You won't hear it in church very often. It probably won't be obvious if you look around you. Most likely, though, someone around you is in the process of internally tearing apart tenets and building blocks of their faith.

This happens all the time. It's not uncommon for people to walk away from the religion they were raised in, but most of us see that from a distance. We don't get to watch it play out in real time.

What's more compelling news in our 24/7 cycle is when one of the mainstays of conservative Christianity finally and spectacularly denounces the faith that so defined them. That's what we saw when Joshua Harris went from being the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, to being the lead pastor of a megachurch, to being, well, not a Christian anymore.

It's not so interesting that many have found reasons compelling enough (to them) to set aside the faith. No - if we're honest with ourselves, most of us have had challenges in our own faith. It's different for each one of us, but there can be questions of whether God is really out there, whether Jesus really rose from the dead, does God really care about us, etc.

No - what's interesting is how the church responds when someone expresses a crisis of faith, or begins asking questions that feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, in my experience, when those questions are voiced, those in the church often take a defensive posture and treat it as a challenge to their own faith.

In a defensive reaction, we almost never address the content of a concern. Instead, we're much more interested in making sure the concern doesn't derail everything else we have constructed in the way we follow Jesus. One person is expressing doubts, but we can't allow that to get other people off track, especially new believers who may be more vulnerable to such thoughts. Someone feels like God doesn't care about them anymore, but we can't let that distract our efforts to bring the gospel to more people.

Many times, the questions just don't get voiced at all, because those thinking and feeling that way envision the above reactions. And it's not like they don't have a reason to. After all, they've seen other brave souls go through the process, only to see their church circle the wagons to protect the "faithful", not addressing the concerns or providing skilled soul care, but instead almost driving the questioner out.

Here's the thing: when someone deconstructs, it is almost never for a single reason. It's not like they were perfectly happy walking through the Christian life, only to discover that one weird thing that threw them completely off kilter.

We like to boil it down to simple things when we see those stories. They didn't believe the Bible anymore. They wanted their vices more than they wanted Jesus. They just didn't like the new pastor's personality.

We can go for the simple explanations because actually understanding someone's journey through something so personal is really quite difficult. In reality, we can't always expect people to come right out and tell us what the root cause was for walking away from the church.

Please understand: it's perfectly reasonable for people to conceal something so intensely personal and so connected with the most vulnerable parts of their being. Unfortunately, that can leave those remaining in the church with the impression that there wasn't a "legitimate" reason to begin with.

But as a Christian's faith matures, myriad reasons come up to leave that path. As we grow up in Christianity, we begin to realize that following Jesus isn't nearly as simple as it was made out to be in Sunday School.

The Bible is hard to understand - and there are parts of it that are really hard to accept on a human level. The abundant life Jesus promised often seems beyond our grasp. Many Christians refuse to treat others with basic human dignity, and some perform atrocious acts leaving nothing but trauma in their wake. Some stories of suffering are just hard to understand - why would God allow it?

Many of us don't allow ourselves to think down those lines, for the sake of faithfulness. We try to think accepted thoughts on certain scripture passages, and not stray too far from the norm - take every thought captive. But I think others of us are naturally more honest by disposition, and we give ourselves permission to feel some of these realities much more deeply. When we do, the answers are difficult to come by, and the surrounding emotions are not easily resolved.

For anyone going through questions of faith, experiencing doubts about the way they were taught to follow Jesus, and wondering if God really cares, that's a hard path to be on. We should not expect those on that path to flip a switch and magically be back to raising their hands in worship every Sunday.

No - every one of these precious people is in the midst of grieving a loss. Loss of the sense that they fully understand what it means to be Christian. Loss of the part of them that used to trust that God loves and cares for them. Loss of the years of their life spent following a tradition in some cases that may not really reflect the Jesus they've been trying to follow.

When the church is defensive, it doesn't allow people in pain any room to process that grief. There is no room at the inn, we have a program to follow, better get on board or get run over. Some pastors have even stated it that baldly, in so many words.

But for the soul in turmoil, that drives them away. They sense it's not a safe place to process. That's not caring for the soul. Instead, it's punishing the human for being human - something so inherently illogical that they walk away out of self-preservation.

Of course, Jesus deserves to be followed to the end. Of course, we ought to be faithful. But we also ought to be honest with the God who knows our hearts anyway. We ought to be able to be honest within the community of believers that our experience doesn't always live up to what we were taught Christianity looks like. And we ought to have grace.

The soul with sickness needs aid and care, not a drill sergeant. Leave room for grieving losses. Remember our Lord sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane.

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