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.

When the church divides, part 3

After leaving my final Pentecostal church, I was a little surprised to learn how distrustful I was of others who’d left. When we left, most of us didn’t interact with others who’d left. We didn’t trust each other. Our pastor had preached that we had ‘left God,’ and though each of us knew that wasn’t true of us, we didn’t know if it was true of any of the others. He also preached that there were people who’d left who spied on us, even window peeping on people in their homes, and reported back to him. When we left, we were exhausted with the gossip and rumors. We didn’t tend to run to someone who might add to it. When we left, we left individually, divided, distrustful.

Even while I was in church, there was division. There were cliques. There were lies and gossip and rumors… and they spread very quickly. Unfortunately often much more quickly than the truth.

Gal 5:14 The entire Law is fulfilled in a single decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out, or you will be consumed by each other.

My pastors had emphasized that we must leave family and friends for God. Now I see other passages.

Gal 5:19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: …discord, jealousy… rivalries, divisions, factions, 21 and envy; drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Even the verse that the pastor finally used against me in service was surrounded with warnings about the divisions I was witnessing, because

Prov 6:16 There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him:

Is followed by a list of those things (which our pastor rarely listed), three of which warn against lying and gossiping:

17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

That surprised me. He used Prov 6:16 to shame me in front of the congregation because I whispered a verse to the woman sitting next to me. He used it to show that he had a right to hate, a right to call things abominable… and he used it while doing things that GOD called abominable in the very next verses.

When the church divides, part 1
When the church divides, part 2
When the church divides, part 3
When the church divides, part 4

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

When the church divides, part 2

I ran into a pastor and pastor’s wife I’d once known. The wife asked where I was living, and if I’d attended a certain church. Then she told a sad story. Her daughter had a happy marriage, but suddenly began expressing concerns. Someone (the daughter wouldn’t say who) had told her they felt in their spirit that her husband was cheating on her. There was no evidence of this, and the man denied he’d done such a thing, but she still struggled with what she’d been told.

My former pastor, who’d spent some time with her daughter, had done this sort of thing more than once. Within a year of being thrown out, I’d heard from a couple who’d also attended: they’d left after the pastor had told their son not to let them see their grandchild, even though they attended the same small church. They finally left, humiliated and confused. Their son also left, but still didn’t trust his parents. He moved away with the grandchild, and they were rarely able to see him or speak to him. On top of that, an elderly widower in their tiny church got married, then was told he shouldn’t have married without the young pastor’s permission. He got the marriage annulled.

The control that pastor had over people and the number of people he divided, raising concerns, alluding to ‘sins,’ and saying he’d discerned things that there was no evidence of and that those accused denied was eerie. I’d been thrown out of the church under similar conditions. The pastor was convincing enough that I even believed what he was saying ‘was in my heart,’ even though I couldn’t give one reason or one indication that I’d done or thought anything wrong. Since he was able to convince me I’d sinned in ways I’d never considered, it didn’t surprise me that he might have convinced people that others had done things even if there was no evidence.

I left, others left, but his accusations haunted us. I don’t think any of us believed them after everything that happened, but it was hard not to believe them. We’d been convinced he knew things about us that we didn’t know, that our hearts were deceitful and wicked and only he knew – because God told him – how bad we were. And having believed such things about ourselves, it was no surprise that even close friends and family members, even spouses or kids, believed things he’d said about those closest to them.

When the church divides, part 1
When the church divides, part 2
When the church divides, part 3
When the church divides, part 4

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

When the church divides, part 1

Mt 10:35 For I have come to turn
‘A man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
36 A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
37 Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me;

Mk 10:28 Peter began to say to Him, “Look, we have left everything and followed You.” 29 “Truly I tell you, said Jesus, “- no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for My sake and for the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundredfold in the present age—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, along with persecutions—and to receive eternal life in the age to come.…”

We heard passages strangely often at my former church, and there was a pride in choosing church over family members who weren’t ‘in the church.’ The church, we were taught, was our real family. Family members and friends ‘in the world’ (who weren’t members) could begin attending if they wanted to see us. I didn’t realize at the time, but this was a huge red flag as to how they would treat those they disagreed with IN the church. We were as dispensable to the pastor as the family and friends he taught us to leave behind. And we were learning to simply dispense people even as we were led to believe we were following Christ by doing so.

