Category: experiences in church | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Finding a Church Home

As my work schedule has changed to enable more time off and affording opportunity to find a new house of worship, I find it to be quite a challenge. What issues have I faced in this quest? Allow me to begin.

One reference in finding a new church home can be found in this Reddit post. It is one of countless articles one can find on the topic. Some challenges I found include:

TITHING
Several churches I visited preach a good bit on compulsory tithing as part of membership in the church, even to the point where they incorporate the prosperity gospel message – the whole pressed down, first fruits, and being cursed if people don’t tithe – that didn’t sit well with me. I still get memories of preachers who live well at the expense of the congregation.

DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES
Each of the different churches I visited to this point have differing doctrinal viewpoints. My core beliefs, rooted in Oneness teachings, remained solid (Oneness of God, Jesus’ Name baptism, infilling of the Holy Ghost) yet at the same time I knew better than to enter into a debate at any congregation I visited. My goal was to seek fellowship and realized I was a guest in someone else’s house. If that meant agreeing to disagree, that was okay with me. I also noticed a political variation among congregations, including some churches’ stand on defending Israel, even if the government of that country committed wrongs. If God held Israel accountable in the Bible for its sins, then in my opinion it isn’t considered antisemitic to question the actions of the Israeli government.

FEELINGS OF BEING WELCOME VS. TOLERATED
One of my major struggles throughout my lifetime is seeking an environment where I am truly welcome as opposed to being tolerated for as long as I am deemed useful. Previous churches I visited seemed to be a good experience until I realized my views were different from the congregation I visited. My concern was that at some point my welcome would wear out and I would need to seek fellowship elsewhere. In my quest, I visited four different congregations; three were non-denominational and one was UPCI.

One of the non-denominational churches seemed to be more welcoming to me, and I made several visits; I visited the UPCI church in Bartlesville this past Wednesday after visiting my daughter. I visited that particular congregation in 2005 when I was on leave with my children’s mother while still in the Navy, so I thought this would be a good stop on my way home. I was in for a rude surprise. While I held to core beliefs common to those in attendance, I had a strong sense things were off. First, I noticed they had gone more off the rails when it came to tithing, basically embracing the prosperity gospel more than when I was active in the UPCI. The visiting preacher (the pastor was out of town) devoted part of his sermon to uplifiting a prominent UPCI evangelist whose stories were proven to be grossly exaggerated, yet still is given credence. As the service ended, I felt really conflicted. I had to ask myself, and most importantly God, why did I visit a church affiliated with the same organization I was given the boot over a decade earlier? Maybe my being there was to show me how far the United Pentecostal Church as an organization has fallen and the visit was for my education.

RESULTS OF MY VISITS
Finding a new place to worship and have fellowship won’t be an easy process. I could very easily find myself being like unto what Jesus Himself shared.

Matthew 8:20 – And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

If God who walked among us in the flesh had no permanent place, then I am in good company.

Your Unhealthy Church Experience Also Affects Others

Have you ever stopped to consider how your unhealthy church involvement affected more than just you? Stop and think about that. It doesn’t matter if you were single or married, an adult or child, born into it or you entered on your own later in life – your unhealthy church did more than affect you, but it also reached out to others you knew, be it family, friends or co-workers. We often talk about what it did to us who were members, but it did more than mess with us.

For some, it brought about a marriage that never would have happened if they were not members of the church & for others it brought about a divorce because one party felt unequally yoked. Others cut off family and friends because they would not join or were considered backslid, while some considered the church members more of a family than their natural family and therefore neglected family members. Church events were always more important.

Some members relentlessly witnessed to others, causing them to lose friends and even jobs. Others developed a holier-than-thou attitude, causing other divisions with family and friends, because they felt better and superior to outsiders. Even churches of a same group will play the holier-than-thou game, and dismiss similar churches and ministers simply because they differ in some beliefs.

For those with children, the unhealthy church may influence them to stifle their child’s interests if they happen to conflict with a church belief. The child who does not wish to be part of the church may be told they have to find another place to live. On the other hand, sometimes the parents are not members and kick the child out because they do not want them attending the church.

I could go on and on about the multitude of ways that being involved in an unhealthy church affects more than just you. It hits husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, children, siblings, other family members, friends, co-workers, employers, employees, neighbors, classmates, acquaintances and even strangers.

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When Ministers Put Church Above Their Own Families

In wanting to cover some ways men are particularly affected by spiritual abuse, let’s look at how the mindset often leads to ministers neglecting or mistreating their own wives and families.

Unfortunately in unhealthy churches, a minister often puts church above his own family. Members and church activities come before them. At the same time, the children feel extra pressure (possibly from both members and their father) to uphold the rules and appear spiritual and the wife may feel even more pressure in those areas.

There is also another side to this. While some ministers may be extra hard on family members, some let family get away with things that they would not let a regular member do. In other words, the rules for family are different from rules for members and you’d better not mention this. Some ministers may suddenly change a rule when their own children are older and want to do something that was previously forbidden.

