Why I Left The Church…Twice. (PART 4)

As I was slouched in the pew, about to hit my sweet spot for some Sabbath slumber, my ears started to perk up to the words being preached by God’s messenger. As much as I tried to resist, I could not seem to shake the message that was being spoken directly to my heart. I was locked in to every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the preacher as if they were spoken directly from the mouth of God. It was like he had a sneak peak into my life, my struggles, my pain, and my sorrow. Unlike the counterfeit rapper, the real Jehovah was calling out to me, “allow me to reintroduce myself…”. But concurrently another voice was also speaking out to me saying, “don’t listen”, “why would you make a fool of yourself again”, “these people will only leave you broken again”, “they don’t really care about you”. And so with tears flowing from my eyes like a fountain, as the pastor appealed for those who had been touched by the words from heaven to accept His loving call, I stood steadfast in place, refusing to allow my legs to take the first step back into my relationship with my Creator.

And I really want to highlight this point. There are many in our congregations, Sabbath to Sabbath, or Sunday to Sunday, depending on your denomination, who have ended up inside your church after a long journey away from God trying to find their way back to God. Like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), whether knowingly or unknowingly, they have found themselves in the sanctuary, being exposed to the things of God once again. They are fragile. They are indifferent. They are angry. They are depressed. They are doubtful. They are struggling to believe. They are suicidal. They are searching for answers. They are fertile ground for the love of God. But the question is, what soil are they walking into when they visit your church? Is it the soil of acceptance? Is it the soil of deliverance? Is it the soil of kindness? Is it the soil of gentleness? Or is it the soil of legalism? Is it the soil of judgmentalism? Is it the soil of racism? Is it the soil of sexism? Simply put, are our environments or churches ready to receive people from all walks of life that are ready to receive God? Or are we gatekeeping, ignoring, or rejecting those whom Jesus wants to be in relationship with?

I wish I could tell you that I fought through those opposing voices. I wish my story was that I was able to resiliently push through my past experiences and triumphantly and courageously answer the call that the Holy Spirit was pleading with me that day. I wish I could tell you that I gave my life to Jesus and became souled out for Him the first time I heard Him calling me. But that’s not the case. I was not that strong or that brave. I was dealing with church hurt and many years of anger and resentment that had found solace in my heart. So I rejected the call but I did not reject the call.

Because I enjoyed the sermon so much that Sabbath, I decided to come back the next week. Surely that message was a fluke and church wasn’t really this good. This time, I did not party the night before but tried to get there a little earlier so that I could hear the whole message. When I got to the church right before the pastor was about to preach, I heard the heavenly sound of The Inspirational Choir (this was literally their name). As my ears tuned in to their melodious voices from outside the sanctuary doors, my heart was once again softened to hear the word of the man of God. And as I sat through the service, I realized that my first experience was not a fluke. What was God trying to do to me. I had made up in my mind that I would never go back to church. But something was changing inside of me and I couldn’t understand what was going on.

And so service after service, I kept telling myself, “that was pretty good”. And so Sabbath after Sabbath, I kept coming to church earlier and earlier. I got so hooked that I would even come to church before the deacons got there to open the doors. I just couldn’t get enough of God’s word. I started attending Wednesday night prayer meetings as well. I began to fall back in love with God, his people, and His church. But each time the pastor called for the appeal, I bust into tears and over and over again because I could not get over the pain that I experienced in this church three years before. So I withstood ever plea. I opposed every call. I would not budge to give my life to Jesus, because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to recover from what felt like another rejection. It took eight months of fighting against the Spirit until one Wednesday night, the pastor said, “tell your neighbor excuse me and give me your hand and Jesus your heart”. I could no longer resist. My body felt the gravitational pull of the Holy Spirit dragging me towards the alter. I told my neighbor “excuse me” and I almost ran up to the front to shake the pastor’s hand because Jesus already had my heart.

The moral of this story is as simple as this. There are many people who have never fallen out of relationship with God, they just want nothing to do with His church. A lot of the reasons why people leave the church are preventable. They are things that we can address in order to ensure that we are not losing people through the back doors of our churches. The problem is that “our church hurt is loud and our church help is silent” (Naomi Ortiz Despiau, Facebook Post from November 4, 2024). We have been willfully ignoring the voices of those who have been trying to tell us about their harmful experiences because we don’t want to see ourselves in a negative light. No one wants to be the villain in someone else’s story. But the reality is that when we try to uphold a pretentious, pious, and perfect image of ourselves, we will be blinded to the bad behaviors that are taking place within our four walls. The most healing thing that we can do is to listen to those who have been hurt by us, repent of our sins, and do whatever we can to bring restitution and healing to those who we have harmed. When we take accountability for our actions, we will start to see the power of God manifested in a mighty way in our ministries. So I am calling my church and your church to repentance. Let us ask God to show us our true selves to ourselves so that we can be healing agents to those who have been harmed in our presence, and proudly proclaim the words of Zacchaeus when he said “Behold Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (Luke 19:8, ESV). When this happens, we will see more people running towards the doors of our churches than away from them…

For more resources on how to heal from church hurt or on how churches can become safe spaces of worship, check out more content on my YouTube page:

https://www.youtube.com/@pastorwaleade

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