AlwaysOnAJourney
Active member
Back in 2023, I was on a Christian forum. I spoke about how I didn't have a Church home, and that was why I joined a Christian community online. Some of the members told me that I was living in sin, and needed to repent. This angered me so much that I started writing my long sad unfortunate Church story. At first I thought a paragraph or two would explain enough. But it ended up taking me a very long time to complete it. It is a lot longer than I thought. I hated writing it, and it took me forever. Since at least one of the members here wanted to read it. I finally have it done good enough. I hope you like reading it. I would like some prayer about this. I don't want to be without a Church home. But when enough bad things happen, it is hard to find that home.
Missionary Church was created after spiting from the Mennonites. The way I understand it, and I could be wrong, that it was over the use of Musical instruments, and probably a few other things. It doesn’t make much difference to my story. But I ran into some people who called the Missionary Church “Mennonite”, I felt hurt by this, since they are separate from it now.
Missionary Church was apart of the Holiness Movement. That is probably how they became so legalistic. They have since moved away from some of the legalistic stuff, but they still don’t accept Christians as members who drink or smoke, or both.
Dad was born and then my Grandparents got saved in the Missionary Church. It was during a revival meeting. My Grandparents testimony was very interesting. I don’t have all the details in my head, but know that it really changed my grandfather into a better man. He was a drunk, and almost a chain smoker, all that went away when He got saved. He also started teaching the Bible etc.
It was only natural that my Grandparents became active in the Missionary Church. Since they were saved in that denomination and so was their 3 kids.
The Missionary Church kept telling everyone that they needed more pastors. Dad thought He felt the call into ministry. He went to college to become a minister in the Missionary Church.
Dad graduated from college but the man in charge of giving him his papers to sign for the license wouldn’t bring them to him. A friend of his drove to the office, and got the papers directly, and brought them back to my Dad. That was how Dad had to get his ministers license.
The Missionary Church Organization put him and mom in a really small church in R____ Michigan that couldn’t pay them enough to make ends meet. They had to quit and my Dad returned to a secular job.
Despite not agreeing with Calvinism Dad and Mom started attending a 5 point Calvinist Church known as G____ Brethren Church. They were allowed to serve in that Church. Dad taught the youth. But when Mom got pregnant with me they decided to leave that Church and go back to a Missionary Church. It was B_____ Missionary Church, so that I could be brought up under the theology they taught.
While at B_____ Missionary Church, they were ready to get a new pastor. One of the guys they were looking at was a liberal that didn’t believe the Bible. Some of the guys in the Church decided to stand against this. My Dad was encourage to also make a stand against this. In the end the liberal won and my parents had to leave that church. The reason why He won is because district superintendent was his former pastor.
After the district superintendent came to his senses, that liberal was no longer allowed to preach and teach in any other Missionary Church. So when He finally left that church, He never served in the Missionary Church again. However they allowed him to keep his license. But the guy who was in charge of giving those licenses out got rid of my Dad’s papers. So my Dad also was not able to be a minister in the Missionary Church. The only reason we think He did it, was because He didn’t like Dad. He might have used the excuse that my Dad served in a Calvinist Church. In the Christian Churches, they often don’t like each other if they disagree theologically.
My Parents, rested for a few years in Br________ Memorial Missionary Church. Dad taught Sunday School some, and they met another couple, who wanted to start a home bible study. My Dad tought that home bible study from that time until around 1998 or 99.
For the last 3 years at that Br______ Memorial Missionary Church, my dad had gotten a job as a Custodian. At first it was great for his schedule. The pastor wanted him to get efficient, and get the job done. That way He wasn’t at church constantly all the time. He took his advice and did exactly that. He would come home in the middle of the day and got things done around the farm. Also He had time to work on his Friday night bible study lessons. But then that pastor retired and a new pastor came in. This pastor and his wife had different ideas for my dad and they wanted him to be at the church for a full 8 hour day. They began tacking on more and more and more work. They also wanted to force the, already big church, to grow more by causing inconveniences. The pastor’s wife started up more Sunday School classes, and in order to do this, she took my dad’s office away from him, and turned the custodial storage rooms into classrooms too. The tables and supplies had to be moved out into the hallways. On top of that the new pastor would sometimes loose his temper with the board. Finally we as a family had enough of this, and dad quit that job. Dad took us to the Independent Baptist Church. He wanted a place where we could just go to Church and not be bothered by all the crud that went on behind the scenes.
