- Feb 22, 2016
- 683
- 1,179
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- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Lutheran
- Marital Status
- Single
I have recently (as of a handful of months ago but started considering doing so years before that) stopped going to the church that I was raised in because I no longer felt like I was a real part of it and I was a bit disgusted with some of things I've seen go on amongst the church's members.
My mom still attends that church but she is increasingly becoming unhappy with it as well. She's even heard more than a few members gossip about other people (even about the pastor's daughter's marriage to someone not Christian after the pastor specifically asked people to be respectful of her choice and not gossip about it and give her their prayers instead) and most of the women at our church treat her poorly because she is a divorced woman and because she had me, her only child, outside of marriage after that divorce.
Even the church workers have treated my mother and I poorly and have been downright rude and catty from time to time without any just cause to be that way. A lot of our members socialize in cliques and groups and if you are not part of any of those cliques you will always sit alone at services, gatherings, and events and no one will ask to join you or for you to join them.
None of this has anything to do with the pastor as he is and has always been a good shepherd to our congregation and has always championed the cause of the needy and the outcast and has show compassion to and helped many many sinners. He is probably one of the best pastors that I've ever known and I would have continued to attend that church just because he is the pastor there were it not for the other things that made me feel uncomfortable being there.
We're sort of at a loss for what to do. We realize that we are all sinners and no one is perfect but it is extremely troubling for a church you've been going to all your life to turn out this way. There are no other churches in the area that are of our denomination (and sub-denomination).
My mom still attends that church but she is increasingly becoming unhappy with it as well. She's even heard more than a few members gossip about other people (even about the pastor's daughter's marriage to someone not Christian after the pastor specifically asked people to be respectful of her choice and not gossip about it and give her their prayers instead) and most of the women at our church treat her poorly because she is a divorced woman and because she had me, her only child, outside of marriage after that divorce.
Even the church workers have treated my mother and I poorly and have been downright rude and catty from time to time without any just cause to be that way. A lot of our members socialize in cliques and groups and if you are not part of any of those cliques you will always sit alone at services, gatherings, and events and no one will ask to join you or for you to join them.
None of this has anything to do with the pastor as he is and has always been a good shepherd to our congregation and has always championed the cause of the needy and the outcast and has show compassion to and helped many many sinners. He is probably one of the best pastors that I've ever known and I would have continued to attend that church just because he is the pastor there were it not for the other things that made me feel uncomfortable being there.
We're sort of at a loss for what to do. We realize that we are all sinners and no one is perfect but it is extremely troubling for a church you've been going to all your life to turn out this way. There are no other churches in the area that are of our denomination (and sub-denomination).