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Leaving An Unhealthy Church #19: Watch Your Focus

When one is contemplating leaving an unhealthy church and/or is questioning teachings or events, they can lose their focus if they are not careful. They can also be influenced in a wrong way by those who have left Christianity or have deep unresolved issues.

I want to give a word of advice in this area. It is important to use caution in where one gets advice and even where they may hang out, not necessarily seeking advice. Some things can pull on those of us who have been (or are in) an unhealthy church, but will play a part in our losing our focus.

Let me give an example regarding my focus comment by using another subject so that you won’t have to try and guess at what I mean. I’ve participated on several online discussion type groups through the years, going back to before I started the spiritual abuse web site. Through my experiences, I’ve learned that it doesn’t pay to go round and round with certain type people. Some people, while at first glance appear to want to discuss an issue or ask questions, only want to pull people into their little web where they end up wearing out and frustrating the other person. They really don’t listen to and consider what is shared. They love the attention they get, too.

So what happens to the unsuspecting soul who gets entangled in the web? They lose their focus and they waste their time. Perhaps their objective was to teach people about a certain matter. But by becoming caught up in their web, they find themselves having less and less time for what they purposed to do because the round and round in posting has gotten them distracted. It can be addictive, too. Then at some point, they come to themselves and realize that the other poster doesn’t really want to learn about whatever the subject is and have taken them on a wild goose chase.

I know about losing my focus as it has happened to me in the past. Some situation will arise that you get pulled into more and more. Before you know it, you’ve gotten off the trail and find yourself beating through the wild growth in front of you. Yet when you realize what happened, it usually doesn’t take long to refocus.

In addition to the focus issue, some who are in this place become involved with people or groups that are not a healthy place for someone who is in a vulnerable position. That doesn’t always mean that the person or group itself is bad or whatever, but just that it may not be good for someone while they are in a vulnerable position.

Let me also try to give an example. There are some people out there who have as their goal to help people who are leaving and/or have left churches. But the way in which they help is unhealthy. They may encourage bitterness or acts against people, or may belittle Christianity or tear down the Bible. While one may receive some form of help in a place like that, it’s also an environment for all kinds of bad seeds to be planted in your mind. If the seeds take root and grow, you may find yourself walking further from God than you ever expected to be.

Another example would be becoming involved in a group that was Christian, but also gave freedom for all kinds of false teachings to be introduced and encouraged. Sad as it is, some people go from one unhealthy church into another. Someone is always ready to offer you “more” than what you had before- more excitement, more seemingly spiritual happenings, more money, etc.

I just felt to share a word of warning to those who are yet in the midst of questioning teachings or things that happened to you or if you are yet contemplating leaving your unhealthy church group. Be careful who you get encouragement from and what kind of advice and counsel you receive. Take care to not become involved in groups that promote every wind of doctrine that blows down the road. And, in what may not be seen or recognized as a bad place to be, take care to not lose your focus. Keep your focus on God. Keep your focus on seeking out the answers to your questions. Don’t be pulled into things that will take you from getting what you want and need for your recovery. Use your time and energy wisely.

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Standards and Some Conservative Pastors

Conviction or peer pressure, or just wanting to fit in or obedience to the pastor? It appears most unhealthy churches have a list of standards they impose upon members. While they will tell you that they are founded upon the Bible, there are some who will admit it is up to each pastor to set these rules, whether or not one might find them in the Bible. There can be a lot of pressure upon people to fall in line.

There are those who abide by such standards that will tell you it was God himself who convicted them to follow. Some will say their pastor hardly ever mentions standards, but peer pressure from those around them convinced them to fall in line. Some others, because they believe they must obey what pastor says, adopt the standards though they do not believe God started them. Yet others will change simply because they wish to fit it and not stand apart from the others. There are also some that study and believe that the church is right and that God instructs these rules.

The new person is given some leeway and isn’t expected to incorporate all the standards at first. Yet as they attend more, and especially if they wish to become involved, they start to feel pressed to do so. This pressure could come from one or more sources- the pastor, the other members and themselves. It could be due to a Bible study the church gives. It could be subtle or blatant comments from members. It could even come from strangers online in discussion/debate boards. I don’t know how many times I have seen ministers post online, to those they do not know, and tell them certain standards are necessary or the person will be lost. Just the thought of losing out with God is enough to cause many to become adherents to these standard teachings. Fear can be a great motivator.

