WHERE DO WE GO? Our family recently left our church home a few months back. Then a few weeks later most of the congregation left also. In not having a church home, things have felt strange. There were some doctrinal issues that, although our Pastor never taught them from the pulpit, he would only mention them to us on the side and try to convince us to believe as he did. But he taught them to new people (on the side) who made their home with our body. One of these issues greived my spirit greatly. There is a book out, I do not know the name, but it was shown to me. This book teaches that Jesus has already returned and that this is heaven. Heaven being the Kingdom of God which was established when Jesus rose from the dead. When my Pastor brought this subject up I asked him to please not teach that, others who were in the room gathered scripture to show him how false this teaching was. One thing we realized was that there was no convincing him differently. Now, I've been taught to respect those who are in authority over me, so out of respect for my Pastor I did not mention the return of Christ to our congregation. One of the greatest encouragements to me has always been the thought that one day Jesus was coming back to take us out of this life as we know it. Thoughts went through my mind, "If this is all there is then the Bible is a lie, and I quit. Yet, I knew in my heart that Jesus will return. However, I found myself and others losing hope. Jesus is our blessed hope. I would call my mother, and others who I trusted and would get them to talk to me about the return of Christ, even so, I kept going down hill. When the Pastor would get up to preach, the congregation would sit quietly and listen carefully to his words. There were not a lot of amens. In consequense the Pastor began to pick at how I led the worship. I wasn't doing enough fast songs to suit him. The people were going to sleep on him. So in another area I was losing confidence. You have to understand that we loved our Pastor, he was so good at being friendly that we just let things continue. We felt sorry for him but it was killing us! A new couple came and joined our church, the woman had been a Christian for some time. Her husband was a new believer, on the side they were being taught differently. The couple approached my husband and I about these issues wanting to know if that was how we believed and we told them no. It wasn't long after this that our family left the church. The remaining leadership approached the Pastor about his teaching, but he denied it. They preferred to believe him. The couple then called us and told us that they had been given a book and told to study it (the one mentioned above) and were told not to tell anyone, or let anyone else see it. I told her she needed to take it to the Elders of the church and show them. That was when they realized that the Pastor was deceiving them. They asked him to leave but because of the way the bylaws were set up a Pastor couldn't be fired - he had to resign. The Pastor opted to stay, so they resigned and left also. My husband and I have visited different churches for the last few months, but have found ourselves preferring to stay home and go to church in front of the television. We cannot accept this behavior as God's will for our lives. The couple I mentioned came over and they told us that they too had found themselves struggling with wanting to be involved in another church. So I contacted the others that had left and found them in the same condition. We felt that we needed to contact all of the people that left the church after we did. We invited them all to our house for a prayer meeting and fellowship afterward. The Lord supernaturally came into our midst. First of all we really had no idea what we were going to do when they got here. I had prepared a few songs and Tony prepared for communion. As a group we reflected on why God required a blood sacrifice. It has puzzled me in the past, but on reflection of the properties of our own blood it really hit me just how important the blood of Jesus is. There is life in the blood, but even more profound is the fact that as our own blood passes through our system it picks up the impurities and as it passes through the heart the impurities are cleansed. As we partook of communion the reality of the blood of Jesus when it is applied to our lives became so evident to us. We have his life blood coursing through our bodies when we trust him as Lord and Saviour. His perfect blood, without impurities, coursing through us cleansing us, healing us, setting us free. We all repented of our thoughts and actions of these past months. Sometimes even though we feel we have the right to feel the way we do, we need to deny ourselves those feelings so that God may be glorified in our midst. All of those who had left (myself included) were struggling with not wanting to be involved in a church body. All of these people were leaders in the church, elders, deacons, teachers, and worship leaders. You know that something is wrong when your leadership gets up and leaves. The thing is, that it was like going through a divorce, we were angry, it's like a husband or a wife coming home and finding their spouse cheating. The truth came out and we felt violated. We were in need of a cleansing and a healing. When my husband and I left the church I felt like I was abandoning those that I called my brothers and sisters. I felt that I was leaving them to the wolves so to speak. But our leaving was like the cork being removed from a bottle, the rest just followed. I know that accusations were made that we caused them to leave. But as everyone stated that night, they all had their own reasons for leaving. It was just that all were scared to make a move. That little body has been through so much together, and the going through it caused us to bond even tighter, so we were like scattered sheep with no one to show us the way. They had all pretty much looked to my husband and I as leaders so when we called them they all jumped at the oportunity to get together. There was a beautiful sound of laughter that filled our house that night - laughter of relief and the joy of coming together in unity. Unity being something that had been missing in our body of believers. I thank God for the Blood of Jesus, for the cleansing blood of Jesus, that heals and sets us free! God bless you and your household. In His Love, Karen has a devotional page on this website. If you were encouraged by this, I'm sure you will be encouraged by Karen's Reflections |
This page was created April 24, 2003
