I spend a good deal of time listening to people share horror stories of the church. I really believe that nowhere does the anger run so strong or the hurt so deep than in the souls of many who feel abused by the church.

I wonder if there can be any more arrogant institution than the church. How we strut about and solemnly proclaim that we and we alone have the secrets to creation, the key to conversation with God! How painful it is to those who are struggling, searching, indeed yearning for contact with the divine to be told that there is no way but our way. How dare we make such presumptions. My image of what we as the church should be is shaped by the humble acts of our Lord. Serving, loving, sacrificing for others. Never demanding blind allegiance or bullying into submission.

People leave the church because they have been pushed out the doors rather than welcomed in. I certainly am aware of the tricks of my trade. I know that there are ways to entice people through the doors and into the pews but, more often than not, these are cynical solutions to deeply troubling spiritual problems.

One of the marvelous images of the ascension of Christ is the wonderful proclamation that God cannot be contained by space and time. We cannot put Christ in a box and keep him just for those of us who believe one particular way. The ascended Christ defies our attempts at boundaries, no matter how holy they may seem. Too often, we in the church have, in effect, kept Christ on the cross where we think we can control his presence. In fact, all we do is keep him dead...dead to a desperate and yearning world.

The time has surely come for the church to celebrate the ascended one who promises to appear again and again and again...in new and different ways, both within and without the church, both a part of and apart from tradition and doctrine, ancient answers and historic creeds.

People leave the church when those of us inside ignore the ascended Christ.