During the early years, I was growing up in Br________ Memorial Missionary Church, and through the years of my Dad’s Friday Night Bible study, I had one decent friend that I would only get to see on Friday and Sunday. He was the son of the couple that hosted the Friday Night Bible study. We were around each other in School some, but a separation happened at the end of kindergarten. He went onto first grade, and I went to readiness. This put him a grade ahead of me, which continued throughout our whole lives.
My Friend’s parents had money, as soon as He got through Elementary School, they sent him to a private Christian school. By the time I was in the 5th grade, which was the last year I was at this Missionary Church, I no longer had any friends there.
The last year at that Missionary Church, I was put in a very small Sunday School class of me and 4 other boys. 2 of them caused trouble for me and and this other guy. I don’t remember them messing with the son of the teacher. They would disrupt the class and tie my shoe laces to the table. It’s important to understand what kind of people they were back then because as a junior in high school I took a vocational class at a career center. It was there I re met one of those two kids and he had become a self proclaimed agnostic and would use all kinds of bad words, and of course disrupt things.
While I was at the career center, I learned that the other boy who helped pick on me at church, left church and started selling drugs to kids. The third guy, to whom go picked on too, only sorta liked me. Sometimes he would act like a friend and then switch around. I don’t want to make this an entire story about Him but there is much I could tell. A few years, after High School, He had gotten married and divorced. He left the Church, and joined a secret society. He tried to get me to join too.
During my school years, I didn’t have friends at school. The people I was around hated God and were druggies and bullies. Almost all without exception were sexually immoral. Some got their girlfriends pregnant. I wanted to reach these people for Jesus. But trying to do that was like casting my pearls before swine. They just got together and trampled anything I said. I remember one day, someone on the bus pointed to me, and said, “would you want to be a Christian if you were like him?” That hurt my feelings. I was trying to make it through and keep the faith.
During my elementary school years things were just tolerable. There was always someone that wanted to beat up somebody else. I wasn’t like this and eventually they wanted to beat me up too. Staying out of it during the elementary school years wasn’t too hard, but I felt out of place.
5th grade things started to get worse. 6th grade took me to a whole new level of abuse. I got more then just picked on, they started calling me names, tripping me in the hallways, throwing and shooting things at me, hitting me in the head with books, calling me names, licking their fingers and sticking it in my ears, wrecking my thing. There were those that wanted to started a fight with me. At least the tripping in the hallways, and the throwing and shooting things kinda died down, but I continued to be miss treated. People would treat me like I was worthless, and those that still talked to me usually just wanted to either tempt me with drugs or try and start a fight with me. By the time I graduated High School, my anxiety got so high that I finally had a nervous breakdown. It took a month of medications to settle my body down. It took years to finally get me as calm as I am now.
Through all of this, I was stuck in a Baptist Church. Had no Church friends, and nobody at Church cared about what could be happening to those that didn’t fit into that Church. Only my great ant, tried to get us to come to Sunday School. Part of the problem here was my dad, He didn’t want to go to Sunday School. I guess my mom didn’t either. My parents didn’t encourage me to join the youth group either. But if MORE people would of reached out to us, my parents would of eventually been, persuaded.
For 7 years we went to the Baptist Church until a pastor from another Missionary Church finally called on my Dad. He wanted him for an assistant pastor. The district superintendent suggested my dad to him. Which was odd because later on that district superintendent became a big part of our Church problem.
>My Dad took Mom and I to go check out the small Church. Soon He signed on. We became active members for 3 years. My Dad would teach a Sunday school class, and preach whenever the pastor wanted him too. I was asked to run the soundboard, and my mom helped out with the little kids.
