"I'll tell you what keeps me coming to this church." The man who spoke was punching the air with his finger, pronouncing every word with force, and the dozen or so other people in the room turned to listen. The group called themselves the "Searchers Class," and had done so since the time, more than ten years before, when, as young adults, they had formed an alternative church school class. As the "Searchers" crept into middle age, the act of searching itself seemed to take more and more energy. Indeed, the whole business of being a part of the church at all felt, at times, like a burdensome weight, and on this Sunday morning that weight had tugged the conversation toward the question: Why stay in the church?

"I'll tell you," he said, "what keeps me coming to this church," and every head t…