Changing churches / forgiveness and healing

Hi I’m not sure how long this is going to be, there are a lot of things on my mind that I don’t know how to express, but I’d love to hear feedback or advice, and prayers are definitely appreciated.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I stopped attending our former nondenominational evangelical church and began attending a Lutheran church, for both positive and negative reasons. The positive reasons are easy to explain, mostly theological reasons and appreciating the tone and content of the liturgy and the pastor’s sermons which are really focused on living the Gospel and bringing the light of Christ into the world.

The negative reasons are a lot more complicated. The church we left is where we were baptised, where I began attending after I converted and where we were attending when he converted. We had made friends there and he was leading the song service one day a week.

But I was very depressed attending this church, and my husband said he was starving there, as there was no spiritual growth for either of us. I actually started seeing a therapist because of how sad I was feeling, and I’ll discuss this with her but I don’t even know how to phrase it.

The church we were attending basically always referred to itself as the “true church” and any other denominations were the “false church.” They claimed to only teach what’s in the Bible but added a lot of interpretation and some other things that aren’t in the Bible at all, such as Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons book being taught as indisputable fact and various theories about the mark of the beast. I’m not sure if this was an official stance but I heard multiple times that the “rapture” was probably going to happen in my lifetime (based on a scripture reference interpreted with the creation of the modern state of Israel as a reference point) and while I can’t claim to know when the world will end I also don’t feel comfortable with this either.

We both tried to discuss these things with no resolution, and the last sermon I heard there was about how you don’t need Bible study, or theology, or the internet, because if you look things up on the internet then you’ll be led astray into false doctrine, and if you leave God’s people you’ll lose the light of God from your life.

So I’ve actually been really depressed for a really long time because of the constant messaging that this is the “true church” and questioning if I’m not really saved and am probably damned. Not just because of this but because I still fall short in so many ways. And that’s hard to write because I know it sounds absurd but it’s even harder to express because I also have to come to terms with the fact that I stayed so long, and the thought in the back of my mind that since so many people are so confident they are the true church, there is a non-zero possibility that they might be right.

We were talking to the pastor at the new church, and we both genuinely like the new church, but there’s this legitimate fear in my heart, like I don’t want a “rebound” church and I want to let go of all the negative emotions from the previous place, so when he asked if we wanted to become members I just froze and wasn’t sure, and told him I was in therapy because of dealing with a lot of things, and he was fine with that, but obviously I don’t want to be in therapy forever and at some point I want to be able to move forward.

So I guess I’m wondering if anyone has any experience or advice with leaving a church and healing from any negative experiences there. I don’t actually dislike the people, I wish them the best, but I know that to them, I have left “God’s house” and all of the emotional manipulation I felt like I experienced would still be there if I tried to talk to them, based on all the times I’ve tried to talk to them before and the way people responded already.

Thanks

Heavenhome said:

My only advice is for you to continue on as you are and don't be hurried into anything before you are ready.
The behavior of the church you left, frankly sounds cultish.
Run from them.

Years ago I was in a church (I too, was baptised there), where there was much spiritual manipulation/abuse and it takes time to get over this.

Take heart please because God has your back and the fact that you are obedient to Him and what the Bible teaches overrides anything anyone says.
You will find both you and your husband will be stronger than ever in your faith and I can say honestly with my past experience that it really taught me in staying close to God before and above anything else.

Stay strong and may the Lord bless you for your courage and faithfulness.

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Thank you!

I want to make peace with everything that has happened because I know it isn’t all bad, and I do believe that learning to rely on God’s grace alone to get me through this and a transformation of wanting good for even people I disagree with is really valuable.

God bless you and I’m grateful to hear that you are healing from something similar

Thanks for the replies I do feel better, more hopeful and feeling like I’m moving forward in faith. I think it will take a while to work though some of the fear (as in, what if they are right) because that sort of thing cuts deep when you hear someone say things with absolute certainty, not in the mind but in the heart, on some level terrified that God hates me because if I was a “true Christian” I would have been thriving in that church and would be perfect and not get angry or upset or depressed. That isn’t their fault, they never said it like that, but that is how I internalised it.

But I do believe God loves me, and He loves all of his children, and I believe that will win out over the fear. I’ve been learning a bit about Martin Luther the man, and I know he dealt with anxiety about his salvation before the reformation too, so I believe really that God is leading us onward.