When I found God again I went to Church because to me it was the natural thing to do after all it is the house of the Lord so what better way to communicate with the Lord?
But let me tell you a secret the conversation I had with God in my apartment that day gave me a feeling that I’ve never experienced in Church since then.
After Diana and I married Roxanne we changed churches because we were no longer welcome there but it was a blessing because it was due to this change that I discovered something which made me change my mind about churches as a whole.
Now don’t get me wrong not all churches are like this but after going to a few like that it soured the whole experience for me.
The first church we went to we enjoyed but when Roxanne joined the family we were ostracized so we left.
The next church we went to the priest was always on us to give. You know I think he intentionally sought lessons from the Bible which spoke about giving so that he could just teach us on that. And boy did we give, I remember one time someone came to the church with a hundred dollars and that was the only money they had, so the ushers were walking around collecting when he reached into his wallet and saw that that was all he had. He put the money back in his wallet and looked away.
I’m sure that one of the ushers saw this because they’d gone around with the baskets one remained in front of the pulpit and waited for the priest to continue his sermon on giving.
It was beautiful to watch, he sought of looked down with this pained look on his face and when he eventually looked up he was looking directly at the man who’d failed to give, “brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters why do we find it so hard to give? Why is it that when the Lord has given so much we refuse to give back?” The congregation was enthralled by now as he paced in front of the pulpit.
By the time he’d finished his speech we were all looking at each other nervously when he pulled his ace our saving grace according to him, “but I’m going to give you a chance to prove to the Lord not me the Lord that you appreciate all that his done and I hope I really hope that you won’t disappoint Him.” Then the usher went around once more and to my great amazement not only the man who hadn’t contributed but others as well pulled out their wallets and gave money.
The thing that made me decide to leave this church was that this poor guy was sole provider in his home and that was his last money. He wouldn’t have another cent until he got paid at the end of the month.
I knew this guy and just before we left he walks up to me and tells me that that was his last dollar and he just didn’t know how he was going to make it until the end of the month. I asked him to give me his banking details and when we got home I asked my wives if we could give him some of the money we had saved just to help him and his family and they agreed.
Then the following back in church the priest was once more on us to give again this guy held back and once more the priest lamented the virtues of giving and like before he relented and gave from what little he had gotten from me.
At the end of the service he comes up to me and says to me, “hey man I really appreciate what you did for me and I know I must seem like the most selfish and ungrateful SOB on the planet but I had to give.” I understood but what pushed me over the limit was when the priest came up to us and said something about how the Lord will never forsake those who give and that he hoped that the next time we were in church we would remember that.
Than he gets into this big fancy car and drives away while this poor man and his family use public transport.
So we left that church and moved to another one and it was the same thing every Sunday, every lesson was about giving and how money is the root of all evil.
In fact he actually based one of his sermons on this and he said that the way to rid yourself of this evil is to give it to the church to look after it. I was bowled over, I almost fell out of my seat and after the service I was still pretty shocked by what he said so we were outside, me, Roxanne and another one of the parishioners when I brought up the sermon.
And I was just bitching about it when another one of the parishioners came up to us and this particular parishioner was actually the treasurer at the church.
So she walks up to us and starts explaining to us where the money goes, part of it goes to the upkeep of the church, part of it was used to pay the water and lights and of course there is the priests salary as well as money for his quarters.
Now from this conversation I could only accept two of the four things she’d said to be true. The water and lights true, his salary also true but the upkeep of the church and his quarters I just couldn’t understand this justification of how our money was spent. So I challenged her on it.
“Well brother Phillips you have to remember that this is the Temple of the Lord and as such it must be looked after.” She then launched into a tirade of sorts as she tried to convince me that they were using some of collection funds to maintain the church. (We also had fundraising events for just this thing as well). I let carry on before I asked her a question.
“And what exactly have you done to maintain the Temple of the Lord?” I hoped by this time she’d hear and understand what I was trying to tell her and she’d drop it but she was persistent as she kept pointing around the building, the benches around the church yard and the swings we had for the kids to play on.
But looking around the courtyard I wondered if she was seeing what I was seeing, nothing in the church itself or even in the yard looked new or even maintained. Some of the stuff in there had been there when we got there and here was this woman telling me that they had just bought them.
As for the priests rental for his quarters again she had no answer for me because he lived in a cottage at back of the church with his wife and two sons and they electricity and lights were paid for as part of the church and they paid no rental because the property was owned by the church.
That made me mad so I confronted her on what I felt where her blatant lies because like our priest she kept exulting the need to maintain the house of the Lord when I finally snapped and called her a liar.
She stepped back from me shocked and I repeated what I’d told her that she was a liar and not only was she a liar she was a thief.
I looked at her, obese, her face caked over with makeup and a cigarette dangling from her mouth and she had the audacity to tell me that she was using my hard earned money to maintain the house of the Lord but from where I was standing she was using my money to destroy the house of the Lord.
