Questioning Your Church is a Bad Idea — It’s Their Way or The Highway

I Took The Highway

My family and I were regulars. We attended church almost every Sunday and on every special day including Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.

Yes. You read that right — we attended church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

I think my children would have preferred to stay home on Christmas morning opening their gifts.

I converted to Christianity as my children got older. I wanted them to have a good grounding in the difference between right and wrong, and to hear it from someone other than from my wife and me.

I was very active in the church. Very few were willing to volunteer for anything. Therefore, to get the bare minimum done to keep the church operating became a burden on the willing few.

The positions I held included Financial Secretary, Treasurer, and Elder, and like many others, I held two positions at the same time.

I devoted a lot of time to serving the church.

After many years I started to have doubts and began to ask questions and to make suggestions on how we could improve ourselves as a church.

My questions were never answered to my satisfaction. I don’t think they were welcome.

The following were some of my concerns.

• Hymns

I think that people go to church to be encouraged and to be uplifted. After dozens of years of singing the same old hymns over and over again, they became depressing. I pointed this out at one of our meetings but my concerns were brushed aside.

Here is an example from a popular hymn.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

- From Amazing Grace

Do we attend a church service to sing about being wretches? I thought that we were fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14)

The words and the music were not making a joyful noise unto the Lord. (Psalm 98:4)

• The Confession of Sins

“O almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner …”

I already know that I am far from perfect, but do I have to repeat these words every Sunday morning? Think of the words — poor (poverty), miserable (unhappy, depressed), sinner (evil-doer). These words evoke the negative. What if I had a great week? What if I didn’t rob or kill anyone, or had any evil thoughts? Anyway, it got to me.

• The Sermons

These were usually of the fire and brimstone variety. The focus was always on the negative. There is so much that is positive in the Bible, so much we can learn and benefit from, but we have to look for it. We can also find the negative and depressing if we look for that. I didn’t want to be beaten over the head every Sunday morning. Once in a blue moon would have been more than enough.

• Attitude Towards Money

One of the verses preachers love to point to is, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1Timothy 6:10) They toss this passage out at the sinners in the congregation without explaining why Paul wrote those words. Perhaps they don’t understand why he did.

They want you to believe that money is bad and evil, but at the end of the sermon the collection plates are passed around and the offerings are carefully and diligently counted and recorded. After all, tax receipts had to be issued at the end of the year.

Our church suffered from a lack of sufficient funds. Perhaps the church’s attitude towards money had a lot to do with it.

Things were so bad that I once got a call at work from the Synod about overdue bills.

• The relevance of the Church

We wanted to grow as a congregation but had great difficulty attracting new members. From time to time we would canvass our neighborhood and engage in other activities designed to attract new members. Most of this activity was unsuccessful.

I expressed the opinion that we should point out to the public the benefits they would gain by attending our church. How were we going to help them? How will they benefit? How would their lives be better?

This was not how the church did things. It was set in its ways. People had to come and accept what was being taught. That’s how it was done.

• Questions not welcome

Even though we were told that questions were welcome, I had the feeling that tough questions were not.

Christians are taught that Christ is the only way to heaven. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

At a Sunday morning bible class, I asked the pastor if the billion people in China who don’t believe in Christ are going straight to hell. He turned as red as a beet and said, “that’s what the bible says.”

That didn’t make sense to me.

I stopped attending church. A few warning letters were sent to me. I ignored them. One day I received a notice from the Post Office that required me to pick up registered mail. At the Post Office, I requested to see the item they wanted me to sign for. It was from my church. I refused to accept it.

I guessed that I was being officially “released from membership”, or to put it bluntly, I was being kicked out, excommunicated, turfed.

My family and I were tossed out like yesterday’s garbage by registered mail.

Interestingly, in all the months my family and I missed church, no one called us. It was as if we never existed. We had suddenly become personae non gratae. But while we were members, attended church regularly, and did what was expected of us, we were greeted warmly and treated well.

After being a member for so many years, and giving generously of my time and resources, to be treated so shabbily in the end, seemed unchristian.