Nature is my sanctuary, but Jesus keeps dragging me back to church
I blunder through life in selfish and stupid ways that no mountain scene—however inspiring—can heal, forgive, or reorient.
There’s this mildly irritating phrase that I have encountered with some frequency over the course of the decade or so that I have been a pastor. I’m sure you’ve encountered something like it in your own circles, particularly in these post-Christian, post-church, post-everything times. Oh, I don’t mind church, but, you know, I encounter God best in creation. That’s where I worship. Nature is my sanctuary.
When I am on the receiving end of this phrase, I usually smile and nod in as gracious a fashion as I can muster. Inwardly, I am often thinking very un-Christian thoughts. Of course nature is your sanctuary. A rather convenient justification for avoiding this one, I would say.
Perhaps this doesn’t surprise you. You might expect someone in my position—someone whose livelihood depends upon the ongoing existence of the institutional church—to have an opinion or two about people off encountering God in the mountains and rivers and lakes and forests and rarely darkening the door of an actual church. You’d probably be right to wonder about my motives. Perhaps you’d even say something like, Well, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
