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Church Secrets, Part 1

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Elizabeth Burger’s blog. It was originally published on August 24, 2016.

Note: this post contains some names that were changed to protect the people mentioned. Any name with an asterisk [*] next to it has been changed.

You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love
Or you can start speaking up

Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do
And they settle ‘neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Innocence, your history of silence
Won’t do you any good
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?
– Brave, Sara Bareilles

“We don’t remember what they told us years ago. Stop asking people. You don’t want to start gossiping.” These are the messages I received from my parents and others when I started asking questions about a former church of mine, a small conservative reformed denomination (this clarification was always stressed, after all, we wouldn’t want people thinking we are part of our sister denomination, who were more liberal). Why all but one deacon and his family had left all those years ago. Why so many of my friends had switched churches. Why it still hurt and was unresolved. I needed to know. I could no longer let this unknown wound hurt me with no resolution or healing in sight.

So I started digging. This blog series (Church Secrets) will share some of the things I learned along the way. The reasons why I decided to leave my church. The reasons why I call it my ex-church instead of one of my former churches. The reasons why I currently do not attend church and struggle to trust any leaders in church.

It was November 2014. I went home early for Thanksgiving break so that I could see my counselor for a special 2 hour session to work through a large chunk of my major bad relationship (the one with the 40+ year old man online). I also got to visit some of my friends. Samantha*, one of my friends who had previously been a part of my church, started talking to me about what had happened. I thought she might know more because she and her family were close friends with some of the deacons and their families.

It had been over two years since Samantha and her family had left the church. A couple weeks before I visited them, they received a printed letter from the church. I’m going to quote the parts particularly relevant to this post below (click here to read the full letter). Pay close attention to the last paragraph in particular.

You may be worshipping with another Bible-believing church. If so, though we hate to lose you, please inform us so we can formally transfer your membership, or if you have already joined another body, please let us know so that we can remove you from the rolls. We wish you nothing but God’s greatest blessings on you and all you do.

The writer of Hebrews tells us “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another…” We hope that we can be a church that does that for you. If you are not currently worshipping with another church, in love we urge you to either return to us (again, we’d love to have you back!) or find another part of Christ’s body to affiliate with where God’s Word is proclaimed, the Gospel is offered to sinners, the sacraments are given, and there is godly oversight by church leadership.

If you chose neither of these routes, the elders of our church will be forced to remove your name from our rolls, and we would consider you to have left the Church Universal and to not be covered by the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ.

I was shocked. I thought that excommunication ended hundreds of years ago. But no. It still goes on today. It went on at MY church. My own pastor and elders approved of this. And all you had to do was either not attend any church at all (because clearly all the sermons about not adding anything to the gospel were lies) or not attending a church that they approve of means you are not saved.

Yes. This actually happened. The leaders who I trusted and looked up to for over ten years were writing letters to former members informing them that they would treat them as unbelievers if they didn’t meet the right requirements.

Just thinking about this and re-reading everything over the last two days has kept me up until 6 am the other day. It’s been over a year now since I left my ex-church, and I’m finally able to start sharing some of the things that motivated me to leave. In future parts of this series I will be sharing: e-mails I received from the pastor when he learned that I was talking to former church members, a conversation I had regarding a former church ministry/outreach, a letter that was sent to all the members regarding a specific family who left, and more.

Part Two.

The Lighthouse Girl

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on June 17, 2014.

There was once was a little girl, raised in the Village.

The Village was a utopia, walled off for protection and insulated from the world. Even the families in the girl’s section of the Village did not see each other very often, but lived peaceably, like hermits, in accordance with the Code.

When the girl grew to be a maiden, sometimes she crept through cracks in the wall and explored the countryside. She gradually even made friends with the woodland folk, discovering new ballads and gypsy dances banned in the Village.

One day, the elders of the Village told the girl that absolute obedience was the only way to honor her parents and the Code. But the girl had dreams, and this meant soul death.

So one night the girl left the Village forever.

Her friends on the outside helped her travel to the coast, where she built a lighthouse with bricks and mortar and timber they brought. That section of the coast was so rugged that the deaths on its rocks were legend. Other attempts to build lighthouses had not survived.

