Posted on 03/10/2011 7:00:13 PM PST by Chi-townChief
This is the third column in a series by the author titled, “Searching for the Church I Once Knew.”
Church hurt, we have often wandered like lost, wounded sheep. I stand with a foot in both worlds — one in hurt, the other in hope.
Indeed my own experiences and the anecdotes of others over a lifetime have well acquainted me with this trail of tears. And I wonder: How must God feel? How many others have been wounded? How many will never recover?
Shunned, used, raped, abused — all in the church.
Ridiculed, demeaned over the pulpit, unjustly booted from church offices after a life of faithfully serving and pouring into others’ lives. Victimized and marginalized by gossip and backbiting, “she” was scrutinized and criticized. Her offense? Wearing pants and makeup.
Betrayed, abandoned or having suffered the absence of those Christian brothers and sisters on whom we believed we could depend. Browbeaten with legalism and traditions that stem more from the whims of man than the word of God. Such is the substance of hurt suffered by many in the church.
And yet, I can still hear the unsympathetic chiding of some “saints”: Get over it! Stop making excuses. Shush. Hush. Stop whining. Take your eyes off man and put ’em back on God.
Except, God didn’t hurt us. Church folk did.
The hurt alone was enough to make me walk away. Yet, there’s something that keeps me searching for the church I once knew. Except opening the door of a new church is like opening a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get.
As a Pentecostal son who attended Catholic school, who married Baptist and who, as I have traveled, attended Lutheran, Methodist, Full Gospel, Apostolic and other assortments of Christian churches, I am aware that church hurt knows no boundaries — racial, gender, denominational or generational.
I began searching long before I realized, moved partly by having experienced as a teenager the transformative power of a Christ-centered body, operating in the authority and under the leading of the Holy Spirit in matters of everyday life. Except amid hurt, we proceed with caution, careful to open our hearts to the vulnerability requisite for intimate relationship.
I wonder if, like someone abused, I too often have focused on the ounce of bad, or imperfection, rather than the pound of good.
This much I know: I have longed for that fervent connection I once had to Christians like my grandmother and the little old church mothers with whom I used to pray at storefront churches on Tuesday and Friday mornings until we felt His spirit, and whose faces shone with God’s glory more brightly than the white apparel they wore at Sunday service. I long again to be whole, renewed, restored, reconnected.
Not long ago, I stumbled upon a church — loving, stirring, spiritual, by all appearances, connected to community, fervent. I was leaving Sunday service after having attended again without my family, and thinking, as I walked toward my car, “What a wonderful experience.” Suddenly, I heard a woman’s voice, calling, “John Fountain.”
“Uh, yes,” I said, turning and seeing a church mother whom I did not know, but who thought she knew me. “You visited our church and our pastor acknowledged you,” she continued. Then she scolded: “So why you still writing all that stuff about the church?”
Not, how are you, brother? Good to see you, my brother. I’m praying for you, baby. I thank God for you, brother. “Why you still writing all that stuff?”
Damn.
Wounded, I walked to my car and drove away, and like so many others, I’m still searching for the church we once knew.
For those struggling with this issue, I highly recommend “Why We Love the Church” by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck:
“Why We Love the Church presents the case for loving the local church. It paints a picture of the local church in all its biblical and real life guts, gaffes, and glory in an effort to edify local congregations and entice the disaffected back to the fold. It also provides a solid biblical mandate to love and be part of the body of Christ and counteract the “leave church” books that trumpet rebellion and individual felt needs.
Why We Love the Church is written for four kinds of people - the Committed, the Disgruntled, the Waffling & the Disconnected.”
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Love-Church-Institutions-Organized/dp/0802458378
Bump for later
My advice to Mr. Fountain?
Get over it! Stop making excuses. Shush. Hush. Stop whining. Take your eyes off man and put ’em back on God.
If this man is looking for the perfect church, he’d better not join it, or he’ll ruin it.
Who is this crybaby?
Sounds like the Muslim Ellison.
I fully sympathize with him. The "right" church group is not always easy to find and there are far too many that just play at being a church family. I believe, though, that we are never to stop assembling ourselves together. We miss out on so much that God can do with us and for us when we think we can get by without it. We need the church and the church needs us. We are members in particular and if one is left out the whole body can suffer. We each have gifts to offer for the furtherance of the gospel and to help each other as we walk with Christ. We cheat ourselves when we forsake it.
An important first step would be a good Bible study class.
“I’m still searching for the church we once knew.”
I hope the author figures out he is supposed to be searching for God’s will and then doing it, regardless of his feelings. Searching for a church that makes him feel the way he once felt is a mug’s game. The Bible doesn’t promise we are going to feel good all the time. It does promise everlasting life in the presence of the creator of the universe.
Difference Churches have different rules for its members, and believe it or not a lot of the rules do come from the scriptures.
From Romans through Hebrews especially are writings about how churches should be managed and how the members of the church should behave.
Although i have gone to one church or another for years, i have never been a member of a church and can not be as i am not qualified so i have not experienced any thing such as is described.
Maybe MR. Fountain should build a Church of his own and run it to suit himself, it has been done, or where would all of the cults come from.
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