If Only: Regret and the Real Nature of Church Growth

Got regret? Today’s guest post is from my wise friend Michelle Van Loon, whose new book, If Only, focuses on the taboo topic of regret, and how in Jesus “past regrets can be transformed into present wisdom and a flourishing, free future.” Seriously. You are going to want a copy of this book. 

My friend Grace told me she felt she’d hit midlife in her early thirties. Both of her parents had died, a long-term romantic relationship came to an end, and she realized she needed to recalibrate her career goals. She found herself back in college, facing the the spectre of finding an entry-level position in competition with her classmates, most of whom were a decade younger than she was. Her losses and transitions left her feeling decidedly out of sync with her age peers, who all seemed to be having children and establishing themselves in their careers.

Yet she now says it wasn’t the grief, new zip code or late-night study sessions that made her feel as though she’d crossed into midlife. It was her inescapable collection of regrets. Her “if only’s” crashed head-on into her existential reality. She recognized that she was not going to get a do-over in these key relationships in her life or be able to reclaim the time and energy she’d given to her former career path.

The place she felt the most out of sync with her age peers was the place to which she turned first for support – her church. The messages focused on tips, techniques and problem-solving tools (“Fix Your Finances”), the worship solely on celebration (no space for lament or silence), and the culture on the kids (children’s programming and family support). As a single, she’d made her peace with the focus on family life in the congregation. But an early transition into spiritual midlife found her struggling to maintain a meaningful connection at church. Eventually, she faded away, and few seemed to notice she was gone.

I’ve discovered that our regrets can escort us into a physical, emotional and spiritual shift at midlife that’s as disorienting as our adolescence was – though thankfully, for this leg of the journey, no Clearasil is required. The busyness of forming relationships, building a career and launching a family in our young adulthood tends to push the processing of our past and present regrets onto the back burner. Loss can bring those back-burnered regrets to the front burner, then turn up the heat on them as they did in the case of my friend Grace. God has embedded the potential for fruitfulness into every season of our lives. At midlife, he often exposes our unprocessed regrets as part of his pruning process in order to coax fresh growth from us for the rest of our journey on earth with him.

The tricky part for churches is that there is no prepackaged program that can address this sort of growth at midlife and beyond. There’s no Vacation Bible School curriculum or quick-fix sermon series that’ll help the Graces among us to prayerfully walk through her losses and their attendant regrets. What is needed is a deep and ongoing commitment by church leaders to help create a culture in their congregations that focuses on spiritual formation for all ages, at all life stages. Markers of these this may include space for lament and silence in services, opportunities for conversation and learning about issues beyond marriage and childrearing concerns, safe places for questions, and new ways of thinking about spiritual service beyond filling a ministry organizational chart. It means recognizing that regret isn’t just the baggage we accumulate before coming to faith in Christ, but that most of us continue to rack up regrets once we’ve been found.

We in the body of Christ are the ones he’s uniquely equipped to proclaim that good news to one another if we can learn to recognize and value the real nature of spiritual growth, which has a numerical component to it to be sure, but also is found in the unlikely, unlovely spaces – such our regrets – exposed in the losses and transitions in each one of our lives.

Since coming to faith in Christ at the tail end of the Jesus Movement, Michelle Van Loon’s heritage, spiritual hunger and storyteller’s sensibilities have shaped her faith journey and informed her writing. She is a regular contributor to Christianity Today’s popular Her.meneutics blog, and has written two books about the parables, contributed to four  devotional projects, three full-length plays for the educational market, skits, articles and all the miscellaneous projects that are a part of a freelance writer’s vocation.

Van Loon has been married to husband Bill for more than 3 decades. They are parents of 3 and grandparents of 2. She has served on the staff of a Milwaukee-area non-denominational church, at Trinity International University and with the former Christ Together Chicago, an organization that linked over 70 evangelical congregations across Chicago in local mission. She does freelance communications work for several not-for-profit ministries and churches in the Chicago area as well as one headquartered in Jerusalem.