My Issues With The Church Got Worse

It Got Worse Before it Got Better!

In the late 90’s, my husband and I met some friends who were Seventh Day Adventists. Wendell and his wife were students of ‘The Word’ like I had never seen before. They were so filled with faith and had such a depth of understanding of the Word, that I was intrigued and allowed them to share with me what they had learned. But this time…I needed proof.

“Don’t just tell me what ‘you think’, Wendell.” I told him, “Tell me how you came to this understanding and then show me how to repeat that process for myself.” I need to know it and be able to study it on my own.

He introduced me to a new way of studying the Bible. It involved more than just relying on any one person for impartation. He taught me that until you are really ready to gain insight and understanding of it, The Bible will remain a mystery to you. He also showed me how to study history and sociology when looking to gain deeper insight into The Book of Life.

He opened my eyes to how the sciences support and prove the Bible to be true over and over again; including, Archaeology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Psychology and Astronomy.

Needless to say, I had a little more understanding. My faith in the Word was somewhat restored. I hadn’t resolved the whole church and money conversation, but I was open to learn.

I still didn’t attend any church and had very little trust in preachers as a whole. Now that I knew how to study – I didn’t see why I needed them.  I began to pick topics that I wanted to understand more and I proceeded to study them. I began to learn so much on my own that I felt like I was finally making progress, spiritually. Know what I mean?

During this time, my mistrust in preachers turned into a mistrust of Christianity as a whole. There was just too much negativity in the church, in my perception.  I never felt good enough or worthy. Instead I felt condemned, judged, and as though I should be afraid of God’s wrath. I just didn’t feel any ‘love’ coming from that ‘group’. Instead, I felt useless and quite honestly, in my heart of hearts, I felt that God wouldn’t want me to feel that way. Ever felt that way?

After all, I had big dreams and there was no-one in those churches who was where I wanted to be. Everyone was in need. There was lots of lack and a constant feeling that there would never be enough money, time, forgiveness, healing, good relationships, etc. There were no mentors in that environment.

I categorically rejected the ‘so-called’ Christian message and it’s self-righteous, hypocritical messengers and sought out a different method.

While it looked like I was lost and confused, this process actually helped me come to the some powerful conclusions that I hold as truth to this day. More about this on my next post…

Have you had an experience with the ‘Christian Church’ that made you question Christianity?

My Issues With The Church

As I grew older, I began to notice people in church leadership using judgment, fear and condemnation to manipulate or control the behavior of the people attending church. Did you notice that too?

And those same ‘guilty’ people would defend the manipulation and blame themselves for it.  It began to look like a very dysfunctional, and dare I say abusive relationship with the church.

I couldn’t reconcile the fact that God, who is love, would sanction that type of behavior from the church leadership. That couldn’t be GOD!

Then I went to college and I discovered that there were books that were intentionally left out of the ‘Holy Bible’ called “The Lost Books”. This made me question the authorship of the Bible even more. Could man have created and manipulated this ‘work’ just to control the masses? “Why? And to what end?” I wondered.

Then in 1987, it all made sense, so I thought. Jim Bakker, a televangelist, was indicted for fraud and that’s when I put all of the pieces together.

The ‘church’ was all about Greed ($$$). They are manipulating people into giving away all of their money to the church.  All the church wants is my money. There was no real teaching or understanding of the Bible and no true reflection of love, at all. My opinion, at the time, was that the Church was a poor representation of God and the truth in His Word. Have you ever felt that way? I know I’m not the only one.

To this day (aside from a few Sunday School Bible stories), the only ‘message’ I can remember from sitting in all of those church services was from First A.M.E. (aka FAME) in Los Angeles, CA. Pastor Chip Murray gave a sermon titled, ‘Give God your Beeper Number’.  [Don’t laugh at me…yes, I was a 70’s baby and yes, pagers were ‘all the rage’ back in the day. LOL] At the time, that was the only church that I could ever see myself attending more than once.

I even remember going to a church here in Atlanta that closed the doors and refused to allow anyone to leave until they met their financial goal. Can you imagine? That was the last straw for me. I had figured it out and no church was going to ever convince me to give them another dime. PERIOD! I didn’t want to have ANYTHING to do with Church, so-called Christians and their confusing book. I just had to trust that if I were a good person, everything would turn out OK.

It’s a good thing my curiosity didn’t stop there.

So, time went on. I didn’t step foot into a church for about 8 years and I was proud about it.

I made some great decisions and accomplishments. I also made some painful choices, and even endured lots of heartache. And I did it all without God, so I thought.

Have you ever been turned off by the ‘Church’, the hypocrisy, the judgment, condemnation, criticism and the blatant lack of love?

You’re not going to believe what happened next…

(Continue...My Issues with The Church Got Worse...)

My Childhood & The Church

As a child, my mother (Queen Mom) took us to church and I liked it for the most part. I loved the singing the most and I got a chance to play with the friends that I would only see on Sundays.

We often visited churches of friends and family and I learned that they were all very different. I know you can agree. I’ve attended Baptist churches, Methodist, Science of the Mind (Religious Science), and African Methodist Episcopal, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Islamic Mosques, Catholic churches, Seventh Day Adventist, non-denominational churches and Kingdom Halls (Jehovah’s Witness).

We even watched church on television (TBN) and that added a whole new dimension to what I came to know as “My Relationship with the Church”.

Having such a broad Spiritual exposure made me really curious about why God was so different to so many people. They all read the same Bible, so I thought. Have you wondered the same thing?

For instance, in some churches, women and girls were not allowed to wear pants, while men and boys were required to wear ties. Some wouldn’t allow women to wear makeup…which was BEYOND Me - HA! (My pastor jokes, “That’s not Holy, that’s Ugly!”)

Some wouldn’t allow girls to play sports. Some had women and men who would “Catch the Holy Ghost” and dance till they passed out during the singing. As a child I used to wonder why God would only choose those same few people to ‘touch’ every week. It was a mystery to me.

Some churches rejected members based on what they believed was ‘bad behavior’.  Most had an atmosphere of judgment and condemnation. And there was always an underlying feeling that you should be afraid of what God will do if you ‘mess up’.

Some were really quiet and the people would listen to the message in a very subdued atmosphere, while others had people shouting in agreement with the pastor throughout the entire sermon.  

I especially liked the ones that served lunch to the congregation after the service. :^) 

All in all, it was interesting to see so many different ways of experiencing God.

Church, for me, was never an every Sunday kind of thing. There were times when we would go every Sunday. Then there were times when we didn’t go at all.

Through it all, my mother (Queen-Mom) was always steadfast in the Word. She prayed every day. I watched her every night as she would fall to her knees beside her bed and pray to God. Although I strayed away from the practice, she did teach my sisters and me to do the same.

She imparted into us the importance of having a relationship with God, and she never used God as a means of manipulating us to do the ‘right’ thing.  Her answer was always, “pray about it”, even when I didn’t understand!  And we always would.

So, as a child, what was your experience like, with God or the church ?

As I grew older, I began to learn and notice some things that were very disturbing about the church. Things that made me question everything that I had been taught all those years. I’ll share more about it in my next post. 

(Continue to Learn about My Issues with The Church...)