The Church is Me!

I was hesitant on writing my last post because I didn't want to write  something "bad" about a specific church. I was writing about churches and Christianity in general. It is hard for those who read it not to have a specific church in mind because they knew what church I had attended most of my life and had also attended there themselves. 

There are a few things I want to make clearer.

1) I never meant to call anyone specifically a "bad apple." If you remember my post, this was a comment on my friend´s post. Her post said that if the teaching is wrong, you can't say it's some "bad apples" straying you away from Christianity. I happen to agree with her. One of the things I don´t know if my previous post made clear is that I am included in those perpetuating teachings straying away others. I wrote the post because I don't take that lightly. I have a responsibility in the part I played, whether it was intentional or not. I was part of "church-cliques." I was in the "spiritual" clique always a pastor darling. I didn't care for others, including my siblings who were feeling left out and seen as less because I was "in". If anything, I was the biggest bad apple. 

2) I never meant to say all the church leaders were bad and everyone in that church is bad. If I happen to still have many close and good friends from that church is because they add to my life in friendship and in Christ. Some of the things that happened in my youth were wrong. I need to talk about that. My post and the responses I got in private show me this needs to be addressed. A lot of people are hurt, but no one will speak about it. But speaking for the sake of speaking can lead to sin, as James reminds us (Read James chapter 3). I don't want to speak about it just so that we can all get together and say "Yeah, this was all bad!" and start bad-mouthing someone or an institution that, while not perfect, is working towards bringing people to Christ. A lot of you took it that way, and that makes me feel responsible because that is not the door I wanted to open. I was not talking of this church specifically but of Christianity and churches in general. I wanted to open the door where the church stops pretending to be perfect, starts acknowledging the things it did wrong, starts enacting change that will help bring more people to Christ, and maybe even move towards helping those it hurt to heal. This kind of talk is taboo in churches. We sweep it under the rug. 

3) The church was not a building or a group of pastors. The church was me. The church is you. It is your responsibility to look after it. It is your responsibility to restore her. It is your responsibility to amend your mistakes. It is your responsibility to forgive pastors, leaders, or people in church who might have hurt you. You do NOT have a green card to hold grudges, resentment, and anger. Sometimes that means changing churches. Sometimes that means staying so you can be the difference. Sometimes it means asking for forgiveness. Sometimes it means spoonful by spoonful getting rid of bad theology and putting in the work to learn good theology for yourself and teach good theology to others. Yes, bad theology is what makes some leaders think they have control over your life, your relationships, your finances, or your education. But let me say it again and in the present tense: the church is me. I am the hands and feet of Christ in this world. If I don´t preach, He can use the rocks to do so. I won´t be bested by a rock. I will tell the world of Him Who gave His life for me and adopted me as His child and gave my life purpose. I will put in the work in myself, in my family, in my community, and in my church.

4) Talking about this is not an attack. I was afraid of sharing my last post. I prayed long and hard to share it. Some wrote that they felt God had guided them to read my post, for they were in the brink of abandoning their faith. But God´s greatest kindness to me came in a conversation I had with the pastor who I considered to be MY Pastor: Gustavo Zepeda. As I´ve hinted before, I am trying to write my book. I don't know if I'll ever finish it, or publish it, or whatever, but I am writing it. Gustavo is in my book for he is an integral part of my life. He entered my life when I was a seven year old girl who had experienced sexual harassment at the hands of relative. Our relationship began with hatred, for I despised him for knowing my darkest secret and for my mom forcing me to go to counseling with him. But Gustavo was a loving and caring pastor that soon made feel happy I had someone like him on my side. When I was thirteen years old and this relative came back into the picture to tell me to meet him so he could apologize, I went straight to Gustavo where I knew I'd be safe. Tavo, as we so dearly call him, made mistakes. I remember once I got so mad at something he said to Rodolfo about our relationship that I went to straight to him with tears in my eyes ready to let him have it. When I was met with a sensible pastor who was quick to apologize, my anger immediately left. When I saw on my private messages his name, I got scared of what he was going to say to me. Let me tell you his opening words: "Did I ever do anything to hurt you?" Can you imagine that? Can you imagine the impact it would have if every Christian reacted in this manner? Why don't we understand that God is more present in redemption and forgiveness stories than in our perfection and "holier-than-thou" pretenses?! I was quick to let Tavo know how my life was and is forever blessed to have him in it. Pastors are not responsible of everything that happens in church, and we need to remember that. Being a pastor is hard and it is a great burden. Everything that happens in church is immediately linked to them! He apologized for not having protected me better when my youth leader asked me to marry him and let me know he had advised against it.  

