I worry that I will get caught up in something negative again if I go to church. The fact that I get excited about church, that I want to be involved, that I can throw myself into it so easily and so quickly concerns me. But should I be afraid? Should I be concerned about this?
I’ve been attending a church that I have learned and grown in. I haven’t been there long, and I do disagree with several things on some pretty deep levels. But I’ve grown. For the first time in years, I’ve found myself praying. I’ve been interested in reading about theological issues again, sometimes even the Bible. These are good things, at least for someone who wants to believe. And yet I’m scared that I’ll get caught up in something there that is not good.
I’ve been focusing, with church and faith and such, on finding a healthy place. That has evolved into finding a place where things are presented in a way that I agree with. Yet this is actually in itself not healthy. I’ve looked at churches and tried to find one that was fool-proofed safe. Yet this type of place probably doesn’t exist on earth.
Sometimes maybe it’s better to stop looking for the perfect place and the perfect people. Maybe it would be better to identify ways to counteract any unhealthy impacts of various things in life than to try to insulate myself from them. Maybe.. yes, it makes sense, but it’s not easy to decide to do. Kind of like stepping out into thin air… or onto water. But I think it’s time to try.
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Author: Through Grace
I was raised in a somewhat unhealthy church group within the Nondenominational Christian Church. After graduating high school, I began attending a United Pentecostal Church (UPC). I've been a member of four UPC churches and visited many others. Of the four of which I was a member, I was "encouraged" not to leave the first and then later sent to the second; attended the second where an usher repeatedly attempted to touch me and the pastor told me I should not care about the standards of the organization and was wrong to do so; ran to a third at that point, which threw me out after a couple years; and walked out of a fourth. For these transfers and because I refused to gossip about my former churches, some called me a "wandering star, a cloud without water" (Jude 1:12).
I love the fact that when the blind man was healed, questioned by the Pharisees and temple rulers, and expelled from the temple, Jesus went and sought him out. He very rarely did this once someone was healed, but for this man, he did. I believe God has a special place in his heart for those who are abused, wrongfully accused, or condemned by religious leadership. I believe He loves those who are wronged by churchianity--yes, churchianity, not Christianity, because those who do these wrongs follow a church, not Christ.
1 John 4:7-8
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
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