(Part one)
If you’ve read any of my other posts, then most likely you already know that I didn’t grow up attending church. As both a child and an adult, I wrongly associated church with Christianity. Although I do attend church now, I don’t feel it is necessary in order to form a relationship with God. I do believe that being in a church building can be a positive thing. The one I presently attend has been a blessing for me, but in the past, that hasn’t always been the case.
Standing at several crossroads in my Christianity, I have realized the importance of not getting caught up in someone else’s idea of what it takes to be a Christian. After all, there are those who “play church” and those who are the church. It’s crucial to know the difference. I’ve sat in churches with people who hate the person two pews over, refusing to speak to them. More disheartening than that, I’ve listened to pastors talk about the importance of following God’s word in our lives and yet not demonstrating that in their own. I suppose situations like that are where the terminology “hypocritical Christian” stems from.
If you are one of those people who’ve used that terminology to describe what your definition of a Christian resembles, I apologize for those who’ve made you feel that way. What you need to understand is that Christians are imperfect people, as all people are, and therefore, you mustn’t keep from having a relationship with God because of someone’s idea of what a Christian should be. After all, the pastor behind the pulpit or those sitting in church don’t hold the key to eternal life, God does. We can’t allow someone else to take away all that God has to offer, simply because others aren’t what we imagine a Christian should be like. I almost allowed that to happen to me.
The first church that I ever attended, I loved the pastor, as well as my church family. It was the one and only church that I became a member of. Despite the peace I felt there, I was attending church for all the wrong reasons. I thought it was a shoe in to heaven, so that I might see my mom again. I was equally certain that in God’s eyes, I was doing the right thing and by default, I would never have trials in my life. Losing my mom was difficult enough, I wanted to get right with God and avoid pain at all cost. Crazy thing, something far worse than losing my mom happened to me during my four-year stent at that first church.
What I learned from that experience is that Satan himself can be sitting right next to you in a church, whispering into your ear with his negative and harmful words, but more importantly, I was beginning to see the power in God to take the worst part of my life and turn it into something amazing, but first I would find myself at many crossroads.
That first one came in the realization that I would have to leave the church I was attending and was a member of. Not out of desire, but out of need. Mainly because of one particular person who found it important to gossip about me and what was happening in my life. What I needed was comfort and understanding, but instead I ended up on the receiving end of gossip. Although in the moment of it happening, I wanted to isolate myself from the world, God didn’t want me to be alone. He simply wanted me to relocate to a place where I would find peace. He needed me to be fed spiritually in a way that would make me stronger in my situation, stronger in my faith, and He knew that I couldn’t do that in the vulnerable state that I was in.
It was that point in my life when God landed me in a church where no one knew me or my circumstances. In being anonymous, God had given me a chance to heal, to focus on Him instead of being the focus of gossipers. He wanted me to learn to be still and listen for Him, instead of being swallowed up by the noise around me.
Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10)
Being in that church was a gift from God and I am so thankful for the stillness it brought to me. My relationship with God changed in such a beautiful way through that stillness, and it was partly due to the pastor there, Sturman Moore. Pastor Moore was as close to God as any person that I could ever envision being. I found much more in that church than I could have ever imagined that I would. I never wanted to leave there, but eventually after four years, I felt the inaudible voice of God telling me it was time to leave. He was impressing upon my heart that I couldn’t get anywhere by standing still and He had other plans for me that involved leaving my comfort zone, the sanctity of Sturman Moore’s church.
I didn’t want to go, but I knew that I had to leave because my love for God superseded any apprehensions that I was having. Knowing God and His plans to never harm me, I suddenly found myself excited for whatever it was that God was planning to do next in my life.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
What He did next was to land me in a church whose pastor was the polar opposite of Pastor Moore, as well as my previous pastor before him. This new pastor didn’t seem spiritual and after visiting his church a few times, I made a notation on the back of one of the church bulletins, writing that I didn’t feel comfortable there. I’d visited several other churches after leaving Pastor Moore’s, several of which felt right to me, as I waited on God to show me where He wanted me to be.
It turns out that He wanted me to be in a church where I felt uncomfortable being in while visiting there. It made no sense to me that He was willing me to stay in a church where I felt so intolerable, instead of one of the other churches that had seemed so right to me. The irony of it was not lost on me. I was going from a place of well-being in my previous church, only to end up in a church where I didn’t feel at ease. God knew exactly what He was doing though, and it was all a part of what He was trying to teach me.
