Making the Break
After nearly two years of my journey to find God's truths, I found myself still a member of a conservative, evangelical church. I haven't been inside the building this year, but my membership was still there. This week a was rereading Martin Zender's book, "How to Quit Church without Quitting God", and was reminded how it once was for me on the inside of organized religion. So, I did it. I called the church office and asked that they remove me from the church roll......Nothing happened.. No bolt from above, no calls from the membership committee. I made the break! I don't know why I hadn't done it before now. There had been no contact with anyone from the church since February of this year. I had long since felt no need for the coffee, donuts, and social niceties associated with Sunday mornings at 9:30. There are nice folks who attend there. The pastor is a very nice, warm-hearted guy, who I like. There are some not so nice, fundamentalist, hellfire and brimstone types as well who I won't miss for sure. Christ and His father along with my good friend Roy keep me anchored now. Roy and I meet at the 1st Church of Mickey D as often as possible to discuss things. He's always got a new story to tell concerning his job. Roy is a hospice chaplain. He's seen more in 4 years of dealing with death and the dying than I have in a lifetime. It was Roy who challenged me to see things with a different perspective. And Roy was on the staff of a local, conservative, Protestant church for over 25 years. He peaked my curiosity about a lot of things I'd never thought of before in my church-filled journey. That curiosity lead me to Martin Zender and his book. I saw the title, and thought to myself, "how can I possibly do that?" That being quitting church without quitting God....I was immensely curious about it. After a couple of weeks of internal debate, I ordered the book from Amazon. It changed my life. Martin was raised catholic and eventually left the church at 18 and never looked back. I, on the other hand, had been in a basically fundamental, conservative, Protestant denomination for 58 years!! Martin had a headstart on me. Everything he presented in his book made such sense. Imagine a Catholic telling a Protestant about how to quit church! What a novel idea! All I can say is Thank You, Martin, from the bottom of my heart. My only regret is that I took so long to find the truth and then waited so long (1 1/2 years) to Make the break..............
posted by Don @ 2:45 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Hey Don, it took me months of internal struggling to announce that I was giving up my deacon position and leaving the AOG church that I been part of for thirty years although most of those years we were a "non-denominational" church.
Anyway, I understand how difficult it is to break free from the control and manipulation that we have slowly been conditioned to accept. Then one day many years down the road we wake up and realize that, like the frog slowly boiled in gradually heated water, We've been cooked and all of our life is just about gone....except for the Life of God still resident down deep in our hearts.
They condition us to believe that like an over-protective mother that we can not get along with out them and they actually prevent us from maturing to the sons of God that he intends for us to be.
Glad you broke out bro. Stay free....'cause you are full of Life.
Thanks for the comment Steve. My break came without any guilt and with a great sense of relief. No regrets at all.
Good post, Don. For the time being, I've opted to stay in. I can't promise it will be forever. It's just that I think there might be more opportunities in a church to help people through outreach ministries, etc. But I'll grant that plenty of opportunities exist on the outside as well.
Steve-
I hear your heart speaking. I've understood for a good while how you feel. Oh for God to give to me the heart of a servant as He has you......God bless you and your attitude toward others.
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