Why I left my church?

Yeah, I’m a Christian. I used to be a very devout Christian, regularly attending Sunday service and participating in various services of the church. But now I want to stay away from things about my church when I participated in the worship and service of my church for more than 10 years.

Many Christians who once loved the Lord have left the church. Obviously, I was one of them. Everyone’s reasons for leaving their church may be different, but I believe the reasons that I shared may resonate with many.

Before sharing, I would like to declare in advance that I have been to many churches, but the sharing is mainly aimed at the church I used to meet regularly, a church run by some female pastors from Taiwan in California. I will not use the words of the Bible to explain these phenomena, but just share the feeling and experiences of an ordinary person

The first one, they always discussing other people’s sins,judging what’s wrong with them..

In fact, you will not realize this phenomenon at first, because from the surface, many leaders of the church are humble, often self-repentant, and seek change.

But when I got along with them and entered the service of the church, this problem became more and more obvious. I used to often share with my church leaders the situation I have encountered recently. If there is a money problem, they will tell me that I have a poor spirit and check whether I have tithed or not. If it’s a relationship problem, they say I have an orphan’s spirit, and if I encounter some physical condition, they will make me confess my sins to God. My feeling is that they don’t care about me, they just care about solving the problem quickly. The cause of the problem is that you have a problem with God, or what kind of spirit you have, and you need to get rid of it.

They always make you wonder if you’ve done something wrong, sinned against God, or feel unhealthy. When I left my church and walked into the real world, I suddenly realized that I was emotionally healthy and mature, and I didn’t have as many problems as the church leaders said to judge me.

Church’s Sunday sermon is immutable and does not apply to life and work

The pastors of this Taiwanese church are basically female pastors serving full-time in the church. They have been away from the workplace and modern life for a long time. It is undeniable that some of the content they shared before was wonderful and helpful, with wisdom from God’s word, but 10 years later they are still sharing the same content, and they don’t seem to want to listen to the opinions of others.

When someone bravely raises a different voice, this person will soon be judged as we do not have “hearing ears” and have a religious spirit, which will lead to no one being willing to express their opinions in the future.

I have to say that they took too long to share. I can actually sum up the one-hour sharing in three sentences. I was so bored that I was playing on my phone the whole time.

As they are growing older and in leadership positions, it is conceivable that very few people will really tell the truth them. This society is advancing with the times, and people’s lives have undergone earth-shaking changes due to the development of technology and contemporary political factors. Even though sharing in the past may have been wonderful, it has lost the real life that can help people today. Not only are their sermons not innovative, but what is more serious is that their sharing is disorganized and lacks authenticity. At the same time, they share too much of their own lives in the church. If a new friend comes to this church, they should not understand what they are saying.

After all, they need hearing ears more than anyone else.

They obviously care about church’s brothers and feel that the sisters of the church are not suitable for their brothers.

This phenomenon may not be obvious in other churches, but since the pastors of my previous church were all single elderly women (not everyone has God’s calling and destiny to be single), it is very obvious. They care more about the number of brothers in the church and their needs. If a sister likes a brother, first of all, the sister must be evaluated to see if she is compatible with the brother.

But I have to say that most of the brothers in our church are very weak, feminine, and indecisive. Even so, female priests are very much against any pair of young men and women who like each other to have a progressive relationship. But if they meet very outstanding girls, of course, they will try their best to make it possible for them to be together with their brothers.

On the whole, these female pastors don’t care about the needs of ordinary single women and even hinder them. They seem to hope that you will remain single and serve until you are old.

The church membership class is obvious, and the treatment is also obviously different

In addition to the different treatment between bro and sister, the church is more obviously divided into many levels according to your income, job title, and ability of members. And obviously, they’re not very accepting of gay people.

I can understand that they need financial support. The income of members affects their savings by tithing. They need to pay special attention to this type of member. And also they are pastors from Taiwan, and they care more about the situation of the church members from Taiwan.

Get used to using God as an excuse to control you

This is unacceptable to me, and it is the aspect that makes me sad.
The pastoral leader of our young adult is also a single woman in her 40s who is also in charge of the church dance group. I love dancing very much and have been serving in the dance troupe of my church. I was also a member of the original dance group when it was founded. I hardly missed any training and gatherings, but the leader didn’t seem to like me very much. She chose a brother who doesn’t know dance at all and who doesn’t have regular parties to be the leader of the dance troupe, and the reason is also because of her preferences.

She would also use such words to prevent some of our dancers from going on stage to worship, “God revealed to me that you all can’t serve in front of people, so you should practice first below.” I don’t understand why she doesn’t speak her mind directly but in God’s name.

I don’t even understand why she is so reused by church leaders, is it just because she has been in the church for a long time? She doesn’t even know how to communicate with people, I later found out that this type of leaders are a lot like her style in the church.

