I have never felt like leaving the ministry I grew up in was the wrong decision. In fact, one of the things that makes the least sense to me is how so, so many people have gone back there after leaving. I can confidently say that there is NOTHING in the world that could convince me to return to that place. But maybe I do have an idea of why people go back, after all. It is a massive testament to my parents that I came out the other side of that experience and culture with any shred of a real relationship with God. However, it has taken the past 7 years of living life “Out From the Inside,” you could say, for me to begin to grasp who God actually is. Despite knowing God and serving Him relentlessly in full time ministry, it took getting out from under the control of a corrupt pastor who formed the way I viewed God for me to finally know Him for who He is. To be totally honest, I have wrestled alot with wondering why, if God knew my heart through all of that, He would allow my perception of Him to be so skewed. Why wouldn’t He teach me Himself who He was? No great or insightful answer here. Except that maybe, just maybe, we are all SO far from our perspectives on this life matching up with God’s perspective. There are so many things I don’t know. But one thing I do know for sure, is that thousands of people have left that place, and were not fortunate enough like I was to have someone else’s teaching about God in their life. All they had from the very beginning of their Christian faith was that pastor, painting a totally wrong picture of who God is to them. Since starting this little blog, I have heard from MANY people, saying nearly the same thing. They said they felt crazy after they left. They said they felt abandoned by God. They talked about how in that feeling of absence, they immediately assumed God had removed Himself and His blessing off their life because of their decision to leave. Many people fell back into the ways of their past lives. They returned to drugs, their lives fell apart, and…..many went back to that ministry. Sometimes, they would thrive again. Why? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the ministry never prepared these teens or adults for how to live out your life and faith in the real world. 99% of the people that left as program kids or staff (who had come through the program) left on bad terms, and were essentially excommunicated. No one was allowed to have contact with them anymore. They were completely on their own. Does this sound like something a ministry that focuses exclusively on helping troubled youth would be doing???
So you take a teen, bring them in, introduce God to them, they accept Christ as their Savior, then you load them with responsibilities as their life turns around and they are living this new Christian life, assisted by the fact that they are out of their home life situation. You put them out on the road to advertise for your ministry through sharing their testimonies, you mail their faces out to supporters who send money that keeps the ministry doors open, you promote them over and over again until they reach their 1 year commitment, and it’s time to stay or leave. They are preached to that the “world outside” has only gotten worse. They can stay and help other teens who were just like them for the rest of their lives. If they leave, where will they work? McDonald’s? Who would choose that over serving God full-time? The teen chooses to leave. They are pulled into several meetings with staff people who try to convince them to stay. (I was one of those staff people.) They still want to leave. After all, they did only commit to ONE year. Once it is clear that the person is going to leave, they are sent away with literally every person who has poured into them telling them that they are making a huge mistake. They do know God, but have been very very poorly trained. They leave knowing that they can no longer speak to any staff members from the ministry. No one helps them find housing, no one sets them up with a church or community group that will help them make it. They are cut off. And their new spiritual intellect tells them that maybe God is mad at them. They are on their own.
Ok, maybe it’s not such a mystery why people choose to go back there. Let me get back to God’s perspective. I know that bad things happen. We live in a fallen world where everyone makes poor choices, influenced by The Deceiver, and those choices produce consequences that ripple across the world. We are all affected by each other. You may think I hold buckets and buckets of resentment and unforgiveness against my old pastor, but I truly don’t. I pity him. It wasn’t until I had finished Chapter 8 (I know, I lit into him pretty badly) that I actually saw him for what he is. He’s a man who was used by Evil. He’s not an evil man. I don’t know if he ever had good intentions for his ministry, or if he was just a narcissist who saw the opportunity to control people through religion and the church. (He certainly wouldn’t be the first.) But it’s quite tragic that the very man who started a place that could have been really wonderful was the same person that became deceived and used to damage so many people. He’s without a doubt the saddest man I’ve ever met, he always was. He is a HUGE win for the Enemy. And I am just one of many who was affected by His deception. And he’s still being used, even now, to manipulate people and influence families. Fallen world, remember? But from God’s perspective, maybe He intends to undermine the Enemy through using the very damage he has caused, to bring an even greater and magnificent healing to His people! God has always seemed to swoop in, right as Evil thinks it’s winning and turn everything on its head. The reason I cling to for why I have gone through this all, for why God did stay silent for that time when I believed things that were so very wrong about Him…was because there are so many people out here who need to be told who God is, really. We are a rare breed, those of us who have been through that place. And more souls than you can imagine have waded through the wreckage of leaving and feeling like God disappeared. Thousands are out here waiting for God to condemn them at any moment. Waiting for Him to pull His blessing off of them. Living in constant striving to please Him and live up to His standard, which none of us can attain. People who were there—-anyone identify???
THIS is the one and only reason I started this blog. Yeah, it’s cool to have something in writing to direct outsiders to when they just don’t understand how one would possibly stay there. But, I didn’t start the blog hoping to “out” the ministry, or get revenge on anyone. I wanted to help those of us who are here on the outside now…trying to make sense of what happened, and honestly, those of us trying to make sense of who God is, really. Maybe He has allowed me to stumble along this journey and given me the desire and ability to write about it so that He can speak to you to show you who He really is. I am finding out more and more each day who He is, and strangely…the closer I feel to God, the farther away from religion I end up.
This new next phase of my blog will cover the seven years after we left. I’m prepared to continue being honest and real about the struggles I’ve gone through, and boy did I go through them. The problems I had as a teenager grew, mutated and became a nightmare as I navigated the world outside of that place. I fought old demons of self esteem as my body changed over the course of having three babies in three years. I experienced postpartum depression as I stayed at home with a 3 year old, a 1 year old, and a newborn, as my laundry piled sky high and dishes went undone for days at a time. I was hit with postpartum anxiety that literally took my breath away, invaded my dreams at night, and made me see horrible scenarios that were not there in every day life. Thanks to my magical ability to conceal whatever I’m really going through, once again, hardly anyone knew.
I’m going to share all of that messiness because I know there are so many of you out there, even people who were never in that particular ministry, and maybe your life is messy too. Maybe you’re just like me, and you’ve believed too many lies about who God is. Maybe you even believe the biggest lie of all: that He is not even real. I don’t know it all, but I know what I’ve been through, and I finally am beginning to see the beauty God wants to make of it all.
Consider this a new epilogue, like Chapter 1 was. There are too many people who have been burned by the church and religion. I am one of them, but here I am, not walking away from my faith, but rather running towards what I now know to be Truth with more confidence and abandon than I ever have. If you’ve been burned, then read along. I promise that God and His love are more real and infinitely better than you’ve ever thought they could be. His story is not finished with you, or with me.
I hate to leave you hanging, but I’ll see you next time. 🙂