Author: Random Thoughts

I was a member of a UPCI church for 18 years. I left just before Thanksgiving 2012. I did not leave because of abuse directed at me specifically nor did I leave due to questioning standards. It was what was going on in the church, the gossip about some people. And I had sat on the pew for about 2 years wondering "Where is Jesus? What have they done with Him?" It was truly "Christianity Without the Cross" even before I had heard of that book. I joined Lois Gibson's SA support group that November I left and am glad that I am no longer associated with my former church. And I am thankful for Lois's efforts to educate people about spiritual abuse. :)

Don’t brag about your good deeds

Matthew 6:2-4 New Living Translation (NLT)

²When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do—blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. ³But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. ⁴Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

Today it is so easy to let a lot of people know what you are doing or not doing. Just go to your Facebook account and start typing (or what ever social media site you use). Then the ones who receive your message may decide to share your good deed and everything else with all their friends. Pretty soon it has gone around the world in about 15 minutes.

I have seen posts like this: “I am going out to buy Christmas gifts for a family whose kids would not have any Christmas otherwise. Pray that I find lots of sales!!” Then almost immediately there are the responses: “Oh what a wonderful person you are!” “How nice of you to do that for that family!” “God bless you as you go out to find the right gifts!” and etcetera.

According to scripture (above) that is all the blessings and praise that person will receive. They won’t get a special jewel in their crown for telling everyone they know what they are doing. (“I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get.”)

I don’t know why people are this way except they need to have praise from men (people in general). I think it is they don’t know what Jesus has to say about it (Matthew 6:2-4). I saw and heard of this happening, maybe not a lot, but enough times in my own former church that it just made me cringe. Even before I left. I don’t mind someone showing a gift they are buying for a special person in their life but to brag and call attention to buying for a family who cannot afford to buy for their kids is just against Bible Scripture. (“Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”) It does not or should not matter if anyone else knows you did this kind deed.

The Pharisees drew attention to themselves and would stop in the middle of the street and suddenly start to pray so they would get attention of those around them. In Pentecostalism this would be akin to suddenly bursting out in tongues in the middle of a busy mall or store. Just to get attention. Or jumping up in the middle of your place of work doing the same. Jesus did not have kind words to those he called hypocrites. Would you not rather please Jesus than man?

By the way Jesus is very much easier to please than any man or woman on earth. And that is the Truth!

A one way street

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them. -T.S. Eliot, poet (26 Sep 1888-1965)

Substitute “church” for “world” and maybe “pastors” for “people” and you have what happens in an abusive/cult-like church. Maybe they don’t mean harm to others (some don’t and some do) but they don’t care about the harm done. I don’t think they even consider what harm their words or actions might be, but we as the congregation they preach to are expected to be very mindful to NOT harm the pastor or any of his family with our words or actions. Truly a one way street. They can beat us up verbally and spiritually but we are not allowed one word in question toward them.

Loyalty should go both ways

“The only people I owe my loyalty to are the ones who never made me question theirs.”
― Joe Mehl

Were you loyal to your pastor? Did he ever question it?

We had an exodus of about 20 people one year. All at once. It sure took me by surprise. I thought some of them were taking extended vacations that Thanksgiving holiday. But then I realized they had left. Gone. Just gone. I thought “Wow, why, what happened?”

The pastor was obviously upset by it. We lost some of the best workers in the choir, Sunday School and bus ministry we had. How were we going to carry on?

I never did know all the whys and wherefores of that exodus. But it seemed to have something to do with the ones in charge of the Sunday School not being able to fully do their job, which was being very creative. Suddenly (as I remember it happening) we went from doing some really fun things to back to the “old way”. (I thought there was a lot more to it, but I was not privy to all the information).

The pastor suddenly was uncertain of everyone and their loyalty to him, not trusting anyone at all. We had meetings with the department heads (I was one for that year) and all he talked about was how the people who left had been his friends one moment and then enemies the next. We got very little done in the meetings. We began hearing this from the pulpit the same thing. One moment he would be preaching away on a topic and he would suddenly stop and go on about how people had “hurt” him and he was certain more would do the same. We were to be loyal to him. He was the pastor. We were to respect him. He was the pastor. Our leader. This went on for years. Really.

He did not trust any of us. He seemed to think all of us were thinking of leaving. He always told us to “get over it” when we thought he “hurt our feelings.” (He sure was not getting over his “hurt feelings.”) Anytime someone did not show up for church and did not call him, he knew they had left. It was just that we might be sick and just didn’t think to call. Or something had come up, we didn’t always consider his feelings. We were not being loyal to him. We didn’t mean it, really.

