Open minded, empathetic, straight shooter. Let me know up front whether you are looking for real advice or comic relief so I can answer accordingly.
Gender: Female
Member Since: March 29, 2015
Answers: 14
Last Update: October 12, 2015
Visitors: 1558
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I'm 27 years old and I've been a member of the same church since I was born. I never really considered changing churches until a couple of years ago, but even then I keep thinking I'm gonna move soon, so I figured that there was no point.
Until a couple of years ago, we'd had the same pastor all of my life. We called him Brother Don and he was wonderful. He was a good pastor and although he didn't condone certain things, he taught us not to judge or condemn people who did those things. He loved all of us and he taught us to love each other and love everyone else we come in contact with as well. He treated everyone in the church like family and he gave awesome sermons.
When he left, we had another pastor come for a little while and then had a permanent pastor this past summer. We call him pastor Jason and I don't like saying this about him, but I don't think that he's a very good pastor.
It's hard for me to say these things without sounding judgmental of him and I acknowledge that, but he seems judgmental of others. He doesn't really teach unconditional love, but rather loving only people who go to your church or would be willing to go to your church. Perhaps I'm mistaken about that, but it seems like that's what he was saying. He also seems to like to judge others for the bad things they do.
He doesn't give good sermons and sometimes I feel like we hear more about his oldest son than we hear about God. Brother Don has four children and loves them as much as anyone loves their children, but he didn't talk about them much because he wanted to stay on subject and not tell a story about them unless it applied to the sermon. Jason FORCES stories about his oldest son into the sermon and if he doesn't have one, he just tells one for fun. I know people like to talk about their kids, but when your a pastor and spend most of your sermons talking about them, that's not good. Also it's always JUST his oldest son, never his other two kids and he makes it clear that his oldest is his favorite.. He says it's because his oldest son is adopted and the other two are biological, so he got to choose his oldest, but got stuck with his other two. This makes me wonder more about his character.
I love him and love everyone in the church, but I don't agree with most of them on a lot of things. For instance, this new friend of mine named Dave just came into my life. He happens to be an atheist, so as I Christian, I worry about him, but I love him. I want to be his friend, but so many people in our church hate atheists. They dehumanize them and judge them as being horrible people. They judge me for having anything to do with them and tell me that Christians shouldn't do that. They do the same with my gay friend, John and my jewish friend Spencer. I want to love everyone the way Jesus did, but the church doesn't seem to agree that we should,
So my question is should I feel bad for wanting to change churches? (link)
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No, you shouldn't feel bad.
It sounds like the pastor you received as a replacement has personal issues that haven't been addressed or dealt with. Or worse yet, he has had them addressed to him but he doesn't care how others view him and his reprehensible character.
As a pastor you are supposed to preach about your religion passionately in hopes to inspire the world to do good and treat each other with respect and love; not talk incessantly about your child as if it were no more than a regular social function and saying "my kid is so much better than yours or my other kids".
I commend you on your way of thinking. But you don't have to worry about your atheist friend. Yes making his way just like you are and shouldn't be judged or feared for. Care about him as he is: another human, who has chosen to be your friend regardless of your religion.
The choice to change churches is entirely up to you. That's the power of having free will. If you aren't getting what you use to out of church, seek out the same feeling from possible preachers until you find what you are looking for. Don't feel bad about the choices you make. They lead you to where you're meant to be. And if things fall through they become lessons to learn from and you build around that lesson until things are good for you again.
-Blessed Be- :-)
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Rating: 5
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Wow, there was not a single word of your advice that wasn't perfect. I agree with you 150% and thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it.
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