Envision Community Church, formerly Left Hand Church,  closed its doors last Sunday. In her part of the message, Kristie Vernon, my co-pastor, prepared us for endings, remembrance, and new beginnings. I returned to the first passage I ever preached, Matthew 22, in which Jesus finished his public ministry by asking people to love God, neighbor, and self. I ended with the words I have spoken so often, “God loves you, just as you are, no questions asked, no changes demanded.”

The music was perfect. Four-part harmony with Heatherlyn, Haley, Liam, and Cairn. Jason provided impeccable sound and video, as always. We had 77 people in attendance at the final service, probably about the size of the congregation toward the end.

Kristie presided over communion. Tonja, one of our elders, served communion with her. John and Nicole, two of our former co-pastors, joined us. We ate a closing meal together and announced that we will be starting monthly community dinners on January 7, followed by a book study the next month. We are not continuing Envision Community Church. There will be no pastors, board, or budget, just a community gathering in which ECC folks can gather and do life together.

Our worship services will not continue. I have been around church my entire life. I’ve preached in megachurches, rural churches, small congregations, new churches and old ones. I have not been in many, of any size, that maintained the quality of worship we had at ECC. For 301 weekly services we provided great music, thoughtful messages, communion, and community. You do not find churches like that on every corner.

Over six years Kristie, Nicole, John, and Jen shared preaching duties with me. Tonja, Stacy, and Lonni also preached on occasion. Heatherlyn was our worship pastor from the beginning of weekly services.

Over the life of ECC, I’ve gotten stronger as a preacher. I am going to miss speaking regularly to the same group of people, allowing me to build layer upon layer. You can only do that when an audience has heard scores of messages delivered in real time as the world unfolds around us. I will miss that a immensely.

I will greatly miss working with Kristie. We have been a good team. We have worked through a lot of difficult times and slayed lots of dragons. A bond forms when you slay dragons. I would gladly work with her again. I also really enjoyed working with Nicole and John. What a delight watching all of them grow as preachers and pastors.

Our community will continue. We will be meeting the first Sunday of every month for a community dinner. Kristie is hosting on January 7 and I’ll be hosting on February 4. I will also be starting a book club after the first of the year.

A few friends have asked if I believe church as we have known it is sustainable in America in a post-covid world. I would not look at Left Hand/ECC for guidance. There were too many things working against us from the beginning. But at a macro level, there is handwriting on the wall. For the better part of a century 70 percent of Americans identified with a local religious body. In just 22 years, 1999 to 2021, that dropped to 47 percent. The increasing politicization of the Christian right has been a contributor. Covid certainly didn’t help, as people got accustomed to hanging out at home on Sunday. I personally believe that the substitutionary atonement theory still being taught in conservative churches is a contributing factor. In today’s world it’s hard to imagine a Creator who sends their own offspring to hell. Unless you are steeped in the doctrine and understand the history of blood sacrifices, it just makes no common sense.

Left Hand/ECC and churches like us are all missing one of the elements that guarantees church attendance. If you are afraid of going to hell, you tend to attend church every week and give ten percent of your income to the church. You know, life insurance. If you do not believe you are in danger of going to hell, you attend for more of the reasons Jesus talked about. You know, like loving God, and your neighbor, and yourself. Not nearly as compelling as religion as a transaction, a commodity to be consumed – eternal life insurance.

I believe the religious right has damaged Christianity, whether it’s the far right Protestant or Roman Catholic worlds. That world is angry, judgmental, polarizing, and exclusive. It has also become very political. Evangelicals are the people driving the anti-transgender laws. Eighty-seven percent of them believe gender is immutably determined at birth; 67 percent believe we already give too many civil rights to transgender people, and only 31 percent know someone who is out as a transgender person.

In spite of the current political/religious environment, I do still believe in the church. I believe it is where we search for meaning in community, where we learn to do life together, where we feed the poor, heal the wounded, and do other good work that is more effectively done in community than alone.

Is today’s church what Jesus had in mind? He certainly envisioned a community of followers, but how that might have looked in his mind is not really all that clear, much as we would like to think that it is. Will I still be a part of the church? Certainly! I believe in it. Am I sad we closed the doors at Left Hand/ECC? Yes, I am, and yet Kristie and I played a major part in the decision to close. We knew it was time.

Life is full of times of letting go. I’ve discovered letting go with mercy and grace is always the preferred pathway.

And so it goes.