“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, and plead the widow's cause,” (Isaiah 1:17). “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).
What is a Church? Let me run a working definition by Simon Flinders:
The local church is a family of believers who gather in a habit of love, who depend on each other in service, and who listen to God in humility as his Word dwells richly among them.
We thought that was the church we were going to but found out slowly it wasn't.
This is not only my story but also the stories of others. I am writing my part.
When someone leaves a church they are invested in, they experience a loss. Such a loss is multi-faceted and affects many areas of one's life.
My husband and I started going to our last church in 2009. We felt like it was a good fit for our family. As soon as we started, we got plugged into different ministries like leading Small Group, helping out in children's ministry, facilitating on Tuesday Mornings for women's Bible Study and my husband became a Deacon. We loved it. As we continued to go we would hear snippets of snide comments that came from a place of ignorance, unintentional I had hoped, about our race, but it was leaving its mark. We decided to let it go. The reason being was I wanted to disprove their ignorance and show them who we were. I am ashamed to say that now, because no one went out of their way to show how they were as white people because, like me, they should not have had to.
The question I often ask myself is, did we do the right thing? And the answer is ALWAYS YES.
Not a Spur-of-the-Moment Decision
If the truth is told, we did not leave the church on the spur of the moment.
And it wasn't easy to leave. We loved our church and its people, we have so many people there whom we care for deeply. However, we had to make the ultimate decision to leave.
The reason some people don't leave is that they are too fearful to. Most people received Christ as their Savior in the church they attend and that makes it even harder to leave.
They've become comfortable, but being comfortable is not a reason to stay. The Bible doesn’t say? Settle in. Rest on your laurels and get comfortable. I like What
C. S. Lewis once said, “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
Once someone leaves a church, the losses become more evident. It is more than just not being there on Sundays for services. The passage of time reveals how much a part of someone's life was wrapped up in the church involvement, and the various losses begin to emerge into one's conscious mind.
Despite whatever pain was associated with continued membership, and whatever difficult circumstances may have been a factor in leaving, once someone leaves a church-- even an unhealthy church-- a deep sense of loss may exist. The loss of a church family in which we spent many nights studying God's Word, supping together, and celebrating weddings, birthdays, various victories, and losses, and the list can go on. Yes, the pain is still substantial.
The situation becomes like the biblical story found in 2 Kings 7:3-4 about four lepers who decided they were going to die if they stayed where they were. However, if they got up and left, at least they had a chance of survival. Spoiler alert: They left and they did survive!
I have seen things online and in my messages on Facebook by people, I went to church with and it disgusts me. The praising of the January 6th incident and still claiming that Donald Trump is still President is appalling.
No matter who the President is, we voted and that is final.
The atmosphere going back to church after the pandemic felt unreal. This disease was taking over the black community, and the loss of black lives that went on in our nation and the world was horrible in a lot of cases the church was silent. In fact, the world was talking about it but churches were quiet until they had to say something and when they did it was too late. Our ( the church's) voices were quieted by super conservatives and the craziness of QAanon, so the world thought the whole church felt the same way. This was a lost opportunity. We as the church should've been the first people to come with godly solutions, instead of blaming one side or the other.
My topic, The Black Experience in a White church came from different areas but the one that I heard the most is that if you are white you don't see my blackness. I need you to hear why my color does matter.
Color Blind You say?
The idea of not seeing skin color is nice in theory, but in actuality it’s inaccurate. Anyone who is able to see can discern and recognize one skin color from the next. To say you don’t see color is a misnomer. How can you possibly fix something that you don’t believe you see?
Are You Really Color Blind?
Well, I am not, I see your color. I see your culture and I see you. When I hear someone say they are color blind that tells me they are NOT. See my color, See my culture, See Me.
The other question I ponder is why do we send up-and-coming missionaries to schools to learn about other cultures around the world but we don't even learn about the culture in our own churches or even in our own backyards. And listen, I support missionaries and all the work they do so if you are a Missionary THANK YOU!
BLM
It’s not uncommon for people of color who attend multiracial churches to hear very little about racism, says David Swanson, 43, the founding pastor of New Community Covenant Church in Chicago. Instead of supporting systemic change, some white Christians view racial reconciliation as a matter of fellowship among churchgoers of different races—something that can be achieved through interpersonal relationships. As a result, churches may not perceive the need to acknowledge or lament racial injustice. Others might hesitate to endorse Black Lives Matter, because of ideological differences with the national organization and its founders. But Black parishioners’ desire for recognition doesn’t mean they’re ideologically aligned with the national group—they just want to know that their congregation values them like we value our white congregants'.
The same with abortions, many of our churches can agree that abortion is wrong.
Though we do not agree with the blowing up of clinics or the killing of the abortionist we still agree with the sentiment of abortion being wrong.
Politics
I used to love politics until it infiltrated the church. The atmosphere, we live in now is too political. Telling people what party to vote for and which political party is better than the other is WRONG. Making one issue of sin look worse than another issue of sin is despicable. All sin hurts the heart of God. The Gospel is NEVER wrong. Teach the Bible and don't let Politics enter your Powerful platform. Christians, Christ-like followers know who to vote for you don't have to tell us. We are well informed because we study our Bibles.
ANXIETIES OF MOVING ON
This is hard to admit, but moving on to another church does cause me some anxiety. Now, my anxiety is NOT with God, I trust Him fully. My anxiety is allowing my family to be hurt in such a visceral way, especially for my black son who saw and heard things at church that he should've never seen or heard. But I know it is God's will for us to assemble as one body and we will do just that in His timing. We will not rush but we will do our homework more thoroughly before we join another church.
Church for me has always been my safety net. It is where I go to be fed and go to Feed others and I will continue to do so.
Dr. Tony Evans, an African American and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, wrote, “We cannot expect to solve the racial problem in our nation if we do not, and have not, even begun to solve it in the church."
God is no respecter of persons. He tears down barriers that would promote prejudice and separation in the Body Of Christ." -T.D. Jakes