We met in a coffee shop on a rainy Saturday morning, the wind blowing the bare trees across the way. They wanted to get married, but although both grew up Catholic, they had decided against being married by a priest. I asked why, then, they were talking to a pastor? Why not simply ask a Justice of the Peace, or find a notary to do the paperwork? And they answered with the statement we hear so often these days, “We’re spiritual, but not religious.” They believe in God, and they want their ceremony to reflect that belief, but they don’t want it to come with the trappings and strictures of the church that nurtured them.

“We’re spiritual, but not religious.” It’s not only young people who say this to us, and when those of us who are religious hear it, we almost invariably react a little defensively. What’s wrong with being religious? In church, I hope we can be both, connected by the history and tradition passed down to us but also in touch with the leading of the Holy Spirit, guiding us to new ways of being faithful to God and to Jesus Christ.

There is no question in this second decade of the 21st century that being church means something different than it did when I was a little girl growing up in Virginia or in the Maine of 50 or 100 years ago. We live in a world, for better or worse, where businesses open on Sunday, where people carry coffee everywhere and sleep with their iPhones nestled on their pillows, a world where weekly attendance at worship and Sunday School no longer goes without saying. When you meet a young couple and ask if they go to church, you’ll likely hear the same thing I heard, “We’re spiritual, but not…”

But aren’t we spiritual? I want to think I am, in the sense that the word means to me. Like the people who define themselves that way, I’ve experienced the transcendent in nature, walking in the woods or watching the waves break or looking west to Mount Washington while the sun sets. But I have also experienced the transcendent, literally something beyond my rational understanding, in the gasp of a gorgeous toddler surprised by the handful of water I’ve just laid on his red curls. Our rituals, our sacraments, retain their power as signs of God’s presence among us. The breaking of bread, repeated so many times, does not become dull or repetitive, but rather becomes amplified by experience. And whether we pass the little cups in their special trays or dip the bread into a chalice, we are both spiritual *and* religious when we experience the presence of Christ among us, a presence we cannot explain but can feel in our hearts and souls.

I think what we’ve lacked in many mainline churches is an inclination to talk about what our faith means to us, unless we’re in a very safe space or a moment of crisis. We’ve allowed the world to think we are merely religious, engaging in practices that are simply old-fashioned, something your grandmother does, not necessary for today’s world. When we close in on ourselves and insist on doing everything the way we’ve always done it before, when we hold to habits and traditions for their own sake, we write our own epitaph. When we’re reserved about the deeper reality of our faith lives—our spiritual lives—we miss the chance to connect with others.

And that’s what people are hungry for, what they are seeking on the Internet and in coffee shops, something they don’t believe we even care about in the average church of Congregational heritage. Really, they don’t even know what that heritage means. But we do. We know it means the freedom to figure out for ourselves who God is and how we understand the life of Jesus. It means agreeing to disagree when the person sitting down the pew from us sees Christ a little differently. It means leaving each other enough breathing room that the Spirit has some space to move among us.

In this second decade of this 21st century, I believe we’re being called to let our friends and neighbors know that church is not quaint or forgettable but real and meaningful, that the connections we make with one another and the world through worship and service can make our lives richer and deeper. I believe we’re being called to speak up and tell our stories, to share the ways God has touched our lives: in art and music, in nature and in relationships, and even in church.