Hey,
I am posting on here because recent events at my church have led me to decide on leaving and finding a new church family. It is something very controversial to me that I would like input on. I guess I will just give you the whole story.
I have been at the church I am currently at for my entire life. My parents joined it right after it started, and I was born like 10 years later. Fast forward to today, I am still attending, I am saved, and I am living on an old school campus that my church bought and rents out to people who attend. It is an entire floor of single guys.
This past year I have seen sin manifest itself in my life, specifically lust. I am not like actively lusting after every woman I see with burning desire, I would view every woman that I would begin to have a relationship with as a sexual object and it was hurting us both a lot, and I did not like what it was doing to either of us. Obviously this is an embarrassing thing to talk about, so I kept it to myself for a while, but one time after a date that almost went crazy, (you could argue it did go a bit crazy) I said I need God to change me, and I think my pastor will help.
One of my pastors actually lives below me, so I went and saw him. I explained the situation, and I how I wanted to work on this area of my life and he was not having it. He said you are forgiven, but just like with David and Bathsheba, God will not let the sword leave your house. And he said that he did not trust me anymore, that it would take a while to regain his trust. He said he would meet with me regularly for counselling and accountability, which we did the next day. There he informed me that it was his duty to bring this to the senior pastor, which I was kinda confused, because why not just keep this confidential? I expressed a genuine desire for change and I had not hurt anyone at the church from sexual objectifying them.
I was supposed to go to my church's youth retreat that day to serve, but I got a call from him legit an hour before I was going to head out that he had spoken to the senior pastor and that I was barred from going due to what I did. He did not say why, and I was kinda mad.
I had to bring all my camping stuff back home and my mom was all like ???. so I had to explain to her what happened and she was not having it. Both my sisters have had falling outs with the senior pastor and both no longer attend. I would argue one is still a Christian, but does not go to church, the other now hates Christianity because of what happened to her. My mom and dad ended up calling my senior pastor (against my wishes) for 3 hours about this, and my mom even threatened to quit her job at the church. I guess she is just mad to see all her kids have bad experiences with them Idk.
Right after their call, I got an email from my senior pastor explaining that I have proved myself so dishonorable among women, and that he does not want me around any of the girls at the youth retreat. I was really angry, I felt like I was being treated like a pedophile just for admitting that I have a problem with objectifying women who I date. I sent him back a lengthy email explaining why I thought barring me for that reason was an overreaction, and how I wished the convo between me and the other pastor had stayed confidential.
We end up meeting, all three of us, me, the pastor I went to, and the senior pastor, and we had a long heated meeting. I will admit, I went into that meeting pretty heated. The majority of it was just them trying to pull out more details of the specifics of the last date I went on. I did not think this at the time, but now I am just like "Why do you need more details of that? I already came to you for help with a repentive heart." And I did not want to tell them, because again, it is embarrassing to talk about this. They accused me of lying and hiding information from them because I did not want to tell them.
He ended up starting the meeting with saying I was getting kicked out of the Church campus living thing. He changed his mind when I agreed with him on the fact that lust starts earlier then you think in a dating relationship. I dont know why he was basing it off that. He said I was on probation for the rest of the summer, and I had to meet with the other pastor regularly.
The next two months I made HUGE progress. I am closer to Christ then I have ever been in my life. and I would say my lust is 40% of what it was, which is huge to me. The pastor I met with thought the same. Our last meeting, he recommended that I stay on campus to our senior pastor.
Then like two weeks later it fell apart. There was a girl that I hung out with a lot in the spring of this year. She really liked to flirt especially sexually. I still had her as a contact in my phone and we started flirting one day. It was going to go further, but I stopped myself, and blocked her off my phone. Because I blocked her, she got mad, and told a friend who told a friend, who told a friend, who told someone who goes to my church, who told a pastor and on and on. I got a call from my pastor saying "whats this I am hearing?" and I was upfront and honest with him. I said I did not think to bring it up to him because at the time, while I was ashamed and sorry that it happened, the fact that it normally would have gone further with her, and that I stopped it in the heat of the moment was a huge win for me. Keep in mind this happened a few weeks before it got to him.
He said he had to bring this to the senior pastor who said that I am out. We then met later that night for an hour and a half, where they tried to convince me that I had broken the probation, and that what I did, was in no means a win, and if anything a less of a loss. I did not and do not agree with that, and they tried to change my mind during that whole time. They said that because I did not agree with them, I was clearly not repenting or showing any desire to change.
We left that meeting with no progress made. We met again a few days later with my parents present. It was the same thing, just them trying to change my mind, and since I do not agree with them, I am not repenting or broken from what I did. Like I repented and felt bad at the time, but I did not sin to you! So how am I supposed to show that other then say that I did it? My dad did not say a word throughout the entire meeting, and when my mom tried to say something, the senior pastor shut her our and said, your time will come. They tried changing my mind for an hour and then sent me out of the room for two hours where they talked about I dont know what.
My parents wont speak about it, and neither will any of the three pastors. It is common for this kind of thing. I do not even know what really happened with my sisters. My mom is still considering leaving her job and wants to visit other churches.
I am honestly done with them at this point. I came to one of them for help and a genuine desire for change, and I got punished for it. I understand how you should be removed from leadership if your life is not in order, but I am not in leadership. This whole situation has distracted me from what I am really trying to focus on, and stresses me out to have to put on a show for them. Recently they have been acting like they caught me in the act of adultery or something, and I am refusing to admit it, and its like "No, I came to you for help, and you are just rebuking me."
I am moving out Oct 15th. I'm still attending church until then, but after that I am going to be actively looking, unless someone on here changes my mind. FYI I have been very transparent about this. I am giving you their genuine logic on this. Everyone I have talked to at my church has agreed that it is my duty to leave after this and all that, but a couple of them have been genuinely concerned and gone to my senior pastor and asked about it. I don't know what he tells them, but I'm sure if they disagreed with him, they would be in the same boat as me. Lot of people feel that way about my senior pastor, not being allowed to have their own opinion and what not.
But yeah, I really enjoy the community of brothers I am with, I really do not want to leave my church but this is kind of the knock out punch at the end of a stream of other stuff in the past. I am kind of excited to see where God takes me, I kind of feel like it is what he wants me to do. If you can change my mind about leaving, go for it, if not feel free to support my reasoning on leaving.
Thanks
