The Church’s “Bad RAP”…. are YOU Guilty of this?

You know those times when you’ve heard statements regarding the SAME TOPIC so many times in a short amount of time that you finally get to a point where you HAVE to speak up? Well this is one of those blogs…..

I’ve been in church all my life – I’m one of those “born in the pew” kind of preacher’s kids who, in spite of all they’ve seen and been through in churches, has still remained active in church and has been in paid ministry. In fact I still have a deep love for ministry thus the reason for my passion on various topics that I blog about.

What I’ve heard OVER AND OVER AGAIN recently is WHY people, not just those who are unchurched but those who were brought up in church or those who have attended church for a long time, have stopped attending corporate worship or who keep themselves on the periphery of “church.” The reasons I’ve heard have saddened me to the point of holding back tears and sometimes of wanting to scream. I cannot for the life of me figure out WHY we’ve turned church into such a bad place that people don’t want to be there?

There’s been a lot of personal reasons for me lately to distance myself from corporate worship and I’m going to share just a few of those with you…..

Following my late husband’s death I decided shortly thereafter to move on with my life. My choice of whom I moved on with did not meet other peoples approval because of reasons surrounding how we met etc. Unfortunately those who quickly passed judgment DID NOT seek out both sides of the story and ASSUMED (you know what they say about assuming….) the worst and never bothered to seek out the complete details. This resulted in various rumors, half truths, gossip in the form of an “intervention” at someone’s home (WITHOUT me present), and lots of ugly names being pinned on me. There were extenuating circumstances which led me to move on so quickly that many do not know about and frankly it’s none of their business but God knows and those that care about me and love me have been kind enough to come to me and ask me what was going on and now understand my reasons for doing so. The treatment I received from this “concerned group” at my home church has resulted in hurt that is deep and that has caused me to even have an anxiety attack about attending church on Easter which I worked through the first 20 minutes I was at another church because I will not step foot in my home church that I love and miss so much because those people are there and I won’t put myself through that.

Others that I’ve talked to seem to have the same themes – “we quit going because we can’t stand the gossip and back stabbing” “ I got sick of people being out of touch with the realities of life and hyper spiritualizing everything….” “The church is so full of politics it’s forgotten what the Church is really supposed to be doing” “The Pastor is so concerned with attracting younger people he’s forgotten about those of us who have been faithful and supported the church all these years….” And the list goes on and on but it’s not that I’ve heard these statements just once or twice, it’s repeatedly.

For me another reason I stopped going to church was that a church I was affiliated with for teaching wanted me to leave when I became involved with my fiancé – and get this – the MAIN reason was because the Pastor was concerned about what ANOTHER church would think about me teaching there. Let’s not consider the part of scripture that talks about taking care of widows and orphans, OR being concerned with someone’s soul – NO, his reason was how HE was going to LOOK in front of this other ethnic church in the area. Forget the fact that I NEEDED that job to support myself as a widow OR that I was NOT A CONTRACTED employee but an outside vendor at the time. Disappointed and hurt would be just a few words I would use regarding this Pastor that I respected for many years.

I could go on and on about the people who have been at the center of the hurt I’ve experienced lately. How they’ve encouraged discord and strife between me and my children instead of healing and reconciliation. Or how they in their own lives didn’t do the right thing while they were in ACTIVE ministry when it came to their personal lives (including fornication) or while they were attending church but kept it hidden. Funny how so many have dog poop in their own backyard’s that they can’t walk two steps without getting their shoes dirty but they’re quick to point out the ONE pile of poop you have in yours and make it into a mountain. They want you to exercise grace towards them but the grace YOU receive will be conditional from them.

What grieves me the MOST is when I think about what the church’s original job was in scripture, is that we have done nothing but give GOD a bad name. People automatically, churched or unchurched, associate Christians or “Christ followers” with words like “hypocrite” “Fake” “two faced” “Judgemental” or “self righteous” “money hungry” “users” and “social club.”   WOW – is THIS what we really want people to think of a loving, compassionate, merciful God? One who sent His Son for them and for us?

Through the years I’ve learned A LOT about God and what He is not – and unfortunately I can say that He is NOT what we see portrayed by some (notice I said SOME not ALL) Pastors and church people. What is more upsetting though is that those “church people” are never confronted about their behavior and allowed to continue what they’re doing without ever being told of the destruction they’ve left in the path they’ve walked.

Why is that? Well after being on staff at large and small ministries, I’ve learned that it can range from reasons that they are the “largest givers”, “have connections in the community” “they’ve been in the church the longest and are founding members” “they’re influential” “they’re very well liked” or they just plain out scare the tar out of the Pastor. So the behavior is allowed to continue and the damage keeps going. Another reason is that some Pastors just do NOT like confrontation and will avoid it at all costs.

I hate to sound like one of those “in the old days” types but I can tell you that my grandfather who was a pastor had no problems confronting issues and attitudes in the church “back in the day.” That’s not how it is now – it’s too messy or too draining to do that so the reign of terror continues.

Does this blog sound like I’m disgusted with church? Yes it does. Am I disgusted and upset with God – ABSOLUTELY NOT. If anything, what I’ve seen the last few years regarding the behaviors of those in church and those in leadership grieves me to no end and makes me want to be the opposite kind of leader they are and the opposite kind of Christian that the world sees from church people. It makes me more aware of what I want to be as far as the characteristics of God. I may have flaws and my life is NOT perfect by any means right now but I can tell you I am striving more and more each day to have God help me be the woman He’s called me to be, to allow me to show His love and compassion, to be a light and to help me walk as right as possible while I’m working my way back to Him.

My hope is that this blog strikes a chord in leaders and Pastors and that they will become bolder to find out both sides of a story before taking a side, that they will call their members on the carpet for these actions and attitudes and that they in their own lives will be careful how they represent Christ to others in the church and outside of the church.  That they will “keep it real” and that they will work towards changing the misconceptions that are out there about church and what the job of the church really is so that we can represent Christ for the loving, compassionate, merciful, joy-filled, HEALING God that He is.