At my former unhealthy church, the pastor’s wife once shared with me that she didn’t feel her opinion mattered. She felt pushed aside. Another minister who was friends with them, shared that the pastor promised him he would treat his wife better. This was when he was in his 60s and been married a long time. That is sad and I don’t know that he ever did. While some pastor’s wives can be very pushy and expect the red carpet to be thrown out for them, this pastor’s wife was certainly not that way.

It is very hard on a family when the minister husband and father treat church members better than them- when they have time for the needs of others and not family, when they can always work on things that need to be done at the church and not at home, when they are not there physically and/or emotionally for their own family yet are for others. This is certainly not what God intended. While ministers are called to be servants, they are not called to neglect their own familes in the process. But in unhealthy churches, their focus is wrong.

This has helped to cause some preacher’s kids to leave church and/or faith in Jesus. In some of their minds, they feel if God wants them to be neglected or mistreated, if God doesn’t care about their needs, why should they follow Him? Through the years I have operated my website and support group, I have encountered quite a few disillusioned and hurt PKs.

When men are taught, or learn from the example of others, that church is the most important thing in their lives, it harms many people. What is even more sad is that they are often blind to the fact that they are neglecting or abusing their own family.

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I overheard a church discipline meeting

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on November 30, 2018.

So last night I was closing up for the night at the coffee shop where I work, and there were these people sitting at a table who go to an evangelical-ish hipster church in my community.

I’ve seen some of their events advertised on Facebook and I talked to them when they were part of a protest this fall. Working two jobs means I encounter many people in different spaces and sometimes it overlaps because I live in a small community.

I had mostly good feelings about them. They’ve been very friendly with me and easy to talk to when they come into my store.

But I didn’t like the tone of this meeting. They told one of their worship team members that everyone is trying to make their lives less busy and more “intentional” and he needed to be off the worship team for a few weeks.

I have no idea what sin he allegedly committed. It’s probably not sexual, because usually the punishment would be longer than a few weeks. Maybe he didn’t read his Bible often enough.

The whole thing felt off and not good.

The leadership woman who’s about my age was confronting the guy with the pastor sitting beside her, and they got him to sign this paper about church discipline.

I thought I heard her tell him, “Now this doesn’t mean stop coming to church, because then you’ll never play on the band again.”

“For me to get on the platform and sing, there’s certain requirements I have to meet,” she said.

I just kept mopping around them, silently, slowly losing more and more trust for them. The words they used were harsh and I didn’t feel like they valued him. They kept making it seem like they were the spiritual ones and he was not.

I couldn’t hear the entire conversation, and I don’t know everything about the situation. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. But it’s a story I know all too well.

They told him over and over the pastor was there for him, and if he needed to talk to him during this period to please reach out, but that it was his job to seek help like he was this bad, lost person.

It felt like a total power trip. This poor guy was sitting there all shame-faced trying to survive this awkward situation, like he had no idea what they had planned to talk to him about. Like he’s just trying to not lose his community.

I’ve been in his spot before.

It’s disorienting to feel like your people are making you feel like you’re not a part of them for some perceived spiritual failing.

It hurt a lot to see people who are supposed to represent Christ treat another human this way. This is not what Jesus would do.

Note: After this happened, I asked two pastors that I trust if they would ever consider having a church discipline meeting with someone in a Starbucks. They both said they thought it was unethical and possibly humiliating to the person to have a meeting like that in a public place.

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Dear Church

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on May 1, 2017.

This was originally posted by my friend Travis last year on his Instagram.

It’s a moving letter, explaining how a lot of people in the LGBT community feel about the church, loving it and just wanting to be loved and embraced in return.

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dear church,

there are millions of us. millions who just want you to understand.

millions who want to belong. millions who have been turned away where faith, hope, and love are said to abound.

we are LGBT+. we have many different struggles, pasts, and paths. but yet we are still human. we want to be a part of the things you are doing. we simultaneously feel the love of a savior and the condemnation of the saved— the latter is why many of us won’t be in your building on Sunday.

as we have grown and matured, we found our way through life, broken, alone, and silent. we didn’t talk to others about our struggles. we bottled them up so we could still be a part of the joy that comes from being around others who believe the same as us… but eventually, it’s not enough. we all come to a point where we cannot hide who we are any longer. we open up and tell the masses, while at the same time, your doors close.

your eyes no longer see the person you once saw, and without saying it, we know you see someone who is unworthy of your love, time, and affection.
when we come out, there is such a relief and joy that overcomes us.

but you feel it is your responsibility to quench that. you stomp on our joy until it is no longer breathing. our newfound hope and happiness is quite literally put to death inside us.

so… many of us choose to follow Jesus on our own, without the community of believers we once had and still need. it’s lonely here, but we have a savior who still listens and wants us to live and gently teaches us how to breathe when we forget, shows us the love and compassion we need to spread, and gives us everything we don’t deserve to have.

but church… we still want to belong with you. we still want to be a part of what you’re doing. we want to be in your building on Sunday, worshiping our Creator, hand-in-hand with you.

open your doors, open your eyes, love with your hearts, and please, don’t let us stay in the cold any longer. we’re freezing.

too many of us are falling apart without you. our silent cries for help are slowly but surely tearing us apart until there’s nothing left.

so i have one question for you, church:
will you love us?

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