I have not written here since leaving my former church and helping to start the current church I attend. First let me say there are very good things in each of these churches and wonderful people in each. But hindsight is a bitter sweet gift is it not? Looking back I now see all the deception and lies that brought us to where we are. I know that God can and does take our wrong choices and turns them into something good. I know that even though we have been led down a wrong path that God will use that path to teach us something while moving us back to the path we should be on. I have watched from day 1 a group of people being swept up by this great emotionalism that has become a way of "doing" church. I watch week after week as the co-pastor of MHF tries to whip up some emotion for the people to ride and if she can't get them on her emotional wagon then the church service is declared a "bad" one. Sunday after Sunday the people leave with nothing more than emotions to get them thru the week. There is no spiritual food only fluff. Emotions flare week after week because that is all that we have. I grew up in churches like these and I promised myself I would not go back to one but I find myself leading one. I can no longer lead these people in the direction they choose to follow. I can no longer lead myself I have found. I long each week for a service with substance but it never happens. I'm at a crossroads here and I have no idea what to do. I can't go back to where I came from...I would never ask those people to extend any welcome to me regardless of how deceived I and others were in leaving there. I cannot stay where I am unless something drastically changes. So for now I will listen and hope and pray that it's not too late to hear God calling and maybe this time I will get it right.
sherri
I just read this blog, and have a lot of emotions and thoughts. I personally do not feel that we were deceived in leaving, but I feel that we let "ourselves" get in the way of what God had laid out for us to achieve. As far as the co-pastor, I think I know her, I trully don't feel that her intentions were to get emotions going, I feel that as she prepared her sermons she used Bible, and tried to figure out the best way to get the life lesson across to the people.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I hear though she is not the co-pastor anymore, and is trying to find her way back to a relationship with God and back to a work that He has for her to do, (if he has any left that He will trust her with.)
I think for all getting back on the right track will take prayer, forgiveness, grace, and even time spent remembering what we were doing when it was good, before we allowed ourselves to get in the way.
I agree that we have let ourselves get in the way of what God wanted. I have thought about the deception thing more since I first wrote the blog. I guess that's the good thing about blogs......we can actually write one thing one day and then go back and change our mind and write something else. I suppose I have changed some of my opinions since I wrote this. Maybe we all deceived each other on some level or maybe we were just caught up in everything. It could be that we did what we were supposed to do. I'm not sure we will ever know the answer to any of it. What I do know is that we have to go on from here and leave the past in the past. I also want to comment on the co-pastor......I wasn't really referring to her sermons. I believe her sermons were very good and I miss them. I was referring to our leading of worship. I believe what I have learned since then is that too much of either of us is not a good thing. We need the balance we bring to each other. I believe God has plenty of work left to be done and I know that God knows and trusts the passions and the gifts he has given you and as far as getting back on the right track, you are already there. We all step off the path that God starts us on and sometimes we even push others off their path but the good thing is that God walks with us off our path and on it. It's all about the journey.
ReplyDelete"I can't go back to where I came from...I would never ask those people to extend any welcome to me regardless of how deceived I and others were in leaving there."
ReplyDeleteI have no vested interest in the situation other than wishing for peace in our community. I'm a casual church go-er and believer at best. I am not sure who all the players are or how our community came to be so fractured and pained.
That said your comment concerns me. Why do you feel that you have to ask for a welcome when one would be extended in any event? Trust the people who care about you even if you disagree with them or have disagreed with them in the past.
You previously blogged about forgiveness. You questioned how people can forgive you when you haven't requested it. Forgiveness in man is about the forgiver, not the one seeking forgiveness. In other words: I forgive people for their actions or words against me because *I* need the soothing comfort of shedding anger.
You are forgiven by God whether you ask for it or not. Just as God's love for you is not contingent upon you performing rituals, neither is His forgiveness. You are automatically forgiven. God asks you to request forgiveness because the contrition soothes you. Thus God's forgiveness is altruistic where as man's is somewhat selfish. God forgives you because doing so is good for you; man forgives you because doing so is good for man. This doesn't make man a petty creature, it just means that man is not God. We strive to be as God-like as we can, but in the end we are human.
I don't know how to authenticate on your blog to show who I am so this may show up as an anonymous post. I am Melanie Young from St. Albans. I occasionally attend services at both MVF and MCC.
While I agree with your comments on forgiveness I do not agree that a welcome would be extended in any event. The sad truth is I was told not to come back regardless of whether I wanted to or not. When you say to trust the people who care about me even if we disagree, I have to ask the question of who it is that cares enough about me that I would extend that type of trust. I have many people who care about me and many that I trust but the issue here is putting trust in people that I'm pretty sure no longer care about me. I especially liked your statement about man not being a petty creature but rather just means he is not like God. Forgiveness is a healing thing when it is extended and when it is taken. My point in the forgiveness blog was that I was questioning whether or not we are sincere when we say things like "all is forgiven". That's easy to say but I'm not sure if we say that because it's true or if we say it so we don't have to deal with any of it. I don't know.........the person could very well have meant it. I am learning each day that I know less and less of God, not because my knowledge is somehow fading but because the more I know God the bigger God becomes and so I know less. I hope and pray someday that our fractured community can heal. So many of us have done things in a wrong manner regardless of our intentions.
ReplyDeletesherri