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.

Things I was taught not to do

I was told not to be angry about things that happened at church. If I was angry about wrongdoing in church, I was told I was bitter. I was told to forgive and forget, to release it to God, to pray through… And if none of these worked I was told I could just leave, that maybe I couldn’t be saved, that I was in sin through disobedience to the pastor for being angry and not stopping my anger or for questioning ‘the man of God’ by being upset…

There are serious issues with all of these. Most importantly, it is not wrong to be angry about wrongdoing. Not ever. No matter where it happens. It is not sin. Its OK to be angry about some things. Anger can be positive or negative. (After all, even God gets angry.) And that doesn’t mean some anger is good and some anger is bad, but that anger can be used either for good or bad.

Bitterness is NOT being upset about negative things that happened. Again, there are things that we SHOULD be angry and upset about. Anger spurs people to action, and God never called anyone to inaction when it comes to sin.

‘Release it to God’ is what my former church told me to do when they told me to forget about things and pretend they never happened… that isn’t biblical or even human. Neither is ‘getting over it.’ Can we grow and heal? Yes. We can stop thinking about certain things repeatedly, we can stop dwelling on hurts, we can begin discussing or thinking of them without anger… it takes time. It’s not a magic ‘just pray through And God will immediately change everything’ thing most of the time, though. And it may start with being less afraid, of just breathing, relaxing a bit, and not condemning ourselves for being angry or hurt or frustrated, or for not understanding everything, or trying to force ourselves to forget things that are part of who we are.

Odd thoughts on communion

It’s New Year’s Eve, the time of the traditional watch night service, or foot washing and communion in many Pentecostal circles. It was one of the biggest nights of the year for me for the nineteen years I was “in,” and it’s a night that still brings many memories even after eight years “out.”

My views on communion have changed a lot since leaving. Tonight, considering some of the scriptures, I realized some things:

1) Regarding 1 Cor 11, which was always held as somewhat of a threat against us, “unworthily” has nothing to do with “sin in your life.” It has to do with eating selfishly, without consideration of others around you. The whole passage is about some people eating and drinking excessively while others remained hungry during the Lord’s Supper. Paul wasn’t warning them about being unclean or harboring secret sins. He wasn’t telling them to go on a soul-searching three-day fast, repenting of everything imaginable or “cleaning house” (literally and figuratively) before the once a year event, but of remaining considerate of others, shaming the church and disgracing the poor (v 22). This actually coincides with the very first Passover, in which the people were commanded to share the lamb with neighbors if the lamb was too big for one household. (Ex 12:4)

2) There was always debate and some shaming about who could take communion. Communion at Pentecostal churches was “closed” — so much so that they didn’t even serve communion in a regular service, but in a special one after hours. Visitors and children shouldn’t take communion, it was thought, because they hadn’t been baptized. My parent’s church (not Pentecostal) had taught this, too. Yet even strangers and foreigners could celebrate Passover, and communion is the New Testament “version” of Passover. (There were laws regarding how they should prepare, but they could participate.) (Num 6:14).

3) At the first Passover, they were slaves. I’m not sure how they all found lambs a year old, but I do wonder if this meal must have been an absolute feast to them.

4) It still amazes me that breaking bread in the Bible was an invitation to fellowship. Jesus broke bread and shared it, and invited us all to remember him through that broken bread. He invites us all into fellowship, both with him and other believers.

And so, I no longer participate in watch night services. And I’ve learned some things since last attending one.

Happy new year to all of you. May you find peace and freedom in the coming year.

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Grief and memories

I’ve been reading a book on grieving, No One Cries the Wrong Way. The author lists several ways to grieve, and it occurred to me that none of the ones listed works for those who grieve a loss like ours, because we are grieving a loss of a way of life and friends who are still alive but in many cases no longer speak to us, or at least don’t consider us friends.

We miss these people. We miss the church and aspects of the culture we left behind. We may miss parts of the routine, certain activities, and interactions with others who understand the group’s internal language and perspectives. At the same time, we may be angry at them and resistant to them because they’ve shunned us and failed us.

