So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore

This is the book that gave me permission to stop going to church. It started the revolution in my mind toward everything “God“. I began to realize it was okay to question everything that I had always considered “right“. Of course, I already strongly felt there was something desperately wrong with the institutional system of Christianity. Reading this book gave me hope that there was a way to live and give God His rightful place, which is simply Him living His life in me.

You can read it here online for free. Download it or read it online.

The authors of the book are Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman, former pastors.

How many cults have you belonged to?

A couple of days ago I wrote about cults. If you read it, you might surmise that some of these events were mine. That would be correct.

If you look up the definition of “cult” in a dictionary, you would find mostly positive definitions. Random House Unabridged defines it as “a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies”.

I’ve been thinking about all the churches that I have attended throughout my lifetime. They all had definite rites and ceremonies. A “rite” is “the prescribed or customary form for conducting a religious or other solemn ceremony”. (American Heritage). Therefore, it could be said that any religious group that holds to a customary form in the conducting of a ceremony is a cult.

Wait a minute. These weren’t outrageous cultic groups. The churches I’ve attended since birth are of a wide variety and persuasion and most would be considered to be within the mainstream church realm.

I was born into an evangelical denomination in the Midwest. It was a small rural church and they taught that I needed to be born again in order to get to heaven. Nothing radical there, right? I resisted this teaching until I was 17 years old when I made a public profession of faith at an evangelical crusade in a neighboring town. I know that I definitely had a salvation experience. I felt like I was a new person. Certain aspects of my behavior changed overnight and I knew that I had nothing to do with it. I knew God accepted me because my sins were forgiven. My sins weren’t hanging over my head with impending judgment coming. I was happy and free. I wasn’t so sure about future sins. The “lay me down to sleep” prayer, which I learned as a child, seemed to take care of those. At least for a while.

The next church I attended after leaving home for college was a Baptist church near the college. I attended Sunday morning service for most of my freshman year. It was easy to come and go because we were college students and we had commitments elsewhere. I was a part of the Campus Crusade for Christ group at school so didn’t feel any need to participate at the church.

Several friends of mine from college had exposed me to the charismatic movement during this first year. The whole charismatic/pentecostal experience was totally foreign to me until I read a book they gave me. This started me thinking that if this experience was real it might explain why I felt empty so much of the time. I didn’t get along well with my roommate (a strong Catholic) and this bothered me.

In the spring, a singing group from a nearby Christian Bible college gave a concert on our campus. After the concert the choir members came into the audience and “ministered” the baptism of the spirit to those who wanted to be prayed for. Of course I was sitting with the friends who gave me the book and I thought what could it hurt to be prayed for. After that experience (tongues and all) I felt a depth of love inside me that I didn’t have before. I attributed it to the “baptism” experience. Something definitely happened… but what? Another salvation experience?

No longer could I attend the Baptist church. I had to go to a church that accepted my new experience. My choices were between a spirit-filled Lutheran group and a Pentecostal church on the other side of town. Someone from the Campus Crusade group convinced me to go to the other side of town. I experienced culture shock… to say the least. These people seemed on fire and in tune with God. I thought “this is much better than the previous church. It’s alive. These people know how to get in touch with God.” Much to my dismay over the next two years while attending several churches of this denomination in several cities, my life didn’t become more sanctified but just the opposite. Looking good in church and being someone else behind closed doors became a large part of my life. It wasn’t difficult to do. On the contrary it was quite easy to play the game.

Next, I found myself going west where I became involved in a startup Pentecostal church (different denomination) in southern California. The church didn’t last long. I never gave it much thought why. Personally I was relieved when it was closed because I could never put my heart into visiting people in their homes asking them to come to our church. I figured there must be something wrong with me. I never felt good about doing all the things we were supposed to be enthused about doing to fulfill our pastor’s vision.

My roommate, who was part of this church, found a para-church group in town that piqued her interest. After I attended a few meetings, I was hooked. The people were very friendly and took a personal interest in me. This was overwhelming. Being part of this organization over the next 14 years proved to be the best of all my experiences in organized Christianity. Not only did I meet and marry the man of my life, three of our children were born during this time. There was group Bible study every day. We lived on the same property with other believers and shared our lives with each other.

It was great at first. My heart was to be part of a group that was “really doing something for God“. I felt that this ministry’s heart matched God‘s heart. After a number of years however, the group thing wore thin on me. One example of this would be having to answer for our whereabouts. As a family we felt controlled and manipulated. This ended when the pastor died in his sleep one night. From that point the group dissipated.

