Exit Churchianity

How God called me out by: Loretta

How God called me to be His and made me His: (1985)

I was in the Roman Catholic Church from birth to age 17. I was completely lost! That is a story right there. I was very religious and did every Roman Catholic ritual, I had my Confirmation, I made pilgrimages to the California Missions, I was a disciple of St. Francis of Assisi and I considered becoming a nun. I went to the Catholic Youth Conference in 1985 called “Make a Difference” where we sang “We are the World” and where they told us we would change the world.

One day at school a classmate came to sit with me and talk. He poured out all his sad problems. Problems at home and at school. He was very depressed. I just listened, trying to be a good friend (though I hardly knew him). That was on a Friday. On Monday in homeroom, during the announcements, they said that this boy was dead. He fell off the rocks at the Cliff House in San Francisco. I was shocked- I had never known someone, much less a teen, to die. I did not know if he fell off in an accident or if he jumped. I remember going to his memorial service and seeing his parents, siblings and friends crying.

I made an appointment with my parish priest and asked him to tell me what I needed to know. I wanted to hear the gospel but I did not know how to ask the question. He did not have anything to tell me. I asked him “what happens when we die”. He said that we don’t really know.  I asked him what we are supposed to “do” to have God and be right with God? He told me to “do everything we tell you to do in the Church, and you’ll be fine.” I knew that was untrue because I had been doing all those works of religion for 17 years and I did not have God, I had tradition and works of religion. I went home and prayed to God, asking Him to reveal Himself to me, (His Spirit made this happen I believe by His grace) and a NT bible arrived in the mail addressed to me. I do not know who sent it! Reading the gospels, Jesus revealed Himself to me as i was reading His words (His declaration that He is the Way, the Truth, the Life, and His call to repent and believe, His call to follow Him). It was a moment I shall never forget. He used His written word (the bible) to call me by His Spirit. As I read His words, He was talking to me, claiming me as His, and calling me to be His and to follow Him. By His grace I heard His call, believed Him, dropped everything and followed Him.

How God began to sanctify me and purge sin from me through the fires of tribulation(1998).

After Jesus first called me to be His(1985), He transferred me to His Kingdom and immediately began His work of purging sin and setting me apart for Him. The first thing He did was separate me completely from the RCC. He gave me insight and understanding and I repented so that I tossed my rosary beads & little ‘Mary’ idol statuettes and stopped worshiping the Pope & St. Francis and stopped going to the “sacrifice of the mass.”

The next thing He did was begin the work of healing my mind and heart from the devastating effects very bad sins that were committed in my presence and against me during my life, that did great damage to my soul. God did this through prayer and believing the Truth of the written Word, the scriptures applied to my heart through the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus healed me!

The next thing He did was begin to sanctify me in the area of besetting sins and issues of my immorality… this happened over a course of time, through repentance and God was faithful to completely remove these sins from me in His faithfulness.

Fast forward to 1998. I had become complacent in my relationship with the Lord. I was comfortably settled in the routine of Modern Evangelical Church. My heart was growing lukewarm to the Lord as I started committing major idolatry in my heart, (coveting) desiring the things of this world. “Someday we will move to the good neighborhood and get out of this ghetto, like my Church girlfriends have. Someday we’ll take great vacations like them, Someday we will live the good life, be rich, buy nice clothes and live the American Dream!” My heart was wandering. I was desiring another love (the world and the things of the world) and I had put the Lord Jesus on the shelf. Oh but everyone could see I was a I was a good Christian; I went to Church faithfully. But where was my love for Jesus that I had at first? Where were the ‘things I had done at first’ (my love, devotion and faithfulness to Him)?After all He still loved me…..

In His love for me and faithfulness to His commitment to our covenant relationship, God used a hard trial as the means through which to purge and cleanse the sin (leaven) in my heart with burning fire, to bring my heart back to Him. What was the trial? Out of the blue, to my shock, my young husband of 7 years got cancer. He was staged 3.5 out of 4. Our children at the time were 5y,3y and 8mos. old. Here is how God used that for good. This was 1998. It was a year that changed everything.  http://witnessingencouragement.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/good-suffering/

How God preserved my faith and made me an overcomer through the earthquakes and tribulation of spiritual distress, agony and confusion (“Babylon”) experienced at my Church (2005).

After the intense cancer trial and it’s aftermath, God made me hot spiritually with love for Him and greatly increased my love for the lost, for the gospel, and for Truth.

The year was 2004-2005 and i had just completed 20 years in our Neo-Evangelical Church, working in the baby/toddler nursery, preschool, VBS, and K-1 Sunday School. (This was the Church where i met my husband, married and dedicated our 3 children to the Lord.) I entered into a series of experiences that left me utterly devastated, confused, bewildered, rejected, and afraid. I shall attempt to summarize. They hired a woman pastor of children’s ministry. She introduced the “globalist” teachings to us teachers to teach the children. She trained us teachers in New Age mystical contemplative exercises. She got up in the Church service (to talk about being a volunteer in children’s min) and literally led the entire assembly (except me) in a “guided visualization” ritual. She did this for 2 services and the pastors/elders did nothing. I confronted her in private about this, with scripture. She was after all, subtly and methodically introducing elements of witchcraft and New Age into the Church. She laughed in my face, mocking me harshly and said, “Who do you think you are? I have advanced degrees! We do things (in ministry) differently now!” She called me critical and divisive and said I had no authority to question her. She laughed and blew me off. I was beyond shocked at her response. I did not even bother telling the elders. They would only have circled the wagons to defend and protect themselves and their Church.

