Just came back from a service that made me doubt my faith.

[melanie]

That's a damn good rant Melanie; I'm totally taking the term "churchianity".

I get more out of my own personal studies than I got out of the churches I've been to so far here. I'm not an overtly social person. I do have social needs but they are met in small, informal groups of familiar people. Large groups are doable as long as I can blend in and be anonymous. And I'm not taken in on formality or ceremony. Quite the opposite. Which is ironic considering I'm in the military.

I haven't been to this church before, but it is one of the biggest in my area with six different campuses and one more being planned. Someone that works with my wife suggested it.

About 20 years ago I had a home church; a Calvary Chapel, it was one of the bigger churches in my southern California town of about 150k, but it wasn't especially extravagant. I do not necessarily hold all their doctrinal views; but even then I felt out-of-place when in the pews...I just dealt with it. We moved away and since then I've been to other churches of varying denominations...even a Quaker one. Still feel the same way; but not to the point of doubting my faith over it. although, at CC and others I liked I was involved in the youth worship bands.

I stopped going to church after being kicked out of my Bible School and ostracized by my friends after knocking up my girlfriend and refusing the dean's demands that I marry her RFN. Which is ironic, because his school was known as a meat-market since most girls were there to do God's will by marrying a pastor. I married her a year after my daughter was born and we've been married 17 years now.

One of the things that I found soul-crushing in bible school was the thrice-weekly chapel sessions we had to attend...as if someone on stage could say something more profound than your daily studies of the Bible! Most of the time they browbeat us to be more devoted to God or tried to sell us on some event or something. I have found that in my walk it has not been the atheists or other religions that have caused me to question my faith the most....it's been the Christians. I don't believe I'm perfect, but it's God that changes me, and not the place of a human institution to expect me to change for God; because at that point I'm following the church and not God. I think this song sums up the attitude we should have as an example: https://youtu.be/8lykNsLdunU

Great song. Thanks for sharing
I know what you mean, I am not taken by formality or ceremony either. I understand though that many people are, they feel comfort, a sense of Christian community and a closeness to God within in their church and that's great but I do not take away the same feelings from the experience. I have attended many different denominations and whilst I find some better than others I have never felt 'at home' or particularly at ease within institutionalised churches. I guess they just don't fulfill a need or desire within. I love to share with other believers and bring glory to God but in a less formal, conventional way.
I believe people should be free to build and express their relationship with The Almighty in a way that works for them, each and every one of us walking our own paths.
I have to agree with you in regards to other Christians being the biggest cause for you questioning your faith. I have experienced something similar. To be honest when I looked around me I didn't see people I wanted to associate with. Sounds harsh but it was true. It didn't feel authentic to me. I want real. It felt like such a charade of 'Sunday' best, with polite chit chat and shiny shoes but no depth. No one going against the status quo; if it was a Pentecostal church then jump around and speak in tongues and be 'slain' in the spirit up on stage when the stage master (pastor) gives the 'action' signal. You had better do it because if you don't then you don't really have the Holy Spirit.
Or other denominations where you repeat the same given repsonses, on queue, every week. Then eat cake and sip on tea.
Or the ones where I questioned what was being taught and it was made very clear that questioning 'the church' was not appropriate.
I was kicked out of Religious education when I was 13 and told I was going to hell for questioning too much. Conform, conform conform.
I am a bit of a rebel at heart, the only person I am going to surrender my will or my opinion and thoughts to are God. I do not need a church, pastor or belief statement to dictate to me how I should excercise my faith. That's mine. It's personal, it's between myself and my Father.
I did go through a time after I left the 'church' when I fumbled around a bit lost. Well it was many years and I was more than a little lost. I couldn't stand the hypocrisy within the church and I couldn't identify with others there, I even very stupidly stopped referring to myself as a christian and would call myself spiritual and a believer in Jesus. So it damaged my faith in the respect that I wanted to distance myself from the 'church' as a whole that I had grown up a part of but I didn't know how to seperate 'church' and personal faith. I had been taught that 'church' was my expression of faith.
It took many years and hitting some pretty bad lows before I grabbed hold of my faith again and this time defined it by building a personal relationship with our Father. I went back to church a couple times but nothing had changed there but I knew with some new found spiritual maturity that 'church' did not hold the key to my faith. I did. All I had to do was place all my love and faith in God and be willing to grow and love and learn. I felt a strength of faith that I had not felt before. Surrender. I just surrendered myself to Him. Not to church or doctrine but to my Creator and Saviour. I feel freedom from getting out from under the yoke of institutionalised religious doctrine. It took me some time to seperate the two but when I did, I realised how for me they never aligned anyway. Man relying on man not God. Church as authority not God.

If you find a church that suits you, that's awesome but don't feel like it should define your faith. It's hard to seperate 'church' and faith as its indoctrinated in us. If your a christian you show up on Sunday and do your christian duties. The only duty we have is faith. If 'church' doesn't suit you then don't sweat it, God doesn't need a building to go about His buisness.

[B. W.]

Good post Mel!

