I have no doubt that I am a follower of Jesus, and I am absolutely saved.
However, church always makes me feel stretched and pulled and tired and awkward and like I don't fit.
It usually feels fake too.
I just get sick of people running their mouths about how to treat others, and asking me for money when they ; A) act like jerks by cutting in line at the bank, or out and out cheating on their taxes or B) treating other people like they don't matter, or even worse, C) doing really nasty things to other people like abusing children etc.
I hate nasty small-mindedness and dishonesty in anybody but especially in religious people.
I hate it so much!
I hate having to put up with people telling me how to behave, telling me that I pray wrong, or that I should not be there, or not do this or that.
Two-faced jerks!
They let others get away with awful behaviour and overlook it, but they think they can tell me off all the time, because I have no power.
Well, they are WRONG.
I have as much power as anyone else because I am a child of God as much as anyone else!
I don't care what they think, or what they say.
I used to!
But not anymore.
And if that means I have a fun weekend, every weekend, and not at church, then I don't care what church-goers think of me.
In the end, they are definitely not better than me, no matter how many church hours they log in.
And that's that.
By the way, I still think church as the body of Christ where all belong should work, but in order for it to work, we need a slightly different attitude to the one I consistently see.
So when I say I hate church, I hate the attitudes that make it like it so often is.
A boring club for try-hard fakers who are always down on others.
Let me tell you something.
I keep trying!
Even now, I still go to church sometimes.
I never completely give it up because sometimes church is great.
I went to a church once, in a town up North.
My friend and I needed a ride, so an elderly couple offered.
At first it was fine, our house was on their way to church so it was no trouble.
Then nothing changed but their attitude.
They began to stop feeling all good like they were helping us, and simply began to resent having to commit to helping us.
They became a little cooler, and dropped verbal hints about time and commitment.
Basically, they just got sick of picking us up.
Let me make this clear, we did not cause them trouble.
We would walk down to the road which they always had to drive along in order to get to church, and we would wait for them.
We did not ask them to pick us up from our house.
When church was over, we would wait for them to say when they wanted to leave, despite whether or not we were ready, and we would simply go with them, no protest or anything.
We were always grateful and thanked them.
They never invited us to lunch or coffee or talked much to us, even though we were as friendly as we could be without overdoing it.
And when we realised what they wanted (i.e. to stop helping us), we simply thanked them for the rides we had been given, and agreed that we didn't want to make things difficult for them.
My friend was DETERMINED to continue going to this church so we took a taxi.
EVERY SUNDAY FOR LIKE, A YEAR.
It cost her about $20.00 each Sunday.
I refused to do that, but I went with her because she didn't want to go alone, and she was probably worried about my soul.
I told her so often that we should try to get another ride, and it was ridiculous cost.
But she was adamant.
This was the best, safest way.
I tried to volunteer at the church, they kept standing up every bulletin time and ask for volunteers in the sunday school.
I tried to volunteer, but they actually kept passing me around from class to class, no teacher wanted me!
I was a young woman, who got on well with children and knew her Bible, I was willing to take direction from a senior, but still they didn't want me.
So I gave up.
And I was angry every time they stood up and asked for volunteers for sunday school.
What they wanted was someone that they knew, or a parent of one of the sunday school kids.
They didn't want me.
Nobody in the church tried to get to know my friend or myself, and we tried so hard to talk to people, we joined the youth group and they didn't warm to us either!
Nobody ever asked us to have coffee or to lunch after church (except my friend's relatives, ONCE), which I remember used to happen a lot when I was growing up.
People always did that at church, it was the usual thing.
Have lunch with someone after church.
In fact, at this church, they hardly spoke to us at the morning tea after the service.
I gave up trying after a few months, I'll admit.When I left the church, I asked for a recommendation from the youth pastor for my Bible College application.
He rebuked me (gently) for not telling him I wanted to go to Bible College.
I said to him, 'Nobody asked me anything, why would I tell them? Do you know we have been coming here for more than a year now, and most people don't even know our names? Why would I tell you anything? You and your wife have never asked us anything about ourselves, even though we have been coming to your youth group for a long time. If you don't want to recommend me, that's ok.' He gave me a recommendation. It was pleasingly generic of course.
That church was amusingly terrible at adding people.
They didn't want anyone new.
They were happy as they were.
Everyone knew everyone.
And that church was everything I hate about church.
Going to church is a chore.
A detestable chore.
A place where detestable people shut each other out, and call it belief.
There has to be something better.
Read this!
This girl is so RIGHT!
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/
:) I hope that we can fix this.
I believe in the Church as the bride of Christ.
But at the moment, why would he want the church I have experienced?
