In a recent post at First Things, Leah Libresco shared three simple ways the church (in her case, Catholic) could strengthen the sense of congregational community without embracing unhealthy practice.  Her second suggestion was to bring in more things to connect with “winter Christians.”  She explains:

Winter Christians are both intensely engaged with their faith, but also intensely stymied by spiritual dryness, doubts, a persistent sin, or some other difficulty. (They’re unlike “Summer Christians” who are joyfully drawn to the faith, and completely unlike people who like or dislike the church, but don’t yearn for it).

Community and worship done wrong often result in a short-circuited life of faith.  You can’t ignore the rain when it’s falling (and sometimes you don’t get to go out and dance in it, too).  A recent song from Andrew Peterson’s, “The Rain Keeps Falling,” lines up well with the “Winter Christian” concept, I think.  Here’s a performance of the song at the “launch party” of Peterson’s latest album.

One of my fears moving forward in life is being unable to articulate well the place of pain in the Christian life.  Something about how we have set up our explanations for evil and pain has created an unnecessary and dangerous disconnect with life the way God seems to see it in the Bible.  We ought not ignore the rain, but we shouldn’t be defeated  by it either.