church

Leaving is the hardest thing to do….sometimes.

jumping

I want to tell you a story. I want you to understand something about me. I love Jesus. I eventually will be a pastor. I love my church. My new church. The one I joined just about three months ago. It is awesome, Biblically sound, the music is great, and the people are welcoming. So far, so good.

That is not what I want to dwell on though. I want to tell you the story of how I got there. How I left a church that I attended for over 20 years.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I started attending this church when I was about 5. By the time I was out of 5th grade, I was volunteering every Sunday in childrens church. I did what ever they wanted me to do to help out. Eventually, I got involved in the technical side of church. I started learning how to run the sound boards, video switchers, and computers. By the time I was in high school I was a tech. guy in the youth group.

Eventually I became the typical “leader” in the high school youth group. I was asked to pray, guard the doors for escapees, and help kids fill out the first time guest cards. I did just about everything. I was one of the go-to guys if there was issues. I even helped out in the praise and worship band. I played drums for about 3 years in the band.

Now comes after high school. I entered a Bible college. I moved up in my ministry “volunteering” and not only volunteered in the high school, but then started running small groups in my college and career group. I would teach when the pastor wasn’t there. I became a main leader in there also. I was king of the youth groups. In my mind I was next in line to have the crown of becoming the next youth pastor.

As life would have it, I did not become the next youth pastor. In fact, I still am not a pastor, but I do have a degree and am soon going for my masters.

You may ask how does all of this relate to me leaving my church?

Well, I am glad you asked. This is what happened. No names and certain situations have been changed to protect the innocent.

When I was in college I started studying for my self. I grew in knowledge and wisdom. I started reading the Bible for my self and had a deeper knowledge than what I received from regular sermons.

Here is what happened. I studied the business side of church. I learned a lot. How things should and shouldn’t be run. The way money should be handled. The biggest thing I learned about is accountability and how issues should be handled in the church if there was issues.

Guess what?

There was issues. Big issues. I am talking people going to jail, crazy cover ups, and money laundering. Now, to an extent some of this stuff did happened. Now with out going into to much detail, some one did go to jail. That is all I can say about that. I could go on a crazy rant about what happened, but God is dealing with that situation.

Now as far as the cover ups and money laundering. In a nut shell, I found out that there were many morality issues that were happening and the pastors knew about them. People confronted the pastors about these issues and they literally just ignored them. The congregation never found about these issues and the people that did know, left the church( me included). I could write a whole different post about all of this and go on a different rant, but again I will not go into specifics. There are so many different issues I could not remember them all.

The last thing I mentioned was money laundering. When I say that, it wasn’t illegal. It was “tricky” with what they did with the money. This is the subject matter that I know the least about, but just the idea that I got wind of the idea that there was some sort of money issues going is not cool in my book.

I am going to stop there with the mini-rant.

I want you to know something. I know churches have issues. I know it is full of imperfect people. I get that. The main reason that I get so frustrated with this is that people there ignored the issues. They do not try to fix the issue or mend the brokenness with in the church. They go about the same old thing as if nothing has happened.

I have to stop where I am. Let me just say that there was everything I vaguely mentioned plus more issues that went on. It was just better that I get my family and me out of there before its to late. So I did.

I left. I joined a newer church. They are 4,000 people smaller (my other church was pretty large) with about maybe 500 or so people. They are only about 3 years old. The are an awesome group of people and my family loves it there also. I am not volunteering there yet. I need a break from my 20+ years of volunteering just to enjoy God for once. I will sit patiently waiting. Relaxing. Ready to go when God calls me back into the volunteer circle or better yet to a pastoral position. I know this church is not perfect. I know it will fail me. I know I will fail it. But I am going to pull the spiritual card and say that this is where God wants me to be.

– Anonymous Church Member

Twitter – @anonchurchmembr

How I met Geoff Moore (The one from the distance)

So, This whole post started from a little podcast called the RELEVANTpodcast. (Shout out to those guys, You are awesome. Keep up the epic work.) They were talking about random encounters with famous people or something of that nature. At one point they started talking about Geoff Moore.

Rabbit Trail – If you do not know who Jeff Moore is I am sorry. He is from a band called Geoff Moore and the Distance. Popular in what I remember as the earlyish 90’s. They had some pretty good music back then and I even owned some of their cassettes. Yes, cassettes. 

 

Well, I met him once. Let me tell you I will never forget it. This encounter occurred probably about 5 years ago or so. I was walking through the foyer of the church I was attending. Service had just let out and it was pretty crowded at the time. I was looking for my wife and could not find her any were. 

So as  I am looking through the crowd, all of a sudden a huge hand comes over my shoulder and starts rubbing my chest. I know freaky right? I look down at the hand and instantly think to my self 1)Who in their right mind would want to rub my chest? and 2) Why in the world is there this giant hand invading my space? My first reaction was to start making a scene at who ever this was and it is a good thing I did not. I turn around and there stands this huge man. He probably was about 6’5″  or that is what I remembered. I just know he towered over me. So i froze. Didn’t say a word kinds worried about the situation now. 

After he finishes invading my shirt space. He simple smirks, smiles, says,”WOW, I thought that was real!” and walks away. I at first did not even realize who it was. Luckily there was a merch table directly behind him with a giant picture of him on it. So I then realized it was Geoff Moore.

