Lost in church green rooms.

I am no stranger to the American Christian evangelical counter culture. In fact, I think that I should get extra points for having grown up in the Assemblies of God my entire life. Heck, I even attended Southeastern University, a notoriously Christian Assemblies of God university in the middle-of-nowhere Lakeland, Florida.

I have always struggled with fitting in within church culture.

Truth be told, I have never felt like I am enough. I don’t listen to enough worship music. I am not up on the latest and greatest books written by Church celebrities. I don’t own a Joel Olsteen Inspiration Cube (if you want to be deeply weirded out [or just truly don’t believe that this exists], click on the link). I don’t have a shirt with a quirky “This girl runs on coffee and Jesus” phrase on it.

Simply put: I have never really been invested in the church counter culture.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Jesus. I read my bible, belong to a bible study, sit in church, listen to worship music, but I balance that with things that bring me pleasure such as Gilmore Girls, Taylor Swift, dog memes, and the occasional airport novel for my book club.

I guess you can say that over the last couple of years the little bit of church culture that I had subscribed to due to my hyper-involvement in our old church has been under….let’s call it re-examination. I am hesitant to go all the way to deconstruction because I think that the term has received a bad rap in the Christian counterculture. Suffice to say that after everything that we witnessed at our old church, we approached the big “C” church (hey, there’s a counter culture word for you) with a healthy amount of skepticism.

I am not going to go into the church hurt and trauma that we experienced at our old church. Why? Eh, I just don’t feel like it’s necessary or healthy to air that out in a public forum. But I will say this, people hurt people. Church politics are a real thing. Unchecked behavior is a real thing. Lack of accountability and transparency is a real thing. But at the end of the day, people that I genuinely love as friends still faithfully serve that church. The little “c” church is broken because it’s comprised of faithfully broken people doing their best, and that is okay. In fact, it’s more than okay, it’s expected. We don’t give up on God’s house just because God’s house has hurt us.

So why am rambling on about broken churches? Hang in there with me, there’s a point: I promise.

If you’re like me, when you go through something, you try to find other people or communities that have gone through comparable experiences. I find it cathartic.

So imagine my delight when I found an Instagram account called @raisedtostay which is described as “A ministry to challenge the Church and champion the saints.” This account is like a breath of fresh air. I’m going to venture to say that 99% of their posts are conversation starters. Content author, Natalie Thomas Reunion, does a great job of confronting her audience with thought provoking observations based on her experience within the big “C” church, her personal experience with church hurt, and encourages thoughtful discourse within the counterculture.

Recently, the account posted about church “green room” culture. The author’s point was that music ministry leaders and pastoral staff artificially construct a celebrity-like status for themselves when they choose to utilize green rooms in lieu of being planted with the church community. Which is a fair and valid observation. Welp, the counter culture had a field day with this one. Sides were taken, words were shared, and days and days of content sprouted up (ick).

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Alexis, get to the point, why does this matter?”

Welp, my point is that I agree with with you: it doesn’t.

Green rooms. No green rooms. Celebrity culture in church. A monk with no name leading a commune of people praising the Lord in harmony. Not one bit of it matters.

If you believe that you have committed an offense against God (counter culture translation: a sinner), and admit that freely to Him and release that offense to God (translation: repent) and commit to doing your best to honor and live like Jesus with all of the time you have left (translation: accept Christ into your heart), you will be saved. Meaning, you are going to heaven when you die – you have made the great exchange (i.e., your sin for His blood). You are going to the same heaven as the “green room” people and the “non-green room people.”

Our opinions on green rooms literally have zero kingdom effect. Personally, celebrity church culture gives me the icks, but truth be told, I wouldn’t be where I am at in my faith had it not been for Steven Furtick’s ministry which got me back in church.

What does have kingdom impact? PEOPLE.

As of 2021, there are 391,098 kids in foster care.

That should bother us as believers. I mean, it really, really should eat away at our souls.

Our hearts shouldn’t just be burdened for these kids, it should be burdened for their first families.

The Bible is very clear in the New Testament. God doesn’t give a rat’s. . . . butt about religion. In fact, he says in James 1, that those who consider themselves religious and can’t control their tongues not only deceive themselves, but also, their “religion” is worthless in his eyes.

So what does God consider pure and faultless religion? Looking after orphans and widows in their distress and doing whatever is necessary to keep you heart pure.

²⁶ Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. ²⁷ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James 1: 26 – 27

So let’s break that down. In 2023, who are our widows? I would argue that it’s the single parent (both mothers and fathers). It’s the parent who is on the verge of homelessness or struggling to keep food on the table. It is the parent who just lost their child because they lacked the resources to obtain the mental health resources needed to stabilize them. Who are our orphans? Kids in foster care. Kids who are growing up without one or more parents. Kids growing up with parents but are neglected emotionally, physically, or spiritually. We are to look after all of these people. The people who don’t fit neatly into our suburban, white, American, Christian, evangelical circles.

I am sure that on some level, a conversation about church green rooms is important (maybe?); I don’t know. Perhaps to some, it’s necessary in order to keep themselves from being polluted by the world, which also falls under James 1. Who knows!? I certainly don’t.

What I do know is that it is infuriating to see the big “C” church take such a defiant position on both sides of the “green room” aisle, yet be blinded by the ridiculous amount of pain and need in our communities.

Can you imagine what our communities would like like if the church gave a hoot about children in foster care? Could you imagine what would happen if we got as fired up about children sleeping in offices because there aren’t enough homes for them? Could you imagine [now, hold on for this one] if the church stood along side struggling parents and lifted them up and supported them before they loose their children to the system? What would that even look like?

Church, I truly don’t think that God cares about green rooms or church celebrity culture. I think he cares about sin and heart postures in this regard. But I have to believe that what grieves God’s heart is to see his Church exhausting mental resources and abusing platforms to fight fights that won’t matter when we sit in the throne room of heaven.

Let’s get it together, church.

We can do better. Let’s do better.