Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

by Rachel Held Evans

Are you struggling to connect with your church community? Do you find yourself questioning the core beliefs that you once held dear? Searching for Sunday, from New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans is a heartfelt ode to the past and a hopeful gaze into the future of what it means to be a part of the modern church.

Like millions of her millennial peers, Rachel Held Evans didn't want to go to church anymore. The hypocrisy, the politics, the gargantuan building budgets, the scandals--to her, it was beginning to feel like church culture was too far removed from Jesus. Yet, despite her cynicism and misgivings, something kept drawing Evans back to church.

Evans found herself wanting to better understand the church and find her place within it, so she set out on a new adventure. Within the pages of Searching for Sunday, Evans catalogs her journey as she loves, leaves, and finds the church once again.  

Evans tells the story of her faith through the lens of seven sacraments of the Catholic church--baptism, confession, holy orders, communion, confirmation, the anointing of the sick, and marriage--to teach us the essential truths about what she's learned along the way, including:

• Faith isn't just meant to be believed, it's meant to be lived and shared in community
• Christianity isn't a kingdom for the worthy--it's a kingdom for the hungry, the broken, and the imperfect
• The countless and beautiful ways that God shows up in the ordinary parts of our daily lives

Searching for Sunday will help you unpack the messiness of community, teaching us that by overcoming our cynicism, we can all find hope, grace, love, and, somewhere in between, church.

• ISBN10: 0718022122
• ISBN13: 9780718022129
• Publish Date: 21 May 2015 (first published 14 April 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Thomas Nelson Publishers
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Beth C.]

As someone who grew up in the church, and left when it became apparent to me that far too many of those within said church believed in saying they were Christians FAR more than actually *being* Christian, I find myself drawn to Rachel Held Evans' works. She has a way of putting to words the frustration that I felt, and still feel, with the way so much of the church has become "Do as I say, not as I do". This book is no exception. It is full of grace and kindness, and conveys her struggles to reconcile all the different pieces. It truly is a tragedy that she passed when she did, as I can only help but wonder how much more she could have shared. However, I'm thankful she had time to share what she did, and this book will stay on my shelves.

[lovelybookshelf]

I picked up this book during a major slump, when my cynicism level was through the roof and I couldn't even muster enough interest in reading. I had a feeling Rachel Held Evans would give me a boost, and sure enough, she did. It is comforting to find someone else who “thinks too much” (admittedly, overthinks at times), who struggles to fit in, whose first reaction tends to be more like suspicion than anything else, who cringes at platitudes, who craves freedom to doubt and think through tough questions. Most of this reading experience was like having Evans voicing things I’d had racing through my head these past several years. If you’re feeling disillusioned about the church, this is a must read.

More of my thoughts on this title can be found on my blog at Lovely Bookshelf.