So there we stood competing against us each me insisting that she was a liar and a thief who was destroying the temple of the Lord and her insisting that I was the liar and a blind fool if I couldn’t see all that they were doing for the church and the congregation.
She listed everything that she felt I needed to hear and pointed to those ornaments around the church which she said that they needed my money to purchase and maintain.
Then I looked her in the eyes once more and called her a liar, “you and your so called priest disgust me, using the Lords name to further your own status in life tell what did the devil promise you to make you pervert the name of the Lord and his house of worship in such a manner?” Roxanne was tugging at my sleeve in an effort to try and pull me away but I was on a roll.
“You claim to be using our money,” now it was my turn to gesture around as I pointed to the members of the congregation, “to maintain the house of the Lord, but I’m starring at the temple of the Lord right now and all I see you doing is destroying it. You claim to be using the money to help the congregation but how many of our brothers and sisters come here every Sunday and give away their last monies only to have you and that charlatan use it for your own selfish needs and then demand that they give because the Lord will provide and that the Lord hate’s a selfish heart.”
By now the charlatan I was referring had come to join our discussion but as I said before I was on a roll and I wasn’t about to stop now, “yes the Lord will provide and he did. He helped those men and women find jobs with the expectation that they would use that money to look after themselves and their families and then along comes people like you who say that the Lord will provide all they have to do is to give and give.
“The Lord did provide and now every night He has to listen to those same people His provided for beg and plead with Him to provide more than what He already has.” I pointed at him and demanded to know the following of him, “is your intention to condemn these innocent souls to damnation because the Lord has provided and yet they keep demanding that He provide. Is it your intention to label them as selfish?”
If he had an answer I wasn’t interested, “your treasurer here has stated that the donations we make are in part used for the upkeep of the temple of the Lord yet here in front of me is the temple of the Lord and I see nothing that shows that what she’s saying is true.
“She has desecrated the temple of the Lord with food, alcohol, sex and cigarettes and she has stated publicly for all to see that she thinks that Lord made a mistake when He created her because she is using make up to hide what He created from the world.
“You both claim that part of this money is used for the upkeep of the Lord’s place of worship but I look around and in the nearly two years that I’ve been a member I have yet to see these so called changes and upkeep you speak of constantly.
“You’ve said that the money is used to help the less fortunate, which less fortunate are you referring to? Certainly not the ones in this congregation or are you referring to charities outside the church if so, why not tell us what they are so that we too can help were we can. Because the Bible does teach us to help those less fortunate than us so why not share that burden with us because even if we can’t help financial I’m sure there are other ways we can help.
“The most ludicrous statement I’ve heard you both say is that you have a salary but you cannot use that salary to pay for your own accommodation? But to prove what crooks you are you actually live on the church grounds and a fund actually exists which is used to pay for your children’s fees because the salary you earn is so “little”.” My voice was filled with contempt and Diana and Roxanne were just standing a little behind me with shocked looks on their faces but I wasn’t done yet.
“But from that “little” salary you’ve managed to not only buy yourself but your wife and sons new cars, you don’t even buy your own groceries they are all donated but you still have the audacity to demand that we give and give and give. Now my question for you is this what exactly are you giving to the Lord?”
Then I turned away and headed for the car Diana and Roxanne behind me and from that day onwards I refused to go to church.
My wives and children are free to go there but for me the Church was destroyed by those greedy bastards who used the Lord’s name to line their own pockets.
After we moved to our current home and the ladies found a church they tried their best to convince me to go with them but my experiences had soured me and I refused to go.
So on Sundays while they are at church I have my own conversation with God, I reflect on the week that I’d had and what I’ve done to serve the Lord and what I’ve done to disgrace myself in His and how I could improve on both those issues and then I talk to him, like I had done after my last night with Jessica.
Then I read from the Bible and finally close the whole thing with a prayer.
Now some of my friends started noticing that I didn’t go to church but I was always talking about God and Jesus and the Bible so one day while we were having a barbeque they asked me about this and I told them about how I spend my Sundays. One day I was shocked when some of them came over to join me.
I told that I wasn’t a priest nor would I ever claim to be and they said they understood.
So now that is how I spend my Sundays a group of us meet, we discuss how the Lord has helped us during the past week, what we’ve done to glorify His name, what we’ve done to disgrace ourselves in His eyes and how we can improve on both.
We do take up a collection but like I said to them when they first joined me, “I will never ask you for money, the day I do that know that is the day I aligned myself with the devil.”
The collection idea came up after we’d been meeting for a year and one of our members had some financial problems so at the end of the month we each donated some money to him.
And it became a continuous thing at the end of each month we all deposit some money into an account and if by the end of the year none of our members had a need for it we donate it to a charity.
The money from the account can only be withdrawn if two members approve it and we rotate who can approve the withdrawal every month.