Jen Hatmaker quits “church” and invites you to join her

June 15, 2021February 2, 2023 Categories: ChurchTags: Church

I quit being part of a church for a few months when I was in my mid-twenties. I had been a regular churchgoer my whole life, so it wasn’t something I (or those who knew me) expected. It happened after I moved to a new city and started looking for a church. Every time I’d visit one, I felt lonely and lost in the sea of congregants. And I found no comfort in the familiarity of the services — if anything, it felt too familiar. I had the evangelical liturgies memorized — from the call to worship to the benediction….

A painful reality of 2020: The year our family had to stop going to church

September 20, 2020January 25, 2023 Categories: Church

A few weeks after we moved to a new city this winter, COVID-19 hit, leaving us to “attend” the online service of a church we had been visiting for about two months. It didn’t work. We didn’t even know the music leaders on the screen. Now these people were propped up on our kitchen table, earnestly looking at us through our iPad, inviting us to join in with congregation-less singing. And while I truly admired the effort they were making to provide a meaningful Sunday morning experience, we just couldn’t connect with it. Church felt like watching a locally produced,…

The boring preacher in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood

April 4, 2018October 20, 2018 Categories: Church · This and ThatTags: Church · criticism · judging · judgmentalism

One time I was talking to a friend and she mentioned that when she first started following Jesus, the Lord greatly used sermons from a certain TV preacher to help her grow in her faith. Personally, I wasn’t impressed with the televangelist. Granted, I hadn’t actually listened to any of the preacher’s sermons, but that was beside the point. Everybody in my circle agreed that the preaching was little more than motivational speaking with scriptures thrown in.

Healing the Wounds of Segregation in the Church

September 28, 2016November 5, 2016 Categories: ChurchTags: Church · civil rights · conflict · forgiveness · friendship · healing · religiousness

During my junior year at the University of Southern Mississippi, I invited a Yugoslavian student to a campus worship service that was organized by my church, which was predominately white. After the meeting, we were talking in the hallway, and he noticed a group of mostly black students meeting across the hallway. Then he asked something that caught me off guard. “Why do the white Christians and the black Christians meet separately?”

6 Reasons it’s Hard to Visit Your Church

September 6, 2016September 6, 2016 Categories: Church · This and ThatTags: Church

Several months ago, my wife and I began the process of looking for a new church. We hoped to find something much closer to our home, which automatically made the search more difficult. That wasn’t the only thing that made it harder though.

Stop Saying “I Feel Like …” to Spiritualize Your Desires

June 1, 2016 Categories: ChurchTags: Church · religiousness

One time, we had this cable guy over to our house, and I really liked him — at first. He was doing everything he could to figure out why we couldn’t get the Internet to work, and while he did, he talked a lot about Jesus. But then things got weird.

How We Know a Ministry Isn’t Focused on Jesus

January 11, 2016 Categories: ChurchTags: Church · conflict · judgmentalism · religiousness1 Comment

Well, I learned my lesson: If you want to tick off a bunch of people and lose some subscribers of your personal blog, write a post that encourages readers to appreciate the positives in a church like Hillsong NYC.

How a GQ Article Changed my View of Hillsong

January 4, 2016 Categories: ChurchTags: Church · criticism · judgmentalism · legalism · religiousness

I didn’t expect an article from GQ magazine about a megachurch to get me choked up, but recently, it did.

What We’re (Not) Doing for Halloween This Year

October 31, 2015October 31, 2015 Categories: ChurchTags: judgmentalism · kids · parenthood · religiousness2 Comments

Last year, I went trick-or-treating for the first time in my life. Up until that point, as a matter of principle, I never even handed out candy on Halloween.

7 Signs You Were Raised as an Evangelical in the Last 25 Years

August 18, 2015August 20, 2015 Categories: ChurchTags: Church1 Comment

The last 25 years have been monumental for the evangelical subculture — it was a time in which we saw the explosive growth of megachurches, the prominence of the True Love Waits campaign, and the end of dc Talk.

How to Know the Exact Moment You Were Saved

August 7, 2015August 11, 2015 Categories: ChurchTags: faith · fear · forgiveness · grace · guilt · legalism · religiousness · sin1 Comment

When I was in college, I lived with the perpetual fear that somehow I had missed the salvation boat, that although I had placed my trust in Jesus, in the end, I would come before God’s throne, and He would shake His head and say, “I’m sorry, but you just thought you were saved.”

A Word of Gratitude to my Vacation Bible School Teachers

July 7, 2015June 29, 2022 Categories: ChurchTags: Church · evangelism · kids3 Comments

I originally shared this post in the summer of 2015. Update: my little girls have grown up quite a bit and are now Vacation Bible School volunteers. To all my Vacation Bible School Teachers: My girls began attending their first Vacation Bible School yesterday, and throughout the day, I was excited for them. They’re only five and three, so they can’t really appreciate why I love VBS so much. But let me make it clear: it’s because of you.

What’s Hard About Being a Worship Leader

May 27, 2015May 29, 2015 Categories: ChurchTags: Church · criticism · prayer1 Comment

I’ve been leading worship at my church since 2007, and let me tell you something: I’m still not quite used to it.

The Duggars Point to a Bigger Problem in the Church

May 24, 2015May 27, 2015 Categories: ChurchTags: Church · conflict · kids9 Comments

Reality star Josh Duggar is at the center of a scandal this week after a tabloid uncovered the fact that he sexually assaulted five girls when he was 14 (some of the girls were his sisters). No doubt, this has been the hardest week of Josh Duggar’s life, but I can’t imagine how much harder it has been for his victims.

When Easter Became More than a Service

April 1, 2015April 3, 2015 Categories: ChurchTags: Church · evangelism1 Comment

At some point in my mid-twenties, I got disenchanted with the predictable Easter Sunday ritual. It just didn’t make sense to me: one Sunday, things were relatively normal; the next Sunday, the crowd doubled in size, we focused on the resurrection of Jesus, everyone was dressed in pastel-colored outfits, and afterward, we did an Easter egg hunt. I’m not trying to be offensive, but I just felt like it was a cultural ritual that had lost its original focus (at least it had for me).

Joshua Rogers

Finding God in the Ordinary

Category: Church