When the leaders of the church start to put pressure on the members in the name of God, to achieve their own preferences or goals, I know this church is not being used on the right path.

Too much emphasis on the Holy Spirit, and the seemingly supernatural phenomena in the meetings, and many people are pretending in fact.

My previous church was charismatic and they strongly encouraged speaking in tongues and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Even in meetings, a state of being filled with the Holy Spirit is extolled.

It’s embarrassing because I’ve never experienced anything filled with the Holy Spirit, but I often have to fall or do something for it to work. Once I was prayed by a pastor, and the people behind me pushed me to the ground. I had no choice but to fall to the ground. But I don’t feel anything.

I always thought I was sinful and had lied to God. It’s funny how when I shared my real feelings with a sister, she whispered to me that she didn’t feel anything either. When she saw someone fall down, she felt embarrassed, so she pretended to fall down when she was standing alone.

Advocating trembling and being filled with the Holy Spirit like falling to the ground really makes me run away.

The church has become a place of gossip, and the things you share with the leaders will be known by everyone in the church in the next second.

You can easily become the topic of their conversation, you are not even familiar with them. I had always been single when I was in my church, but for some unknown reason, a sister said that I was dating a certain brother. So much so that the whole adult group thinks I’m hanging out with this brother.

This kind of gossip is very common, or I am thinking about not being the small group leader anymore, I only shared my thought with a leader of the church. but the leader immediately confirmed that I am leaving the leadership team, or even kick my name out without someone else confirming with me.

Even if I don’t want to hear other people’s gossip, I will often be forced to know. Who is divorced, who is dating whom, etc. This may be a church routine, but for me, it’s beyond my comprehension.

They are actually losers in their own lives, also haven’t experienced any in the workplace, like parasites are used to being given by others.

It is a sad fact that a large number of Christians, even some pastors are actually failures in their own life. Many of them have hardly been to the workplace, have no management thinking, and they even have emotional problems such as rage. They like to take advantage of others and they don’t love God for real.

I once saw our church’s worship leader’s computer filled with links to pornographic videos. But he still asks other brothers to stay away from pornography. I liked the former pastor of our church who honestly shared his story of infidelity and porn addiction. It was really enlightening and helpful to me. On the contrary, our members respect him more and like his sharing. Unfortunately, he later returned to serve in Taiwan. Authentic sharing can have a huge impact.

Some pastors habitually accept donations from members to survive. I could understand that they serve the church full-time and do not have much income. But what makes me strange is that they can travel to Europe without any worries. Where does the money come from? It won’t be a plane ticket donated by a church member. Since you are eager to enjoy life and enjoy material things, why don’t you come out and work hard? Not work hard, but use the excuse of serving the church to seek benefits from members in various ways. When Paul preached the gospel, he also preach while working.

I have been away from this church for a while. Maybe it has changed, of course, I know very well that I want to stay away from this type of church. Especially after I left, my life changed significantly. I no longer devote a lot of time to serving, but face up to the problems of my personal life. I work hard, take care of my body, and I also met my current boyfriend. I began to enjoy my own life, and cherish my time better, and my emotions became more stable and healthy. I found out that I turned out to be such a normal and healthy person.

I do not deny the blessings brought to me by my previous church life, and I have also met many lovely friends. It’s just that I know that I need to wake up and live on earth. I needed to be honest with my feelings and take back control of my life. Instead of teaching your life to leaders who are ignorant and have no real blessing for you.

In fact, the reasons for this sharing are not the main reason for me to leave the church. It was because of a leader named J, who was a highly educated preacher, due to a disagreement in a service, I had some disputes with her, and during the process, she took my arm and refused to let me go, push me to argue about the result. I saw that her eyes were full of green light, and evil thoughts were inside her as if she was going to kill me. It was scary, even after I shared the truth with other leaders, they still chose to believe that preacher. I have not yet received an apology from this preacher. Of course, no one believed what I said.

I don’t really need her apology, I just don’t think this church really cares who the members are. They want their members to be under their control, and to be what they want them to be.

In an atmosphere of freedom, true love can grow. I deeply feel that they don’t really love their members. I have served this church of mine wholeheartedly for ten years, and I love Jesus very much. Faith has brought me many beautiful testimonies. I have also received many blessings from this church.

Today this church is no longer the beautiful church I experienced in the past. I know that no one church is perfect, because there will be many problems because of the existence of people. But without true love, a church that does not seek progress is soulless and unable to feed more flocks. Just like many churches have the same problem, contemporary young people are getting more and more deviated from the faith, because they cannot be fully accepted in the church, only condemnation and boring sharing.

Different voices are always unpleasant, and will arouse many people’s rebuttals and debates. But this is indeed my most real experience and understanding.Even so, I am still very grateful for my previous experience in this church, and I have grown a lot. Life is only a few short decades. May we view our faith more rationally and live out our true and wonderful life. Peace~