The girl maintained it for years, weathering many storms. Her friends visited often to encourage her and the prosperity of the lighthouse, but sometimes she was lonely. Her friends started to call her Lighthouse, shortened to Light.

One friend was a girl-pirate who was once raised in the Village like her, but they had met beyond the walls.

Another village girl had become a spy for a local Baron. She took shelter in the lighthouse and lived with Light for many moons.

All three of them knew an older girl who escaped a failed utopia several years before. This girl had been cursed by her own Elders and turned into a mermaid, forever chained to the waves and spume. She shared the birth name of the girl-pirate.

The friends often wondered about their kinsmen in the Village, and hoped someday many more could be free from the well-meaning tyranny of the Elders. The four swore a solemn pact against injustice in the land.

A cyclone rolled across the waters one night, spewing hailstones like vomit. The lighthouse girl manned the tower, keeping the light alive. In her telescope, she spied the signal of a small boat foundering on the waves. Two passengers, one with gold hair and one with the hair of a raven, rowed and bailed water to no avail.

Despite the peril, the three friends, followed by the mermaid, took a larger ship. They rode out toward the lost girls, just before their rowboat crashed against the rocks.

Light, the girl-pirate, the spy, and the mermaid embraced the lost girls on the beach and welcomed them to safety. Light helped them to warm inside by the fire and dry their clothes. The lost girls told the friends that they fled another section of the Village, inspired by their love for one another, because their Elders had banned their friendship.

The four friends all knew the value of friendship, and told the lost girls to stay together, no matter what the Elders said, and to explore their newfound freedom.

Soon the spy-girl left on a clandestine mission for the Baron, and couldn’t send letters to the lighthouse girl.

The girl-pirate took the lost girls rafting, teaching them how to navigate currents and giving them sea legs.

Light helped the lost girls find a trade in town with a basket-weaver, but their spirits were wild and young, and they joined a band of traveling gypsies, squandering their earnings on trinkets.

Midsummer gales brewed out in the gulf, and the lighthouse was empty again except for Light. She was lonely once more, yearning for her old friends and for new refugees from the Village. She often visited the mermaid down in the tidal pool on calm, starlit evenings to plan new adventures.

One day, the girl-pirate came to the lighthouse girl and said she couldn’t stay on land anymore. She was bound for faraway oceans and adventures far from the Village.

Light hugged the pirate and cried. They walked down to the docks together.

Light told the girl-pirate how much she had learned from her. She knew how to tie sailor’s knots. She could brew herbal mushroom tea from the Orient. She could debate the Elders now if they confronted her and told her to tear down the lighthouse.

Deep in her heart, Light knew how much the pirate yearned for the sea, how the land was ebbing away at her friend’s spirit.

The lighthouse girl said the girl-pirate needed to sail. It was time. And she understood.

Why I Left: Part 3

Continued from Part Two.

As you might imagine I was quite upset with having to wait the whole weekend for some closure. That night I went to bed anxious. I prayed, and did some more self examination. I told my husband for some help thinking and coping. We kind of came to the conclusion that it might have just been my mind playing tricks on me. I tried so hard to see myself as the one at fault because I didn’t want my husband to get overly upset in case I was wrong. I also was conscious of the possibility that this was all just a very strange spiritual attack to cause me to accuse a pastor.

Monday morning came and the counselor’s voice sounded especially comforting and gentle. She told me some of the emails had been forwarded to her for her examination. She asked me a couple questions for clarity and I clarified for her. She then asked me my perspective on the matter. She ultimately wanted to know if I was accusing him of anything. I told her all the reasons why I didn’t feel comfortable accusing him. She was relieved. But I still went back to the issue about my worry about him. Then she told me the the volume of emails made me look like the one who has the problem. I was baffled. We ended the call with her praying for me and then she assured me that she wanted me to stay at church there. And that she loved me.

It almost felt like she was mothering me which felt nice but at the same time I was still in a bit of a fog because she had considered the amount of emails as evidence that I was some sort of initiator of the whole problem. It’s like she wasn’t seeing what was in those emails.

