What is Church? (and where do I belong?)

No, that’s not a rhetorical question. I’m well over 20 years into my faith journey and I’m still genuinely asking that question.

Disclaimer

I do not claim to know everything there is to know about the Christian faith, nor do I think my writing should be taken with any sort of authority. I’m just another flawed (tiny in comparison) and utterly loved-by-the-King-of-the-universe human, walking this journey with God, learning and wrestling with new things every day.

By now, I know very well how God often uses my ramblings to humble me and teach me… So feel free to message me to chat, to call me out when I’m wrong, and to share your own perspective on this never ending question rolling around my mind. I am genuinely always looking to learn and grow in my faith and I would love to hear your thoughts.

One thing I do know about the church is that we’re called to discern the Word of God together, to search the Scriptures in community, listening for truth and meaning as a body. That is yet another reason why I want to share my experiences honestly. My hope is that by sharing, we can discern together what the church is meant to be and what it can still become.

When Church Doesn’t Feel like a Miracle

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote in Life Together that “church is a miracle,” something so rare and precious that it can never be taken for granted. To be honest, I really wrestle with that because so often, church doesn’t feel like a miracle to me.

I come from a small community, so I want to be delicate in how I talk about this and as someone who is autistic, I realize that my experience of church is probably a little different from the majority. Still I want to share what it’s been like for me.

I have always been a little envious of people who say things like, “I was really struggling with anxiety, depression and loneliness, and someone told me to go to church and they were right! Being around people made me feel so much better.” I hear stories like that all the time of people walking into a service burdened and walking out lighter, restored, like something inside them healed just by being in community.

And honestly, I’m very happy for them, that’s beautiful. But that’s absolutely never been the case for me. I will ‘never say never’ but at this point in my life I have never walked into church and felt better around people. That just isn’t how community works for me. Social spaces, especially loud, crowded, flashy, unpredictable ones, don’t recharge me; they drain me.

It’s not about being anti-social or disinterested in people. I LOVE connection. I LOVE deep, vulnerable, and meaningful conversation. But church, as it often exists, with its noise, its lights, its program-driven culture, its layers of expectation and overstimulation… is not a place where my nervous system can rest.

No matter which church I go to, I know that attending means paying a cost and I would guess that might be true in different ways for many of you reading this post.

For me, church is physically and mentally exhausting. I go knowing I’ll probably feel like I’m going to faint, my heart rate will be out of control, when my parasympathetic nervous system finally takes over my heart will repeatedly stop and mimic a second degree heart block and therefore I will be out of commission for a few days while I try to regulate myself. Even when everything goes well, I leave feeling like I’ve just run a marathon and nobody else seemed to notice which gives me both a sense of pride that I seem to have deceived them but also so much loneliness.

And then, of course, I have my three little neurospicy babies who handle church beautifully in the moment (mostly)… but when we get home to their safe space and their safe person, the overstimulation hits. Cue the meltdowns, tears, and sensory overload… myself included.

It’s not just the mental and physical exhaustion that makes church difficult for me. There’s also the theological side of things. I can’t count the amount of times when I’ve sat through sermons that seemed to miss the heart of the gospel altogether. When the theology feels off, when Scripture is taken out of context or weaponized, when the message contradicts the Jesus I know from the Bible, it adds another layer of confusion and grief.

So if you’ll allow me, I would like to take you on a little tour of the churches I’ve been to and tried to call home. Each of them offered something different, and I genuinely believe each one was full of good-hearted people just trying their best to follow Jesus in the place where they are at in their journey right now.

First Stop: The Revelation Series Church

The first church my family and I walked into was in the middle of a series on Revelation with a heavy, heavy emphasis on hell. The tone was all about fire and fear rather than love and grace. With all the effort it took to bring myself and my family to attend, and all the guilt I felt for taking so long to try attending in the first place, I walked out of there feeling utterly defeated.

Second Stop: The Pastor Who Just Talked

The next church we tried was… well, let’s just say it was confusing. The pastor didn’t mention a single bible passage. Not one. The sermon wasn’t actually a sermon at all, it was more like an unplanned monologue about people he’d run into that week. It was disjointed, rambling, and felt less like worship and more like a town hall update. I left wondering if maybe he’d just forgotten what day it was?

Third Stop: The Health and Wellness Church

Here, as I inevitably got overstimulated and needed to sit in the hallway for my service dog to do deep pressure therapy, a man came to sit near me and proceeded to share about all the people he had healed over the years and made sure I knew that wasn’t all of them… as I sat there mid panic attack, overstimulated and trying to breathe, I couldn’t help but brace myself for the moment he’d offer to “pray away” my autism. Well… hello to you too!

Fourth Stop: The Church I Still Love - But Can’t Handle

And then there’s the one I still love, truly love, because the people there are wonderful and some will forever be honorary aunties to my children. But inside that building? It’s simply too much for me.

The worship is powerful, but it’s LOUD and so so much bass. The lights are bright, the energy is high. And while that is amazing for many, for me it’s overwhelming to the point of collapse. They have a beautiful culture and I would never ask them to change a thing, but it’s impossible for me to feel at rest there. I would literally need to cut out every other event in my schedule to allow for enough recovery to continue attending.

