When Your Church Fails You

I'm forced to follow my parents to whatever church they want to go. For the past ten or so years that church has been the one pastored by my uncle. The church is a disaster. Everything there falls apart. The leadership is impossible. My uncle's family is a wreck and he continually ruins relationships within the church and burns bridges. My dad is a very controlling and bitter person so I'm still forced to go there and play in the worship team even as everything around me falls apart. I have to come home to listen to incredibly depressing rants from my father about the failures of that church. And then I have to go church and play the piano and listen to everyone talk about how great things are there, how things are changing. But they never change. It's always the same uphill battle. I'm at my wits end. The youth group has never been a source of comfort. I'm the only female there and as it is, the group consists of about five people. The boys there just want to play games and they can't be depended on. There's no other women I can turn to in my church to ask for help. They all either adore my uncle or just wouldn't get it. No one understands the incredible suffering that my family goes through because of that place.

This has been my lifelong experience with Christianity.

Relationships ruined by leaders of the church. My bitter parents. Uphill battles and loneliness and crying to God in the middle of the night asking why me.

Sometimes I wonder if there's more. Is this all there is? Am I doomed to stay in this crumbling church for the rest of my life? Would it be better anywhere else or just the same?

I don't know. I'm tired. The body of Christ is supposed to be one. We are supposed to be unified. If I can't find solace in the body of Christ, where can I find it? In God, yes of course but then do I abandon the church?

I am hurting. Time and time again the people who call themselves Christians have let me and my family down.

Is there any hope?