I know what your thinking, abs and pectoral muscles of steal! Sadly no. I had a shirt on that looked like it had a piece of paper taped to it. That is literally what it looked like. The paper had some sort of funny saying on it. The shadows and the way it was printed on my shirt made it really look like a real piece of paper.

So, I know where he was coming from.  I might have wanted to feel his shirt if he was wearing it to. But alas, I “Lost” that shirt after that run in with him. Oh, and he was there singing some specials in the service. He nailed his songs. I guess you could say he hit a “home run.” (See what I did there)

 

Who famous have you had a “Interesting” encounter with?

 

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Church?

Good Sunday evening everyone,

I had an interesting day at church this morning and thought I would post my conundrum on my blog. My thoughts are as follows:

 

1) Acts 2:42-47. (Short cut) Have you actually read those verses before? I find them interesting. Even the verse right before these say that 3,000 believes were added to them daily. How awesome is that! You see here that people did life together. They ate together, they communed together, they gave money to the less fortunate and they got along in what they did. Because they lived such a life where they glorified God in what they were doing, God even blessed the people and more were added to them daily! This is the beginnings of church that still thrives today.

 

2) Now, when you read these verses and realize that this is how the church is suppose to be, I asked myself the question – “Is my church following this example?”

I had to really look at my heart, look at my church, and make a real hard realization. My church is not doing any of this! Now, if you follow me on twitter or have read my other blogs, you will know that I went and checked out another church in my area a few weeks ago. Let it be known that this was totally legit and nothing was made up. From when I went to this church they were sincere, they helped me around the building, and they had free coffee. Well the coffee was just a perk, but they did have a genuine feel about them. The activities that they had in place fell in line with doing church together and not being show boats. I am shortly going to be making this church my home church. That is another blog post in itself.

When I take a look at my church that I currently attend, I find it very simple to critique it and find faults every where. For that I am ashamed. I know that God can use the church to minister to many people, but I have become insensitive the format that they do it. I believe that a church should meet people where they are, meet the needs right in the middle of their issues, and help them to the best extent they can. 

3) Now that I am done whining, lets do something productive. Call me crazy, but I think that sometimes Christians can be either way to super spiritual. We miss the practical ways to minister to people. Or they can be to humanly focused. You focus on people so much you forget about God and what he has done for you. There needs to be a balance between the two. We need to help people. God tells us to do it. He wants to love the unloved. He wants us to feed the hungry. He wants us to clothe the naked. He wants us to help the widows and orphans. All of these things are admirable in God’s eyes. Then again we must also not forsake God. We need make sure that we take time to read the Bible. Try to have some quiet time during that day where you pray and meditate on God’s word. (Don’t worry, I am terrible at that part). Participate in Praise and Worship and get before God.  Just remember “Balance”.

 

Who is the last person you ministered to right where they are?

 

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Contact me – Churchmemberanon@gmail.com

 

From one church to another

I have always been open to the idea that one day God would have me move to another church. I always thought that it would be a great adventure. Never did I think that now that day has come.

Let me explain. I have been at my church that I currently attend for just about 20 or so years. I have been a leader in almost every area of ministry. I have ran youth groups. Taught small groups. I have even been the guy that cleaned the church toilets. Let me tell you, that was never fun. I am also very knowledgeable in the technical department. I am a sound guy right now as I type this.

I have been dedicated to my church for a very long time. I have done what they asked and followed their ministries. 

The problem is that now I am on the other side of a degree in ministry, I have come to my own conclusions on how I believe the church should be, how it should run, and how certain things should get taught. God has grown me in many ways and more than I could have ever imagined. Now, what I have just stated are my issues that I am dealing with. I know that churches are not perfect by any means, but this is what I am dealing with right now in my heart.

Besides all that, I believe that God has been wanting me to switch churches for a while now. I just never knew where or when. That was until last week. I posted on twitter about me going and checking out a new church and I did. Let me tell you it was awesome. From me entering the front doors to the pastors preaching it was great, but I will save that experience for another post. This church I believe is where God is sending me. What He wants me to do their or how He wants me to volunteer is completely unknown to me. I just know He wants me to make that my church.

Let me give you a few pointers if you believe that God is telling you to switch churches:

1) Pray

Ask God for guidance. One of the hardest things is to find the correct church to go to. So when you start looking, ask God to show you where to go. Also, Ask him for peace on this decision. It is emotionally and spiritually a challenge. The good thing is that when you locate where God wants you, the peace of God will fall on your path. 

2) Talk

Twitter. Facebook. Myspace. All places where you socialize with other people. So when looking for other churches, talk to people from other churches. See what they say about the church they attend. Get as much information as you can. Also, check out the churches website. See what they believe. Are they a Bible believing church? Do they believe that Jesus is the son of God? These are the things you need to find out and in this day and age of the internet, you can find that information on the churches website.

3) Wait

Patience is a virtue. Please do not jump right into the first church that you attend (unless you hear From God). Take your time. Check out as many churches as it takes. Practice praying and talking to people and then wait. See where God wants you to go and make sure you have a peace about it. It took me 3 churches till I found the one that God wants me to attend. So I know the patience that is required to go through with this adventure.

 

 

Those are my three basic things to do to help you with your church transfer. Of course it takes a whole lot more than what I have provided above. There are many other issues that arise when selecting a church. I just pray that you can take these simple steps to help ensure that you are where God wants you.

 

Have you had to switch churches?