Access To Jesus

When we left our church, the pastor took it personally. He backed out of doing our wedding, and then backed out completely from attending the entire celebration. I lived with their family for an entire year. They called me their daughter, I did holidays with their grandparents, celebrated birthdays and ate meals together. We planted the church together. My husband, then fiancé, and I meant to leave the church amicably and did so to the best of our ability. We had meetings with the pastors and wanted to give them time to find our replacements. We tried.

Over the last couple of years since the pandemic, I've felt my faith in the Big C Church get shaken. Before helping with this church plant I worked at a mega church where I felt very hurt and exploited. This pastor knew about it. He was the person I called and texted and asked for advice whenever I doubted and needed to express my concerns about the Church, he spoke hope, and of Jesus, and of compassion to me. I felt heard and accepted even in my doubts and faithlessness. I was grateful. When it was time for me to step down from my leadership position, I did it gracefully. I felt it was time. I was getting burnt out and someone else was stepping up who had more resource and experience than I did, I had a peace about it and so did he. I needed a break. I would still be around and help out when needed. But our relationship was never the same after that. Our conversations felt less personal and definitely sparse. There was a moment in the spring of 2022 when another news of a known pastor's SECOND sexual scandal leaked and I sent him a message about how broken and angry I felt. "Isn't the church supposed to be the place where people feel the safest? Why do we keep electing these fallen leaders as pastors of churches?" Previously he would have responded with an invitation for more conversation, but this time the response was a thought terminator. A rote Christianese answer, "Just remember it's about Jesus." 

Bullshit. 

In that moment I knew his patience for me had run out. I was always asking questions, making suggestions, bringing up concerns, wanting for things to change. I was no longer serving his enterprise nor a part of his inner circle. Later on in one of his meetings with my husband when we were leaving the church, he tells him, "You've been so patient with her." Because, you know, I'm too much apparently. He refused to meet with me or have me join the meetings with him. I assumed maybe he'd want to have a separate private meeting with just me, because we were closer or whatever. He didn't. He still hasn't. 

2 or 3 months after our wedding, one of the pastor couples who were a part of our wedding got laid off and told us that he tried, multiple times, to get them to not come to our wedding. One of the reasons being, "Be careful, Dominique hates the Bride of Christ."

That hurt like a mother and it - and all its implications about me- will/still stick with me for a long time. 

First that people should tread lightly around me. Especially Christians, because I am some kind of diseased pariah. Second, that I hate the Bride of Christ. I have questions, I have doubts, I have lost a lot of faith in how the Bride has been represented in this century. I have seen so many of my loved ones get hurt and exploited by the Church. I have seen how Christians have treated a lot of people and I don't stand by it. I have given most of my life to the Church, I have been the poster child for sacrificing for the Church. I probably have also hurt people along the way. But do I hate the Bride? If anything, my heart is broken for the Bride and how it has been represented so poorly. Third, he used my own vulnerability against me to get people to turn against me.

If there is one thing I would like to be said about me when I die, it's that I am the happiest I am ever going to be when I am seated face to face with Jesus. Hearing things like, "I hate the bride" makes me feel like I can no longer have access to Jesus. That I am a fraud. I have spent 15 years of my life serving the Bride and it has been all a waste because now I hate the Church and I have lost my access to Jesus. 

There's so many things I could say about the Church. I hate how it's being run. I hate how modern Christianity approaches Church. Sunday services feel so fake and performative. I wish we could talk about the real things about life. Talk about loving people, like the real ones on the fringe not just the ones who are sold out. The ones who ask questions. Let's talk about how I really get so bored reading the Bible and I feel guilty for never having a "great quiet time with the Lord." There are so many things I could say about the Church but I do not hate the Bride of Christ. I think we've got it all wrong. I don't know the correct answer because I've never seen it myself. What is church supposed to be? I don't even know anymore. I'm sick of programs. Of books written by white people on how to live my Christian life. I'm sick of flower themed Women's Events and battle themed Men's Events. I hate the rhetoric that if you're not 100% sold on Christianity then you might as well be RUBBISH. 

I've lived all those. I spent YEARS earning pennies for the church. I am not blaming a specific denomination or establishment for where I find myself when it comes to my faith. I'm just saying, I've done all those things that the church said to do and not do and I was left with pain, doubt, and shame for never being able to be the perfect Christian. It's kind of hard to be a good Christian if you have opinions and like to voice them. You become a diseased pariah and a cautionary tale. Perhaps her faith was never real to begin with.