Putting church before people made sense at first. But Jesus wasn’t saying that a man should leave his wife, or a son or daughter should no longer honor their parents, and he certainly wasn’t saying that he had come to break up families…

When the church divides, part 1
When the church divides, part 2
When the church divides, part 3
When the church divides, part 4

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

When the church betrays us, pt 7

Even after I walked out of that last church, the one that I’ve written the most about in the past and the one that finally did the most damage to me and others, I tried to find another Pentecostal church to attend. I still believed they had The Truth. I still believed that they were right about everything but maybe had just made a mistake or two. Surely the problem was just a person or two. Surely it wasn’t widespread.

I called. I asked pastors if I could please go to their churches. Only one agreed to let me come. I asked the pastor there to do just one thing: don’t tell people where I’m from. I was greeted at the door by a member, “Oh, you must be Mary from ____ church! What happened? I know people there. I’ll ask.” The pastor had already told them where I was from. The gossip had already begun. And then the pastor smilingly told me that he understood that I didn’t want to talk about it, but that he knew some things about that church, himself, and he thought we ought to go out to eat and ‘swap stories.’ I knew then that I would have to leave Pentecost.

It took me 19 years.

What do we do when the church betrays us? I stayed as long as I could. I stayed longer than I should have. I finally left. But the ongoing impact of what happened has remained. I don’t have any answers for what to do when church betrays us, but there are some things that churches and Christians in general can do to help:
Listen.
Believe us.
Don’t pressure us to participate, to join, or to share. Give us time.
Love us. Not with a “You’ll go to hell if you don’t do what I say!!!” ‘love’ but with genuine compassion and mercy.
Provide opportunities to belong to faith communities outside of traditional ‘church.’
Remember that not every wound is visible, and not everyone will say they’ve been hurt. Be kind to everyone, whether they believe like you do, or act like you, or are members of your church or not.

What can we do, we who’ve experienced betrayal? Perhaps the same things.
Don’t pressure yourself, and don’t pressure others.
Give yourself and others time.
Believe yourself. It’s hard for some of us to believe that we really went through something ‘that bad’ in a place we thought should be good, but it happened. Believe yourself.
Trust your instincts.
Love yourself and love others with genuine compassion and mercy.
Be kind.
Remember that others may not see your wounds. You may not even be aware of all of them at first. It’s OK. It’s OK if it takes time to heal. It’s OK if you feel worse the second day than the first. Healing takes time. Growth takes time. And sometimes both come with pain. But it’s OK.
Be patient with others and consider their perspectives. They may not believe like you do or act or dress like you, but there may still be much to learn from them.
Be willing to diversify your friendships. Having friends with other opinions doesn’t speak badly of you, but instead gives you an opportunity to learn more about yourself as well as them.

Peace to you.

When the church betrays us, pt 7
When the church betrays us, pt 6
When the church betrays us, pt 5
When the church betrays us, pt 4
When the church betrays us, pt 3
When the church betrays us, pt 2
When the church betrays us, pt 1

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

When the church betrays us, pt 6

I thought I would leave everything behind when I moved to another state. All the gossip and rumors would be left in my previous state. I could start again. And for a very short time, they seemed to be. Then things changed. A girl told the pastor I’d invited her to stay with me when I hadn’t. She moved in and then started rumors that I was overcharging her. She borrowed things in my name and didn’t return them. People said I’d stolen them, even though she was the one who took them from them.

Finally, the roommate arranged a group to go to the mall. Single people weren’t supposed to go out without chaperones. She arranged for five of us to go — a couple who the pastor had said shouldn’t be going out, her, a man who was interested in me, and me. I refused, the church office found out, and they got in trouble. I’d made enemies, and they were enemies who would not forget, and who quickly began discussing why I had come to their church. They were sure it wasn’t for good reason. I was “a cloud without water, a wandering star” just going from church to church. One of the worst possible accusations there… I was a move-in.

Then the pastor died, and the pastor who’d thrown me out showed up to the funeral. A new pastor came, one that was known for his hard preaching, and he invited an evangelist friend of the man who threw me out. That evangelist told several members to beware, that he felt there was something wrong with me. I tried to remain true to what I’d been told, not to tell anyone about being expelled, but in time there were too many questions. I told the new pastor what had happened.

Shortly after that I began being called into the pastor’s office, yelled at, accused, and questioned. I stayed. I stayed as people lied about me, as I was falsely accused without any opportunity to respond. As soon as the first lie was told, I was declared guilty. The Bible warns against leaders judging a person without first hearing them, but the church did that to me and others on more than one occasion. They condemned before they had real information and sometimes even on only a feeling or a thought that a leader said he had.

In doing so, the church betrayed us. It also betrayed itself.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.