Letters From Leavers

I’m not really sure when I was saved. I’ve always thought it was a process more than a moment, for me, at least. I grew up going to church, but with an agnostic dad and an openly bitter against the church mom (and what I considered a church-crazy grandma), it was more a rite of passage than anything anyone expected me to believe. And I didn’t really worry about it much. I started reading the Bible when I was 21, was Baptized (to join the church, which I thought was God’s will for me), and when I was 23 my husband entered the ministry. He served for seven years as a youth minister at two different churches, and I was very much involved in both ministries, as well as other ministries of both churches. I’ve taught classes, worked with kids, adults, teenagers, pretty much every age group and setting I could.

In our last ministry position, I became increasingly convinced that God has called us to love. There, I encountered people in situations where I often felt helpless to do more than love and pray. Be there. Make time. I saw the church more and more preoccupied with doing the “church activities” and caring less about the people that I believe need to hear the message of Christ. People they considered sinners. The atmosphere of that church was oppressive. Nothing was good enough.

My husband and I both felt stifled and unable to minister effectively. It was painful. We are both creative people and believe that community and relationship and UNCONDITIONAL LOVE are required in the kind of church we believe God calls us to have. Unfortunately, we were hurt in our relationships, stunted in our community, and frustrated by the disdain our church showed those less fortunate. Eventually, because we refused to stop the ministry we were called there to do, we were asked to leave.

Even though we were prepared for it, I don’t think I can explain in words how that scarred both of us. It’s been over a year, but the wounds are still as fresh as ever. At the time, I believed that God was opening a door for us both to pursue our creative ministries, but we have yet to come to the point where either of us are ready with them. It has been hard, that aspect, of knowing that something is of God, but others not getting it because it is not traditional ministry. But I feel there is a wall between that possible future ministry and now, and I believe I’ll never get to it if I don’t follow Him. But, I also feel I need the church to help me follow Him, because on my own, I am doing PITIFULLY when it comes to being GOD-Centered.

The context of my husband’s resignation felt like betrayal to me. People I loved and who said they loved me stabbed me in the back. They lied to us, everyone saying that they weren’t the ones who wanted us gone, it was someone else. But everyone said that. I am not kidding. Someone had to want us gone or else they wouldn’t have asked it, right? Even the pastor lied during a business meeting, when one of the youth got up and asked why my husband was being asked to leave. He said that my husband was leaving of his own free will. They asked us to tell the kids that we were, too, and tried to hide behind “because otherwise they might grow angry with the church, even leave.” Which, of course, many did. The manner in which they asked us to leave made us feel as if our ministry there was unvalid in their eyes. We felt that we gave excessively and in return, we were asked to go away. It still hurts, honestly.

I spent a couple months in another church immediately after it happened, but then I moved a couple states away, back home, as we’d moved away from “home” to minister in that last church. Since moving “home”, I have visited four or five churches, but my attendance is sporadic, and I have not committed to any church yet.

I really feel sad that I don’t have a church family anymore. But I am also scared of being betrayed again, scared of being drained by a constant storm of condemnation and judgment.

I believe that God loves me, although my once passionate Bible study and prayer time have become spotty. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help my husband want to go to church, either. But we both feel the same, when we look at shiny, churchy faces: “HYPOCRITE!” I KNOW DEEPLY that this isn’t true of anywhere near all people in churches, and yet after our last experiences it is impossible to know the difference.

I really wish I knew where to go from here. I have four young children and I want them to grow up in a spiritually sound atmosphere. I don’t want them to inherit bitter attitudes about the church. I want them to lead full lives, serving God. I just don’t KNOW and don’t have the STRENGTH to figure it out. It makes me very sad.