Trouble with Church pt. 1

The Story of Why I Left My Last Church

Photo of the Great Plains of North America by Diane Hargreaves

Generally speaking, I’ve enjoyed going to church throughout my life. From the time I was about 8, perhaps earlier, I’ve been going to church. There have been a couple very short periods in my life when I consistently didn’t go to church, and if I’m not mistaken, that’s a very literal “couple” of periods. Even during my crisis of faith, when I wasn’t sure if I believed in God or not, I went to church. I’m 37 now, so that’s about 1,500 Sundays in church. That doesn’t include all the Wednesday services, let alone the many Friday and Saturday services I’ve attended. There was also a period of about nine months when I went to two services every Sunday, an early traditional service at an Anglican church by myself, and after, a non-denominational, charismatic church with my wife. All this to say, I’ve gone to church a lot in my time.

In those two very short periods in my life when I didn’t go to church, it wasn’t really that I didn’t want to go. During the first period, I was working most Sundays, so I didn’t have the opportunity to go much. The second period was early in our marriage. Katrina and I both worked a lot and getting up early for church wasn’t that appealing. During this time I would still periodically go to different churches around Kansas City. We would also frequent the Friday night services at the church down the road.

So, imagine my surprise when a month ago, talking to Katrina on a Saturday night, I said, “What if we skipped church tomorrow?”

The Breakdown

This is definitely going to be more than one post, and these might be a little long, but I think it’s worth taking the time to process slowly.

We left the church where I was on staff last summer (2022) after over a year of struggling with the way the church was being led, a pastor who left suddenly, and the church dwindling from around 500 to less than 20. Our last Sunday, we were two of about eight to ten people. Ultimately, we didn’t leave because of the way the church was being led or because of the massive decline in attendance. I decided to resign my position because it became apparent that the vision I had for the church and that of the other leaders was very different. I was on staff, but not an elder, so when the elders decided to take a hard turn from the direction we had been going to a new one, I had no deciding power. That was all well and good. I actually thought the new (vocalized) direction was a good move and had originally planned to stay on board. While I was away finishing the final papers of my graduate program, then going to California to graduate, a two week period, I received a couple emails that ultimately meant my position in the church was being taken over by the elders. There was no discussion about the new changes and it was all very sudden. I had asked before I left for the two weeks that no major changes take place until I came back. Again, I had no deciding authority, so it was a genuine request, but the timing didn’t feel nice. I decided at that time I was simply on a different path. I was frustrated because the lack of communication had been a consistent problem, but hey, I’ve never worked in a ministry or had a job where communication was a strong point. I was genuinely happy for the direction they said they were taking, but I knew it wasn’t going to be with me. I drafted my resignation letter and asked for a meeting with the elders.

For about a year, the elders and I had gone back and forth with one another over the inclusion of a man in leadership who had led a house church several years ago, and who had been the abuser of some of my dearest friends. I hesitate to call it sexual abuse because of some technicalities, but it was certainly spiritual abuse and an abuse of power with horrific moments of manipulation and gaslighting his victims. The elders wanted him to be part of the teaching team, which I led, and I wanted to know he was safe. If I were the pastor, it would have been a hard no from the first request to be part of the ministry, but like I said, I had no authority so I refused where I could. In the end, I said I would allow him on the team if I could get three yeses to three questions. First, could he admit he did the things of which he was accused (my friends told me their experience with him before he moved back to KC and joined our church, and there were others who had similar stories, so I felt confident in what I knew)? Second, had he taken any concrete steps at repentance and healing (had he done therapy, gone through a process of counseling and restoration around this specific issue)? And finally, had he attempted any kind of restitution or repentance to the people he had harmed?

For several months I got no answers. A few times the elders asked me to place him on my team and I would bring up my questions and concerns each time. Finally, they said that if I wanted answers, I needed to talk to him myself. I did just that. I had a phone call with him and, to put it simply, it didn’t go well. In no uncertain terms, he denied the allegations. And in no uncertain terms he let me know what he thought about me, namely that I was prideful, that I was holding the church captive, that I was preventing the church from receiving his gift, that he knew about my conversations with the elders, and that I thought I had more authority in the church than I actually did. All of this he told me, “in love,” naturally. “You don’t know my sin,” he told me, “but I know yours.”

