Review: Why the church?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 7, 2013
As a lifelong Christian (I was raised in a Christian home, was saved at 8 yrs old, never known a time in my life where I didn't know Jesus) I've experienced some very hurtful things in churches in the past. The church I was saved in had a business meeting in order to fire one of the pastors. My parents supported all the pastors but we were in the minority. The meeting became very heated until finally we had to run out of the sanctuary. People became ugly fast and chased us, even shooting a gun into the air in the church sanctuary. They literally ran us out of town. We moved and my parents joined the First Baptist Church but didn't attend church very much and finally not at all. They didn't lose their faith in Jesus Christ but they lost faith in the church (and my Mom was the daughter of a minister). As a teenager, I began attending a small church with some friends but the older people of the congregation resented being overrun with teenagers. It disrupted their placid spiritual life so they fired the preacher and all the teens left that church. My husband and I joined a church in 1983 and attended until 2009. We were very active. But of all the pastors that went through our church, I could probably count on one hand the ones that didn't abuse the congregation in one way or another. Finally, we had a straw-that-broke-the-camels'-back event and we left our church. Needless to say I'm gun shy now! We've been visiting churches all over our town but haven't found a match yet. I think I might like one but only to get anxious that we would invest our time, money and selves into a body that has the same problems. It takes awhile before you get to know the church, policies, leadership, congregants enough to know if all is well or something is rotten in Denmark. I had almost made up my mind to be like my parents and just drop out of the church scene and worship God in my own way. Then I read this book. I think the book's description is right on the mark so I won't repeat it. But, since I started reading this book, we've started visiting more churches and praying that we find one soon.