Whose church is it?!

I have been sitting on this blog post for a while now, just waiting to form the right words to say what I feel and what’s on my heart and then for the right time to post it.  Over the last few years a lot has happened to cause these thoughts and as time has progressed it seems to have gotten worse or at least more apparent, so the time is now.

I was raised my entire life in church.  I was taught what the Word of God says about various things in life, I sang about lessons from the Word and was taught to serve in the church.  As I grew and my family experienced different life events I observed how Christians put these teachings into practice…in a lot of cases how they didn’t put these teachings into practice.  When I became an adult and had a child of my own, I taught her the Word, songs about things in the Word and how to serve in the church.  She too grew up learning what I learned.  Over time we determined that perhaps the Mennonite church and even some of the other churches we attended were maybe not exactly what we liked or fully agreed with.  So, we searched for churches that taught what we believed the Word was trying to say or at least our interpretation of it.  As we began attending what the other people who were taught like me considered a far too “loose” (whatever that means) church we began to realize something…the very Word that we were taught didn’t seem to apply to everyone.  I mean, we were all taught to not judge and condemn one another, but when we started raising our daughter different than the Mennonite way, suddenly we weren’t doing it “right”.  As time progressed, we just decided that we had to do what we felt was best for our particular family.  As time progressed I also served as staff or volunteer staff at a couple of churches and defended a lot of behaviors within the church.  I would have defended my church to a bloody finish if necessary.  Yet, I never felt like they would defend me if necessary.  I mentored and ministered to several people, stood by their side when no one else would, poured my everything into them and even sacrificed my family, their time and our money to help people.  I always had the belief that someday, if I were to ever need the same, they would do the same for me because, after all, isn’t that what the Word preaches?  Then, over the last few years, my own family started going through a lot of things.  My health got really bad and I actually had to be the one to ask for help and allow others to pour into me; funny things is, as people helped and poured into me and my family it was done with a lot of judgment and making false assumptions and accusations.  People thinking they were observing one thing and would go to pastors to complain about it, when in reality, what they thought they saw and what they actually saw were two vastly different things.  My view of the church and the people in it began to shift, yet I still stood firm in defending the church itself.  Then it happened, a year ago, my husband and I talked and we made the choice to separate and divorce.  Holy cow did the judgment and assumptions fly…from the church itself…the very place I spent my entire life defending.  I heard things like “but I have seen how your husband treats you and you have it made”, “but you are perfect for each other”, “you are such a perfect couple/family”, “you probably just serve too much and it tore your family apart”, “are you sure it isn’t the fact that your husband works out of town all the time”, “maybe you need to spice up your relationship”.  Yes, these are ALL things we both heard.  I was even point blank told that if I wanted a divorce it must be because I was cheating (he couldn’t possibly be cheating and/or there could never be another reason, cheating was the only reasonable thing to justify us wanted to divorce).  No one bothered to even try to ask us what was going on or what our discussion was or what prompted this.  No one bothered to sympathize with us or pour into us or be there for us…like the church is supposed to do.  Or for that matter, like we had both always done for everyone else in the church.  For once, it was our family in crisis and every one was so busy trying to figure out whose fault it was and where to place blame that not one person bothered to realize that what we needed was love, support, lack of judgment and we certainly didn’t need other people trying to tell us what we needed to do to fix it…we just needed love and support through a very rough season.  As a result of some of the behavior, a lot of changes were made.  I began to seek out another church and thought that I had found a couple of them that would be perfect for me.  And then I started to see what people had told me about church for years, but I was so busy defending my church that I was turning a blind eye to it.  Here is what I observed and it WILL shock a lot of you…At some point, I don’t know when, church stopped being a place for the wounded, weary and broken hearted (what Jesus designed the church to be) and became a social gathering for people to put on their fake smiles, give fake hugs, have fake appearances and show fake lives.  What Jesus intended the church to be has been absolutely trashed.  I found people who said they wanted to be there for me and be my friend, but unless I was at a social gathering with them I didn’t hear from them (liking a Facebook status doesn’t count as hearing from someone).  