One of the things the book mentions that we can do is remember the good as well as the bad. We may not be able to share the good memories with our new friends, but we have the opportunity in support groups like this to share those memories with each other.

There’s nothing wrong with missing things about the unhealthy groups we left. There were good and bad aspects, and while we don’t want to go back, we can still miss the good things or the things that made us happy while we were there.

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It’s about relationship

I’ve struggled for years with Bible reading. After I was thrown out of a church in 2000, I started having more and more difficulty, but particularly after I moved to a new city and a new church. So for 16-17 years, I’ve struggled. I knew the push for reading the Bible in a year was part of the problem, but recently I’ve realized there is a whole lot more to it.

So much of what I was taught in the church I was thrown out of was oriented to a judgmental, punishing god. This was a god who wouldn’t answer prayers (at least not mine), who would stand by and watch as someone tried everything and was still thrown out, a god who would give up on people or turn his back on people. This was a god who would send people to hell for wearing pjs or brightly colored tights or a wedding band. Sermons that were respected were about god cutting people off, about people never being able to get back to god if they ‘fell away’, of warnings about people going to hell… I was told that they didn’t even know if I could be saved, and then was warned at the interim church I ended up in that I should never talk about what had happened or that I’d been kicked out, which added more fear to what I was already dealing with, and with no outlet but only shame and secrecy.

When I moved to a new state and a new church, there were many more ‘good’ sermons about how people were going to hell in addition to what I’d already heard. People quoted scripture at me to justify themselves and excuse their behavior as well as to blame me for whatever was happening. It became harder and harder under all the condemnation to see God in any other way.

I could see that the god my former churches taught about wasn’t a realistic picture of God, but I couldn’t reconcile what I read in the scriptures (as much as they’d been twisted) with what I thought should be a loving, faithful, forgiving, merciful God. So I avoided the Bible. I didn’t need another daily reminder of a malicious god.

In all this time, all these years, I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’d heard that God valued us or that he loved me personally. Not as a platitude, but as a real, heartfelt statement. I didn’t realize how much I’d been taught and how much I believed that Jesus died the death he did because he had to die the most gruesome death possible to take the punishment that I deserved. I didn’t realize the guilt or even the illogic of that — there are plenty of types of death that are gruesome and involve torture. Crucifixion was terrible, but men have thought of other gruesome modes of death, too. It’s not about my sin. It’s not about how awful I am, but about how much God wants a relationship with all of us — not so much that he would die, but so much that he came as a human, grew as a human, lived as a human, and died as a human, experiencing everything that we do in order to relate to us, even including death… to restore relationship. The one who relates best, after all, is the one who’s walked in our shoes. And so Jesus did.

Sin doesn’t separate us from God because he can’t be around sin… it separates us from God because we are too ashamed, too guilty, too whatever to be with HIM. God knew Adam and Eve sinned, but he still came for his walk with them in the garden. It was they who hid, not God. God never stopped trying to connect to us. Everything I was taught even as a child was so backward.

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Pants or not pants?

Pants for women has become a laughable argument in Pentecost.

The argument at my former church was that tights were fine because they had feet, so they resembled hose. Hose were not pants, and hose were for women, so tights were OK (at least in modest colors).

However, then came leggings and capri tights. Leggings and capri tights were NOT OK, even when worn under skirts, even when made out of the same material – or even a bit thicker material – than tights. Leggings and capri tights didn’t have feet in them, therefore they were not like hose, they were pants. Pants were for men, so leggings and capri tights were not OK.

BUT… Long johns were a type of underwear and didn’t show, so even though they didn’t have feet, they were OK, even though they were made just like leggings.

Leggings looked just like tights when worn with boots, but leggings were still wrong, even under a long skirt. (But tights were OK.)

Pajamas were not OK, with or without feet, because pajamas were pants and pants were for men.

Source: https://www.dhgate.com/product/feminine-chiffon-wide-leg-skirt-pants-long/184384882.html

Judge, ye. Pants or not pants?

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