One man once wrote regarding standards, “The conservative pastors have little to no tolerance to those that preach a softer message; those pastors don’t even approach their own congregations with humility. It’s their way or the highway.”

I want you to stop and ponder something. Consider what Titus 1 states about elders (NLT): “6 An elder must live a blameless life. He must be faithful to his wife, and his children must be believers who don’t have a reputation for being wild or rebellious. 7 An elder is a manager of God’s household, so he must live a blameless life. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered; he must not be a heavy drinker, violent, or dishonest with money. 8 Rather, he must enjoy having guests in his home, and he must love what is good. He must live wisely and be just. He must live a devout and disciplined life. 9 He must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught; then he will be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it where they are wrong.”

Does this admonition jive with a pastor who has the attitude of, “It’s my way or the highway?” Does this sound like someone who should demand compliance to whatever they teach?

Need more to convince you? Listen to 1 Timothy 3 (NLT): “This is a trustworthy saying: “If someone aspires to be an elder, he desires an honorable position.” 2 So an elder must be a man whose life is above reproach. He must be faithful to his wife. He must exercise self-control, live wisely, and have a good reputation. He must enjoy having guests in his home, and he must be able to teach. 3 He must not be a heavy drinker or be violent. He must be gentle, not quarrelsome, and not love money. 4 He must manage his own family well, having children who respect and obey him. 5 For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church? 6 An elder must not be a new believer, because he might become proud, and the devil would cause him to fall. 7 Also, people outside the church must speak well of him so that he will not be disgraced and fall into the devil’s trap.”

If the pastor of the church you attend is different from what is described above, you need to prayerfully consider if they are someone you should listen to. They may be a self-appointed pastor, concerned with building their own kingdom, instead of someone with the heart of a servant and called by God. If they are adding to the Good News, with lists of demands you must obey, run! Titus states that such “are turning whole families away from the truth by their false teaching.”

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Practices Not Seen In The Bible

There are a number of things which happen in churches that do not get questioned by members and they should. Things are accepted and perpetuated because new people come in, witness what happens, and accept that this is the way something is done.

In Apostolic churches, they will tell people they are lost if they do not speak in tongues (because they teach that is the initial evidence of receiving the Spirit). This creates an unhealthy atmosphere as many people struggle to get this alleged evidence, all the while feeling lost and possibly rejected by God in the process. Some never do.

Many of us never stopped to think while reading the New Testament, that it never speaks of things being done that we see in some churches today. When people spoke in tongues in Acts 2, 10 & 19, it shows no one screaming in anyone’s ears, holding up their arms, grabbing their chin, pounding on their back, wailing while waiting for it to happen, and all of the other things that may be seen today.

I once shared a five minute video that showed people praying with a young male, who supposedly started speaking in tongues. At some point after it was shared, they made the video private.

In the video you could see people talking to him, some yelling, “Come on!” They got by his ear or right in his face and either talked to or yelled at him. Some pounded the floor or stomped their feet near him. They wailed and had concerned looks on their faces, even after he said he had the Spirit. Most everyone was making noise at the same time while he lay on the floor and periodically thrashed around. There really wasn’t much else he could do since he was crowded by church members. It was intense.

There were many hands placed on him. They grabbed his arms, sometimes moving them around. They touched his legs, head, chest- even hitting on his chest. How were any of these actions supposed to help him speak in tongues?

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Differing Church Standards

There are no standard standards in many unhealthy churches. Another way to put it is that standards may change from church to church, group to group and even from area to area. Here is something one man wrote regarding his unhealthy church background:

“Of course, I can’t say the church was all bad. They pretty much blow off all of the UPC standards and do what they want. It was the liberal church in the area after all. The skirts seemed mandatory but honestly it would have been better to just allow pants because any skirt was appropriate (I mean any). This church being completely different than my Uncle’s church also confused me because my Uncle was strict on the standards of holiness. Typically, the guys that were very obedient and religious would say very cruel things about young ladies who wore a skirt too tight or a shirt too low (at my Uncle’s church). But at this new church it was all good or at least I never heard whore and slut being thrown around freely. Though I wasn’t big on the standards this did confuse me because if these standards were somehow guided by the Spirit then did the Spirit change its mind from place to place? Was it a different God? Beards are disobedience one place and not another?”

