One of the biggest reasons that it took so long to move away from our faith was the loss of community.
If you belong to a church, it’s instant community. Just by entering the building you gain a group of kids for yours to play with, and (likely) a group of peers to associate with at events that someone else plans. Boom, instant social life. Chances are you find another couple or two that you click with and boom, instant friends. You already automatically have the shared experience of a few hours on Sunday mornings to fall back on for conversation if needed.
When we left the church though, we discovered an uncomfortable fact: we’ve never had to make new friends on our own. From the time we were married we’ve belonged to various churches wherever we’ve lived. There’s a base of support, of familiarity, and of help if needed. Suddenly we were without that, and it’s scary.
Our existing social group, including a sports night at a local gym, is mostly with a circle of Christian families, and it has been made reasonably clear that the group no longer wishes to have us as members. It’s been polite, but meetings (we’re staying until the end of the school year) are rather tense.
We aren’t fans of sports, so community clubs are out. We have 5 kids from 14 down to 4, so many of the usual events like Scouts are difficult to manage. Each child would be in a different group on a different night, which defeats our family-centered philosophy to life.
Our city isn’t that large, so the secular homeschooling community is rather small. There is a “secular” homeschooling organization to match the Christian association, but (oddly enough) the members are almost all Christian. It’s still uncomfortable to come out and say that we’re not believers.
We recently, on the advice of Dale McGowan from Parenting Beyond Belief, started attending a Unitarian Universalist church in town. The UU is creedless, and there are atheists, Muslims, Hindus, humanists, Buddhists and all sorts of other -ists that attend. It’s a church, but without any dogma. They do have the potlucks and events that we love, though. There are issues with the place, but there are issues with any place real people meet together, so we’re staying there for a while. I’ll post more about our experience with the UU later.
I’m not really asking for advice, and I’m not really whining. I feel like there are some things that we’ve been going through that I haven’t read about anywhere else and I want to share them. Has anyone else felt this type of loss?
*As a side note: if you want to comment, please don’t trash our old group or Christians in general for their response to our choice. We’re not here to bash where we’ve come from, we’re here to move forward into a new life.
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8 comments ↓
I so wish you lived near me. We’re going through the same thing since we moved to Texas. I’m lucky as there are some secular groups in the DFW area, but since we’re out in the uber christian suburbs, they are difficult to get to.
I wish I had an idea or two. My online communities have been my saving grace
Yes!!!!
I have a family of three kids and we live in a small town. Its hard enough that we don’t live near family, we don’t have that church family any more either.
I haven’t found a solution. But I have considered visiting the UU church near us. At least we would have someone. Its lonely being an atheist when the nearest meetup place (center for inquiry) is an hour away and none of them have kids.
I really miss the fun I had with church and church friends, but I can’t force myself to be something I’m not. Nor do I feel comfortable in that environment any more. I would be interested to know about your UU experience.
Sincerely,
Kent
My wife and I have a similar problem. We both just graduated from college and have moved from a thriving college town to a small city with the population of my high school. We’re an hour away from anything significant, and we’re right on the edge of the bible belt. My realization happened right about the time my wife was considering joining a church so we could finally get some community. Whoops! Her own was soon after (and she posted your wonderful letter on Facebook to show her sentiments to her family, thank you) so fortunately no drama between us. Right now we’re mostly leaning on our college friends with Facebook, Instant Messenger, and Skype. It’s helping us get by.
Good luck with your own search for community, I wish you well.
I think it is tough in the smaller towns, especially if you are “coming out” to friends you’ve known a long time. We are military and move somewhat regularly, so we get to show up and say “this is who we are” right from the beginning. Since that is not helpful, I’ll move on! We are outsiders in all that we do (secular homeschoolers, vegetarians, no TV) so I’ve found that our friendships tend to develop over common values and interests. So for example my best friend in the homeschooling community is Catholic – but our child-rearing/homeschool philosophies are similar. These relationships take longer than the “instant” ones, but they are sweeter in the long run.
We joined the UU church to have a place to take our kids to learn about how we can all agree to disagree – it’s my favorite thing about UU. When I became an RE teacher last year, it drove home to me how much freedom I finally had in a “church”. My lesson plans were nothing like the Sunday School lessons I had as a kid! I taught a whole class on Matt Harding’s video that he made of himself dancing around the world.
And not that we’re vengeful or anything, but remember the saying “A life lived well is the best revenge!”
Try checking out or starting a hackerspace in your area. It will be a place to start meeting new and interesting people.
Church of any religion is an easy place to find community. I myself am still struggling with leaving my chosen faith to go a route of the faithless. I wasn’t christian but the concept is still the same. My friends felt betrayed by my revelation and now I find myself unsure where to go. I’ve since had a son and strive for him to have some form of community and though I don’t live in a small town other life choices make us ‘outsiders’ in finding friends, such as my husband is a stay at home dad while I work full time, we’re also a bit alternative in our dress and music but moderate in our general views. We don’t fit anywhere really well.
It’s been 2 1/2 years for me now and I never realized how hard it was to just make friends again as an adult.
Good luck in your endeavors, the UU is a great place, I’ve considered it for us also but with a young child (2 yrs old) I’m always wary of going places where he may need to stay still for anything more than 5 minutes.
YES! My husband and I have been married more than a decade and have have done most of our socializing at church over the years. Ever since we moved to our current city, we have not been in church. It is virtually impossible to find friends! He has some co-workers that we have over occasionally. I have some friends from previous hometowns who don’t mind my atheism. But there is really no one here. We’ve tried meetup.com groups…it’s a rather shallow social situation, but better than nothing.
Basically, whether you have kids or not, whether you’re in a small town or a big city, it is hard to go from having church community to not having it. I have been going back and forth for quite a while about visiting the UU church. You’re just one more voice that is pulling me in that direction. I hope it works for your family. I imagine the need feels greater when you have kids. We are thinking about having a child and wondering what the secular homeschooling community would be like here. I keep imagining they are all Christians – just like you are experiencing! Stay strong.
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