The church I attended for quite a while was seemingly everything I needed - great worship, great word, friendly people. I'd even have lunch after the service in their restaurant.
I was trying to find my niche in the church, you know, where I could serve - dance, drama, choir - to no avail. I did feel like becoming a member was too detailed and lengthy a process. Also, serving in any capacity prior to membership was a "prohibited". Anyway, I left before I joined.
Why did I leave?
On February 4, 07, the pastor of the church drew an ALARMING parallel between sin and mental illness during his sermon on Intentional Living.
He used Romans 8:11 as his core verse and stated that The Holy Spirit is supposed to transform you from the inside out. He said Intentional Living is living in psychological and emotional well being.
His ass should've stopped there!
He then said 1 in 4 people are mentally ill and instructed everyone to turn to each other to ask if they were the one that was mentally ill, and had the WHOLE CHURCH LAUGHING!!!
If you're mentally, ill, it's because the Holy Spirit is not in you!
So pastor, why stop with mental illness? Your wife has MS, let’s put hero n the express train to hell, too!
I would have gotten over it and attributed his stupid ignorant ass parallel as a slip of the tongue, being tired or too much cough medicine, but the idiot made the same point over and over!
I left the service very annoyed and in tears.
When I tried to get a copy of the sermon the next day to review it, guess what? They were all taken off the shelves; thereby confirming that he f'ed up!
I gave him the benefit of the doubt the following week and attended hoping for a retraction, apology, anything to allow me to wash away the hurt from the previous week.
Well, the moron reiterated his mentally ill people are sinful stance with emphasis!
I walked out of the service and haven't been back.
Who's suffered!
I have. I miss the fellowship, I miss learning and growing, but I can't return.
I also blame him for me having to start meds at all! I started meds after his dumb-ass statement. I wasn't ready to have my "safe place" be turned into a den of judgment.
I know he's flawed, and that he is but a man who is not without sin, and clearly not without being an ignorant ass, but he never apologized. But then again I never wrote the letter that I said I would. Hmmmm, I guess this letter is a start.
Will I be able to return to that church?
Hopefully one day, but then again, maybe the hurt runs to deep.
Can I ever look at him as someone who has my best interest at heart when he was an ass about something so personal to me?
In the interim, I'll be at another church.
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3 comments:
So by extension you should be physically healed as well? Physically disabled or ill people should be made completely whole...right? And no one who is sick is has a full walk with the Lord? Isn't that what Job's friends told him when he had boils?
That's bogus, and it flies in the face of logic.
I'm sorry you lost a church. I hope you find a new one where you are loved and accepted.
So true.
I'm looking.
Thanks for the comment :-)
Ugh. People like them give religion a bad name. I wouldn't bother returning. There's plenty of churches out there that aren't as ignorant.
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