Less than two years later we moved to my husband’s hometown in northern California. We had three children under the age of eight and no worldly possessions to speak of. My husband’s parents helped us get settled. Our way of dealing with the past was to simply start doing something for God. We joined a local church. Not just any church but a church that was antithetic to the one we just left. This new one had Baptist church affiliation that leaned toward the Willow Creek seeker-friendly approach. Part of our decision to attend this church was because we believed Christians were supposed to be united despite doctrinal issues. We found ourselves amongst friendly people. Friendliness, however, proved to not be enough. After a couple of years, doctrinal issues surfaced. My husband had begun to minister the baptism of the spirit to some of the members and they started speaking in tongues. Oh, oh. We found ourselves gently escorted out the door. This experience was quite difficult for me. I struggled for a number of months with the question... Where was the unity and love in all that?

Then I realized, through the turmoil of this experience, that we were going to start a church. Evidently my husband and the previous pastor had talked about it as a next step for us. My memories of these decisions are very dull. It is hard to believe that I was alive during this time. I had absolutely no heart to be a pastor’s wife. It terrified me. I was raising three boys. How could I find a heart to raise other people and their kids too? It didn’t seem fair. After a few months of trying, we dropped the idea and we found another church to attend.

We’ve always endeavored to find a place of service to God wherever we‘ve gone. A place where we could “serve God’s people“. This was our heart.

The next 12 years at this next church proved to be the culmination of all our efforts to please God. This is where we played out cataclysmic experiences which served to catapult us out of traditional church.

We raised our boys and a late edition daughter at this church. We gave our time and energies to this church, and so did our children. Practically every time the doors opened some representative of our family was there. We wore ourselves out in the name of God, over and over and over again.

Personally, I got tired. I felt alone. I hid this from those around me. I became a non-person, disconnected from life itself. I lost heart and gave up hopes of having abundance again. The basic message from the pulpit was one of reaching the lost. Being a full-time mom and teacher to my children left me little time or energy to go out and get people into the church building so the pastor could preach his messages to them. The Gospel of peace and grace was not taught. There had to be a way to live the Christian life abundantly. This dissatisfaction went on for years. We thought the church experience was good for our children. Eventually all hell broke loose. Our personal lives fell apart. I’ve written about this in earlier posts. Expectations which I had for the church to be able to help us fell short. We left quietly.

In almost two years since that time my life has returned to me. The grace and peace of the Gospel is restoring life to me. The obligation and expectation that I functioned in for so long finally caught up with me. I now choose freedom. That doesn’t mean there aren’t days that I struggle. There are plenty. But the good days far outweigh the bad.

What is a cult?

The word “cult” has a negative connotation in the church world. If anyone is involved in a cult they are believed to be out of the normal flow of Christianity. Dictionary.com’s definition #6 states a cult as “a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.” These leaders have a special “calling” from God. They are idealized by their followers who feel special to be a part of the group. Acceptance and love are an important part of the experience. Belonging makes a person feel good about themselves. Validation (approval) is earned from the group by following the parameters laid down by those in charge.

What kind of people get involved in these groups? All kinds. People want truth. We’re built to go after it. Our mind and soul desires truth. There is usually some element of truth espoused by these groups. The meeting of basic human needs (love and acceptance) draws people. We want to belong. Our chances of becoming involved in one of these groups increase simply because we are human beings.

Inside the group, definite parameters of conduct are spelled out by those in charge. It is understood what is acceptable and what is not. These parameters are not to be crossed. If you fail in any rule of conduct, either intentionally or unintentionally, you will experience guilt and shame. You don’t want anyone in the group to know about your faults. You want to protect your safe world. If your inconsistencies are exposed you might lose the fruit of being a part of the group… validation, acceptance, and love. You must hide. Others must not know your faults. Hiding becomes part of your nature. You become a liar and a fake. Ironically, this runs opposite of what drew you to the group in the first place… TRUTH.

You may end up confessing your faults to someone in “authority” with the intent to alleviate the overwhelming guilt and shame and to possibly fix your problem. If this happens, watch out! Known rule breakers must be dealt with. If rules are not enforced, the structure of the group is in jeopardy. It is the structure that holds the group together. Its creeds and laws help the leaders maintain control of the group.

The leaders will discipline you. This can follow any number of directions. You could be hauled up in front of the whole group and corrected. Your shame and guilt have now been multiplied several times over even though the purpose of your confession was to alleviate these very feelings. The most strict of cults use these methods. Talk about behavior modification’s effectiveness!

Another method of discipline might put you in a place where you need to answer to certain people about your behavior. This keeps you on a leash. You are watched. You are monitored. This is meant to keep you in line so future failure does not occur. This discipline may work for a while but usually does not have the lasting effect it is meant to engender. You will end up feeling like a failure. This method is called “accountability” in real churches.