The pastor wanted my Dad to, recruited some people from the Friday Night Bible study. Two couples from the Bible study joined the church. One couple took over the youth group, and the other became active members helping out where they could.
The youth minister tried to look for ways to grow the youth group, but just about every idea He had, got shot down by the Pastor. It got so bad, that after just a year the youth minister left the Church. He later told me, him and his wife got out when the going was good.
The pastor also recruited a woman’s minister. This was a little different for the Missionary Church since they didn’t normally have woman preachers. They also started having issues with the pastor, and Her and her husband decided to leave too.
One of the big obvious problems that this church had was the building was a too small. The restrooms was a huge problem, and the classroom space was an issue as well.
The restrooms were just single toilet and single sink rooms. And there was just two of them. One for the boys and one for the girls. After Sunday School the women would line up to use both the boys and girls sides.
We needed to add onto the building but we didn’t have enough money for it.
The church board got together to decide what to do about the money situation. They said they prayed about it and decided to put out a fleece. Judges 6:36-40 They called it a “fleece” but what they actually did was pray that X amount of money would come in by a certain time. It happened but someone wanted to do a feasibility study. The Church didn’t have enough money to pay for a feasibility study. My Dad went home and prayed about it, and He felt like God reminded him of Numbers 13 and Numbers 14. Even though God told the people to take the land they looked at the circumstances and was to scared to follow God. My Dad stood in front of the Church and said, since you prayed about it, and put out a fleece, and God answered your prayer you should go ahead with the building project in faith.
I guess they took my Dad’s advice, because they went ahead with it. But my Dad was not apart of the board. He was not apart of the decisions process. However the main Pastor was. He felt like He knew exactly how to do things because He had worked as a bricklayer for most of his life. He ended up leading them into a bad choice.
Two different construction companies wanted to have the job. Of course they went for the cheapest and the one that would do what they wanted done. The pastor wanted a basement but the one construction company tried to tell him that it was a bad idea to do that on the kind of soil they had to build on. When it rained the basement would flood. They were right! We got the basement and it did flood every time it rained.
As the building project was going. They tore into the building, and had to wall it off. Almost nobody from the construction company would show up to work on our building. Our trusties ended up doing most of the work. The pastor wanted to make it look like things were getting done, so He had the wall torn down.
Since the wall was removed, we wasted money on a big salamander heater. It kept us from freezing in the winter. It took over a year, and was extremely slow but finally the building got built. I think it went over budget.
The people who was working with the pastor was getting sick of him. They were beginning to suspect that He wasn’t being completely honest with everyone. For example: He would say that He didn’t know who gave, and yet other times He would let the cat out the bag, by saying He knew how much so and so gave. Another BIG problem we had with him is He wouldn’t prepare his messages. He would go to the local truck stop, and spend all day there, talking to people at the liars table. He was able to convince some to try the church but when He stood up to preach, he wouldn’t know where He was going. He actually got lost, and mumbled around.
All the Church workers told my Dad that they were thinking about leaving the Church. They called a meeting to try and solve the issues with the pastor. The district superintendent came to the meeting… What you got to understand is the Pastor had things setup so that nothing could happen to him. He had a right hand man who was the chairman on the board, and they both were friends with the district superintendent, so that when the district superintendent came to the meeting He told everyone “No matter what happens here, I’m on side of your Pastor’s side.” This is what was reported to us….
I still remember sitting at home with my parents when one couple showed up at our door, and told us what happened in the meeting, and told us they were leaving.
My Dad noticed that all the people that were biggest givers and the best helpers were all going to leave the Church. My Dad asked the district superintendent what He should do, and the D.S. told him that He should leave too. We left that Church and went back to the Baptist Church. Then one day a man showed up at our door. He wanted my Dad to interview with his Missionary Church to see if they would want him. My Dad asked him if He talked to the D.S. About this. He replied that they were trying to go around D.S. Apparently the D.S. got word of this, and squashed what they were trying to do. It was then we realized that my Dad had become black listed. He never got another offer from any more Missionary Churches.
