Normal people

A student in a Washington DC boarding school recently visited by Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, commented how impressed he was with the royal couple. “I didn’t know what to expect,” said the junior high boy, “but it was like talking to normal people.”

The young student’s comments telecast on the national news reminded me of the remarks of numerous adult students in the religion class I teach at the University. Many of them have told of leaving the church, no longer seeing its value or relevance. I have heard their musings so many times that I know the song by heart—all the verses and the refrain. “I want a church where the people are authentic,” they say. “Authentic.”

I was never sure what they meant until I heard the student’s reflection on his encounter with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. I now believe that what many congregational dropouts are seeking when they continue their church-search is normal people.

I am not overlooking that some who find the church are hoping to discover salvation and deliverance. They deliberately enter the terrain of the people of God hoping to find someone who lives on a higher level who can lend a hand and give a boost to help them climb out of their despair.

For each one who is looking for a way out, however, there are a hundred who are looking for a way in. They long for connectedness, to belong to a community where there is no pretense or hierarchies. They are looking for….well, normal people.

I am not sure how normal the church seems these days. Despite our efforts to be relational, we often project a surreal image of community. We have our own vocabulary that has been honed by centuries of religion-ese. We sit in rows while singing praises absent of human context. We smother many attempts of others to express pain and failure. We saddle leaders with unrealistic expectations of supra-humanness. We refuse to discuss the nature of things that are causing long time members to finally leave the church.

I know many who are looking for a church where the ethos is regular folks who find grace in normalcy and who share a motto of “we are in this together.”

It seems only a few years ago people chose a church because it was above and beyond the usual. I now hear them say they look for a community where they can talk to normal people.