I've been involved in church most of my life. My parents started taking me when I was a baby and encouraged me when I said I was interested in looking into the ministry. They never pushed me to go into the ministry though. I think back on my relationship with the church and what we do in church and I think it has been a hot and cold relationship at best.
There are some aspects of church that I really enjoy. I enjoy feeling a part of something bigger than myself. I enjoy times of worship where I feel closer to God. I enjoy learning new things from the Bible. I enjoy making new friends and seeing those friendships deepen. I really enjoyed preaching and teaching, but I also hated the literature from Lifeway. You expect people to grow you have to feed them something other than milk
But, it seemed the closer I got to a position of authority in the church, the worse things got for me. I came to a point where I hated going to church. I felt like God's presence wasn't even in the building. The apathy of many believers really got on my nerves. Then serving became a chore and something I resented rather than enjoyed.
When I was in the youth group at Klein United Methodist, there were times when the work felt like a chore, but most of the time it was something I enjoyed. Some of the time it was even my idea. I remember when the youth organized a retreat during the spring, It was a camping trip and it rained the whole time. I remember when we decided to do a serve project to get canned goods for the less fortunate, that was a great success. I also remember seeing our Wednesday Bible study time dying out when the group a year before us left and some of those in the group younger than my class didn't want to come.
I remember on that same camping trip, one night the guy in the tent with me was snoring. I couldn't sleep because most of our stuff was wet or because of the noise. Then, I heard a noise outside of our tent. I look outside and John is digging a trench around our tent. It is just like John to do something like that for someone else. One of the most unselfish guys you ever wanted to meet. I didn't even want to dig a trench around my own tent and here he is doing it for other people. So, even as I am sitting here ranting and raving about the church, I want to say there are still some John's in the church that go the extra mile. I wish there was more guys like him. John if your reading this, your the greatest.
One of the other things I remember, both in Hull and in Philippi where I pastored was not feeling God's presence. Some of the hardest years of my life were as a pastor. Not only trying to live up to my own expectations, but everyone else's as well. Preaching your heart out and not seeing anything happen as a result of it. Feeling so cold in the sanctuary you could ice skate down the center isle. Feeling like the Holy Spirit was being grieved and quenched by the bickering between believers. Preaching in front of a man who would sit in front of me with a angry look on his face with his arms folded every week. I will admit it also, sometimes I threw a little gas on the fire. He made me angry by not supporting me and it just went downhill from there.
A lot of the time I look back and wonder if I should not have changed jobs earlier. If what I wanted was my will and not God's at all. Or if I should just have quit the job in Philippi very early on and that may have gotten the church members attention. I was thinking about quitting as early as 6 weeks after I got there, but another pastor talked me out of it. Sometimes I wonder if I was being stubborn in going on to a second church and simply should have stayed where I was. To this day I don't know if you want to know the honest truth. I know that I am much less likely to naively trust people today because of what happened. I know that I can't depend on the church or others to help me get close to God. Most of the time, they have not helped, but rather hindered. That's kinda sad.
Another thing that surprised me about the church was the amount of politics in the church. For whatever reasons I may have had for getting into the church, one reason was to help change people's lives. I didn't realize that I would also need to be a politician in order to survive. I naively thought I could just have good intentions and people would realize that. I didn't realize that I had to walk on water. I just thought I had to know the one who did. That brings me to the final issue.
The final issue is that somewhere along the way some bitterness creeped in towards the church. Maybe it was the couple hundred sermons that I preached that nobody came down the isle. Maybe it was when I wanted to have an Easter egg hunt and some people in the church threw a fit. Maybe it was when the chairman of the deacons in Hull told me that he wouldn't go visiting with me to do outreach door to door. Maybe it was when . . . .there are a lot of whens. But, I did become anger and disappointed and I'm still dealing with that. Started out that the church was a place of healing and then it became a place of pain for me. I use to refer to the church in Philippi as "the church that enjoys hurting me." That wasn't true for everyone, but for many it surely was.
