Walking Out of Church.
Neil at Evolitionist walked out of the Passion Conference. Read his story.
It got me thinking of the time that I walked out of a church gathering. I’m going to share my story, because I would love to hear your stories of times you walked out of church…not walking away from Church in the giving up sense—though it certainly could lead to that—but just walked out because you couldn’t in good conscience participate in the foolishness that sometimes happens when you get enough Christians in the same room.
I was leading worship at a rocking little church. One Sunday the pastor (who I am still close friends with) took the sermon as an invitation to talk about Memorial Day. He gave apocryphal stories about the “Founding Fathers,” talked about how important it was for the u.s. to return to Christian values, and how thankful he was that representative democracy makes us free.
I was shaken…literally unable to control my body from shaking. Rather than standing up and correcting my friend in front of everybody, I walked out the back. I made it only a few steps before falling to my knees and lowering my face to the concrete in prayer. I asked God to forgive us our idolatry and begged him to tell me what to do.
I went back in when the sermon was done (glass doors!), and before leading the congregation in any more songs, I read a large portion of scripture. I figured that we should at least hear a message from God, since that’s part of why we gather.
After the service I took my wife and another faithful friend with me so that I could talk to the pastor. The main thrust of what I said is that I couldn’t lead worship and try to invite people into the throne room of God if he was going to follow that up by preaching another kingdom. He disagreed with me on various details (wrongly…he’s not well-versed in history nor theology), so I tried to put a fine point on it before we get totally off topic. “Listen. We are sheep. The job of the pastor is to faithfully lead us by helping us hear from God. If you can tell me that what you brought today came from studying the scriptures and from prayer, that you asked yourself what God had to say to the church and felt this was the answer, then I will feel a lot better. On the other hand, if you just have these opinions and wanted to say share your own thoughts about Memorial Day, and then gathered up a whole bunch of scriptures that seemed to support those ideas…well, you’ve got to promise me that you’ll never do that again.”
My friend was very gracious and understanding, but he was never really able to answer whether he was listening for what God had to share with the church or whether he was using the scriptures carelessly. We’re still friends, but it wasn’t too long afterward that I found myself giving up on “cool church” and attending St. Alban’s, a fairly traditional Episcopal church.
What about you? When did you walk out?
I once walked out of church during a patriotic service in which there were flags placed all around the church. During the finale of God Bless America, balloons fell from large sheets holding them up on the ceiling, and then an American flag fell draped down in front of the large cross on the wall. I felt as if I should give a “Heil” stance right then and there. I had to leave, feeling literally sick to my stomach.
Phil
No wonder you weren’t raptured on Saturday.
I remember that (I was the faithful friend ~smile~ ). He seems to have toned down some on that, but “America the exceptional” still sneaks its way in every now and again. Ask me, though, later about a letter I had to write in response to an e-mail he received regarding a certain group’s request to use the building.
I think your story would fit well right here…please consider posting it.
The pastor received an e-mail from what I’m going to call a nationalistic group. The nationalists wanted to use the church facilities to record, at the very least, a pilot show for the purpose of disseminating their fear-based message and unbiblical responses to the things they fear.
I wrote a (rather lengthy) letter denouncing such and recommending a different course of action. At the following meeting, they discussed a lot of other issues to the exclusion of the matter of business. It got tossed to e-mail discussion–which, to me, means they probably won’t respond–which doesn’t bother me, because that means default they won’t do it. The pastor hasn’t even heard back from the guy. So it probably isn’t anything to worry about now. And I have no intention of pursuing the issue. I think it will die on its own.
Nevertheless, the importance of preparing the local Christian population for sharing Christ with Muslims does still strike a chord and we should probably be doing that.
I walked out once a sermon passed 50 minutes and it was one of the last times I was in an Evangelical church.
Also, one time when I was a kid my dad, a pentecostal preacher mind you, and I were in a church that was supposedly experiencing a “revival;” I don’t know what the preacher was saying as I was too young to care or process that, but my dad was very very upset by how “the preacher neglected grace” in the sermon, and he walked us out in the middle of a packed house. That was a very important and memorable moment in my life and I’ll always be thankful to my dad for it.
In honor of your dad. He is, apparently, awesome.
God bless America!
Yeah, if I were in those circumstances, I’d do the same. Thankfully, I’ve been blessed to always be a part of great churches.
I hope when we move to CT in the autumn it will be the same, because I don’t want to join some random church, but rather a specifically Presbyterian church. We’ll see.
I walked out of the Church when I was not allowed to question it’s Pastor at all. I left Evangelicalism then and have long since been welcome in a Church that welcomes questions.
