For almost two decades, I scrambled to get my kids in a church pew and looking presentable on Sunday mornings.

This didn’t always go so well: One Sunday, we got halfway to church before I noticed my two-year-old, safely strapped in his car seat, was still in his pajamas.

Another Sunday, my then pre-schooler headed down the aisle in front of the entire congregation, as his pants, abandoned by a forgotten belt, fell down around his ankles.

I was nonetheless determined to do the right thing by my own mother, who drove me and my three sisters to Catholic school and daily Mass when she and my father could barely afford the car to drive us.

Like a lot of young adults, I took a hiatus from regular church attendance during college and into my late 20s, returning full force only when I had children.

I returned to the religion of my youth, albeit the Episcopal denomination, because I’d been taught church is what good people do.

I returned because I wanted my children to be in community with tolerance, gratitude, and giving back.

I returned because I hungered for spiritual sustenance.

Apparently, this was not enough.

I stayed the course for 20 years, ultimately becoming a vestry member, the leader of adult education programming and a member of the theological education study group at my church. I read the great masters of the world religions and participated in intensive theological study groups. I occasioned different churches and different denominations and even worked at some point with a spiritual counselor.

But try as I might, I couldn’t resolve certain questions of faith.

When infighting broke out in the national Episcopal church over the consecration of a gay bishop ( see article here), the ugly name-calling and self-righteous accusations in the name of God were more than I could reconcile.

And so I quit.

As an adult, I know I’m not alone in my leave-taking: the modern American church is undergoing a historic decline in attendance. According to the American Church Research Project, regular attendance is down to an unprecedented 18 percent, partly because of disillusionment like mine. Other reasons for not attending include: not enough time, no interest, different belief system, lack of belief in organized religion, don’t believe church is important, church doesn’t speak to their modern understanding.

But I am not just an adult.

I am also a mother.

And any mother who makes a personal decision – no matter how well thought-out or how necessary for her own well being - if it affects the rest of her family, she worries.

I worry that my absence from church undermines the spiritual quest for my children, who only occasionally attend church now with their father.

I worry that my not going to church dilutes the importance of the values the church has helped me uphold.

I worry that it’s unequivocally true, that active church participation in and of itself reduces binge drinking in college, dramatically lowers the risk of young suicide and improves a child’s odds for a “very happy life.” (Read the full article here.)

Or maybe kids who go to church are already from good families that automatically lower those risk factors.

Maybe, by watching me live into one of the most wrenching decisions of my life, my children will have the courage of their convictions when a similarly difficult decision befalls them.

Maybe because of my actions, my children will learn the value of authentic spiritual discernment.

Maybe, even, they will become change agents for the institution and the religion, which every denomination, every theologian from the most evangelical to the most progressive, is calling for.

I can’t know the outcome of this conflict any more than I can know whether I will ever again find the appropriate home for my spiritual longing.

We still say prayers at night and before meals. We still talk about the values upheld in every major religion. I heartily support my 16-year-old daughter who goes to youth group on Sunday night on her own, where she is co-president. I talk to my children about their spiritual journey. I tell them about mine.

Meanwhile, the guilt, whether a remnant of my Catholic upbringing or inherent in the very concept of a mother making such a decision for herself, is at times wrenching.

Meanwhile, all I can really know is that by deciding not to go to church at this point in my life, I am being authentic to the deepest parts of myself.

And that can’t help but serve my children, too.

- Debra-Lynn