If I wasn’t wearing my fake smile people wouldn’t come talk to me because I might be sad, hurt or angry and they might actually have to minister to me.  I became so very heartbroken, not at my situation or the fact that no one seemed to care that I was there but heartbroken over the fact that people told me for years that they observed this behavior and I actually defended this very behavior.  The other day, while in Walmart, my daughter called me out on some things and one of them was that I don’t attend church anymore.  Yes, she is right…partially.  I do not step foot into a physical building for church, but I do watch various services online.  If I want to worship I turn on worship music or worship with the music of whatever online service I am tuning in to.  But I have not gone to a physical building.  And you know what?!  I have been more at peace, felt less condemnation, been less judged and felt more loved than I ever have by actually setting foot in a church building.  And that absolutely breaks my heart and disgusts me.  I have several friends who have said they are Christians and I never could understand why they didn’t go to church and I always met the responses they would give with defending the church.  But, sadly, I have discovered that their statements are not lies…they are absolute truth.  At what point did the church become more concerned with what the building (inside and out) looked like and less concerned about the condition of the people entering its doors?  At what point did we begin praising such a Mighty God (which I fully believe He is), but turn around and quit showing a Mighty God to the people around us?  At what point did we throw on our pretty clothes, our perfect hair and our fake smiles instead of showing the people struggling that a struggle is normal in a Christian’s life?  At what point did the pastors stand on the stage preaching against gossip, condemnation and judgment then all of the people get out of their cozy seats and do the exact opposite of what was taught (pastors included).  One thing I have heard as Dale and I have gone through this and made these decisions is this “But you all always looked so happy and acted like nothing was ever wrong.  I find it hard to believe that things were really as bad as you say.”  All I can say to that is that I am sorry that we put on such a grandiose show that we were not transparent and led other people to believe a lie.  These friends that I mentioned earlier, I get it now.  I get why they don’t go to church.  If they stepped foot into one they would be stared at, judged solely on their appearance and would be made to feel so uncomfortable.  Why would anyone put themselves through that and especially at the very place that SHOULD be safe from feeling that way?  Over the last year, going through one of the worst times in my life, I have been gossiped about more by people in the church than by anyone else in my entire life combined (that’s 38 years’ worth of gossip).  These same people will come up to me with a smile on their face, give me a huge hug and tell me how happy they are to see me if I walk into any place that they happen to be.  I am sorry if this offends you, but that is NOT Christian and it is NOT Biblical.  At some point we have to quit preaching the Word and living something totally different.  At some point we have to live the very Word we are preaching.  Doing anything less is going against what that very Word speaks of.  So many Christians walk around with their fake smiles and attitudes like life is perfect and the only thing they are showing to the world around them is that a “proper” Christian life is unattainable because their life could never be that perfect.  When will we, as Christians, stop putting on a show and actually show the world that even Christians struggle and do so with the very same issues that they do, and let them know that it is ok and we will walk through it TOGETHER!  I am guilty of this very behavior too so I am not preaching it to everyone as if I am exempt, because as I said at the beginning of this…I did the same thing for a long time.  If a Christian does something that seems a little “out of the ordinary” they are automatically gossiped about and it is said that they have turned their back on God.  Maybe, just maybe, they decided to quit being fake and show that Christianity isn’t a set of rules and a group of fake people, but rather living a life that is just a little different than the rest of the world.  But until the world quits seeing the fakeness of Christianity…people won’t follow, people won’t “buy in” to it and why should they?  After all, they can be fake, gossip and judge people without being a Christian…and truthfully it comes across a lot better to the people they are fake to, gossip about and judge because they aren’t doing it with the title of Christian (the title that indicates to people that they won’t do those things or shouldn’t do those things).  

Again, I probably made some people mad and even stepped on some toes.  These are thoughts I have had for a while now and just got to a place where I could say what was on my heart from a place of desire to see change and not from a place of anger.  Let’s rise up and make the church what Jesus intended for it to be and not the fake place for “perfect” people that, truthfully, the devil intended for it to be!