Been there. I was so pleased to find my current parish. I remember very early in my visits to St. Alban’s that Father Dick acknowledged in his sermon that he and Francoise, our seminarian, disagreed on some key points about the gospel of John. It’s amazing how merely acknowledging that there might be disagreements over the scriptural text was totally verboten in the church of my youth.
Church of Misfit Children
Tried to find the “like” button for Tony’s comment.
I walked out (to the bathroom to cool down, I returned later on!) during a sermon one time. My pastor was preaching about “wolves among us”. The whole point of the sermon was him saying that when members of the congregation hold times of prayer or worship at their homes that aren’t organized through the church and consist of others that aren’t a part of our church, that those members who organize such events are like wolves among us because they draw the other members away from the direct teachings of the church. It was all a little nutty…and personally I believe we are one Body and that our churches don’t belong to our pastors or us even really, but to God. The church has no walls and I like the idea of people, from all different churches, meeting in the comfort of someone’s home, in an intimate setting, sharing and growing in God with one another. This sermon just raised red flags with me and made me feel very uncomfortable.
That level of control is a serious warning flag to me. Jesus even directly contradicted that way of leadership. (Mark 9:38-40)
I’ve walked out on more than one occasion when the preaching got too “hell-fire-damnation, when the call to “repentance” went overboard, and once when the plea for the offering got to 25 minutes, I left. I am so PROUD of Tony Hunt’s dad! What a lesson for a child to learn.
I am now in an Episcopalian parish–it’s where I belong. :)
I’m sensing a theme…the Episcopal Church is apparently for people who are burnt out on Roman Catholicism or Evangelicalism but don’t want to give up yet on Christianity. No wonder there are so many disagreements in the Anglican communion…it’s full of misfits. (literally…miss-fits.)
Not exactly a “church” walkout, but I sat through my private Christian college graduation where, after telling us they would be sensitive to our unbelieving families, they talked about death for 40 minutes followed by the president of the college praying “Their (us graduates) lives matter far more than the lives of non-Christians, and that their lives matter even far more than many who profess Christ.” You can check out a clip of it I uploaded here http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=512441642280. Strangest part was nobody else cared. Crazy stuff.
Oh man…is that John MacArthur? People look UP to that guy.
Yup. Absolutely.
So one time I was visiting a friends church, and there was a visiting speaker there. The pastor was sitting in the front row, obviously a party to what the visiting speaker was preaching. And the topic of the preaching was this: This pastor is the man God has given the blueprint (like Moses) of how God wants to move in this town. If you want God to use you, you need to be submitted to this man. If you come to this church, God will bless your life, your finances, your car, etc. Because this pastor is such a mighty man of God that you are under a cloud of blessing if you are submitted to him and attending this church.
After sitting there in agony praying with a friend who came with me, I contemplated walking out…but something about walking out felt too much like I was giving consent to this man preaching these things. With heart beating and head spinning, I finally jumped to my feet and said loudly, “This man is not my king. Jesus Christ is my king.” The pastor snapped his fingers and four big dudes came seemingly out of nowhere and surrounded me, telling me, “It’s time to leave now.” Having said my peace, and afraid of these men touching me, I told them that it was ok, I was leaving anyway..and walked outside where I waited for my other friend to catch up with me. The big usher dudes and the assistant pastor came out and debated with us on the sidewalk such topics as “the danger of interrupting the man of God while the anointing is on him” while I debated back about the heresy of fixating peoples’ minds on the pastor rather than on Christ Himself. I told the assistant pastor that I hadn’t come there to disrupt his church, I had come there to worship with them – and the assis. pastor (who was also the “worship leader”) said to me, “then what is the problem here? You got to worship before the sermon with us!” I was so sickened by this statement that I could barely listen to worship music for a little while after that …..anyway, it was an interesting season of life.
Wow. I can totally picture you there, your heart beating, knowing you gotta do something but not quite clear “what?” I think you did remarkably well. I think you’re kinda badass for speaking out loud…something I was afraid to do in my own story. I don’t know if it’s better or worse when it’s someone you know and love spewing nonsense in church.
Yup, Heather definitely wins the prize for “most epic” :-). Speaking out loud is even better than walking out in protest.
That was part of what I was praying about when I walked out…that I thought Jesus would have spoken up and that I didn’t think I had it in me, but that I wanted to do what is right.
Although I have never walked out of a church service, there have been two times that I should have. One was last July 4th when the church we attended (one my family regularly attend) sang God Bless America, played a patriotic video about veterans, had all the veterans stand up while their branch of the military theme song was played, had the army colorguard (decked out with guns) do their presentation of the flag, passed out american flags to kids, and have a veteran interviewed as part of the sermon. I should of walked out, no doubt about that! You can see more of our reactions here: http://wearenotpowerless.com/Church_of_America
The other service was at last year’s missionary convention, the speaker began to talk about homosexuality, like it was the most disgusting and worst sin according to God. He did the usual evangelical christian rant, what this had to do with missions, I don’t know. I have seen the guy speak before about how to save money and live on a budget so that you can be well off. I should have walked out.
