I have been through a few different churches. I am now in a church that I absolutely love and feel safe and at home in. The church before this, however, was quite the opposite. When I had first joined them, it was pretty nice. But about 2 years into me being there, everything went down and we lost all of our pastors, worship team, and most of our congregation. We were left with about 40 people. Several months later we finally landed a new pastor and his family. I loved the family, but after a while, the pastor's method and some other things just really got to me. I constantly felt judged, like what I was doing wasn't enough...the church wasn't growing and I missed all my friends...there was nothing keeping me there. It took a lot of guts, but I left that church and joined the one I am in now. I love the church I'm in now because we are growing...we are alive...the pastor is balanced and has 5 beautiful daughters who adore him...he is gentle most of the time and gets loud when he needs to but I don't feel judged...because he is doing it in love and you see that just radiating from him. I feel safe with him...sometimes he even makes me cry because of how much God's love radiates through him.
No one is perfect...but as for me, my understanding of people and churches is that when people feel judged they leave. And while church is a place to grow spiritually, it is also a place of healing, and then of worship and teaching and many other things. The leaders need to show the fruits of the spirit. Many people feel like they're not good enough for church...like they're castouts before they even walk in the door. What I like when I look around at my church is that I see a variety: A variety of races, variety of lifestyles, variety of abilities, variety of culture, really. We don't condone things that are wrong, but we operate out of love...and God's love changes those things in those people. A lot of churches focus on how they can change the people...instead of focusing on how God's love can change the people. If we stop looking at the outside and start looking on the inside, we can start to realize that we are all equal...and that those outer things that we might not like can be changed, but not by us, but through God's love being shown to them.