I always felt loyalty should go both ways. I have your back, you have mine sort of thing. We came to church and paid our tithes, praised the pastor’s preaching with “amens” and the singing (lead by his wife) with our worship. We were to accept his leadership without question. Sometimes he would say something and someone would tell him that what he said hurt their feelings. He would preach about that later and tell us, “So what if I hurt your feelings? Too bad! Get over it!” After a while I know I stopped feeling sorry for him (so did some other people) as he would go on and on about how people hurt his feelings and made him not trust the rest of us. It didn’t seem we were on a two way street here after that Exodus. I think most of the congregation was over it way before he was. Of course, in a way, we were not directly affected by the exodus the same way the pastor was. They were only our friends. He was their shepherd, pastor, leader.

Those of us left were sure we would never leave that church or pastor and would remain loyal forever. But some of us trickled out over the years just the same. I am not certain but I think his feelings of insecurity toward all of us after that time affected us more that we realized.

How can you be totally loyal to someone if your loyalty is called into question just because a group decided to leave?

Although my leaving took place about 10 years after this incident, I have wondered if there was a change in my thinking or loyalty that helped me out the door.

Arrogance in the church? Nah.

“One thing is for certain about the Amish. They are a modest bunch of people. They will never condemn you for having another religion as they believe that arrogance is a sin.” (From 26 Amish Facts You Need to Know – Sportingz.com/news/26-amish-facts-need-know/26/)

I never thought I was an arrogant person but after being in my former church for 18 years, I think I had become that way. No one had any truth unless they went to our church. No one knew how to pray, how to worship unless it was our way (noisy and active). We had ALL the TRUTH. It was our duty to try to get people to come visit our church (and of course stay) and become one of us. Surely we were not arrogant. We just wanted people to know the truth.

We did the Saturday morning visitation thing of course. I remember going out with some of the other girls and women. A couple of the teen girls had knocked on a door and the person told them to go away. They went away and “shook off the dust from their of their feet against them….” (It is in the Bible – Acts 13:51). I remember thinking “I hope the people in that house did not see them do that.” It did not seem very Christ-like to me even then.

Small children raised in that church could point out all the women they saw that were not dressed right (skirts/dresses only and down to the ankles, no slacks, long sleeves not above the elbow, and no short hair except for men). People of other denominations sometimes were ridiculed from the pulpit and of course we all “amened” that.

If people didn’t look like our church members, then they did not have the Truth (as we saw it, as it was taught and preached to us which was not necessarily what was in the Bible). It made us feel special, called by God, God’s Chosen People. We had Church, with running, dancing, singing, loud music and the louder the better. All other churches were considered “dead” because they did not “worship” the way we did.

Does God always want all that noise? There is a time and place for everything. Maybe sometimes we want to leap for joy before God. David did. Sometimes we want to play the music loud. That is in Psalms. But sometimes we should just be quiet so we can hear that still, small voice talking to us. Prayer was never quiet. How could any of us hear God? How could we feel God move on us? We only had good church if we went late, with an hour altar call with screaming, dancing, louder and faster music. Being slain in the spirit, chattering in tongues, kicking off shoes.

Judging people for how they dressed or worshiped; people who were different in their churchiness. Arrogantly feeling sorry for those who did not have the Truth. But it was all outward appearance and what we did in church and how many times – oh, those other people who went to those other churches only went one hour Sunday morning. Just think how much they are missing by not going several times a week.

People are different. God made us that way. We like to gather with others who think the same way and that is OK, but don’t begrudge anyone else from thinking and doing differently. Don’t isolate yourself from so many others who may just have a good way to worship God even if it is different.

Judgmental

I recently did a search to see Susan Boyle perform her first time on Britains Got Talent. When Susan Boyle walked out onto the stage everyone from the judges to the audience was skeptical. She was frumpy, a bit silly, and said she wanted to be like a particular female singer (can’t remember the name) and everyone snickered. Then the music cued and she opened her mouth and eyes opened wide and mouths dropped to the floor. She sang I Dreamed a Dream – it was her dream to be a professional singer.

It reminds one of other stories like Beauty and the Beast or more likely The Ugly Duckling. Perhaps Susan has not transformed into the usual beautiful princess in the world’s view, but her voice is absolutely beautiful. She has done six albums and bought a 300,000 pound house (not sure how that translates to US dollars).

I said all that to say that being in an Apostolic church where everyone is judged by how we dressed and what church we attended it makes one pause. I once looked out the window at work and saw a boy with blue hair. I forget exactly what I said but a coworker/supervisor walked by and said, “Now, now.” It caught me off guard as I thought anyone else would agree with me. I was probably thinking “Blue haired people go to Hell.”

What is that saying “don’t judge a book by its cover?” I know I have seen many things since my exodus from that church that I would have been judging by its cover. But what is inside? Underneath? Did we ever see the beauty and kindness of a person because they did not look like us?

When someone would get the Holy Ghost we then began measuring the women by how long their hair was getting and their pants changed to dresses/skirts. The men only had to shave off mustaches and beards if they had them and cover up tattoos with long sleeves. We had to have them conform to our standards in order to not judge them.

Below is that first video of frumpy Susan showing everyone that you just can’t judge by what you first see.