More Than Just Starts & Finishes: The Faith We Keep Forgetting
Somewhere along the line, the modern church kinda got into this habit—a real attachment, you could say—to beginnings and endings. We get super excited and joyful about those big salvation moments! And we respectfully remember a life well-lived when it's all said and done. It's like we've got this narrative myopia, where we mostly just focus on two things: the spiritual "birth" and "death." Now, this focus on the bookends of faith? Totally understandable. Beginnings are thrilling, full of potential, and endings give us that nice sense of closure and legacy. They're the easy-to-digest, shareable bits. We know what to do, what to say, and how to feel when someone's just starting out, and we've got our go-to rituals for when their story wraps up.
But hey, what about the middle?
What about that super long, slow, often invisible and un-hyped part between the "I do!" at the altar and the final "goodbye"? You know, the part where folks are still figuring things out, still becoming—still showing up when it's tough, still hanging on when their faith feels a bit shaky, still wrestling with God, doubt, and what it all means in that messy in-between? The church, bless its heart, doesn't always quite know what to do with these "saints in progress." And look, this isn't just a tiny oopsie; it's a pretty big blind spot with real effects. This neglect? It directly leads to our collective wisdom getting a bit thin—we miss out on all those smart insights people get from dealing with confusing times and long struggles. It makes our communities more likely to go for spiritual shallowness, where faith is more about quick emotional fixes than real, lasting belief. And in the end, it means we, as a whole, kinda fail at building up that deep, genuine resilience—the kind that’s not just about bouncing back, but about getting stronger and wiser through the tough stuff.
These are the people who’ve been through some serious storms (not even their fault!), dealt with huge disappointments in their personal and work lives, and still chose to stick around in spiritual places that didn’t always click or even feel that welcoming. They’ve prayed their hearts out, with prayers that seemed to go nowhere, or at least didn't get answered the way they were really, really hoping. They’ve kept on tithing even when they were laid off and scared about money, forgiven when they’d been painfully betrayed, led ministries when they were running on fumes, and kept on loving even when everyone around them seemed cynical. They carry that undeniable weight of years—which gives them that awesome glow of wisdom but also, let's be real, some wear and tear. The absolute truth is that this "in-between," this daily hustle, is exactly where life and faith happen for real, right in the middle of all the stuff we juggle—families, kids, partners, jobs, extended family, helping out in the community. That’s where actual life, in all its sometimes un-pretty glory, truly goes down!
They’ve also seen, from the inside, how the institutional "sausage" gets made. They’ve been in those tense committee meetings where big dreams crash into hard budget numbers. They’ve seen both the amazing beauty of real spiritual connection and the frustrating, sometimes discouraging, messiness of keeping an institution going with all its human quirks. And yet, through all that, they’ve kept on believing—not like they’re clueless, but with a gutsy, eyes-wide-open kind of strength.
But a lot of the time, just because their journey isn't full of dramatic highs or easy-to-tell endings, they just don't stand out.
The institutional spotlight, often just by habit, tends to shine super bright on the newbies—full of fresh passion, excitement, and energy. Or, it lights up those who are near the finish line—experienced, widely respected, and nicely (often a bit too sweetly) summed up. This whole thing? It might just point to a bigger, really ingrained human habit: this restless, almost desperate urge to start at square one and magically be "done" in like, 24 hours. It’s a kind of societal impatience, a cultural hunger for the quick win and the overnight sensation, that always ends up downplaying or totally ignoring the super important, often messy, and absolutely vital middle part of growing, succeeding, achieving, and just plain living—and that can really mess us up! The middle just doesn't make for a great photo op; it doesn't have the built-in drama of a crisis or the neat wrap-up of a final chapter. It’s not all dramatic or clearly marked out. And because of that, it’s sadly so easy to just miss it.
And yet, the middle is exactly where real, tested, and solid faith gets built.
It’s where belief gets a serious workout without any flashy theatrics or a big audience. It’s where trust changes from a big statement into a quiet, steady, daily choice you make when no one’s looking. It’s where people learn that tricky, sacred skill of holding both deep gratitude and heavy grief at the same time, often in the very same moment! The middle doesn’t usually come with a round of applause, but it’s the very ground where spiritual depth is carefully grown. It’s where people make that conscious, often tough, choice to stay, even when staying doesn’t feel inspiring or emotionally rewarding anymore. This middle space, which we so often just write off as a transition or a waiting game, is truly where most of our lives actually happen, the main stage for our ongoing, often challenging, journey of becoming who we're meant to be.
That middle space might not be easy to market or package into a neat sermon series, but man, it’s undeniably sacred.
If we, as a church, just zoom past it—or worse, totally ignore it as an institution—we miss the very place where most of real life happens and where faith really shows what it’s made of. This is where real spiritual maturity gets shaped, not so much by big dramatic moments or amazing mountaintop experiences, but by the gritty, day-in-day-out practice of just keeping on. It’s not how famous you are on stage that proves your faith. It’s that long, often boring, stretch of ordinary Mondays, the habit of quiet prayers whispered when you’re alone, and all those countless private choices to love, forgive, and hope that nobody else ever sees.
What if the real invitation from God isn’t to somehow "graduate" from the middle as fast as possible—but to actually learn to honor it, to really live in it? What if being "in progress" isn’t some faulty stage you need to rush through, but a holy space to grow into, to explore, and to go deeper in? What if the church itself grew up, not by constantly trying to speed its members through the middle, always chasing the next big thing or program, but by intentionally slowing down right there in it, learning to really listen to the wisdom that’s found there?
So, if you find yourself in that space—not at the exciting start, not yet at the reflective end, but somewhere smack-dab in between—this is your heartfelt reminder: you are NOT behind. You are NOT overlooked by the One who truly sees everything. You are NOT less spiritual, less valuable, or less important just because your story doesn’t fit neatly into a cool highlight reel or a dramatic testimony.
You are living the kind of tough, deeply rooted faith that helps hold others up—not because it’s loud, flashy, or attention-grabbing, but precisely because it lasts.
So stay in it. Keep walking, even when the path isn’t clear and you feel like you’re not getting anywhere. Let the middle be holy. Becoming isn’t some lesser, warm-up part of the journey. It is, in every sense of the word, the journey itself!
Supplemental Information can be found here.