5) What about the rest of you?                                                                                                                      I´m getting tears in my eyes writing this right now. Please, I never meant to attack anyone. Tavo went on to say that because His church is filled with imperfect humans, He left the command that we should forgive one another. Do you have something you need to forgive? Some of the responses to my post clearly show that is not the case. Even my husband has things he needs to forgive. Even I have things I need to forgive. My family, my siblings, my friends who love bad-mouthing this church. We have a command to forgive. It's hard for my previous post not to be viewed as an attack when the title is "Leaving the church." Was I right in leaving this church? That is a good question. I asked myself long and hard before leaving. It was right for me, I think and pray. At the end, I could only see what was bad and not what was good. I couldn't stay in that state any longer. 

I was glad to receive messages from some who stayed telling me how many things have changed. That brought me joy, because that is exactly what I prayed for. I don't dismiss the idea that maybe the problem was myself. Many commented on how they were deemed "bad apples" within church, but don't take the responsibility in their actions to what got them that stamp. The church was all of us. We have a responsibility to our actions. This is the reason I ended my post with: the change starts with me. I guess I didn't make this point come across more clearly. I had sat in the seat of mockers, I had alienated those who were not like me, I was bad-mouthing my leaders, I had a bitter root, I had reached out to this friend leaving Christianity with judgment and "fixes" first than with love and compassion, I had been close-minded, self-righteous, and social warrior. And God is calling me to something better than religiousness. He is calling me to unity. He is calling you too! The church is us!

This is the group of friends that gathered at my house the night I found out I had cancer and was undergoing my first mastectomy the next morning. They were there to support me and pray for me. Almost all are from this church I was no longer attending.

My loving god-parents go to this church and are a great source of love and support for many. They are like second parents to us.

On Leaving the Church

 A friend of mine recently posted a blog post of why she left the church and her Christian faith. She began by saying that when she decided to leave the church she was met with similar platitudes from those trying to convince her to stay: 

• Don't let some bad apples (meaning bad Christians) turn you away from Jesus.
• You are the problem. You have a bitter root. 

Now, I'm not writing this post as an antithesis of what she wrote or to convince anyone to do otherwise. I'm going to write to process how I felt reading her post, how I have felt myself after leaving my church of 20+ years, and the ongoing struggle in my mind to where to go from there. 

My friend said when she was trying to be convinced not to leave, no one wanted to hear her story. They just wanted to fix her. This is often too real on pretty much every aspect of human life. I was listening to a podcast on "mom shaming" that is so pervasive in society. One of the things that caught my attention was that the speaker who was advocating for mom-shaming to stop was the first to admit she had mom-shamed other moms herself. I've written a post on that before here where I was sleepless because I felt so bad of having mom-shamed someone and here were I rant on people´s comments of my girls. I was one of the ones who told my friend "You have a bitter root."

I feel ashamed of that. One, I said it in a Facebook comment. Wow! We are too loose with our tongue on the internet. Two, while I did know part of her story, I didn't take the time to follow up or know how she was feeling when I said that to her. She got upset with me for saying that to which my defense was that "I knew how she was feeling because I was battling my own bitter root from getting cancer." I thought cancer had made me more empathetic, but I have ways to go.    

Christians are too loose with their "fixes." I almost went into a rant today when I read in a mom group a mom saying she had been sexually assaulted when she was little, and she needed a good recommendation for a psychiatrist to help her deal with the trauma so she wouldn't let it affect her family now that she is a mom and wife. Almost 80% of the comments were in the line of "All you need is Jesus. Just seek Jesus! Jesus can help you heal your heart and forgive." I couldn't help myself and I did reply to some of them. The ones I found, like my friend puts it, toxic. 

So, to suck the poison and toxicity that exists in the Christian world, I need to start with myself. My brother says I've become too much of a social warrior. I will go on a rant on "#meToo" (especially being a survivor of sexual abuse and sexual harassment) to whoever belittles it; I will rant on immigration and how it is "illegal" to try to find a better life for yourself because of man-made borders; I will rant on Donald Trump and whoever wants to pass him on as Christian. This year one of my resolutions was to not be a social warrior anymore because I tend to bulldoze over those on the other side of the debate, which is not very Christian of me. I intentionally try my best not to rant. 

