Thank you. We moved to the Bible Belt about a year ago. Visited several churches. They were all like that. I am hungry for others to share with in true searching for Truth and digging deep into God’s word. Hard when you know no one. I’m leaving it up to God and meanwhile trying to learn Hebrew. In His time. Who He knows is hungry too.
I'll never forget pulling into Tulsa, Oklahoma when we moved there. Everybody was a Christian. Every business had stuff on it that reflected that ideology.
Happy birthday Jesus on a big banner in front of a grocery store. Talk about fellowship every Sunday. You couldn't find a seat at a restaurant.
People on their finest. Fast forward.
I was in a men's group, and one of the leaders said, "Hey, how do you like in the Bible Belt?" I said, "You mean the heresy buckle?"
Good friendships are my supportive pillars, including my husband's intimacy and strangely, also, those feeding me on Substack, and those I can feed. God's word. God's nature. God's music. And the landmark events of history and of my life in its place and of prophecy surrounding it all, by God's embrace.
No one at my church would miss me if I left. Not enough that they would reach out to continue a relationship if I splintered off of their branded place. When my mother was living with me in hospice, she asked our pastor to visit. Our pastor made it over on the way back from a mountain retreat. He was tired. He put me off, his hostess. He was there to meet my mother for the first time and hear her story. He did not want my help in explanation or filling in the blanks. He prayed for her. He made promises. He left.
His promises could not be upheld. I have her ashes in my bedroom because our church decided that her ashes could not be buried at the foot of the cross in our landscape due to county regulations. When I explained my conundrum, he grimaced and apologized. That was supposed to fix this very awkward situation that I continue to hold. Time has passed. Family members don't ask where she is.
He still treats me with an underlying curiosity and contempt. He knows my name, but when I have asked for prayer for my husband twice through text, he has responded, "Who is this?"
I have been trained as a musician and was a missionary. I served in this church musically from its inception when we were part of a very large church and then became a church plant. People knew my name then, or at least recognized my service and face. I could have a conversation with them and get to know them.
Then, things changed. Tectonic plates shifted in my birth family. Divorce, bitterness, hatred, ungodly behaviors. Suspicions rose. I took a step back. Things became awkward because they were human heart issues that no one was prepared to trail after or mend.
My mother had not gone deeply into the word. She was certainly respected in business and at her Bible study, and she held a controlling interest in the way each family member became positioned under her. When her body and mind began failing, I was the only one who would take her in, and that was out of honor and love for the Lord, not because she deserved it. She had destroyed her own family, and it is destroyed. This might seem like a horrible thing to say about one's mother. Because of her affluence, narcissism, need to fit in and be respected, she managed to coddle a child like a husband, spoil these grandchildren, and ignore the rest of us.
She broke off every valuable love and affection I had in my family while still bequeathing the silver service to me for being the only one who hosts family gatherings. These things are complicated, and a typical church is not equipped to follow the facts or impart the wisdom.
My mother was saved by the skin of her teeth being formed by a church that never confronted or corrected her. She kept her secrets because she didn't want to be known or exposed to the church leadership, she told me so. She didn't want her secrets circling socially. She hated knowing that she would be buried by someone who never knew her, never visited her, never reached into her situation. She gave graciously to them because she believed in the official branding. That is where her heart landed.
She didn't have to take up her cross to follow Yeshua-Jesus, because he spoiled her like he was her husband, and she could give from her over-flow. She never realized that nurturing her family in the crucible of her own rejections by my father would have been the healing balm, the branch of peace for the members of the family to grab hold of. It was her crucible that she firmly rejected in favor of living the American dream, socializing with friends, and sporting outings, clothing, appearances, secrets, and a lovely home.
All of this, including her jewels, photographs, furniture, went into the fire so to speak, when my sister received her estate, and the family disintegrated.
