I am a church lover. I have also been a church leaver. I think about Gene Simmon’s protruding tongue as he sings Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em.  This song has become the perennial theme song of the local church and this generation.  In all fairness, church is a dangerous place—full of broken people and unfixable situations. I say dangerous because no person can truly be prepared for the absolute wreckage of human sin that is on display in the gathering of the saints. The sheer volume of pain, loss, addiction, bitterness, and anger in the church is a powder keg for the worst kinds of behavior. And when it happens, and boy, does it happen—but when it happens, people leave the church. As fast as people come, full of hope and expectation, many leave disenchanted and hurt.

I have a real sense of compassion for those who leave the church. I’m not saying I think it’s a wise or thoughtful decision grounded in gospel living to say goodbye to the church of Jesus. I’m simply saying, I get it. Church is hard and dangerous, and sometimes even the best-intentioned, Jesus-loving people tap out on the local church. Unfortunately, those same people rarely, if ever, come back. And what starts off as a hiatus from a gospel-driven, missionally-focused life drifts into safer, more harmless goals of raising good kids and making a good life.

This makes me sad.

There are lots of reasons people leave the church. I honestly shrug my shoulders at most of them, but I do understand that our hearts are tender and our expectation of what should be gets crushed under the weight of what actually is.

And yet, the “should be’s” of the church are why most of us still show up. Living in the already and not yet of the kingdom of God makes this journey make sense. That is, the fullness of God has been put on display through the work of Jesus on the cross and his subsequent resurrection. Our sins and shame have been covered and we are fully alive! We celebrate because his Kingdom has broken into our lives and made us new. And yet, we are not yet fully a new people. Show up to any church on a Sunday and see this theological reality. We are new people becoming a new people. Broken people becoming whole people; unloved becoming loved; mercy-starved becoming deep wells. Make no mistake, the should be’s are not unmet or broken promises. These are not indictments shouted to heaven, but echoes of what heaven will be like and of what the church is becoming.

The church should be full of friendship.

The church should be a place of mercy.

The church should be a safe place to doubt.

The church should be the place where we believe God put us on mission.

The church should be safe for those who don’t yet believe.

The church should be full of life.

The church should be sobering.

The church should be tender to the disenfranchised.

The church should challenge us to do more with our lives than make a lot of money.

The church should engage our intellect and thinking.

The church should prick our emotions.

The church should be a place of radical hospitality.

The church should be a place where the rich are compelled to give and the poor are equipped to live.

The church should never be ashamed of Jesus and his gospel.

It makes me sad that people leave the church. Sad for them. Sad that we didn’t do better. I have to remind myself that the church, its people, its gathering, and its liturgy is the retelling of what has happened and what is to come. We cannot forget. We sing and preach the beauty of Jesus’ coming, dying, resurrection, and the invitation of a fully loved life here on earth and a fully resurrected life in heaven. The church is where the trickles of what is to come slowly, and sometimes frantically, become a reality. We smile when the should be’s come true.

This is why I stay. This is why I love the church.