Fifth Stop: The Small Cookie Cutter Ministry Church

This is the one that is so small that the moment you walk through the door you are given a job to do, “oh you’re a mom? You can run children’s church next Sunday,” “You can hold a tune? I’ll sign you up to lead worship as well.” And if you can’t? Shame.

Sixth Stop: The Church that Fed My Soul

Finally, there was one church that I still think about often. It was the kind of place where the pastor’s depth and knowledge of Scripture were so incredible that the sermon always felt too short. I could have spent hours and hours just listening. Unfortunately that church was just too far.

When I think of church as a building, it is not a space where I feel known or understood. I often feel judged, out of place, and like I have to put on a front just to survive the hour. It is quite honestly the only place where I question if I was made by mistake. How could someone like me belong in a place like this?

But I Have Seen The Miracle

And yet, even in that tension, even in the ache of feeling like I don’t belong where I thought I was supposed to, I have experienced the miracle Bonhoeffer was talking about.

I’ve felt it when reading scripture and writing heartfelt songs of praise and lament in the quiet of my room.

I’ve seen it when my band and I have deep spiritual conversations that leave me giddy, inspired and so so alive!

I’ve felt it when I step on stage with everything that should break me and God carries me through.

I’ve felt it when a friend texts me asking for prayer and we end up chatting for hours about heartbreak, struggles, and everything God is doing in our lives. Those moments leave me so humbled and encouraged, that someone would seek my prayers and God would use me in that way.

I’ve felt it when an ambulance passes me by with lights flashing and that little voice inside my head prompts me to pray.

I’ve felt it when I’ve had extra food in the freezer and could offer it to a family waiting on a delayed pay check. The quiet joy of giving, of helping, of sharing what I have, that’s the church too.

Church, Reimagined

And in all those moments, I’m reminded that church is not a place.

It’s a people. (A very flawed bunch of people)

It’s the Spirit of God alive and moving through everyday connection, through compassion, and through shared burdens and small miracles.

The guilt I sometimes feel about not attending a building every Sunday… I know where that comes from and it’s not from God.

I still don’t have the answers. I don’t know which church to attend, or how often I can manage, or even how to make it work for both my body and my kids. But what I do know is this:

I am very much a part of the Church.

And I do see the miracle in my daily life, in my community, in my family, and in the God who meets me exactly where I am.

Maybe that’s what Bonhoeffer meant when he said “church is a miracle.”

Not a flawless institution, a perfect sermon or a sensory-friendly service, but this mysterious, holy thing that keeps showing up in the cracks of ordinary life. Maybe we are all just tiny, mismatched pieces of a scattered mosaic being remade in His image. Maybe “church” is what happens in the cracks where they meet, in the joining, in the mending, and in the grace that fills the spaces between us.

Maybe that’s what the miracle really is — God taking all the pieces that don’t seem to fit, all the parts that feel broken or out of place, and arranging them into something we can’t yet see. Maybe the miracle is God putting together what doesn’t make sense to us, but in His grand perspective is perfectly complete.

Maybe Church this week is:

☐ Checking in on someone midweek with a text that says, “How are you really doing?”

☐ Praying for each other, even if it’s short and awkward.

☐ Admitting when you’re not okay, and hearing “me too” instead of fake encouragement.

☐ Showing up with soup or coffee when someone’s sick or exhausted.

☐ Talking honestly about doubts without someone trying to “fix” you.

☐ Helping with rent, groceries, or babysitting when someone’s stretched thin.

☐ Celebrating the little wins in life together — a good day, a new job, a moment of peace.

☐ Treating every gathering as a gift, not another obligation to check off.

☐ Sending someone a funny meme because you know they’ve been having a rough day.

☐ Folding laundry over FaceTime with a friend to keep each other accountable to actually doing it.

☐ Inviting someone over just to sit on the couch and not be alone.

☐ Carpooling kids to soccer practice because you know the other parent is exhausted.

☐ Bringing an extra coffee to a friend’s work shift because you were stopping in anyway.

☐ Texting someone during church livestream: “This part hit me, what do you think?”

☐ Holding the baby so a tired mom can eat with two hands.

☐ Sitting in a messy living room and not apologizing for it.

☐ Laughing so hard together that it feels like worship.

☐ Showing up to help move boxes when somebody’s changing apartments.

☐ Cooking a simple dinner together and not worrying if it’s fancy.

☐ Going grocery shopping with someone just so they don’t have to do it alone.

☐ Leaving space for silence when you don’t have answers.

☐ Giving someone a ride when their car breaks down.

☐ Checking in after a doctor’s appointment or hard meeting.

☐ Being okay with messy prayers: “God, we don’t even know what to say, but we need You.”

☐ If someone asks you to help them stay accountable, make an effort check in with them regularly.

☐ Saying, “I forgive you,” and meaning it.

☐ Choosing to stay in each other’s lives even when it’s inconvenient.

By Morgan Groenewald