DawninPA
Sep 5th 2008, 07:22 PM
Hello;
I am struggling to overcome being hurt by the church my fiance and I had been attending, and found this forum when doing a search for Christian support. I've lurked a bit and have liked the caring, and sometimes blunt but never judgmental, responses I see here.
My fiancee & I attended a neighborhood church for Christmas Eve one year. We found the people to be very warm and welcoming, and while it took us a while to find the willpower to get up on Sunday morning and go, we finally did and began attending regularly. In August of 2007 we met with the pastor to discuss becoming members. We had 3 sessions in which we learned (reviewed, for us) the basic tenets of Christianity, and at the end the Pastor expressed concern about the fact that we lived together. We explained that we met because I when I moved down here, I stayed with a friend from school. He is that friend's younger brother, and he lived there too. My son and my friend's son grew to be very close, so rather than separate them, we all stayed together as roommates. Then Chris & I began spending more time together and fell in love. I will not lie and say that our relationship was not immoral, but after our meetings with the Pastor, we decided we wanted to honor God and remain celibate until our marriage. We shared this with my friend and my son (her son passed away very suddenly in February of 2006) so that they could act as 'chaperones' for us.
We got involved with this church and attended Sunday school and main service on Sunday, and fellowship meetings on Wednesday night. And while everyone was friendly while we were there, we didn't seem to be making and Christian friends that we could meet and fellowship with outside of church. Then we started noticing little things like, although we went to the pre-meeting dinner every Wednesday night, nobody ever invited us to sit with them, nor did anyone come and join us. Several women would mention their montly "circle" meetings, but when I said I had never been asked to join one, no invitation was every forthcoming. I signed up to volunteer for VBS, and even though the director got up each Sunday and said "We still need volunteers!", when I asked her about helping she'd say "Oh, I'll be in touch."
My father had an accident at home in November in 2007 and was ill and in the hospital and then a nursing home for many months. Finally, in April of this year, they said they were getting ready to get him to come home, so Chris & I drove up to PA (we live in FL right now) to see if he'd be okay with just my mom to take care of him, or if we'd have to move up to help. A few days before we got there, he came down with a cold. The day we arrived, they did a chest x-ray and noted a shadow at the bottom. Another x-ray of his abdomen showed a large mass behind his stomach. On Wednesday, April 30, the biopsy came back showing that the mass was cancerous. On Thursday, May 1st, my father died. When the social worker was having me make the necessary phone calls, she asked if we had a church at home. When we said we did, she said "Why not call them and let them know, so they can be praying for you?" I had Chris call, and when he got the pastor he said he was letting him know my father had passed away. The pastor said "Oh, when?" When Chris said "Actually, just about an hour ago," the pastor replied "You know, people generally don't call me this soon after a death. Call me back tomorrow." No "I'm sorry", no "You'll be in my/our prayers."
Thinking Chris had not heard him correctly, I called back the next day and asked to speak to him. The secretary said to me, as if I should have known, "He's not here - he went to a conference. Did you want something?"
All that hurt and was very disappointing to us, but what's worse is that in all the time since then, over 4 months, NO ONE from the church has called us to check on us, to find out why we'd stopped coming, etc. Chris has run into 2 people from our very small Sunday School class, and neither expressed sympathy for the loss of my father or concern for why we hadn't been to church.
I can't seem to get over this. I still cry over the loss of my church as much as I cry over the loss of my father. I miss worshipping so much, but I won't go back to that church and am afraid to try another church. I had a bad experience with another church, when I was 'shunned' for divorcing my adulterous, physically abusive husband when he began to abuse our son.
I'm sorry this is so long and thank you for reading it.
I am struggling to overcome being hurt by the church my fiance and I had been attending, and found this forum when doing a search for Christian support. I've lurked a bit and have liked the caring, and sometimes blunt but never judgmental, responses I see here.
My fiancee & I attended a neighborhood church for Christmas Eve one year. We found the people to be very warm and welcoming, and while it took us a while to find the willpower to get up on Sunday morning and go, we finally did and began attending regularly. In August of 2007 we met with the pastor to discuss becoming members. We had 3 sessions in which we learned (reviewed, for us) the basic tenets of Christianity, and at the end the Pastor expressed concern about the fact that we lived together. We explained that we met because I when I moved down here, I stayed with a friend from school. He is that friend's younger brother, and he lived there too. My son and my friend's son grew to be very close, so rather than separate them, we all stayed together as roommates. Then Chris & I began spending more time together and fell in love. I will not lie and say that our relationship was not immoral, but after our meetings with the Pastor, we decided we wanted to honor God and remain celibate until our marriage. We shared this with my friend and my son (her son passed away very suddenly in February of 2006) so that they could act as 'chaperones' for us.
We got involved with this church and attended Sunday school and main service on Sunday, and fellowship meetings on Wednesday night. And while everyone was friendly while we were there, we didn't seem to be making and Christian friends that we could meet and fellowship with outside of church. Then we started noticing little things like, although we went to the pre-meeting dinner every Wednesday night, nobody ever invited us to sit with them, nor did anyone come and join us. Several women would mention their montly "circle" meetings, but when I said I had never been asked to join one, no invitation was every forthcoming. I signed up to volunteer for VBS, and even though the director got up each Sunday and said "We still need volunteers!", when I asked her about helping she'd say "Oh, I'll be in touch."
My father had an accident at home in November in 2007 and was ill and in the hospital and then a nursing home for many months. Finally, in April of this year, they said they were getting ready to get him to come home, so Chris & I drove up to PA (we live in FL right now) to see if he'd be okay with just my mom to take care of him, or if we'd have to move up to help. A few days before we got there, he came down with a cold. The day we arrived, they did a chest x-ray and noted a shadow at the bottom. Another x-ray of his abdomen showed a large mass behind his stomach. On Wednesday, April 30, the biopsy came back showing that the mass was cancerous. On Thursday, May 1st, my father died. When the social worker was having me make the necessary phone calls, she asked if we had a church at home. When we said we did, she said "Why not call them and let them know, so they can be praying for you?" I had Chris call, and when he got the pastor he said he was letting him know my father had passed away. The pastor said "Oh, when?" When Chris said "Actually, just about an hour ago," the pastor replied "You know, people generally don't call me this soon after a death. Call me back tomorrow." No "I'm sorry", no "You'll be in my/our prayers."
Thinking Chris had not heard him correctly, I called back the next day and asked to speak to him. The secretary said to me, as if I should have known, "He's not here - he went to a conference. Did you want something?"
All that hurt and was very disappointing to us, but what's worse is that in all the time since then, over 4 months, NO ONE from the church has called us to check on us, to find out why we'd stopped coming, etc. Chris has run into 2 people from our very small Sunday School class, and neither expressed sympathy for the loss of my father or concern for why we hadn't been to church.
I can't seem to get over this. I still cry over the loss of my church as much as I cry over the loss of my father. I miss worshipping so much, but I won't go back to that church and am afraid to try another church. I had a bad experience with another church, when I was 'shunned' for divorcing my adulterous, physically abusive husband when he began to abuse our son.
I'm sorry this is so long and thank you for reading it.