Why I Stopped Going to Church
All my life I have had this void in me. An emptiness that felt so deep I could almost taste it.
As a teenager, I often felt alone and misunderstood. I always had this feeling of displacement — like I didn’t belong. Even in my family, among my sibling, I was always the odd one out. So I preferred being by myself.
Most times I’d lock myself in my room at night, put off the lights and just stay there in the Dark, thinking and dreaming dreams of finding my place in the world.
My favourite movie then was an animation The Little Mermaid. I loved this movie because I could relate to the lead character Ariel. My favourite song besides ‘Super Trouper’ by Abba was “Part of Your World” soundtrack from the Little Mermaid.
Just like Ariel, I wanted to be part of a world that was intriguing to me. A world where I felt loved. A world where I truly belonged.
I had no idea how I was ever going to find that world or who was going to take me there but I hoped I got there somehow. There doesn’t even need to be a prince charming, I’d often think to myself. I knew chances of finding my place were slim but I kept dreaming and hoping.
One day I was taking a stroll around my neighbourhood and a young lady approached me. She was dressed in a shirt that was tucked into a long red skirt and a head tie, nicely wrapped around her head.
With a smile on her face, she said to me “hey how are you? Please I’d like to invite you to my church. I think you’re going to fit in just fine there”. She said they had a Youth Conference that weekend and insisted I attend.
According to her, her church was a place of peace, love and family. A place where she was 100% sure I belonged. I looked at the church flyer in my hand and noticed it was a church I was quite familiar with as my classmate was a member of the church.
Even though the lady was a total stranger, there was something about her smile that got me interested in this her church.
I come from a Christian family but we were never the churchy type. That is, we went to church but not as often as most Christians do. So the idea of church wasn’t new to me. But the way the lady sold the idea, made me believe that her church might be worth the try.
My first day in the church, I noticed it was one of those family churches where everyone knew everyone.
The pastor’s wife and children were all seated at the front row while the pastor gave the sermon. From the expression of the members of the church, it was easy to tell, these folks worshipped their pastor and his family. After the sermon was over, a call was made for new members to be welcomed by the pastor.
I never liked being put on the spot so I wasn’t going to come out but seeing that everyone kept looking at me and expecting me to step out, I reluctantly came out.
After I was welcomed by the entire church, I was instructed to wait and meet with the pastor after the Service.
A few minutes later, an usher walked up to me and whispered to me “ you’re welcome to church. The pastor is happy to have you join our service today. Please wait a minute, he’d like to welcome you in person”.
By the end of the church fellowship, the wife of the pastor came to me and welcomed me again to the church.
She encouraged me to come back and plan towards joining the church. According to her, coming to church that day was the best decision I had ever made and that God had directed my steps there. She gave me the meeting schedule of the church and asked to see me at the next evening meeting. At this point, I was beginning to believe maybe there was something special about this church.
On my second day in the church, I had attended the evening meeting. After church that evening, The pastor asked to see me in his office. I went into the office and saw his wife there as well. They asked me to seat down next to them as they asked to know more about me.
I gave them a brief introduction of myself and the pastor welcomed me into the ‘family’ with a handshake. After which the wife hugged me and filled me in on the Rules and Regulations of the Church.
According to her, these were some of the rules to abide by if one must be a member of the church and have a relationship with God:
- No make up
- No hair extensions
- No trousers
- No nail polish
- No skirts above the knee
- No clothes showing your back
- No short-sleeved tops that reveal your arms or underarm area
- Hair must be properly wrapped and covered with a headscarf.
After giving me the list of all the ‘rules’, the wife of the pastor took my hand, looked into my eyes with a soothing smile and said to me, “God wants to have a relationship with you but you need to cleanse yourself off of sin first before you can have access to Him”.
I had lots of questions. Questions like, ‘why should God be more concerned with my exterior than my interior, I thought God’s Love was Unconditional?’ It just didn’t make sense but still, they had somehow successfully convinced me to stay in the church. I felt having a relationship with God was more important than making sense of anything.