For next 13 years we continued to attend the Baptist Church. The preaching and music was good but nobody would outreach to us. We tried to outreach to some of them, but none of them were interested in us. The main pastor retired and the second in charge pastor took over. He preached a sermon telling anyone that couldn’t be used in the Church to leave, and go some place where they could be. We left that Church and went back to the Missionary Church that once had the liberal pastor. My Dad thought that maybe things would be good there since they had changed pastors many times since they had that liberal pastor. Also the theology matched ours better, so that maybe we could get involved again.
They were in the process of getting a new pastor. He was the former youth pastor there. When He finally got the head position, we asked about getting involved with a small group. He looked into it, and all the small groups said they were full, and didn’t want anyone else to join. We stayed at that Church for two years.
My parents tried attending a Wednesday night class, and I bought digital recorder so that they could record it. That way I could listen to it at work. Some of the older folk caught on that we were recording the classes, and I started getting requests for CDs of it. For one year I made CDs for the older people. The pastor approached me and asked if I would start helping out at the sound board. I went back and took a look at it, and felt that it looked too complicated for me. I asked if maybe I could try it out during the summer. He wasn’t very happy with my response. Anyways as a family we decided since we weren’t getting anywhere with that church, it was time to leave and try another one.
My dad came up with the idea of trying a Non Denominational Church. He knew of one that a couple that attended his home bible study. He went there first, to see how it was. They were more friendly, but the theology was different. They had opposing ideas about baptism and salvation. We don’t believe that baptism had anything to with salvation but according to them that if you don’t get baptized then you are probably not saved. They also had some odd views about Revelation. We stayed there for a year, until they got a new pastor. The new guy was a better preacher, but He also had a confrontational spirit. He invited people to argue with him over the Revelation views. He boasted that He could prove He is right. It was then the my Dad decided it was probably time for us to leave.
We returned to the Church that we were in as Custodians. We spent maybe 1 or 2 years there. Even people who knew us from back in the day didn’t seem to want to engage with us. We tried to make connections with the pastor, and eventually Covid 19 happened, and we found ourselves staying home.
In 2021, my parents went back twice and I only did once. The pastor was let go, and they did not want to tell people why. They kept it a secret, but was planning on letting the information out a little at a time. My parents felt like they were out of Churches.
I have tried praying for a new Church to try. My Mom has prayed about this too. And my Dad has prayed about this. But we haven’t come up with anything. Now days we all stay home and watch sermons from the internet.
Missionary Church was created after spiting from the Mennonites. The way I understand it, and I could be wrong, that it was over the use of Musical instruments, and probably a few other things. It doesn’t make much difference to my story. But I ran into some people who called the Missionary Church “Mennonite”, I felt hurt by this, since they are separate from it now.
Missionary Church was apart of the Holiness Movement. That is probably how they became so legalistic. They have since moved away from some of the legalistic stuff, but they still don’t accept Christians as members who drink or smoke, or both.
Dad was born and then my Grandparents got saved in the Missionary Church. It was during a revival meeting. My Grandparents testimony was very interesting. I don’t have all the details in my head, but know that it really changed my grandfather into a better man. He was a drunk, and almost a chain smoker, all that went away when He got saved. He also started teaching the Bible etc.
It was only natural that my Grandparents became active in the Missionary Church. Since they were saved in that denomination and so was their 3 kids.
The Missionary Church kept telling everyone that they needed more pastors. Dad thought He felt the call into ministry. He went to college to become a minister in the Missionary Church.
Dad graduated from college but the man in charge of giving him his papers to sign for the license wouldn’t bring them to him. A friend of his drove to the office, and got the papers directly, and brought them back to my Dad. That was how Dad had to get his ministers license.
The Missionary Church Organization put him and mom in a really small church in R____ Michigan that couldn’t pay them enough to make ends meet. They had to quit and my Dad returned to a secular job.
Despite not agreeing with Calvinism Dad and Mom started attending a 5 point Calvinist Church known as G____ Brethren Church. They were allowed to serve in that Church. Dad taught the youth. But when Mom got pregnant with me they decided to leave that Church and go back to a Missionary Church. It was B_____ Missionary Church, so that I could be brought up under the theology they taught.
