I cannot express how difficult it is to go to another church. It feels like I’m disowning my own family, like I’m cutting myself off from them. Given everything, if the pastors in our old church weren’t showing clear signs of being into contemplative prayer, of merging with the New Age, we’d still be there with the other problems we’re seeing. I mean, if we were just using the P.E.A.C.E. plan as a model and it seemed the pastors were ignorant to the New Age only, it would be something we could work with. Even better, if we were doing all the things like missions, serving the poor, concerned about orphans, and doing service projects in the community, that would be fine. The church promotion and marketing can be a little much, but some of what our church was doing I don’t really see as wrong. Sending out mailers, trying to attract the community to church, well, for me that seems logical if you are evangelical. You want to get the world to come in and hear just in case you’re meant to plant a seed for the. However, the message is tainted. Just a dusting or arsenic, just enough to make the cake look like it has powdered sugar on it, in fact, it does have powdered sugar. But it also has that little bit of poison. I was sad today thinking of my church worshipping and the message being shared, and the pastors having an agenda to eventually teach the crowd how to pray in a contemplative way. I am sad thinking about how lost our pastors are, how blind they are. They can talk about god-consciousness just like New Age leaders. They speak of silence, of Christ coursing through veins, of mission, of being “little christs.” These things slip into their speech, and no one really hears it (I did, but I’d ask and many would say no and then I’d listen to sermons online later and it would be confirmed). Today, people filled a church building (our old church), and people were missing the mark. So we sat with strangers, my kids taught by strangers. We heard the message, and I listened carefully to every word. I watched as they prayed, did they have an agenda too? Maybe, maybe they did, maybe they are doing God’s will or maybe not.
I did share a bit of our story with the pastor, and he understood. He knew that shift was going on all around our city. Just a few weeks ago an older couple visited from our old church. The pastor knew our church was merging. He knew of other churches with this problem. The offered to pray for us, they offered materials for free on the topic of the New Age merging with Christianity. The pastor even had spoken with one of the many pastors from our church and gave him a book that was a good warning to show this shift. Did this pastor read the book? How did it impact him? I don’t know.
So we visit a new church, go to lunch. The kids say it was cool, it was different. The younger ones liked the new songs they learned, the older ones wished the music was better. There were only 15 children 10 to toddler. That is a change. We are not done looking, but this church at least looks like one that has the gospel message clear. They are studying the bible and read through the bible in their bible study groups each year. This is good. More churches, more people to meet. I just wish our old church would change. I’d rather be there.
I am a C...I am a CH...I am a CHRISTIAN 