I hate writing about what happened at our former church. Sometimes I wonder if any of them read these posts, and if they know how much I wish this wasn’t a part of my story.

When we arrived at the church, the three elders knew we were fragile. They knew we had just buried our daughter a few months earlier, and that we had just closed the doors on a church we’d invested five years of our lives into. They knew we needed to rest and recover, and that I was having a major faith crisis. At first, it seemed like a safe place. Everyone was energetic and excited to be there, such a change from the discouragement and exhaustion that characterized everyone left at the church we closed.

The safety was a mirage and it dissolved very shortly after Scott and I joined formally. That’s when the meetings began, the ones where I was told to keep my opinions to myself, or else just confide in the church elders (who would mold those opinions into carbon copies of what was acceptable). That’s when I started to notice oddly-pointed comments in sermons, too many to be coincidence (or the Holy Spirit guiding the preaching – please… I’m not that gullible). [Read more...]

He hadn’t said much that night. The other two had played the bad cop/good cop routine on me, while he sat at the other end of the table listening. R had led the meeting, file folder and notepad in front of him like the police detective he was, laying out the evidence against me, while K had asked questions in a slightly more gentle manner.

The air in the church basement was thick with fear, and not mine either. I was filled with anger. How dare they call me before them again as if I were a criminal on trial? How dare they try to turn my husband against me? [Read more...]