While at B_____ Missionary Church, they were ready to get a new pastor. One of the guys they were looking at was a liberal that didn’t believe the Bible. Some of the guys in the Church decided to stand against this. My Dad was encourage to also make a stand against this. In the end the liberal won and my parents had to leave that church. The reason why He won is because district superintendent was his former pastor.
After the district superintendent came to his senses, that liberal was no longer allowed to preach and teach in any other Missionary Church. So when He finally left that church, He never served in the Missionary Church again. However they allowed him to keep his license. But the guy who was in charge of giving those licenses out got rid of my Dad’s papers. So my Dad also was not able to be a minister in the Missionary Church. The only reason we think He did it, was because He didn’t like Dad. He might have used the excuse that my Dad served in a Calvinist Church. In the Christian Churches, they often don’t like each other if they disagree theologically.
My Parents, rested for a few years in Br________ Memorial Missionary Church. Dad taught Sunday School some, and they met another couple, who wanted to start a home bible study. My Dad tought that home bible study from that time until around 1998 or 99.
For the last 3 years at that Br______ Memorial Missionary Church, my dad had gotten a job as a Custodian. At first it was great for his schedule. The pastor wanted him to get efficient, and get the job done. That way He wasn’t at church constantly all the time. He took his advice and did exactly that. He would come home in the middle of the day and got things done around the farm. Also He had time to work on his Friday night bible study lessons. But then that pastor retired and a new pastor came in. This pastor and his wife had different ideas for my dad and they wanted him to be at the church for a full 8 hour day. They began tacking on more and more and more work. They also wanted to force the, already big church, to grow more by causing inconveniences. The pastor’s wife started up more Sunday School classes, and in order to do this, she took my dad’s office away from him, and turned the custodial storage rooms into classrooms too. The tables and supplies had to be moved out into the hallways. On top of that the new pastor would sometimes loose his temper with the board. Finally we as a family had enough of this, and dad quit that job. Dad took us to the Independent Baptist Church. He wanted a place where we could just go to Church and not be bothered by all the crud that went on behind the scenes.
During the early years, I was growing up in Br________ Memorial Missionary Church, and through the years of my Dad’s Friday Night Bible study, I had one decent friend that I would only get to see on Friday and Sunday. He was the son of the couple that hosted the Friday Night Bible study. We were around each other in School some, but a separation happened at the end of kindergarten. He went onto first grade, and I went to readiness. This put him a grade ahead of me, which continued throughout our whole lives.
My Friend’s parents had money, as soon as He got through Elementary School, they sent him to a private Christian school. By the time I was in the 5th grade, which was the last year I was at this Missionary Church, I no longer had any friends there.
The last year at that Missionary Church, I was put in a very small Sunday School class of me and 4 other boys. 2 of them caused trouble for me and and this other guy. I don’t remember them messing with the son of the teacher. They would disrupt the class and tie my shoe laces to the table. It’s important to understand what kind of people they were back then because as a junior in high school I took a vocational class at a career center. It was there I re met one of those two kids and he had become a self proclaimed agnostic and would use all kinds of bad words, and of course disrupt things.
While I was at the career center, I learned that the other boy who helped pick on me at church, left church and started selling drugs to kids. The third guy, to whom go picked on too, only sorta liked me. Sometimes he would act like a friend and then switch around. I don’t want to make this an entire story about Him but there is much I could tell. A few years, after High School, He had gotten married and divorced. He left the Church, and joined a secret society. He tried to get me to join too.
During my school years, I didn’t have friends at school. The people I was around hated God and were druggies and bullies. Almost all without exception were sexually immoral. Some got their girlfriends pregnant. I wanted to reach these people for Jesus. But trying to do that was like casting my pearls before swine. They just got together and trampled anything I said. I remember one day, someone on the bus pointed to me, and said, “would you want to be a Christian if you were like him?” That hurt my feelings. I was trying to make it through and keep the faith.
During my elementary school years things were just tolerable. There was always someone that wanted to beat up somebody else. I wasn’t like this and eventually they wanted to beat me up too. Staying out of it during the elementary school years wasn’t too hard, but I felt out of place.
