When Church Made Me Want to Walk Away Again
New to the story? Start with Part 1, I Was Angry With God, and Part 2, God Got to My Husband First.
My Faith Story, Part 3
After that Christmas program, going back to church just seemed like the next step. The church was small, warm, and welcoming. We liked it, and for a while, it felt good to be there.
Then things changed.
Scott and I had both lost our jobs, and we found a ServiceMaster franchise for sale. The owner was willing to work with us on the price, but we still needed to come up with around $2,000. Back then, $2,000 might as well have been $2 million. We were broke.
We asked our pastor to pray with us about being able to buy the business. A few days later, the man selling the franchise asked us why we hadn’t told him we were no longer interested.
We were confused.
Then he told us our pastor had bought it.
At first, we actually tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. There were other people in the church who were out of work too, so we wondered if maybe he had bought the business as a way to help people.
We asked him about it. His response was basically, “Why would I want to buy a ServiceMaster? I’m a pastor.”
A few days later, he showed up driving the ServiceMaster van. He had bought the business.
Not long after that, he left the pastorate and the church pretty much fell apart. Even then, I didn’t blame God. We looked at it as one person making some very human choices. It wasn’t God. It wasn’t necessarily even church as a whole.
So we tried again. And again.
One church we attended was small and still building. They liked the fact that Scott had Jewish heritage and really encouraged us to become part of the church. Then, as I remember it, someone in leadership disappeared with the tithe money. That church fell apart too.
At another church, we had been attending for a while when somebody asked us to sign the visitor book. Scott and I looked at each other like, “Okay, apparently we don’t belong here.” 😂
There were a couple of other churches along the way too. Honestly, I don’t remember every specific thing that happened anymore. I just remember feeling like every time we tried again, something strange happened.
At one church, we went to the pastor for counseling about something personal. He told his wife, and his wife told her friends.
So much for confidential counseling.
Eventually, we started attending a small non denominational, Sabbath keeping church in Plymouth that my parents had found. We really liked it. We became involved. It was a small church, maybe around 200 people, and there were lots of activities and opportunities to be part of things.
For a while, it felt like maybe we had finally found the right place.
Then things started getting weird.
Looking back, there were probably red flags we should have noticed earlier. Women weren’t allowed to wear pants. There were rules and expectations that became more controlling, and the pastor started behaving in ways that made us increasingly uncomfortable.
Eventually, we realized this wasn’t simply a church that did things a little differently. It felt more like a cult.
And that was it.
After all the churches we had tried, all the strange things that had happened, and all the trust that had been broken along the way, Scott finally understood something I had been saying for years.
He basically told me, “I get it now.”
And together we made a vow.
We would never go to church again.
Not take a little break. Not try another denomination. Not look for a better church.
Never.
And we meant it.
For about a year before we moved to Arizona, church simply wasn’t part of our lives. I wasn’t in the same place I had been after my divorce. I wasn’t angry at God and calling Christianity a farce anymore.
But I also wasn’t close to Him. I wasn’t leaning on Him. I wasn’t talking to Him like He was sitting beside me. I wasn’t turning to Him when life got hard or thanking Him throughout my day.
That relationship hadn’t developed yet.
Looking back now, though, I see those years very differently. At the time, it probably looked like all those experiences were pushing me farther away from faith.
In reality, they were slowly teaching me something that would become incredibly important later.
My faith could not depend on people.
Pastors are human. Churches are filled with humans. Humans make bad decisions. They disappoint each other. They break trust. Sometimes they do things that are completely opposite of what they stand behind a pulpit and teach.
And none of that changes who God is.
I didn’t fully understand that yet, but little by little, I was becoming less dependent on a church, a pastor, or anyone else to define my relationship with God.
That relationship eventually became mine.
We weren’t necessarily done with God. But we were absolutely done with church.
At least, that’s what we thought. ❤️
Part 4 takes us to Arizona, where God used one of the last people I ever would have expected to get our attention again. And yes, he annoyed the crap out of me. 😂🙏