Finding a Church: What My Faith Is Empowering Me to Do

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I’ve spent most of my adult life searching for a church home. But it’s been a Goldilocks experience: Churches are too much of this, not enough of that. Nothing has been “just right.”

As a child, we were raised vaguely Christian, but as a teenager, I couldn’t believe the stories, and I drifted away. After the birth of my first child, though, I felt that she needed some sort of religious foundation, so that she could know what she was rejecting, if that was her eventual choice.

So I belonged to a United Methodist church for a while, and that’s where she was baptized. Then, I found an amazing Catholic church that suited my beliefs in every way. The homilies, delivered by a lesbian, did not shy away from addressing other social justice issues of the day.

My Catholic friends teased me that it wasn’t a “real” Catholic church, and maybe that was true. This, as even today, traditional Catholicism does not make room for leadership roles for women.

Fast-forward 30 years, and I found myself transplanted to the Washington, D.C., area, where I knew only a couple of people. I needed to find a community — religious or otherwise — that would be a good fit, so I resumed the search for a faith home. I tried four Catholic churches, a Unitarian church and a Quaker meeting. Nothing stuck.

But then, in the days following the recent and rapid changes in America, I realized Goldilocks needed to get off the sidelines. She needed to show up in the community, take a stand and stop holding her head in her hands as her world was changing.

People have chosen to do that in different ways, by giving money to causes or participating in public protest rallies. And those are essential acts, I believe. But I knew that I needed to find a church home where people were getting involved in other, positive ways. I have recently found that home in a Presbyterian church and I’m teaching English as a Second Language to immigrants and refugees.

Instead of waking up each day and feeling impotent rage at the headlines, I can say to myself, “OK, I can’t do everything to fight this, but I can do this one little thing.”

Apparently, I’m not alone.

Some churches are reporting an uptick in attendance since issues members care about deeply have figured prominently in the news. That’s the case at Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, where senior pastor Aaron Hobbs says he’s seeing people who want to get “reconnected to social justice issues. They couldn’t do it alone. They needed a place to start. People are hungry right now.”

He says one woman looked at the church’s website, saw the activities and events listed, and started to cry. “She wanted to always belong to this kind of church, but didn’t know they existed.” People have pulled away from Christianity, he believes, because of its identity with some Christian nationalist ideology. “We push back on that. We don’t endorse political candidates, but we don’t believe in power and control over compassion and love. If no one speaks up, people will wonder where God is.”

Marcia Kolko, a 72-year-old retired archives specialist, began attending River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Bethesda, Maryland, a few months ago. She, too, sought belonging and a way to make a difference in this “unsettled time. I was raised culturally Jewish,” she says. “But organized religion in general never really took for me. The rabbis never spoke to my heart.”

At River Road, she has found people who share her need to pursue social justice issues. Along with some other congregants, she has begun volunteering at a medical clinic in downtown Washington, D.C. While she believes in the power of protest and of donating money, she says, “Those are solo things. As you get older, your friends move away from the area. (Volunteering at a church) gets some new connections going.”

Rabbi Ari Goldstein, of Temple Beth Shalom in Arnold, Maryland, has also seen a recent increase in attendance. While the clashes in Israel were a precipitating event, Goldstein says, “I try not to get political here. This is a place of sanctuary. I want people to feel connected and comfortable. That said, we have a core value system. If political issues touch that value system, I will go to that place.”

People do come to Goldstein sharing incidents of antisemitism that they’ve never experienced before, in the workplace and in school. His job, he believes, is to help them cope, which could include educating them about their own history. “It’s a message that they could maybe pass along to their own children.”

He finds that some people in his congregation want to hide their identity. “It’s as if they’re hiding their Jewish star necklace under their shirt. But I encourage them to take it out. It’s time to lean in more to who they are, not less. My go-to is not to help people feel more spiritual. It’s to make them feel more connected to their people. That’s what matters to me.”


Do any of you belong to a church community? What does it do for you? Let us know in the comments below.