If one were to never change from one unhealthy church to another and/or never visit another for special services, they may never see that the standards preached in their church are not across the board for everyone everywhere. They do vary and sometimes there is a tremendous difference in what is preached.

Now, some will tell you, as a woman told me and another lady at the Worldwide Pentecostal Fellowship conference one year in Gatlinburg, that there will be variations as each pastor sets the rules for the churches. But is this biblical? Does each pastor have the right to demand 24/7 compliance to their own set of rules? I do not see this taught in the scriptures.

As a for instance, there was a United Pentecostal pastor in Arkansas who had a rule that one cannot be a member if they are male and have facial hair. He would not have fellowship with other UPCI pastors who allowed this. This is despite the fact that the organization does not have a written policy against facial hair and that he himself admitted that the Bible does not teach against it. He would not budge from this position. His views actually created division in the organization because of how he would stay away from pastors who do not feel as he did on the matter. He believed he had every right to do this as the pastor and yet he agreed to not contend for his beliefs to the disunity of the organization when he became licensed.

Do we find any instance of this in the New Testament church? Did Paul demand dress codes that Peter said were not necessary? Did James forbid facial hair on men while John allowed it? You will find nowhere that this happened and none of the apostles or Jesus taught that pastors could make up a list of rules and demand that believers follow them.

The Bible states that God is not the author of confusion. Vastly varying standards from one church to another are confusion. They do cause questions, as the man above wrote, “if these standards were somehow guided by the Spirit then did the Spirit change its mind from place to place? Was it a different God? Beards are disobedience one place and not another?”

But the pastors will say that God has lead them to teach these rules. I think not. God does not continually change his mind from place to place. When he gave the law to Moses, for the Israelites to follow, he did not give one set of rules to some of them and another to others. He did not say that some tribes could eat animals that another tribe could not. He did not say that the elders of each tribe could set up arbitrary standards and demand that all in the tribe follow them.

If you are fearful of a pastor, if you follow standards to please the pastor of the church you attend, you are probably in an unhealthy church. You should not fear a pastor. You do not have to obey standards that he sets up that are not given in the Bible. We actually have an incident in the book of Acts where a group of believers was trying to demand that Gentiles be circumcised. A meeting was held in Jerusalem and this is what was stated in the letter given to all the churches as follows:

“The apostles and elders, your brothers,
“To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
“Greetings.

“We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

“Farewell.” (NIV – read all of Acts 15 for yourselves)

Think about it.

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God’s Love Is Not Conditional On Your Performance

Unhealthy churches often place a focus on what we do, or rather, what we fail to do. There is usually a list of rules by which one is expected to abide. Sometimes these may change, making them more difficult to follow, and sometimes there are hidden, unwritten rules that one doesn’t discover until they break them. They regularly remind you that you are falling short and displeasing God. Will you ever live like is expected?

This mindset that such an environment produces, causes people to believe that God only loves them when they are keeping all the rules. His love becomes conditional upon their performance. This thinking throws faith out the window. It is no longer about what the death of Jesus means to believers, but about what we must do to please God and remain in his favor.

Some reach a breaking point. They believe they cannot meet all these standards and rules that they believe God has demanded. They feel like a failure. Since nothing they do seems to be enough for God, they give up. If you feel you are lost anyway, what difference does it make how you live? If all you do is mess up and fall short, even though you have some success, then what is the point? You may as well just live it up and do all the sinful things you want (real or imagined). And so some do go and live a “wild” life, at least for a season.

Those yet within may hear about those that do this and it will reinforce in their minds all the fear filled messages they have heard about people who leave the church/group. See what happens when you leave? You start down a “slippery slope” and end up in the gutter. What those within fail to see about these people is that they may be living this way, not because they didn’t desire to follow God, but because they felt they were a hopeless cause, not being able to live up to all the demands and expectations. They feel that God stopped loving them because they could not consistently measure up. They didn’t want this type of life, they wanted God, but they were misled to believe God’s love was conditional upon them making and keeping themselves righteous.

Thankfully, everyone doesn’t remain in this mindset, but some do- forever believing the distorted image of God that they obtained from the unhealthy church, thinking that he has rejected them. This is a very real and sad result of a spiritually abusive church.

I would hate to be in the shoes of these ministers who load heavy burdens upon people, like the Pharisees in the days of Jesus did. Jesus said that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

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