5th grade things started to get worse. 6th grade took me to a whole new level of abuse. I got more then just picked on, they started calling me names, tripping me in the hallways, throwing and shooting things at me, hitting me in the head with books, calling me names, licking their fingers and sticking it in my ears, wrecking my thing. There were those that wanted to started a fight with me. At least the tripping in the hallways, and the throwing and shooting things kinda died down, but I continued to be miss treated. People would treat me like I was worthless, and those that still talked to me usually just wanted to either tempt me with drugs or try and start a fight with me. By the time I graduated High School, my anxiety got so high that I finally had a nervous breakdown. It took a month of medications to settle my body down. It took years to finally get me as calm as I am now.
Through all of this, I was stuck in a Baptist Church. Had no Church friends, and nobody at Church cared about what could be happening to those that didn’t fit into that Church. Only my great ant, tried to get us to come to Sunday School. Part of the problem here was my dad, He didn’t want to go to Sunday School. I guess my mom didn’t either. My parents didn’t encourage me to join the youth group either. But if MORE people would of reached out to us, my parents would of eventually been, persuaded.
For 7 years we went to the Baptist Church until a pastor from another Missionary Church finally called on my Dad. He wanted him for an assistant pastor. The district superintendent suggested my dad to him. Which was odd because later on that district superintendent became a big part of our Church problem.
>My Dad took Mom and I to go check out the small Church. Soon He signed on. We became active members for 3 years. My Dad would teach a Sunday school class, and preach whenever the pastor wanted him too. I was asked to run the soundboard, and my mom helped out with the little kids.
The pastor wanted my Dad to, recruited some people from the Friday Night Bible study. Two couples from the Bible study joined the church. One couple took over the youth group, and the other became active members helping out where they could.
The youth minister tried to look for ways to grow the youth group, but just about every idea He had, got shot down by the Pastor. It got so bad, that after just a year the youth minister left the Church. He later told me, him and his wife got out when the going was good.
The pastor also recruited a woman’s minister. This was a little different for the Missionary Church since they didn’t normally have woman preachers. They also started having issues with the pastor, and Her and her husband decided to leave too.
One of the big obvious problems that this church had was the building was a too small. The restrooms was a huge problem, and the classroom space was an issue as well.
The restrooms were just single toilet and single sink rooms. And there was just two of them. One for the boys and one for the girls. After Sunday School the women would line up to use both the boys and girls sides.
We needed to add onto the building but we didn’t have enough money for it.
The church board got together to decide what to do about the money situation. They said they prayed about it and decided to put out a fleece. Judges 6:36-40 They called it a “fleece” but what they actually did was pray that X amount of money would come in by a certain time. It happened but someone wanted to do a feasibility study. The Church didn’t have enough money to pay for a feasibility study. My Dad went home and prayed about it, and He felt like God reminded him of Numbers 13 and Numbers 14. Even though God told the people to take the land they looked at the circumstances and was to scared to follow God. My Dad stood in front of the Church and said, since you prayed about it, and put out a fleece, and God answered your prayer you should go ahead with the building project in faith.
I guess they took my Dad’s advice, because they went ahead with it. But my Dad was not apart of the board. He was not apart of the decisions process. However the main Pastor was. He felt like He knew exactly how to do things because He had worked as a bricklayer for most of his life. He ended up leading them into a bad choice.
Two different construction companies wanted to have the job. Of course they went for the cheapest and the one that would do what they wanted done. The pastor wanted a basement but the one construction company tried to tell him that it was a bad idea to do that on the kind of soil they had to build on. When it rained the basement would flood. They were right! We got the basement and it did flood every time it rained.
As the building project was going. They tore into the building, and had to wall it off. Almost nobody from the construction company would show up to work on our building. Our trusties ended up doing most of the work. The pastor wanted to make it look like things were getting done, so He had the wall torn down.
Since the wall was removed, we wasted money on a big salamander heater. It kept us from freezing in the winter. It took over a year, and was extremely slow but finally the building got built. I think it went over budget.