I these days and times that face us, there is a shaking going on inside the church world. It is needed. The reason you and others cited concerning the modern church world demonstrates why. We have now come into an age of the license-stamped-approved-expert who is to be the only qualified person to govern a church body. Basically, one goes to a school, learns all the knowledge, passes all the test, gets a degree in ministry but has no true christian life experience to balance what is learned. These folks become church pastors on a career path, who seek after secular business models that apply tested and proven consumer marketing strategies from the world to promote church growth. They seek the latest trends, such as seeker sensitive, non-offensive politically correct model, or the laid back hipster model, all these held together by people pleasing cement. Add to this, you have other ministers who rely on cookie cutter control model for church growth. The result is this: the Holy Spirit, like a dove, lands upon a modern church, looks around and see's what is going on, leaves a warning and flies off the roof waiting for folks to let him back in as the governing teaching agent of the modern church.

The pettiness in many churches is no different than the office politics of our places of employment. We cannot complain about employment as it provides a pay check but the modern church is a different matter as it holds no pay check over allegiance. There are very few good churches out there because - well - Christians love their darkness more than God's light. They simply do not know any other way to live or do things in the church. They teach on faith but do they really have faith that trust the Lord? Jesus mentioned that we should be on guard that the light we think we have is not darkness instead. How can I explain darkness other than it is what is dysfunctional. People do love dysfunction, how so?

People love Darkness more than Light. Why? Answer, it is comfortable and knowable. It provides one a sense of self-worth. Let me explain. It is all we know – we do not know light. Jesus came as light to show us there is light midst darkness. Folks fear the light because it is frightening to begin something knew, as it involves a step into the unknown, faith. So they draw back. However God's Light confronts darkness...

Let me put it this way, Jesus opened all the prison doors on all souls in the entire world. However, people remain in their cells in their misery – comfortable in them because it gives them a sense of purpose to their lives, an excuse to live a life of drama, or self-sabotage and destruction. They hold tight to it, hate it, crave freedom from it, but since it gives them their sense of purpose to their mere existence, they cannot let it go. You see, people are comfortable living in darkness as they know what to expect and have a sense of security in feeling rejected, or living in abuse. Abandonment grants them justification to live reckless with abandon and hate, etc and etc.

This mentality is brought into the modern church as well in its forms, ritualism, churchanity. It is easy to perform and control and think this is what it means to have faith rather than have real faith that is open for the Holy Spirit to land and govern the body. One way leaves a person (governing expert) in control thinking this control is what it means to have faith. That is darkness posing as light. The liberty in Christ is unknown, frightening as true faith says - Lord Jesus you take the reigns.

You see, people are institutionalized to darkness and living in the freedom of Christ's light is an unknown. So, they draw back to their darkness - intellectual pride, abuse, gossip, sabotaging relationships, cursing others and self, salved to feel inferior for them is all very comfortable. Despite hating it, they are comfy in it and share their misery with others, spreading it around, draining others like a leech. Men and women love darkness more than light because of a spiritual Stockholm syndrome with their captors - the dethroned ruler of darkness and his minions. This is true even in many churches and why folks are so turned off by the institution of church as so many have cited here on this thread.

God’s light is frightening because it sets forth before a person a bright unknown. It requires one to step out the prison cell and stepping into God's true light. Like the proverbial person at the sea shore dipping his toe in the 80 degree water and thinking it is too cold to swim, draws back to spend his vacation in his hotel room watching videos. Many church service are like watching videos too. The ocean looks to vast, its warm water too cold, its surf to rough. That darkness known in the hotel room, though not perfect, is at least perfectly knowable and controllable. The darkness of the hotel room along with its personal demons are at least knowable and normal. Living in misery, gossip, conformity, justifying sin by a Politically correct church gives folks a sense of feeling important no matter how negative it is.

Result, folks flee the Churchanity and then live as isolated and divided Christians. A house divide against itself cannot stand is a true established principle. So darkness is winning or is it?

I like establishing and building home group style churches that eventually grow in the freedom Jesus Christ brings so I have seen what God's light does and understand the conflict it brings into an institutional church. It confronts church leaders with their personal dark areas in life that need healing so the Holy Spirit can rule the roost. I am just someone tired enough to hate my own darkness so much as to learn to swim in God's ocean. I suggest that those of you tired of churchanity to at least consider starting your own prayer or bible study group in some shape or form. Seek the Lord on this and have him draw others like yourself and start a home group and learn what this is about - by experience. You will learn all about darkness people hold so tight too as well as what you hold on too as well. You will learn to pray and how to pray for others.

As for what I do, I send studies as guidelines to those whom the Lord has shown me for them to use on their own or for their group to use or modify as they so choose. The folks give me feedback and ask questions on a wide array of things such as how to deal with control issues and dealing with wounds of life in those that attend such meetings and many other things as well. Think of it like this, as long as one grasps the fundamental truth of the saving message of Jesus Christ and know who he is, you learn to rely on the Lord for the rest and learn to swim. The Holy Spirit is charge, not me.

It is outside the establish church is where I have found the real church to be. Where folks actually learn from the Holy Spirit how to love God and each other. Like the ocean tide, folks come and go as they please. In someways, it is like this Forum, you get all types of people visiting. The ones that are off base, will leave and those God desires to remain will remain for however long. You develop fellowship, rapport, and bond together as Christian brother and sisters. You will quarrel, disagree, fume a bit but through it all, you are being taught by the Lord what his true agape really is and find actual purpose for life. You will discover light and hate darkness and grow together into a real body of Christians who are real because with you - what you see is what you get - no pretenses. So consider in someway to make a home group, or an internet meeting group, etc - etc and learn from the Lord. This take faith.

Blessings
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[1over137]

Amen.