Soon I became a full-time member of the church. I decided to join the ‘Missions Team’. The Missions Team were those who volunteered to travel with the church to remote areas to preach the gospel. We travelled to different states in the country, going for street Evangelism’s and organizing crusades.
While on the Missions Team, I noticed something that didn’t go down well with me. As much as I tried to ignore it, I knew something didn’t feel right and would be wrong of me to ignore it.
I noticed that during evangelism, the majority of people in the communities were either Catholics or Anglicans but mostly Catholics. The church which is a Pentecost church would usually speak against other churches. They especially disliked Catholics. The church saw Catholicism as a sham. They were sure Catholics were Idol Worshipers as they worshipped the image of Mary and Jesus.
The pastor would often say “how can you bow down to an image that has the inscription ‘Made in China’ on it?
I observed that during the evangelism, when the invitees identified as Catholics, the team would refer to them as “Lost Souls”. I often wondered, Why do they have to be ‘Lost Souls’ just because they attend Catholic and why should God judge people based on what church/ denominations they belong to?
Another incident that put me off happened during one of those days when we were out for evangelism. We met a young man on the way and asked to talk to him. I was the one who spoke to him. As I was preaching to him about God’s Love, I asked him if he was a member of any church. He replied saying he attended an Apostolic church and expressed how much he loved his church. I was glad to hear that.
I encouraged him to keep going to his church and continue having a good relationship with God. I told him I believed that was all that mattered.
While talking, I hadn’t noticed one of the smaller pastors — not the main pastor standing close by, eavesdropping on my conversation with the man.
About 5 hours later, we were all done with the evangelism and retired to the hotel where we had lodged.
Later that evening, the entire team gathered for a meeting. The pastor who was eavesdropping on my conversation with the man on the street took the stage and gave a long speech. He spoke on something he called “The Rules of Soul Winning”. In his speech, he mentioned that he had overheard one of us preaching to a ‘Lost Soul’. He said he heard the person tell the man that he can stay in his current church as long as he has a relationship with God.
According to the pastor, that was an unwise thing to do. “ the purpose of evangelism is winning more members to the church.” he said. I recall him making a joke of it and the people laughed. Their expressions insinuated that what that person had done was a stupid thing to do.
I knew that speech was directed at me so I decided I wasn’t going to act like I didn’t know. I immediately rose my hand to be given a chance to speak, which the pastor permitted.
Now before I continue, remember I mentioned I don’t like being on the spot? I don’t like much attention so I rarely speak in public so this was an unusual thing for me to do. But I had to speak up because the whole thing seemed ridiculous to me.
I calmly stepped out of my seat and made it to the stage where that pastor was, I faced the Team and introduced myself as the person the pastor was referring to.
I told them I believed that in as much as we were a church on mission, our major aim should be winning people to God. That is, encouraging people to have a closer and personal relationship with God.
I told them I didn’t believe that God was in our church alone, I believed God was everywhere. I believed our aim should be drawing people’s attention to God and not to the church alone.
At this point, another pastor took the stage and asked,
“ if we encourage the people we preach to remain in their churches, what is our gain then, why did we have to travel this far to preach if we won’t insist they join our church?”
While he was talking, a lady who happened to be a Bible school teacher in the church at that time, rose her hand to speak as she made her way to the stage.
She took the mic and said to me “Sister Belinda I also have a question for you. If we let them remain in their churches how do we keep an eye on them, how do we know they are changed?”
I noticed this had risen a debate among the rest of the team in the meeting. I felt it was pointless arguing with people whose minds had been brainwashed by the doctrines of the church.
At this point, I finally saw these people for what they truly were and that was a bunch of fanatics. People who were trained to only interest themselves with the growth of the church and nothing more than that.
To them, the Bigger Picture was the Church Growth and not God.
I know this kind of growth mentality would make a lot more sense in a business organization but is the church a business organisation?
I had responses for every question I was asked that day — I’d talk more on it on my next article.
Thanks for reading. You are the reason I write.
Thank you also to Dr Mehmet Yildiz I can’t express enough my level of gratitude for the opportunity to finally be heard.