The people who was working with the pastor was getting sick of him. They were beginning to suspect that He wasn’t being completely honest with everyone. For example: He would say that He didn’t know who gave, and yet other times He would let the cat out the bag, by saying He knew how much so and so gave. Another BIG problem we had with him is He wouldn’t prepare his messages. He would go to the local truck stop, and spend all day there, talking to people at the liars table. He was able to convince some to try the church but when He stood up to preach, he wouldn’t know where He was going. He actually got lost, and mumbled around.
All the Church workers told my Dad that they were thinking about leaving the Church. They called a meeting to try and solve the issues with the pastor. The district superintendent came to the meeting… What you got to understand is the Pastor had things setup so that nothing could happen to him. He had a right hand man who was the chairman on the board, and they both were friends with the district superintendent, so that when the district superintendent came to the meeting He told everyone “No matter what happens here, I’m on side of your Pastor’s side.” This is what was reported to us….
I still remember sitting at home with my parents when one couple showed up at our door, and told us what happened in the meeting, and told us they were leaving.
My Dad noticed that all the people that were biggest givers and the best helpers were all going to leave the Church. My Dad asked the district superintendent what He should do, and the D.S. told him that He should leave too. We left that Church and went back to the Baptist Church. Then one day a man showed up at our door. He wanted my Dad to interview with his Missionary Church to see if they would want him. My Dad asked him if He talked to the D.S. About this. He replied that they were trying to go around D.S. Apparently the D.S. got word of this, and squashed what they were trying to do. It was then we realized that my Dad had become black listed. He never got another offer from any more Missionary Churches.
For next 13 years we continued to attend the Baptist Church. The preaching and music was good but nobody would outreach to us. We tried to outreach to some of them, but none of them were interested in us. The main pastor retired and the second in charge pastor took over. He preached a sermon telling anyone that couldn’t be used in the Church to leave, and go some place where they could be. We left that Church and went back to the Missionary Church that once had the liberal pastor. My Dad thought that maybe things would be good there since they had changed pastors many times since they had that liberal pastor. Also the theology matched ours better, so that maybe we could get involved again.
They were in the process of getting a new pastor. He was the former youth pastor there. When He finally got the head position, we asked about getting involved with a small group. He looked into it, and all the small groups said they were full, and didn’t want anyone else to join. We stayed at that Church for two years.
My parents tried attending a Wednesday night class, and I bought digital recorder so that they could record it. That way I could listen to it at work. Some of the older folk caught on that we were recording the classes, and I started getting requests for CDs of it. For one year I made CDs for the older people. The pastor approached me and asked if I would start helping out at the sound board. I went back and took a look at it, and felt that it looked too complicated for me. I asked if maybe I could try it out during the summer. He wasn’t very happy with my response. Anyways as a family we decided since we weren’t getting anywhere with that church, it was time to leave and try another one.
My dad came up with the idea of trying a Non Denominational Church. He knew of one that a couple that attended his home bible study. He went there first, to see how it was. They were more friendly, but the theology was different. They had opposing ideas about baptism and salvation. We don’t believe that baptism had anything to with salvation but according to them that if you don’t get baptized then you are probably not saved. They also had some odd views about Revelation. We stayed there for a year, until they got a new pastor. The new guy was a better preacher, but He also had a confrontational spirit. He invited people to argue with him over the Revelation views. He boasted that He could prove He is right. It was then the my Dad decided it was probably time for us to leave.
We returned to the Church that we were in as Custodians. We spent maybe 1 or 2 years there. Even people who knew us from back in the day didn’t seem to want to engage with us. We tried to make connections with the pastor, and eventually Covid 19 happened, and we found ourselves staying home.
In 2021, my parents went back twice and I only did once. The pastor was let go, and they did not want to tell people why. They kept it a secret, but was planning on letting the information out a little at a time. My parents felt like they were out of Churches.
I have tried praying for a new Church to try. My Mom has prayed about this too. And my Dad has prayed about this. But we haven’t come up with anything. Now days we all stay home and watch sermons from the internet.
faith. The nearest Messianic church/synagogue is over 80 miles from me.