I stopped the conversation after that and told him we needed to meet with the elders. If he had these serious concerns about me, the board needed to know. If he didn’t feel safe with me, which he had said, then we needed a place where he could talk to me and feel safe. And for my own sake, if he was going to say these kinds of things, I needed it to happen in a place where it wouldn’t be my word against his. We tried having that meeting, but he didn’t want to talk about my concerns with him, and he wouldn’t talk about his concerns with me. In hindsight, this was a bad move, but I didn’t bring up what he said to me about me with the elders, at least not until I gave my resignation letter.

It was part of my job to go early to church and help get the building ready for service. My second to last Sunday, before I gave my resignation letter to the elders, I came into church early and the chairs were in a large circle instead of the normal all-facing-the-stage set up. We did this when we had “family meetings” as a church, so I was clued into the fact that the service would be a meeting. In itself, that’s not bad, but it rubbed salt in the wound left by the fact I felt they hardly ever communicated with me. Everything had also been taken care of, there was quite literally nothing for me to do, so I sat for an hour and read.

The service started, we sang two songs, then the elders (two men), got up to start the meeting. They announced the changes we had talked about early on, then announced they were expanding the elder board. Mind you, there church was about 15 to 20 people at this stage. They were bringing their wives onto the elder board, which I thought was wonderful. A couple who had been there for a while and who was helping with financial stuff was being added. And the man who abused my friends, who denied having done so, and who had attacked my character, even threatening legal action, and his wife were being added to the board. My stomach sank. I was dumbfounded. Despite it all, they were not just adding him to my teaching team, which they had taken over, but they were giving him a position over me. I was shocked that they hadn’t considered the implications of that.

I made sure we met that week.

When I finally sat down with them to give my resignation, I told them when I originally decided to resign, I was in a good place, that I had been happy about their stated direction, but I was not in that place any longer. Once again, I was left out of all communication about the meeting and the addition of new elders. I told them I was really confused that they would place the man in a position of authority over me without so much as an email. They didn’t need my permission, but to leave me in the dark until I found out with everyone felt like a slight of hand. I told them that he said he was aware of my private meetings with them and everything else he said to me. They didn’t have much to say at that point, but throughout the rest of the meeting they spoke sweetly, and left me questioning my own reality. I’m pretty sure I was gaslit, but I don’t want to throw that word around lightly. What I know is that I felt very sure of why I was resigning and how horrible the last month and a half had been for me, but when I left I was confused and questioning whether or not my experiences were real. Whatever the case, I knew I couldn’t work in a church that lifted up a man who denied serious and corroborated accusations of multiple forms of abuse. That wasn’t why I initially chose to leave, but it’s the reason I could be so firm in my decision.

Is There a Way Home

Looking back, and this feels like a silly comparison, I feel like I left a bad relationship with a person I cared (and care?) for deeply. I stayed longer than I probably should have, I let myself take guilt for things that were not my fault, I felt confused after trying to confront issues, like I was the real problem. In the end, I had to be pushed to my limits on what I could work with to leave. And still, when I think about the church, my biggest emotion isn’t anger, but sadness. I had so much hope and so many dreams when I started there. It was good that we left, but it’s still painful.

You might be wondering why there’s a photo of the Great Plains at the top of this post. I grew up in the Plains, and when I think of what home feels like, I think of the rolling green and brown grasses. It’s the herbal smell of sage brush, blazing star, and the little yellow flowers whose names I don’t know. It’s the light of the setting sun that transfigures the plains into a golden ocean that surely borders heaven. It’s a nostalgia that lives romantically in my heart, a home to which I fear I can never return.

When I think about what I want in a church, it’s something akin to that. I don’t know if that’s possible, but it’s what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for revivalism’s fire, but the soft and still glow of the golden sunset that transforms everything. The church we’ve been going to is nice. We feel comfortable there, even restful, and the rector and the people have been warm, but I’ve already met disappointment. I know there’s no perfect church, but it’s not home.

So, what? I still think going to church is important, even when it’s painful, even when it leaves you, when it leaves me, more aware of what’s missing than what’s present. In the next post or two, I want to show why I think it’s important, and why I, a brown man in the white man’s church, continue to go.