I am also not saying it's a horrible thing for a church to have a rich social dynamic to it. A lot of people really enjoy having activities to go to and people to visit during the week. Nothing wrong with that! My kids liked having choir, friends over, being invited to other people's houses, It was these things that helped to draw me toward the church. I wanted that feeling of having a community. I only have my sister nearby and Rand only has his mom. I grew up in a family that got together a bunch for holidays and birthdays and I was sad my kids didn't have that. It was my hunger for community that drove me to look for a church other than the one we were going to before that, a perfectly good church but one that was a bit of a drive away from us and had thousands and thousands of people. So I'm not saying that the baby showers or the wedding showers were bad things. They were wonderful things and I'm grateful for the ones I had.
But it was the distinct feeling of an unwritten rule that I was less than because I couldn't keep up with them. I don't know. When it gets to the point where you come in a room and nobody even says hello-it starts to get to you.
We were at a point where I was serving my family pinto beans and soda crackers for dinner (after the economic crash) and I honestly would have had to choose between a jug of milk or a baby sleeper for a shower. I just couldn't do it. And the more I felt like I couldn't fulfill the expectations, the more I felt unwelcome and unwanted.
Well, whatever. Maybe you're just sour grapes. I've thought of that myself.
But here's the other thing. Community wasn't just stressed at this church, it was constantly impressed upon us that the church was the actual point where a person meets up with God. That the people in the church that speak to us are the representatives of God. Having your own relationship with God was not encouraged much. I mean, yes, read your Bible and all, (especially if you were using the church notes to help you do that.) but if you felt like you had a personal interaction with Him, that was strongly looked at with suspicion. I remember the pastor talking about us not being able to tell what was going on in our own head-what is you and what is God? I never quite got how I could know why I couldn't be the judge about what was going on in my head, but apparently the person who was talking to you "as God" in the church could know that they were speaking to you for God? I didn't quite get how that worked.
And it wasn't just the idea of that you had to be open to what people were saying to you was from God, (I mean, it could be, it might not be.) But God was scary. You needed the pastor and the elders to go between you and God. Consider this sermon in Deuteronomy talking about the scene where the people are frightened of God and so they send Moses to speak to God for them. (skip ahead to about the half hour mark to hear the part I'm taking about. Another thing this is an example of is the way the pastor would reference people he was counseling in his sermons. Not mentioning names, usually, though there were times he did. But people were so much in each others business you generally had a good idea who he was talking about. I remember once he called out my family for wearing tie-dye t-shirts which were a symbol of lawlessness. One of the fellow members laughed and said "Congratulations! You made it into a sermon! You'll get used to it.")
There is much emphasis on the scary holiness of God. Wanting a direct word from God is a foolish thing. I remember the verses in Hebrews being quoted often about how the new covenant is a scarier thing than the Mosaic covenant. Always being brought back to the impression that we needed the church to intervene between us and the God and absolutely no mention of verses like Isaiah 30:21, Psalm 32:8, and the fact that God spoke to many, many people through out the Bible and holds forth the hope that one day we will have no need of teachers, but everyone will know the Lord themselves. That the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two. I have always felt that God desires a relationship with each person and the tragedy of much of religious life is that it is geared not to draw us closer to God, but to help us to fulfill obligations that may tug at out conscious but still perform them while still hiding from Him.
So. If you're so dependent on a preacher and men to connect you with God, that gives that group an enormous power, doesn't it? Because when you start walking into rooms and they don't speak to you, not even a "hello", when you ask pastors for help and they never respond, if you write to them and they never acknowledge even hearing from you, but their voice is God to you, what are you to conclude from that?
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