In the past five years, I've sorted through the complexities of loving and hating someone so influential. Someone who rested her form and function fully in the Christian church, with all its safety and all its bitterness. My own mother who thanked me for being the one who gave her no trouble and repaid me by giving me all of hers. Her grandchildren are scattered as her children are, far from the Lord. It's Biblical prophecy on a small family scale. A fact that crushes me and releases me every day.
The Lordship of Christ is an absolute demand for spiritual legacy and wisdom. That is something our pastor teaches, and that is why I have stayed in the disconnected dots of landscape. He gets it. He just doesn't get how it translates. I don't think he gets the Jewish foundation either. So, without these pieces, and being beholden to the Westminster Confession, I get what I get there.
My mother could not find this path of Lordship in our church. Neither did her splintered heirs. She was fortunate to escape Pentecostalism and Fundamentalists. Escaping, she became her own little god making her priorities, her form of justice, and managing our family from her throne.
Very few in our church remember my services in missions or the music ministry there. The pastor dismisses me. The women's administration dismisses me because I do not follow their protocol.
I am a "free spirit" because I am free in the Lord, the one who received me and continues to receive me every day.
I'm here not to share my great knowledge in a vault of a group of people. I admit my skittishness. I don't want to worship anyone but God. I don't want to be worshipped or have to manage a following. I don't want bunny trails of trust and betrayals. I'm a little tired. But, thanks so much for pursuing truth. A bird reaching her beak to the sky.
The closing question is the real audit. Relationships that survive the schedule stopping were built on reciprocity, not programming. Most groups never run that test because the production keeps doing the work the people never learned to do.
I appreciate this podcast. It's the first one of yours I've listened to. My husband and I attend a small church in our town where the demographic is very senior. I see the struggle there with the young pastor trying to build community. Outside the Sunday service, I gather with a few other believers and that is where my heart is; opening our Bibles together and desiring to draw close to our Creator and Father. You are so right about churches and manufactured substance and community. I guess that's why we have left, more often than I'd like.
So true, brother. The saddest part is these pastors have genuine intent. They just don't understand what they're doing, in my opinion. The church is a mission field.
Thank you. We moved to the Bible Belt about a year ago. Visited several churches. They were all like that. I am hungry for others to share with in true searching for Truth and digging deep into God’s word. Hard when you know no one. I’m leaving it up to God and meanwhile trying to learn Hebrew. In His time. Who He knows is hungry too.
I'll never forget pulling into Tulsa, Oklahoma when we moved there. Everybody was a Christian. Every business had stuff on it that reflected that ideology.
Happy birthday Jesus on a big banner in front of a grocery store. Talk about fellowship every Sunday. You couldn't find a seat at a restaurant.
People on their finest. Fast forward.
I was in a men's group, and one of the leaders said, "Hey, how do you like in the Bible Belt?" I said, "You mean the heresy buckle?"
Room went quiet.
Yes.
Good friendships are my supportive pillars, including my husband's intimacy and strangely, also, those feeding me on Substack, and those I can feed. God's word. God's nature. God's music. And the landmark events of history and of my life in its place and of prophecy surrounding it all, by God's embrace.
No one at my church would miss me if I left. Not enough that they would reach out to continue a relationship if I splintered off of their branded place. When my mother was living with me in hospice, she asked our pastor to visit. Our pastor made it over on the way back from a mountain retreat. He was tired. He put me off, his hostess. He was there to meet my mother for the first time and hear her story. He did not want my help in explanation or filling in the blanks. He prayed for her. He made promises. He left.
His promises could not be upheld. I have her ashes in my bedroom because our church decided that her ashes could not be buried at the foot of the cross in our landscape due to county regulations. When I explained my conundrum, he grimaced and apologized. That was supposed to fix this very awkward situation that I continue to hold. Time has passed. Family members don't ask where she is.
He still treats me with an underlying curiosity and contempt. He knows my name, but when I have asked for prayer for my husband twice through text, he has responded, "Who is this?"
I have been trained as a musician and was a missionary. I served in this church musically from its inception when we were part of a very large church and then became a church plant. People knew my name then, or at least recognized my service and face. I could have a conversation with them and get to know them.