Next time I will.
Those are both really painful. It’s amazing that what Christians are known for nowadays are hating gays and being patriotic. Lord have mercy.
My wife and I both walked out on the commencement speaker at our graduation from our Christian college. We had different last names at the time so we were not seated next to each other, but she had the impulse a few minutes after I had. I knew I had found a woman worth loving!
I am still not sure why he was being honored by the university, as his xenophobic stances certainly didn’t reflect the faculty or institution. I wish that I could find a transcript of him, but thankfully it does not exist. I wish I could find it just so that I could point out him warning students to stand firm in the faith and beware the coming of “homosexual robots”. Nothing that he said resonated with the view of the kingdom we were called to proclaim.
My curiosity was pretty high. Then you used the phrase “homosexual robots” and it went off the charts. If you don’t want to out this extraordinary person who gave the address, at least privately message me. I really DO wish you had some YouTube. That is so cool that your wife had the same impulse. It was like a “meet-cute” for Christian radicals.
I checked it out with an anonymous staff member from your university. Apparently he had provided a transcript of his speech to the president and then, when he took the podium, basically said, “I prepared a message, but instead I’m going to speak about what’s on my mind.” And, thus, a speech warning about homosexual robots.
Nice.
I walked out of a sermon by Lou Engle last summer at a conference. He kept talking about taking America back for God and how we needed to be in prayer for our leaders to return to their Christian roots. The evidence of failing in this regard: 1) gay pride 2) abortion. What about social injustice? What about the fact that no nation is Christian? AAAGGGG. I respectfully walked out with my wife and contemplated leaving the conference. But, we came back and God still did great things.
Except Obama. Obama needs to take back America for Allah and return to his muslim roots. As-Salamu Alaykum, my brother :)
(Copying in my comment from Facebook) I’ve made the joke, that my last day at a church is usually their “Fourth of July Sunday” service, but in all seriousness, it only had to happen once for me. After seeing the service decked out in stars and stripes and singing “God Bless America” and having servicemen from each branch of the military come forward to have the congregation applaud, I’d had enough. Those things are fine, if say a city wants to put on an event at the park, but in a church? It’s entirely inappropriate.
I think draping the flag over the cross adds a nice touch, don’t you?
so glad to find you – although you are hard to read – I must be getting old – but can so relate – great to hear a thinking, engaged, spirit-led questioning person.
2 Stories:
1) My family and I were visiting what we thought was a conservative church, based upon being a memeber of that denomination when we lived in Mississippi. By coincidence, we were there on the Sunday that the Pastor was discussing the requirements for eldership (turns out he had a divorced friend that he thought would make a good elder). You now see where this is going. Halfway through his sermon, around the point that he was saying the scripture were guidelines, but needed room for exceptions I could not stand it anymore. I stood up, interrupted him and said, this is wrong. You cannot change God’s standard to fit your plan. You have to keep God’s standard and he will raise up men from among you to meet it. My daughter Kelsey, who had her head down and was doodling on the bulletin later told me that she said to herself, “that sounds like Dad.” Needless to say, we were not welcomed, did not receive the visitors packet, and I don’t even drive by that place anymore.
2) When our kids were young, we wended up at a Baptist church out of concern that the ‘evangelical’ churched were usinf the kids Sunday School to indoctrinate the kids to liberal (and unscriptural) doctrine. Fast forward to us visiting a local Baptist Church that has been ordaining women since the 1930′s (Salem Baptist Church of Fredericksburg, VA). Well it turns out liberal forces got on the ‘transition team’ to find a new vision and the requirements for the next pastor. After 30 months the transition team went from 13 to 4 people, and identified 4 motions to affiliate with both SBC and a liberal organization in VA (the organization does not rely on Scripture, ordains ALL folks, etc). Along the way I heard 65 year old Baptist women in a business meeting questioning ‘all the inconsistencies in scripture’, I heard authorities say the votes don’t mean much, etc. The church was to vote on 1/27/13 and we were there. Turns out the intentional interim Pastor had an agenda (wolf) along the way and used the worship service to demonize the SBC practice of electing a fundamentalist president. I could not take it anymore and had to walk out. Along the way one of the greeters (the guy from the transition team who said the votes don’t matter) told me that if I did not leave immediately, he would call the police. Going to worship God, get a deceitful presentation from a suspect pastor and get threatened with arrest.