies and found the me that was too busy with church work to know what I really wanted.
Feeling free…even if i am wrong, I know it is MY decision. I am owning my own spiriutal journey and it is so liberating
Revelation….My journey has been primarily about stepping off of the merry-go-round to get in touch with my humanity and to find God outside of what I had helped construct within the institution. I do still cycle through the above but the fear, guilt apprehension and dis-ease are rarely there anymore. Instead, I have found GOD outside the church….even on Sundays!
What do I do with my Sundays? Any damn thing I want!!
pleasure….lazy Sundays are the best
Sundays are freaking AWESOME now. It is the day of the weekend where we feel like we can allow ourselves to truly relax a bit. (Too many projects on Saturdays) And when we have a big project we have 2 full days to work on it without feeling like we have to kill ourselves to get it all done in one day. My wife and I just commented a little while ago that we could not believe how many years we spent wasting half of our weekends. Our old church friends and pastor would say we have become sinful and self indulgent. I say the self indulgence was before, in the rigor of church religion in a vain attempt to EARN God’s favor. Plus…our spirituality is so much more natural now than it ever could be before.
I’m with McBeth. What do we do with Sundays now? Whatever the hell we want to!!!
P.S. – God gave us a day of rest and the church took it back away. God’s plan is ever so much better.
God gave us a day of rest and the church took it back away. God’s plan is ever so much better.
I like this.
Wade.
AnonymousSundays are a great day to sleep in! I also like to attend “Our Lady of the Fairways and Greens” on Sundays! I love golfing plus I get my nature fix at the same time! I live in the desert which is mostly brown, so to be out there with all that beautiful GREEN grass, squirrels scurrying around, and wide-open blue sky is a real treat. Plus I get to enjoy the camaraderie and of being out there with a friend and catching up on each other’s lives. I can’t afford to go every week, so sometimes Sunday is just a kick-back PJ day, reading the paper and/or a good book, catching up on TV shows I recorded during the week, or babysitting my grandson so my son and his wife can go out to a movie or dinner. Or sometimes I take my lawn chair and go sit at a nearby lake and enjoy the scenery or write poetry.
I have a friend who takes the Sabbath pretty seriously and she downs tools Friday evening until Saturday evening. She uses the day for reading spiritual texts, prayer, meditation, quiet-time, etc. I’m not one for making a lot of rules for myself (or accepting too many of others when not necessary) but she is the most chilled out person I know (and she has a stressful job). I think there’s something to be said for slowing the pace, giving thanks, and resisting the mad run-arounds that can happen on weekends (eg getting caught up in the national obsession of renovation dreams). I echo Gary – Saturday is always a ‘running around’ day with things I couldn’t accomplish during the week, so Sunday is a day where I choose to make of it what I want and avoid ‘busyness’ – in my case usually catching up with people and giving my time to others and trying for quality, unrushed and relaxed conversation.
AnonymousGod gave us a day of rest and the church took it back away. God’s plan is ever so much better.
This is a great point. Growing up, it was tiring to get up early in the morning, go to Sunday School and worship, go to lunch, have maybe a couple of hours off (although later on we used that time to visit relatives instead of visiting them on Saturday so the day was even more hectic), then grab dinner, grab a snack to bring to small group, go to small group, then go home. When my family stopped doing church activities at night, I felt so much more relaxed and enjoyed the free time.
It’s also nice to have the extra sleep or free time when sleeping in Sunday morning. I have realized that it’s more meaningful to go to church when I am freely choosing to and not because I feel like I MUST so I won’t feel guilty or people won’t worry about me or whatever reason. The times I went for those reasons, I only felt resentful and I think going did more harm than good.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be good to stop going to church altogether because maybe I am using it as a crutch to reassure myself that I am a “good Christian.” Maybe if I stopped going I would have to stop being passive about my faith, and start figuring out how to be active. But other times I think that if I stop going, I will just become even more apathetic about Christianity than I already am, and I don’t want that.
I have to say, my Sunday mornings are great. The wife and son are usually out at church, so I have a morning to myself, quiet and calm. Whatever I do, it is calm. I often do some study work (PhD study, meaning I have typing to do). Or I write some of my fiction.
It is a little like Saturdays, but I find the calm and chill is an important aspect. Of course, if you don’t have a family, or they don’t go out, it will make much less of a difference.
I stopped attending church nearly five years ago – upon my divorce from the pastor. I never missed it (other than that which was prompted by wistful memories: particular hymns that would waft through my mind, time-worn liturgy, the sacraments). I slept in. I caught up on emails. I enjoyed a morning without the hustle and veneer that had defined nearly every Sunday of my life previous.
Two Sundays ago, I returned. I sit anonymously in the back – hardly the pastor’s wife. I slip out the side door to avoid shaking hands. And I sit in my car (the first Sunday for nearly 15 minutes) before I ever walk in, taking deep breaths and talking myself into it. It’s possible that I should look at even these as evidence that I’m not ready – or that I not return at all. But I know myself and my resistance…what is real and what is excuse. And so, I take one more deep breath, get out of my car, walk about a block and a half, and enter.
I have chosen, at least for now, to go somewhere far different than anything I have known. I am attending an Episcopal Mass. Incense so thick I can hardly see. Cantors with such haunting voices I cannot help but weep. And ritual so reverent that I have nothing else with which to compare. It does not feel like home to me; I am a visitor, a usurper perhaps, one who sneaks in and eats bread and drinks wine then leaves. (This, in and of itself, a bit of a secret thrill.) Nor do I feel some call to “conversion.” But I have decided to return – for now – and to wonder more about my hunger, much about my resistance, and everything in between.
These past two Sundays do not feel like an admission or a sliding-back; rather, an acknowledgement and a step forward. Still strong in all that has wounded and harmed. Still clear on the doctrine I will not swallow. And still aware that holiness and reverence and awe exist; that I long for all three. For now…
I haven’t gone to church in about a year and have been appreciating the freedom. My current dilemma is that I started a new job that wants me to do weekends. I could request Sundays off for religious reasons as a Sabbath, which I am allowed to do by law. It’ll just be weird asking for it when it’s not to go to church. I hope that I can work up the nerve to do it anyway because I think it would be a good idea spiritually and physically!
I’ve loved having Sunday mornings back. My husband and I still will float into church once every couple of weeks, but we show up intentionally late to avoid the terrible worship segment and we tend to go for the sake of spending time with friends.
Sundays used to always be hectic… Growing up we’d go to church first thing Sunday morning and we’d have to dress up, and then we’d be back to church a few hours later for the Sunday evening service dressed up again.
I just want to sleep. I just want to wake up next to my husband, smile, and know we have a day of nothing but relaxation ahead of us.
@deannaogle you said “I just want to sleep. I just want to wake up next to my husband, smile, and know we have a day of nothing but relaxation ahead of us.” that’s exactly how lisa and i feel.
hey @dan… sunday morning’s are awesome. but we still very rarely visit a church but it’s very relaxed. no pressure.
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