Not sure where to begin with my story but I am glad I get to share it. I and my young daughters were a part of a church for 10 years. I was evangelized by my brother outside of the church. When I was ready he brought me into the church. It was new and exciting for me. I was officially a born again Christian. My first few years were heaven but then it began to collapse. I became more aware of the gray line, clicks, favoritism, gossip, and the cover-ups that seem to plague so many “churches”.

The church I was a member of encouraged me to become a good student of the word but they lacked living it. During those 10 years I became very heavily involved in ministry. I joined youth ministry, attended women’s fellowships, became a Sunday school teacher and towards the last few years I joined the choir. I’m not sure where things began to fall apart for me but I guess it was when “church” became more of a club. It was great to know and be fed the word of God but the church I was surrounded by the real church which the bible teaches are his people ( the people are really the church) were the opposite of everything I was being taught. Basically the internal conflict began. I went into overload, nothing was black and white, and everything was gray. I had grown weary and tired of the struggle but held hope that things could get better.

I was approached by a leader who had showed a romantic interest in me, and I thought what could it hurt. At first it was fine but then it turned into something that I was not ready to handle, and thus became another gray area I needed to battle. I didn’t know what to do. The relationship had rapidly transformed to something that had to be hidden. I thought that I could handle it of course, being a strong Christian woman, but I realized the longer it was kept hidden the more it had control.

During this time of struggle the Pastor was preaching about repentance and confession. It was the theme of the week I guess. See we were moving to a new building and the pastor said we needed to repent and confess our sins so that we wouldn’t enter this new building as the old us. He also said that some of us were not going to make it to the new building because of the spiritual state we were in. So of course terrified that I was not going to see this new building, and terrified that I had this terrible sin that I needed to confess, only drove me to keep it a secret. But I never stopped praying and in the end God had his way.

It took all that I had in me to confess, which wasn’t much. I had been so beat down with fear and the graylines that I didn’t care about the act of church anymore. I confessed first to my Choir leader. She was supportive of me and scheduled a meeting for me to confess to the pastor. I was terrified to speak to the pastor and more so terrified of the consequence once I confessed. But I would rather have confessed and be in God’s hands that to keep it a secret and continue in the church. I confessed with tears and he asked all the questions. He didn’t believe that I kept this secret out of fear. He said he was concerned that it was more of me being Jaded. He also asked how many people I had told because he was concerned that if I told anyone else that it would divide the church.

Once the meeting was over he said he would let me know on Sunday the consequence, and that he would pray with the other deacons. On Sunday it was asked that I and my children leave the church. He said that they could no longer be my home church but that I was welcome to visit. He further asked me to keep quiet for my reputations sake. He also asked that I not bad mouth the church and if he heard that I was bad mouthing he would tell the congregation from the pulpit what had happened. They also asked the leader who I was involved with to leave but then took him back into the church after a year.

Needless to say I am not a big advocate for buildings that call themselves churches. My experience was a nightmare and the only reason I am still alive today is by the grace of God. He has kept me and my children. And at the end of the day my leaving was the best thing for me and my children. I am now living and applying the word of God in my life. I have decided to never play church again. And this is why I am leaving the “church”.