My tale of two churches

[muddrunner17]

In the past two years I have attended two different churches with my wife. We started going to one with our neighbors after we suffered a miscarriage. It was a non-denominational church. After the first time, I didn't really want to go, but my wife did, and I thought it would help her, so i tried to make the best of it. I don't know why I didn't want to go back, I just didn't feel comfortable there. Over the next year, i attended almost weekly, and disliked it more each time. My wife and I would sometimes get into fights over it. It took me a while to find out what I disliked so much. Every week, our pastor gave the same message repackaged. It was a guilt trip about how you're not good enough. There was little focus on anything positive. There were veiled messages of intolerance sprinkled in. I would leave offended almost every week. I could not relate to most of the people there. They were so conservative that there seemed to be little compassion in their hearts, particularly for those who disagreed with me. I had decided, that if this is what being a Christian means, then I don't want to believe. My wife finally realized how unhappy I was there, and started to see the things I had seen. Over time, we attended less frequently.

I knew my wife still wanted to go to church, so one night, I stayed up to 1 am reading DU religion posts, seeing what kinds of churches progressives like to attend and started researching the churches in my area. I wanted to find a church that cares for everyone, not just other Christians. After much reading, I settled on a Presbyterian USA church in my area. The call to worship the first day had the repeating refrain that, "All are welcome." It talked about skin color, sexual orientation, and whether you believe in god some of the time, all of the time, or none of the time. I knew that we had found a spiritual home. In the following four sermons there was one word the kept standing out to me; compassion. In a year and a half, I had never heard that word in our previous church. While there are a wide a range of political beliefs in our church, we are joined by compassion for others.

I don't know why I share this now, but I feel that I need to. Peace be with you.

[Irishonly]

1. I am glad you have found a church you like

Good, progressive churches are wonderful. I walked out of a service at a non-denominational church once because of the pastor. Almost the first thing out of his mouth was that if a gay person was in the audience (his word, not mine) he would escort them out. I then found the church where I have attended for 22 years.

[JDPriestly]

2. Thanks. Being joined by compassion for others is essential to the

experience of spirituality. It is a sense of our oneness with the universe. To me that is what the religious life is about.