A third disciplinary action that may be employed is shunning. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word shun as this: “To avoid deliberately; keep away from”. This disciplinary response can create paranoia in the shunned person. Paranoia is “a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission.” If paranoia results from shunning, a terrible cruelty has been inflicted upon this person. To alter the mind of person is callous at best. I don’t doubt that people who shun other people in this way don’t necessarily intend this damage. Those in charge may deny it as “discipline” altogether. Shunning will drive a person to “mental disorder” if allowed to continue. Another element that may be employed indirectly is gossip. The well meaning leader may tell someone of your fault and this person turns out to be a gossip. Before you know it, all sorts of people in the group know of your failure. This also tends to paranoia. Who knows and who doesn’t? You end up living in a surreal world when you are around these people. You know gossip is occurring, yet no one talks to you. They just smile. The “all-knowing” smile. Or the “you really blew it” smile. Or the “you poor thing” smile. Or the best of all “I don’t want to catch what you have” smile.

By the way, if the leader is telling someone about your situation and that person is in no way involved, does that make the leader a gossip too? Oh, no, they're probably just asking prayer for you. This is the road to insanity! GET OUT!

Why do we shoot the wounded?

First, they are no longer useful. The mess they’ve caused in their life as well as others' has marked them. The mark of humanity on them is not valuable when the façade of having all the answers is needed. If the church system is teaching you that your behavior is of utmost importance to your “walk”, the failed, wounded person is not valuable. Their failure reflects on the system. The production of moral people is more important than attending to the hurts of failed ones. Push the failures out of the way and get on with the pretense of success. How else will we get other moralists to support the system.

The second reason we shoot our wounded is that the resources needed to restore them are not available. We don’t know what to do. We see the pain and that makes us feel uneasy. So we do nothing. The wounded either get sicker, die, or, by God’s grace, are able to find a solution on their own.

Thirdly, we judge them. We believe that they shouldn’t have done what they did and therefore they don’t deserve our time or commitment to help. We are put out by their behavior. “How could you?” “You make us all look bad.” “You were supposed to know better.” “Don’t get close to me. I might catch whatever it is that caused you to do such a thing.”

I believe that these three reasons are cultured in the church system of today. For the system to survive, soul care cannot take a prominent position. It takes too much valuable time to tend to the hurts and pains of souls. The programs need to continue.

You can't just go around being human, you know. What do we do with our humanness? In a moralist society we suppress it and tell others to do the same. This produces liars and experts at denial. Denial produces mental instability. There’s got to be a better way!

Alive Again to God

Yesterday my husband and I went to a gathering of believers here in town. I’ve never been to this gathering before. It was like a beehive when we arrived. After walking around for a short while we figured out where the adults were supposed to be. After everything was said and done, I felt like I had witnessed a motivational talk on how to act as a Christian.

This really was no different than all the other gatherings we’ve visited in the past year. The liturgy was consistent. The order goes something like this: 1) pray for God to come and be a part of the service; 2) stand; 3) sing; 4) sit; 5) give your money to God (so the bills that make the building work can be paid); 6) listen to a motivational talk which tells you how to behave as a Christian; 7) stand; 8) pray in closing and ask God to grow the message into our hearts; 9) leave the building and find your car.

For years I went through this routine believing that I was doing God’s will. Yet I could never be sure because the system I submitted myself to was continually between God and me. It became a substitute to a personal, living relationship with my Father. I didn’t know it at the time. If I had known it, my life may have taken a different turn than the one it did. Thus after many years of following this pattern, my first love grew cold. Disconnected from God, I remember thinking a number of times in recent years before the crisis, “Is this all there is to serving God?”.

After hearing a message like we heard yesterday, in previous years, I would have felt guilty for thinking that I couldn’t possibly fulfill what the preacher was saying, no matter what the subject matter. I would try. At least for a while. Eventually I would give up and relent to unbelief. Unbelief is so destructive. It robs of all that Father has for us to be and do, in that order.

Now I’m beginning to see what went wrong. My trying is not what God wants. He wants me to rest. Abiding in Him must be the first thing. Loving Him and having a consciousness of Him inside me is what’s different now. I truly feel alive in Him again, as from the dead. Only God knows what's ahead for us.

church

I want to clarify what I wrote yesterday regarding the institutional church.

Last spring, I found a podcast that described life outside the institutional church as a path in which some people were finding freedom. To me it sounded like an interesting idea. We had been in the process of “looking” for a church for about five months. (We had left the church which we had been a part of for 12 years the previous November.) As we searched we found that each one we visited was not much different from the previous week’s visitation and that left us in a quandary.

