When I joined the elite ranks of undergraduate college, life was simple. No, really. It was. Years of K-12 education eating away at my bones, the hippie chick inside of me groaning at being told to change the world, but never given explicit permission to actually go forth and do so. So I then found myself on the other side of America, ready to embark on what was going to be a very easy degree plan that would propel me into a doctorate to then give me some clout so then I could finally change the world into something useful.

Long story short: more life happened in the first semester of college than in the past 18+ years comprehensive.

So I found myself one day in the DRC (Disability Resource Office – it is probably something more obsecure and less offensive in name… although I never thought disability was particularly offensive…), meeting with a staff member. (If I had even an inkling of the weird title, it would have been included, I assure you.) This dude basically ran through all the possible accomodations that even made sense to my odd situation.

The issue with accomodations isn’t that they exist.

The issue with accomodations is the term gets thrown out of proportion.

My issue was rather blunt: I have severe anxiety, and taking a timed exam around a bunch of students would only serve to make the anxiety skyrocket and spiral out of control. I basically got the blanket accomodation: a little extra time and permission to take the exams at a testing center instead of inside the classroom. I mean, they were still proctored, but, after all, it is a college, where they tend to, you know, care about academic integrity.

I was talking to a very close friend about my struggle to find a church.

This has been an ongoing uphill battle for years. Ever since I moved to the Valley, I have been riddled sick, looking for a church; whose doctrine, values, mission, theology, and the like; are congruently and honestly communicated. I am not going to pretend I’m the ideal consumer for the church market. I’m brash, bold, and beautiful. Oh, and, I’m a highly educated openly queer woman. So, not the ideal in the slightest.

The friend, well meaning, states:

“They really need to be more accomodating”

And I just kind of sat there and was a little pissed. Because on one hand, yes, accomodation seems to be a great answer to not allowing people in. It seems like if we could all just admit that none of us actually know what we’re doing, then we could fix our problems as a society. But on the other hand, using the term accomodation almost misses the point of the church as hysterically as the church misses their own point for existing.

Biblically, the church has been the people. This means a few things, the most important of which to call out is that it assumes the leadership is infallible in all aspects of being Christian/Christ-like. And as we know from literally every Aesop’s Fable, The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree, which is a fancy way of saying that all you need to make a church bad is one bad leader who mentors another leader. Because the cycle is then very challenging to thwart.

When we think of accomodations, we think of the meaning tied to helping people succeeed. In this aspect, sure, make the church more accomodating. They should want to help everyone. That was the point of the Gospel, no?

What most churches really do though is pick a target audience and overhype that group. I have been to countless churches that are so lukewarm in their opinions of God’s people that any moment of blunt honesty would be met with a warm embrace. Accomodating implies that they want you there, and so they’re going to do their part to keep you.

Most churches figure that your view of God is not theirs to change. They assume that you come looking to be reaffirmed in your ways, that asking for you to change is asking you to leave. By coming in as you are – a cry most churches would happily plaster – you are announcing that you see Jesus as worthy of you. And that scares them.

An overwhelming majority of American churches have this consumerism culture to them. They don’t know what to do with someone who shows up and forces them to immediately fill in holes. The church seems to exist without regard for the interaction of psychosocial stages of development and spiritual stages. (More on that to follow, surely.) So when you feel as though the church rejects you because you came with an open heart and willingness to dive deep and ask the hard questions? Don’t sweat. It happens all the time.

It can be a bad church.

This is not the defining moment of if Christ wants you, getting rejected by people.

See, an accomodating atmosphere works only if you’re already wanted. I get it, we shouldn’t strive to be exclusionary in who is allowed to worship. I think that misses the character of God, too. But when you are a leader, sometimes you have to say who you can’t disciple. What you need note, though, is the difference between saying that the church is rejecting the Christian and that the Chiristian is rejected from Heaven, by God.

XOXO

Dorothy B