Going to Church

I used to attend church on a regular basis. I went to the same church for over 10 years. Then it imploded in a spectacular way. The church actually made the news. I suspect partly because it was so large, with over 2,000 people in our congregation alone (there were satellite churches in other states as well). By the time the church fell apart, I had quit attending due to things I saw and heard that didn’t seem right to me. I know now that God was trying to heal people’s hearts of the emotional wounds they’d received in their lives, but the devil managed to get in there and twist things around.  As someone I know pointed out, when God moves, the devil isn’t going to sit back and watch it happen.

After that church fell apart, I didn’t attend any church on a regular basis. I was too hurt and unsure where to go. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d been fairly well indoctrinated that that church was “THE” church to be at and their rules were “THE” rules to live by. It took me several years to realize that there was a lot of legalism there and a lot of years to get past it and truly learn more about God.

I did eventually start attending a church that was held in one of the buildings formerly owned by the last church. After a few years, I started attending a second church on alternating Sundays with my roommate. It made sense financially to attend both churches in one car, rather than me attending one church all the time necessitating the use of both cars every other week.

Eventually, I got tossed out of the second church. My roommate and I had a meeting with the pastor and an elder after which, they told my roommate that he could attend church as long as he came without me. Why? I’m a woman, my roommate is a man and we’re not married, nor are we likely to ever be married. I was surprised at this, but my roommate was not. He told me that God had told him this was going to happen. So, we left and continued to attend the other church.

Before I go on, I should mention that the pastor at the first church we attended also knew that we were living together and were not married, nor likely to ever marry. He didn’t throw me out, but he did refuse to dedicate my son before the Lord. Dedicating a child before the Lord is a public acknowledgement of responsibility for the child and a promise to raise the child up in God’s way to the best of our ability as a parent.

The first church eventually fell apart due to financial reasons. According to the pastor, it cost a lot more than people realized just to turn the lights on every week.  

So, now I’m without a church again. I’ve actually tried attending a few and I’ve been reminded that the “church” is actually the people inside, not the building itself. This doesn’t mean I’m looking for a “perfect” church. I’m not. I’m simply looking for a church where I feel that God is free to move however He wants and people truly want to grow in Him. What I’ve found is people playing “church” or worse yet, coercing people to come to church.

Allow me to explain what I mean by the numbers, so to speak.

Church #1 This one had a woman for a pastor, which bothered me, but I attended as it was literally across the street and I was having problems with my knee at the time. It was Easter Sunday and my son and a friend of his came with me. The service started out with the usual music/worship and then they proceeded to do a special Easter Service. In this case, rather than having a large group of children/young adults do one play about Easter, they had every age from pre-school to high school on stage doing something for Easter. The youngest ones were supposed to simply quote some scripture, but you could see some didn’t want to be up there. The older children did more of a stage play for their part. By the time every group had given their presentation, I was thinking, “How many times and in how many ways can you tell the story of Easter?!” I truly appreciate the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. I just don’t appreciate having it retold to the point of feeling like I was listening and watching a broken recording. It also made me wonder what my son’s friend thought about it, although he did ask me some good questions.

Church #2 I met an old friend from my former church (the one that imploded) and went with her to services at a couple of churches she attends. The first church was nice in that I saw and talked to other people I’d known from the same church she and I’d known each other at, but the more I attended, the more saw that they were fearful of end times. I understand that fear as I used to worry about it to the point where I’d pray, “Lord, if possible not in my life time please.” Then one day I realized that in saying that I was cursing the next generation or possibly the one after that. It dawned on me that the end times as written in the book of Revelation are going to happen and if I trust God no matter what happens He will see me through them.

Church #3 I went to one service at the other church my friend attended and was again delighted to see an old friend from the former church that imploded. When the music service started up, I was startled to feel like I’d walked into a jazz bar or coffeehouse. I learned after the service that the woman leading the music service that morning had been a jazz singer and had decided to dedicate her voice and talents to the Lord. That’s a wonderful thing, but I’d been taught that in those situations a person like her should have been part of the congregation till she’d walked in that decision for awhile.

Church #4 I went to this church because my son attends with my mother and I thought it would be good to know what kind of church he was attending. I actually went to a couple of services, one on Sunday morning and one on a Wednesday evening. What really bothered me most was the music service felt like miniature Hollywood. One time there was a choreographed dance before the Lord, complete with matching outfits. I don’t have a problem with dancing before the Lord as a form of worship when it’s spontaneous and comes from the heart. The other time the music ministry group was videoed and put on a big screen, which didn’t bother me a lot, until they did a close up of the leader. He wasn’t singing a solo that I recall at that point, but was simply part of the whole group. To me, that was a way of glorifying the leader, rather than God.

Church #5 I attended because I’d read their signboard in passing several times and thought it might be interesting. What I found was a church that was teaching very basic, foundational doctrine. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. This church has been around for several years and I kind of thought that by now there’d be more maturity. Not only that, but I hung around in the foyer/lobby area for several minutes after the service in hopes of seeing a friend that I knew attended that church. No one, not one single person walked up to greet me.

The final two churches really stand out for me for very different reasons. Read on to see what I mean.

Church #6 This church is literally located up the street from me and therefore I could walk, which was nice. I stopped in on impulse one Sunday morning and got a huge surprise. The men sat one side of the church and the women and married couples on the other. Okay, I can live with that. The pastor was talking about dating that morning and I was in full agreement until he said that the problems in Jacob’s marriage were cause by Jacob’s lust, yes lust, for Rachel. That brought my thoughts to a screeching halt.

Jacob’s lust?! What lust?! Lust does not wait and work seven years to attain its goal. Lust yanks and pulls and demands instant fulfillment. Jacob not only waited and worked seven years for the privilege of marrying Rachel, he agreed to work another seven years for the privilege upon discovering that his father-in-law Laban had deceived him by sending Leah to be his bride. Laban’s deceit of Jacob was the cause of the marital problems in Jacob’s house.

At this point I decided to leave as soon as I could do so unobtrusively. During a break in the service, I got up and walked out. Only later did I realize that the men were filing out while the women puttered in their pews waiting for the men to finish leaving.

Church #7 The last and most recent church I visited, my roommate and I actually attended for three weeks. The biggest problem was something I learned after the first service. Another old friend from my original church (yeah, we’re pretty scattered; some of us live across the country now) came up to us after the service and greeted us. I was delighted to see him.

We talked for quite a while after the service and my friend told us that some of the people in the congregation were renting low income housing from the church. As a condition of renting the church housing, the people had to agree to attend at least one service a week. This truly bothered me. It bothered me so much that I finally told my friend that I thought the church was coercing people into attending service. He justified it by saying they had a choice about renting a house on church property.

I don’t agree. It can take months just to apply to get on a waiting list for low income housing. Then when you finally get on the list, there aren’t a lot of choices available.

More importantly to my way of thinking is that nowhere in the Bible do we see God doing something for someone and then demanding something in return. God says, “I stand at the door and knock…” Not, I bang on the door and demand to be let in.

Jesus spent his ministry sharing God and performing miracles. The only thing he ever asked in return was that they would not sin again. He never asked for payment or made demands. He simply did what God told him to do and let things happen as they would.

Why should we be any different?

I also heard the minister at the last church say, “God only asks us for one day a week.” In reading the Bible, the only things God says in relation to one day a week is for us to rest. He does tell us that we should not stop gathering ourselves together, but He doesn’t say how often we should be gathering. He never specifically said, “You must attend church one day a week.”

I really would like to find a church where the Spirit of God is free to move at will, but until then, I think I’ll skip going to church. Besides, people are the church and the Bible says, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am." Matt 18:20