Letters From Leavers

It’s Sunday morning-very bright  sun streaming through the high windows of a very strict, fundmentalist cult-like demonination’s Sunday School–everybody but us are headed start to Hell, ha, ha, ha! I decided on this particular Sunday as the teacher was talking and the Bible was open that what she saying and what it said were different. So I decided then and there “I don’t believe in God”.  I also decided if I ever believed in God, I’d believe what the Bible said not what man said. It has taken me 50 years to realize what I didn’t believe in was the ”church” not in God.

From that day for the next 13 or so years I went the church every Sunday because I was required to. I was baptized in water at 12 because every body would wonder if I didn’t.  I went to one of the demoninations colleges and took all the Bible courses. To the college because I was made to “it will straighten her out”. I took Bible courses because I was looking for God. I challenged all my professors with questions and made the highest score ever made on the Bible entrance exam. Finally, because my questions were disrupting to classes, they let me take the courses that thier “preacher boys” took. The President of the college had to approve because this demonination doesn’t believe that women should “usurp authority over a man” and a female taking theology was unheard of in 1966.

I left that college after 2 years and went to a major university. “To become a psychologist, to save the world” because I knew it needed saving. At the “Christian college” I had a drinking buddy, he had gone to the university a semester before me. He introduced me to his roommate. The roommate was a believer. He fell for me and we married. He told me years later that he had to pray and pray for guidance before marrying an “unbeliever”.

 After several years I was saved, we were attending a “house church” in 1972. I would term them now as missional, then they accepted me when I didn’t even like them, they had agenda at the time and just lived their lives one day at a time.

 In 1974, a job transfer moved us to a litte conservative town in the northern part of Alabama. We looked for a church for months, then were “lead” to a ”church plant” for a major Pentecostal demonination. Far cry from our little house church. We were the first family, outside the 3 founding families, to become a part of it. When we came there were 14 people including 8 children. We stayed, over the years worked and taught and lead and did whatever needed to be done and God grew the church. While at the church, I grew and learned. Over all these years I continued to study the Word and truthfully many times had to put things that didn’t square between the church and the Word on a shelf. My husband felt this was where we were to be, that settled that.

Over the years from 1974 to 1998 the church had only 3 pastors. The first 2 were elevated within the demonination and hence left us. My husband and I continued to work and loved the people and the things we were lead to do. The 3rd pastor was different, had little respect for the Word seemed more interested in how things looked. He left for a “better opportunity”. The church was pastorless for 6 months and grew. At the time we had a base of about 120 regular members and 150 who came in and out.

 Then the “bishop” decided we needed a pastor. He brought one in from California.  One month after the new pastor came, my husband died. For the first 6 months the pastor seemed ok, but didn’t seem to know the Word. Also, he started calling his wife co-pastor. No one on the church board was consulted about this. Nor when they cancelled Sunday night services and removed the cross from behind the pulpit. From June 1998 until March 2003, lots of things changed and lots of people left.

Because of the death of my husband for 4 of those years I was in a fog. After about 4 years I started addressing concerns about sermons and other issuses with the pastors. They were now called co-pastors. Several families left because the female pastor accused them of “threatening me and my children” Sermons began to be stories and often times the Word was never read. Prayer was banished as was communion. My questions were answered with, “you know you are still mourning and aren’t seeing things clearly”. I knew I was “seeing things clearly”. I went often to them, I did whatever they suggested and spent time and effort in trying to support the “pastor’vision”. The church went from loving and accepting to “if you don’t agree with what comes from the pulpit you can leave”. This was said about every Sunday from the pulpit. They had a “prophet” come in who preached “Pastor’s words–Word of God or matter of opinion”.  Also, “Are you a son or a servant?” The idea being a son supports the Father(pastor), a servant is a hireling and doesn’t support the pastor. When I went and addressed these concerns directly, I was told don’t worry just submit. I did so for several more months. During this time, friends, people who I had fellowshipped with since 1974, stopped talking to me and would walk away when I approached them. Also, the pastor came to me and said, “I don’t allow any one to threaten my wife or my children” and  “if you want to continue to attend here you are not to talk to anyone and not come near my wife or kids.” I remained for about 6 more months, the last straw was during a visit from the above mentioned “prophet”. During this “revival” the female pastor grabbed a young girl who had never attended the church before and had the “leaders” hold her down because she had “demons”.  The girl had quietly go forward during the altar call. The teenager and her mother were horrified. They ran from the building when they let her loose. This prophetl atter called for the “leaders” of the church to show their support for the pastor by carrying him around the church on their shoulders and proclaiming praise for him and his wife. Some of the “leaders actually did this.  I left after the next Sunday. I told 2 families that I had loved and that never stopped talking to me that I was leaving. Telling them I didn’t know where I was going or really why. Truthfully, at the time I didn’t. I believed at the time a Christian must attend and be submitted to a church. During the next 3 years I went from one church to another and settled in 2 for at least 6 months each. Never felt right. I read and prayed and studied and worked in these churches. I went to a church conference during this time on Servant Evangelism. The pastor of the sponoring church told us about a man in the church who had attended for 3 years and came to him wanting to know “who is this Jesus that I hear mentioned every once in a while”. The man was a dentist and this pastor thought it was funny that someone had attended his church for 3 years and had to ask about who is this, Jesus. I came home and I quit church. Never quit the Word. What I have found is that I thought the church and God were the same thing. I now have a life with God and attend a church. Where am I going? I don’t know, but I have learned that God is faithful and that His Word is truth. Shortly, after I quit church, I went on line one Sunday morning and googled “loving God and hating church”. From there I found out that I am not alone and that God and church are not the same. I had decided at 7 that I would believe the Word instead of man but it took me 50 years, 30 of them in the church to know the difference in worshipping God or worshipping the church.