Then, things changed. Tectonic plates shifted in my birth family. Divorce, bitterness, hatred, ungodly behaviors. Suspicions rose. I took a step back. Things became awkward because they were human heart issues that no one was prepared to trail after or mend.
My mother had not gone deeply into the word. She was certainly respected in business and at her Bible study, and she held a controlling interest in the way each family member became positioned under her. When her body and mind began failing, I was the only one who would take her in, and that was out of honor and love for the Lord, not because she deserved it. She had destroyed her own family, and it is destroyed. This might seem like a horrible thing to say about one's mother. Because of her affluence, narcissism, need to fit in and be respected, she managed to coddle a child like a husband, spoil these grandchildren, and ignore the rest of us.
She broke off every valuable love and affection I had in my family while still bequeathing the silver service to me for being the only one who hosts family gatherings. These things are complicated, and a typical church is not equipped to follow the facts or impart the wisdom.
My mother was saved by the skin of her teeth being formed by a church that never confronted or corrected her. She kept her secrets because she didn't want to be known or exposed to the church leadership, she told me so. She didn't want her secrets circling socially. She hated knowing that she would be buried by someone who never knew her, never visited her, never reached into her situation. She gave graciously to them because she believed in the official branding. That is where her heart landed.
She didn't have to take up her cross to follow Yeshua-Jesus, because he spoiled her like he was her husband, and she could give from her over-flow. She never realized that nurturing her family in the crucible of her own rejections by my father would have been the healing balm, the branch of peace for the members of the family to grab hold of. It was her crucible that she firmly rejected in favor of living the American dream, socializing with friends, and sporting outings, clothing, appearances, secrets, and a lovely home.
All of this, including her jewels, photographs, furniture, went into the fire so to speak, when my sister received her estate, and the family disintegrated.
In the past five years, I've sorted through the complexities of loving and hating someone so influential. Someone who rested her form and function fully in the Christian church, with all its safety and all its bitterness. My own mother who thanked me for being the one who gave her no trouble and repaid me by giving me all of hers. Her grandchildren are scattered as her children are, far from the Lord. It's Biblical prophecy on a small family scale. A fact that crushes me and releases me every day.
The Lordship of Christ is an absolute demand for spiritual legacy and wisdom. That is something our pastor teaches, and that is why I have stayed in the disconnected dots of landscape. He gets it. He just doesn't get how it translates. I don't think he gets the Jewish foundation either. So, without these pieces, and being beholden to the Westminster Confession, I get what I get there.
My mother could not find this path of Lordship in our church. Neither did her splintered heirs. She was fortunate to escape Pentecostalism and Fundamentalists. Escaping, she became her own little god making her priorities, her form of justice, and managing our family from her throne.
Very few in our church remember my services in missions or the music ministry there. The pastor dismisses me. The women's administration dismisses me because I do not follow their protocol.
I am a "free spirit" because I am free in the Lord, the one who received me and continues to receive me every day.
I'm here not to share my great knowledge in a vault of a group of people. I admit my skittishness. I don't want to worship anyone but God. I don't want to be worshipped or have to manage a following. I don't want bunny trails of trust and betrayals. I'm a little tired. But, thanks so much for pursuing truth. A bird reaching her beak to the sky.
The closing question is the real audit. Relationships that survive the schedule stopping were built on reciprocity, not programming. Most groups never run that test because the production keeps doing the work the people never learned to do.
I appreciate this podcast. It's the first one of yours I've listened to. My husband and I attend a small church in our town where the demographic is very senior. I see the struggle there with the young pastor trying to build community. Outside the Sunday service, I gather with a few other believers and that is where my heart is; opening our Bibles together and desiring to draw close to our Creator and Father. You are so right about churches and manufactured substance and community. I guess that's why we have left, more often than I'd like.
So true, brother. The saddest part is these pastors have genuine intent. They just don't understand what they're doing, in my opinion. The church is a mission field.