Prayers That Keep It Real for: People Who Have Been Burned By Church – Part 1

Prayers That Keep It Real for: People Who Have Been Burned By Church – Part 1


Real Talk: The truth of the matter is that a lot of people in society have been hurt by church. As a result, it has caused a gap between society and church. A lot of disappointments and frustrations we experienced in church have caused all of us to question whether or not God is really real. Which in reality is a good thing because it causes you to dig deep and discover who you really are, what we were put on this earth to do, and it causes us to discover God for ourselves.

I was young, naive, green, and impressionable. I wanted to attach myself to something meaningful. I wanted my life to have purpose. I didn’t want to just exist. I found a community of people called “church.” We all loved one another and we embraced our good and bad. We hung out together all of the time. We even lived with each other, we were that close. We were without a doubt family.

We have grown up a little more and now we have families. Our community “Church” is growing. We are all working hard to build the ministry. Our leader, hero, pastor was directing us every step of the way. Insuring we were on task with the vision. We were at the community “church” 24/7. We had to meet and serve to ensure the dream kept moving. We were building a brand that would be one up on other church markets. It was important that we put our time in.

We were close, undividable, inseparable and then a rift, crack, gap, hole, begun to secretly make its way in the community “church.” New people joined the community “church”. It was great because it allowed for our community to broaden and grow. After all, it gave us a chance to get to know more people outside of ourselves. The growth, increase, enlargement began to make minor and major adjustments in relationships and the community “church” dynamic.

Soon we became communities within the main community. Taking a stab at each other behind the curtains and fighting over miniature, microscopic, minute, tiny things. But when the curtains came up and it was time for the show, the service we learned how to fake it, put up facades and shift gears to get us through. We were becoming paranoid, fearful, suspicious of one another.

The leader, hero, pastor began to change. The pulpit became the leader, hero, pastor’s outlet for taking jabs at people in the community “church” and the atmosphere changed. Instead of a sanctuary it became a place of war, conflict, confrontation. A place where you were invited in the boxing ring at any time so that punches could be thrown. You were also welcomed to throw punches too. But in the end, the leader, hero, the pastor always had the last word.

I noticed a behind the scenes abusive relationship beginning to flare. It became a controlling environment in our community. I had to be accountable to the leader, hero, pastor for: Who I could date, where I wanted to live, what dreams I wanted to pursue. Pretty soon the leader, hero, pastor, informed us all that all of our dreams should be filtered through the community “church.” And that we should all be on board with it because it was God and it came from the leader, the hero, the pastor. I begin to notice that if I didn’t make myself accountable in my personal life to leadership I was no longer in the “inner circle.” I was officially on the invisible “hit list.” It had become very obvious if I wasn’t doing what they wanted me to do. I was now the black sheep of the community “church.”

Copywritten 2007