Steven LaChance Blog

Sunday.

For many, it’s a day of church services, sermons, and hymns. For me, it’s a time of reflection. But not in a pew. Not in a building. And definitely not under the authority of an institution that has caused so much harm.

Here’s the truth: I am deeply spiritual. My connection to the divine is real, personal, and unshakable. But I don’t need a church to mediate that bond. In fact, I believe organized religion has done more to sever people from true spirituality than to nurture it.

Far too much hate, death, and pain have been inflicted in the name of the church. Wars waged, cultures erased, lives condemned and shattered—all while religious leaders cloak their actions in love. This isn’t new. Even Jesus clashed with the religious powers of his time:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.”

(Matthew 23:27-28)

Sound familiar? The leaders Jesus rebuked weren’t serving God—they were serving power, image, and control. Centuries later, little has changed.

And Jesus? He wasn’t hosting membership drives or building megachurches. He walked among the poor, the outcasts, the very people religious elites scorned. So, are pastors like Joel Osteen really following the path of Christ? What about the Catholic Church, with its vast riches and gold-covered cathedrals? I don’t think Jesus would approve at all.

“He overturned the temple tables because they had turned worship into commerce.”

(Matthew 21:12-13)

Yet today’s churches engage in those same practices and still try to claim a monopoly on God.

Some argue that church is about community. But does faith require a building, a preacher, or a collection plate? Spirituality is grounded in love, kindness, and connection to the sacred. So why has the church so often given rise to war? Why has it led to division and oppression?

Gandhi—a man who devoted his life to peace—once said:

“I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

That resonates. I believe in something greater. I feel it in silence, in nature, in acts of compassion. My spirituality is alive but isn’t bound by walls or validated by institutions. My conversation with God is ongoing and private. It feels more real than sitting in a pew reciting passages from memory—passages that often have little to do with the living world and the living word of God.

Spirituality isn’t about the past. It’s about the here and now. The answers we seek aren’t hidden in doctrine; they’re found in silence, in meditative thought, in private prayer.

So, no, I don’t go to church. Yet my spirituality runs deep. And I know, unshakably, that my connection to the divine is as strong—perhaps stronger—than those sitting in pews each Sunday, more out of obligation than a real desire to connect with the living spirit of God around us.

For me, my private conversation with God is enough.

It is more than enough.