This kept me quiet for awhile just contemplating. Meanwhile, in light of everything, I didn’t see much change in the assistant pastor’s behavior towards me. It’s almost like he still wanted to befriend me. He would keep popping up very frequently and always smiling. I almost felt like his smile was mischievous. One time I saw one of the sisters in front of me looking at him with a shocked expression. He was behind me. I suspect she saw him leering at me. I also felt hair stick up from the back of my neck. I didn’t want to ask her why she had that look on her face. I figured she wouldn’t tell me. I wished she would let somebody know though. I was very aware I had that dreaded label stamped on me. I wanted vindication. But I also wanted it for him too. I hoped to God he wasn’t a weirdo and I so wanted to check myself into mental health therapy.

The senior pastor had been absent a couple months because of a couple surgeries and recovering. But he eventually came back. It then became evident to me the counselor didn’t mention anything to the senior pastor for obvious reasons.

To be continued.

See Part One.

The Butterfly Circus

The Butterfly Circus, released in August 2009, is an inspiring 22.5 minute short film that is supposed to be made into a full-length motion picture, though I haven’t heard anything about their progress in years. People who have been hurt in unhealthy churches should be able to take home something from this film that will lift their spirits.

“At the height of the Great Depression, the showman of a renowned circus discovers a man without limbs being exploited at a carnival sideshow, but after an intriguing encounter with the showman he becomes driven to hope against everything he has ever believed.”

You may watch the entire film for free on Vimeo.

Why I Left: Part 2

Continued from Part One.

Another time I asked what their accountability system was. I got a response: “We have weekly devotionals with the pastoral staff.”

Still another time I asked them why the pastors all seem so standoffish? It didn’t seem Christ-like. I got the response: “We keep fellowship within the ranks.”

But silly me wasn’t content with the answers so I kept probing and often sharing scriptures but I rarely got responses. I think the pastor in charge of reading emails should have told if there was an unspoken rule about answering emails. My personality is just keep probing and asking rhetorical questions, sharing scripture and trying to humbly contend for the faith. So that’s what I did.

Now, I remember wondering if the Holy Spirit was prompting me to email or if it was just my natural zeal. But interestingly, I felt a caution in my spirit when starting emails but thought, it’s the devil trying to intimidate me from contending for the faith, but I also thought it could be God warning me that the devil has put the zeal there and making it appear like God’s prompting.

Anyway, I think emailing somehow either started an inappropriate attraction to me or this assistant pastor decided to subtly turn on the charm to find a way to distract me, test me, or take me off balance and use flattery to find a way to shift blame to make me a troublemaker.

He had started to be friendlier at church but I wasn’t comfortable because he had been standoffish for so long and now I was feeling a bit bombarded with attention from him. He would now always be looking and smiling. I also noticed now he seemed to pop up everywhere more often than before. He would acknowledge me now.

Maybe it was my imagination and maybe it was my vanity playing tricks on me. Maybe it was the devil psyching me out. Maybe he was just trying to be more friendly in a Christ-like way since I brought it to his attention that they all seem snobby. But I was starting to get creeped out because I also felt a horrible sense of anxiety at home before going to church or after coming home from church and this anxiety really brought me to my knees. I started to really probe myself. I wondered if I was the one feeling attracted because of the change or if the flattery just swept me off my feet a bit. But it was creeping me out really bad so at church I felt this repulsion. I felt like God was also protecting me so I just kept praying hard.

One day I confronted him in email because it just needed to stop. He ended up forwarding the email to the female counselor. Strangely, I received a copy of what he was sending her. It read: “I think it will only reinforce what she is imagining.” At first it made no sense, then I thought, it’s as if he talked to her and she told him to answer me to ease my worry, but he chose not to. So then he either accidentally forwarded me a copy or covertly did by making it look like an accident, in order to either hint to me that I was imagining things or simply to try to dodge a potential accusation to the counselor.

So soon after I read that she called my phone earnestly telling me: “Stop emailing because it is inappropriate!” Thinking to myself, what? I answered okay, but can I explain why I emailed? She said no, she was busy that weekend but to call her the following Monday morning.

To be continued.