It was necessary for me to reach an end to my understandings and beliefs about church. What I had believed about “organized” church was that it was meant to function as the body of Christ. I believed that people with problems should be able to go to those in charge and find people who understand and will minister and care for the needs of that individual. When I needed it to function in that manner, I found that it did not. I found that there was an absence of care. Never mind that I was a total emotional and mental basket case. My life had been lost. What I thought was real no longer existed due to the personal issues with which I was dealing. I felt that I needed someone to help me sort through all my confusion and pain. I was a mess. I didn’t find what I was looking for at my “local church”.

I know now that it doesn’t necessarily work that way. We (my husband and I) were squeezing oranges and expecting apple juice. It didn‘t work. We asked for support from people who could not give it. We needed people who would love and care for us. I think that if we showed up on Sunday morning, we looked like we were doing okay. We’re connecting with God, right? That wasn‘t the case however. I was looking for people support… not God support. I was looking for the Body to work without understanding what that really meant.

My thinking was wrong in at least two ways. 1) I was looking for relational help from people in whom I had no relationship. The “local church” was supposed to be “The Church“ (the Body of Christ). It does not automatically work that way. 2) I was looking for help from the Church first and not from God first. I saw God as someone far away and observing only. So the people in charge at the church should know what to do to help, right? Not so. It didn’t happen that way.

Is the institutional church setup wrong? Not necessarily. Expectations should be limited, though, depending on your own “local church”. I look at the institutional church as a club. An organization that must do certain things in order to maintain its existence. In order to survive it must function like other clubs and have rules and regulations which its members need to follow. Time is limited for the pastors. How can soul care happen when so many people need help? Enough on that for now. Just realize that it is what it is and don’t expect something that it is not. I expected a certain level of care and concern. When I didn’t get it, I turned to other sources… mostly books and the internet.

That doesn’t sound very relational, but it helped more than a person would expect. Since I believed it was up to me to fix and resolve the issues at hand, I immersed myself in the problem seeking to heal and restore my marriage so that I would never have to go through this again. I was certain I would rather die than experience the pain again that had visited itself upon me. As we went forward, God stealthily maneuvered us each step of the way for which today I am very grateful.

Gratefully Disillusioned

Why is it that so many people seem to be going through the same thing that I am or have gone through this past year? Something’s happening. I just read a blog where a woman described how her many years’ journey in Christianity had taken her to a place of total nothingness. It reminded me of me.

I’ve attempted to serve God for over 30 years in many different ways and finally came to an end of it all. My serving left me empty, lost, and wanting for God. After trying to fix things for so long, I came to the realization that my abilities weren’t adequate. I had no answer. I finally gave up. Not feeling love from God or for God was the last straw. If feeling the love of God was not possible in this lifetime, then what’s the use. Where was this “abundant life” that the Bible talked about? I went on a search.

Last spring, I found a podcast that described life outside the institutional church as a path in which some people were finding freedom. To me it sounded like an interesting idea. We had been in the process of “looking” for a church for about five months. (We had left the church which we had been a part of for 12 years the previous November.) As we searched we found that each one we visited was not much different from the previous week’s visitation and that left us in a quandary. We could not return to the original church because of “oh, so many reasons” and after that experience we were left wanting for something with substance.

After dissecting the process and analyzing all the what‘s, why‘s, where’s, how’s, and who’s of my “religious” life, I came to a simple conclusion. God is different than what I thought. He is much different than what I had concocted in my mind. My religious tendencies had created a distant god who didn’t really care for me and was just kind of watching to see what happened next. He was separate from me. I wanted to believe different about Him, but up until this time I wasn’t able to put it together. I know now that He wanted a relationship with me on a minute to minute basis. He wanted me to know Him.

I believe that my “religious” life, over the course of many years, had taken my first love for God and mechanized it. As long as I was doing the acceptable things and showing the acceptable attitudes, I was doing what God wanted. My own feelings didn’t really matter. My own discontent with “church” didn’t really matter. I believed that if I put up with it God would honor my “so called” servant attitude. I believed it for a very long time. Religion taught me. It was a form of godliness with no power.

When critical issues hit my life thirty-three months ago, I felt like it was up to me to solve the problems. I was not strong spiritually. I came to believe, whether correct or not, that those around me weren’t strong either. Teaching Sunday School classes, never missing Sunday morning services, making sure my children were involved with children’s church or youth group, all these represented my ideas of what it meant to serve God. My husband was also very involved in the church we attended. He was on the board of directors, in the worship band, a teacher of classes, the "so-called" spiritual leader of our family… and he turned out to be the source of my greatest pain.

As my life collapsed around me, I was broken, devastated, lost. Expectations that I possessed caused me great anxiety when people I thought should be able to help me didn‘t. I became thoroughly disillusioned with God and His Church. Despite all this, God knew what was happening and what I needed from Him. Grateful disillusionment was on it’s way…