Lately, I try to be an advocate for grief protection. You see, especially in the Christian community, grief is not allowed. If you are grieving, it´s a lack of faith or lack of prayer or lack of fasting or lack of time in the Word. Depression is not permissible or justifiable. It is a lie; it is the Devil; it is your own weakness and temptation. I had to go through my own deep grief to realize this was a form of violence. You don't negate other people´s feelings. You don´t ask them to put them in perspective. You don´t tell them how to fix it or how they´re going through it because they´re not good enough. This is psychological VIOLENCE. This is psychological violence I suffered during my cancer journey and that I had and probably still have enacted on others too. If Christianity is not willing to understand its flaws and change, we can't keep telling people "it's a few bad apples." 

This is why I left my church of most of my life. I have fond memories of my church. I made great friends there that I still hold dearly and closely. I met my husband there. I spent my youth in missions and worship bands and plays and so many good things. But I reached my boiling point after years and years of psychological violence and neglect. I would need way too many words to express correctly what was wrong with my church. I mean, at one point, my youth leader who was 15 years my senior and had been my youth pastor since I was 12 asked me to marry him two weeks after I turned 18! It took me many years to realize I had been groomed to accept that proposal. And thank God I didn't! 

It took many years to reach that boiling point. I was so close-minded in everything. I was even taught other churches were wrong, and I could only collaborate and work within my church. I was placed in discipline from serving in church for dating my husband even though when I started dating him I was 21 and I had finished college. Mind you, he was my first kiss! I made myself miserable to the point of being too ashamed to have my alone time with God because I had romantic feelings towards him. Toxicity at its highest; toxicity I was taught and fed.  

The post went on to say that it wasn't only the bad apples in church that were turning her away, but now she also had an issue with God. She didn't like the God of the Bible who slayed the Egyptians´ firstborn or the many times He command Israel to wipe out a nation. I wrote something along those lines here where I write why I still believe in God after getting cancer. In a nutshell, you knew who God was from the beginning of your faith. If it was easy for you to believe in Him when things were good in your life but find it easy to turn from Him when things are not going as you expected them, your faith was not in God but in what He could offer you. I want to understand the pain my friend says she endured. I certainly endured and still endure a share of pain and loss that not many people know from such a young age. You can read about it here and here. I'm not comparing pain. Everyone´s pain is their own and it's theirs to make as big or small as they experienced it. I do not believe anymore in "putting things in perspective" when trying to comfort someone. 

Back to my almost rant for the comments of the mom seeking psychiatric help. Jesus is the way. I know it firsthand because I know Who held me in my deepest despair. I know it because I almost left my faith when Kinsley died and had to walk a desert to find Him again. He kept calling. He kept holding me. But I was treated with psychiatric help, and I'm still in need of psychiatric help to deal with my PTSD. 

Jesus is the way, but He alone is not enough. This is why He established His church on earth. He prayed our unity would bring people to Him. He prayed we'd be one with Him. I found a good church here in Panama. A church who hasn't shown a single shred of psychological violence towards me after almost three years there. A church who has held me and brought me closer to my beloved Jesus. It's sad because so many of the friends I grew up with excited to love Jesus and live for Him ended up reaching their boiling point too, and many never found a safe place to worship and grow and hold each other up in Christ. Some have bounced from church to church seeking that place and coming out so belittled they no longer see the point of it. Some have found a deeper relationship with God in a good church they ended up establishing when reaching their boiling point together. Some renounced their faith and after more than a decade of doing so, their lives are none the better; if anything, they just seem lost. It's sad because I loved my church so dearly. Leaving it was gut-wrenching. And once you leave a church like that you are almost completely shunned by those who stay in it, pretty much losing all your extended family. I found a new one that I love very dearly. I'm glad it's out there. 

Picture of my youth group after a church service.

100% of us have left the church or moved to a different church after pretty much living all our teenage years in and out of church serving fervently. 

  

Jesus is the way, but He also ate food and drank water and slept. We can't be hippies about our faith. I mean this with no disrespect, but your "Jesus is enough" is not enough. 

James 2

15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

I struggle to see Jesus some days. Will I end up giving up after so much pain? I pray not. I see the lives of those who truly follow Jesus and those who follow the world, and I'm in good company with my fellow Jesus-lovers. They are the best thing in my life. That includes my mom and dad, my in-laws, my husband, my closest friends, my mentors and pastors. I pray to stay close to them and follow their example. It's not as easy as many would say it is. If it is for you, I'm happy you don't endure much struggle. But if you found Jesus, I'm happy you have the lover of your soul present in your life during the hardships that come with this life on this broken world. 

This is not an easy subject. It is not something that you have just one answer to offer. The need for change in Christianity and many churches is too real and palpable to brush it as bad apples. The need for listening and opening up your mind to needs and grief and pain and true help is urgent. You don't have to agree with me. I don't even fathom to have the full understanding of anything myself. I do open my mind to be better and do better because change must start with me.