Eventually, I found my place in that church and even started working there. It was all a part of God’s plan for me. He had placed me behind the scenes in order to open my eyes to the truth of what it takes to be a Christian. The truth would first impact me negatively, dispelling what I imagined a church should be like, what a man of God should be like. Eventually, after overcoming the shock of what I was negatively experiencing in a church, I found the positive side of what God was trying to teach me. He was willing me to learn that my relationship with Him, depended on me and not a man behind a pulpit.
After nearly five years there, serving God in the way I knew that He expected me to, the negative atmosphere around me became too much for me to bear, and I found myself changing. It was during that period when God started willing me to leave the church, but instead of listening to God, I listened to the voice of others who were imploring me to stay. My joy and happiness had become fuel for them, they felt they needed me to stay afloat and I felt responsible for them somehow. God eventually made me realize that they were responsible for their own joy; their own relationship with Him, as I was responsible for mine.
Unfortunately, I didn’t catch onto that right away, and so I stayed when I should have gone. I found myself floundering as the light within me began to dim and instead of joy I felt anger. God’s warnings to leave continued and eventually I heeded those warnings, but it was perhaps a bit too late. I didn’t leave that church unscathed. Although I still clung firmly to God, something had broken within me. I found myself not wanting to pray, or read my bible, or my devotions. Things I’d always done on a regular basis. I simply couldn’t understand why I felt so angry.
It was then that God taught me a very valuable lesson, that one of the most dangerous paths we can take as Christians is to follow someone blindly without questioning things that we know to be wrong. Worse, to excuse their behavior in order to stay in our comfort zone. He had also taught me that I could not help anyone who wasn’t willing to be helped and that no one can have a relationship with Him without first wanting one and working to have one. Going to church each Sunday has little importance compared to what we do outside those walls. Status holds no value to God.
I was keenly aware that my new pastor/boss held much value in numbers; how much money was tithed each Sunday and how many were sitting in his church. I saw him devalue people who came to his church for help, favoring those who could benefit him instead. It was a church that should have been God’s, but instead was my pastor’s. I often imagined my pastor as the Levite or the Priest in the Good Samaritan Parable in the bible (Luke 10:25). Instinctively sensing that my pastor would never cross the road to help someone less fortunate than himself. It bothered me so gravely that I once asked of him if he felt that being a pastor for him was a job or a calling. My question angered him.
I eventually became disillusioned and that cynicism spilled over into my pastor’s Sunday sermons, as I found myself going through the motions of attending church, and not receiving anything from his message. That was probably the first time when I felt God nudging me to leave there. I realized that I was in a losing battle, trying to change my pastor’s behavior. God gives us free will for a reason. I felt certain that my pastor was using his, for all the wrong ones, and so I tried bending him to my will, of which I had no power to do. God needed me to use my own free will to leave that church and to quit my job before my pastor changed me in a way that I wouldn’t like. It had already started to happen.
Had I left when God had wanted me to, perhaps my departure wouldn’t have been as ugly as it ended up being. I saw a side of my pastor that damaged me both heart and soul, but the biggest harm to me came from those who did nothing to protect me, those who stood idly by, and never questioned our pastor’s behavior toward me.
It was a hard thing to get past, to work through, to forgive, but then God reminded me that as Christians (the “being the church” kind), we will be persecuted and we must forgive all, even if that forgiveness isn’t reciprocated.
As painful as my departure from that church ended up being, I no longer question why God had placed me there, I know for certain why He did. There are wolves in sheep’s clothing and sometimes as Christians, we have to stand up to that wolf. Otherwise, we will find ourselves allowing others to teach us their own version of God’s words through their actions. Christians are flawed people, but as Christians, it is our job to hold other Christians accountable. It’s okay to mess up now and again, but it’s never okay to be intentional in it.
I am glad that God allowed me to go through what I did at that church, and equally as glad that the experience is behind me. I learned from my time there that pastors are not God; they are merely men and that all men need to be held accountable. God is the only voice that matters, and if we need to remove ourselves from a negative environment to hear His voice, (even if that is a church building) then we need to do just that.
It was yet another crossroad that I’d come to, and yet I still had much more to learn. Perhaps the most valuable lesson of all, God would teach me, at my next church . . .