They signed the Church up with Habitat to build a house with their “All-Faiths” interfaith project. I called HH to ask about how the interfaith program works. They said they were so excited to see Churches participating and all the religions coming together. I began to realize the Church leadership had no discernment.

They adopted “Vision 2010” and told us we all had to volunteer. They said everyone was required to go through the church growth study material. They said EVERYONE had to be on the same page. They adopted Willowcreek and told us they wanted to grow to 5000. A staff man (making announcements) got up and ridiculed traditional evangelism where you go out to reach the lost– he mocked it “We wouldn’t want to go out on the street or anything Noooooo, Hahahaha!!!!” and led the assembly in “group psychology-must conform-behavior” laughter- laughing at evangelism. The whole crowd laughed because he laughed. He said we all have to bring them in (to the Church) through any means necessary, even through “the back door”. I felt shamed for wanting to do biblical evangelism.

I made an appointment with the pastor to tell him how God had worked in my life radically and i was ready to serve! I volunteered to teach a “new believers” bible study(women). Meanwhile a very prominent man in the Church laughed at me and challenged me condescendingly (“little lady, haha”) when I questioned him upon finding out he is a 32 degree Master Mason in his city for 30+ years. I said to him, one cannot be a Mason and a Christian, you have to choose. He laughed at me and dared me to prove it. (This is Christian behavior?) I wrote a 10page apologetic on “why”. I had reason to know. My paper was 75% scripture and 25% personal eyewitness account. I was upset (having memories) and my dh said, don’t give it to the man. My dh was protecting me. I needed closure so I sent it to the pastor.

Then I went to the appointment with the pastor; the only one I had in 20 years. I told him how awesomely God worked in my life and now i was ready to do anything for Him. Pastor told me I was not allowed to teach the new believer bible study; I had not been through “their training”. I told him I had equivalent previous training via my extensive ministry experience as a believer (goes beyond teaching sunday school). He denied me. He told me I can be “in” a bible study (for new believers!). I was pretty humbled by this. I submitted, trying to humble myself and submit to the Lord’s will in my life. I again offered to teach a group, he said no I would not be allowed. They put me in a group as a learner.  Before the group even began meeting, it was cancelled because the teacher suddenly got married and did not have time to lead the group. So the entire group was cancelled. I said “I can lead the group.” He said I was not allowed to.  I suggested they put me in someone else’s group. They denied me. They said the groups were all full. They said they can have “no more than 5-7 people in it or it won’t work.” (It= the Dialectic group psychology process.) It was about a week later when I was told by the woman’s ministry pastor (a woman) that maybe they can get me IN a group in a couple of years! I got the message: I was not wanted at all.

Then he brought up the 10 page apologetic.  Ha, I actually thought he was going to say “good job” to me. “IT WAS UNLOVING” he said. He said there is no point writing such a paper, the man sees nothing wrong with it” (It =being a 32degreeFreemason). I told the pastor that is why I wrote it, to show him “why”. He asked me if i was involved in “Discernment ministries” and I said, “What ‘s that?” (I had no idea; I’d never heard of that term before that day.) He did not answer me, just stared at me for a long time with a concerned and disapproving look on his face. Then he stood up and changed the subject! He did not answer my question! He said, “You seem very interested in Truth?” as if that were a concern. I was so in shock at that question I just said, “yes.” I was terrified and very intimidated, and felt ashamed. I asked him what I can then do to help serve the Church (the Vision 2010 Church Growth Program) and he said, “Why don’t you go work in the Sunday School”(preschool children, which I had done for 20 years but was no longer called to do that). That was the moment I was in effect disenfranchised from the Church, from any ministry outside nursery to 1st graders. I was proverbially “shown the door”. I was denied permission to serve in Church according to my spiritual gifts, qualifications and the leading of the Holy Spirit in my life. After that I reviewed the bible study curriculum for those groups they shut me out of (they had given me a copy of the book before deciding I was not allowed to be a leader or be in one). The entire teacher training portion was all about using Diaprax and group psychology to make the people feel part of the group. It was all New Age nonsense! No wonder they would not let me lead this: there is no way I would play group therapy facilitator and twist scripture,  but rather I’d lead inductive bible study and teach didactic truth about being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. I did not fit in the Church “Vision”.

Then they had Chap Clark from Fuller come give a lecture. It was marketed to Christian parents. The theme: “Hurt, understanding the minds and hearts of youth today.” The packed Church building was full of ppl from different Churches and the community. This professing Christian leader did not preach the gospel to the lost, he did not teach anything biblical to the Christians. He gave a 3 hour talk on modern youth culture Psychology and Sociology and diapraxed everyone together for a social Communitarianism false gospel that sounded more like the Humanistic New Age religion of Oprah. He advised Christian parents NOT to encourage their teens to share their faith at school, if the friends did not like it, that would jeopardize their kids standing in the social cluster(gang/clique) and that would be the “worst possible thing that could happen to them.” He went on to say that our kids would be the change agents. Clark was the change agent acting as antichrist as they come, right up in the pulpit, a lying deceiver, misrepresenting our Lord Jesus Christ.   My system was in shock.  http://witnessingencouragement.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/educate-me/

Then my dear husband who was on staff, was fired. But! The rest of the staff was told that he quit! I found this out the hard way when a lady at Church asked how we were doing and i admitted to her that it has been hard since my husband was “let go” from Staff and she panicked, eyes got huge, she stopped me and said, “He didn’t get fired we were told he quit!” I said, “Uh, noooo, he was let go.” She freaked out and said “I don’t think we are supposed to talk about this!!!” and she turned and ran away leaving me standing there, wondering what happened. Then i realized: she is on Staff!