The little baby bird is comfortable and safe within its shell. It has everything it needs—food, shelter and a watchful, though unseen mother nearby.
It is a healthy bird and does what all healthy things do.
It grows.
Before long, the shell becomes confining. This safe and comfortable environment has become a stifling place and if it doesn’t leave, it will certainly die. And so, it pecks away at the shell from within. Challenging the only structure that it has ever known.
A crack forms.
It keeps pecking until there is light. And how beautiful is that light! The little bird can see beauty through the hole in the shell it could not have previously imagined. Quickened by the sight and the fresh air, the pecking intensifies until it is free and steps out onto the ground. Soon, the bird will learn to fly—its horizon ever expanding. Exploring new skies, living life to the full as a bird should.
It could have stayed safe and sound in the shell. Complacent within a comfortable paradigm. Never growing. But it never would have discovered what it meant to be a bird.
In some ways I’m glad that I grew up in the church. It gave me a sense of safety in community. A place where I belonged, could be nurtured and grow. Like an egg, the church, as an organization should be thought of as a temporary place to be. A place of incubation. It isn’t a place of permanence.
That shell served its purpose for a time, but like the bird, I am healthy. And all healthy things need to grow. The shell became confining and I did indeed push against the confines—challenging its ridged structure.
Truth can always withstand scrutiny no matter how violent the assault. The shell I was surrounded by did not survive my questioning and pieces began to fall away.
-Biblical literalism (particularly using the Bible as a science textbook pertaining to such things as young earth creationism)
-Biblical inerrancy
-Belief in Hell
-Violent atonement theory (penal substitutionary atonement)
-Complementarianism
-Dispensational Eschatology
…to name a few
And as they did, I saw the beauty of what the church had been trying to articulate, but just couldn’t as they could not see past the same shell that blocked my vision. I stepped out of that restrictive shell and am enjoying the fresh air, the sunshine—learning to fly. Becoming who I was meant to be.
If you are still in a church environment, dependant on your pastor and your “worship time” for your spiritual growth, that’s ok. You might need still need it. Maybe you aren’t ready to leave the egg. Don’t stay there forever though. I know that I stayed too long and that any longer would have been detrimental to me.
You will know when it is time to leave. You will feel the pressure that is created when your doubts and questions push against that shell. You may even discover that your acceptance in the church community is contingent upon your agreement with the groupthink.
Richard Rohr shares some good indications of what it looks like to be spiritually mature in his book, “The Universal Christ”: “A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reasons to fight, exclude, or reject anyone. Isn’t that ironic? The point of the Christian life is not to distinguish one’s self from the ungodly, but to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This is the full, final, and intended effect of the incarnation, symbolized by its finality in the cross, which is God’s great act of solidarity instead of judgment.”
You see, once you leave the confines of the institutional church, it is much easier to see that the true church is so much larger. Wherever I go, I am at church. When I recognize Christ in everyone around me, everyone becomes my teacher. My growth becomes exponential. I feel God’s presence much more powerfully while sitting around a campfire with friends, riding my motorcycle or kayaking across the lake than I ever did sitting in a church pew, staring at the back of someone else’s head while listening to bad theology coming from the pulpit.
Go ahead. Break that shell. Enjoy the freedom of becoming who you are meant to be.
Spread your wings and learn to fly!