To Stay or Leave?

A lot of people sit in the pews and ask themselves "WHAT am I doing here?"

It was all so wonderful at one time.
-Finding and falling in love with Jesus, forgiveness of sins, a new life, new and wonderful things to learn, and a sense of God's presence and joy.  But as time went by, the joy fizzled out, and the routine of church became..., well, a routine.

The emptiness grew. All you wanted was God, and back in the beginning, you remember how great and wonderful God was.  You sang the songs with heartfelt feeling and The Bible was the greatest book you ever read, so that even the TV got turned off. You arrived early to church and stayed late.
You never missed a service if you could help it.    

Something slowly changed. Did  Jesus become boring? What happened? 
You thought something was wrong with yourself so you threw yourself into the growth program, volunteered for a committee, taught Sunday School.  You overlooked others faults, pretty much, but sometimes you wondered how people could practice some pretty carnal vices and still sing in choir or teach the children.

Although you couldn't figure out what was wrong, there was only a sense that something was not right. So you worked on the building, cleaned it on Saturday nights, and tried to be "involved"..
But as time went on, the best part of a church "service" was when it ended. 

But in time, you weren't getting much out of it anymore, were not challenged in the areas of your life that needed change, and even when the pastor or priest assured you that you were one of God's children, you wondered and hoped it was true. You knew you were much closer to the church than you were to God so you justified yourself that it was OK.

You wanted to have close spiritual friendships but as you sat in church looking at the back of 40 or 50 heads, you wondered what THEY were thinking.  And when service ended, everyone pretty much went off in their own direction, there was little closeness.

So you continue to go along with the songs, the offerings, the wannabe-happy-here attitude, but inside you are crying out "WHERE ARE YOU GOD!?"

You even hang-tough when bad stuff happens.
People leave, people you thought you were friends with quit calling.

You see people suffer church abuse, you even see the leadership doing things that can't be right, but you have learned to shut up and look the other way. -after all they are the leaders and you are not to question or challenge them because they represent God to the church, right? 

You even see your own kids  mistreated by some of the leaders and by other kids in the one place you thought was safe.

Over the years, by God's incredible grace, you still "stay the course" through some incredible church explosions. You saw situations that were unthinkable to your once idealistic mind, both in the pulpit and the pew. You stayed loyal to your leaders and defended them even when many others openly pointed out their mis-deeds which you excused or justified.  

You trudged on, the kids didn't want to go, it was too "BORING!" they said. And inside, you knew they were right, but the thought of NOT going to church was unthinkable. You watched some Christian TV but were turned off by the cheap, shallow, carnival style pitchmen. They performed just like a lot of non-Christian entertainers only they used church-speak.

 You still defended your church, your leaders, your teachings, but inside the nagging emptiness continued and grew. Somebody announced a new church activity,and a new program so you decide to give it another shot trying to "work through" the funk of spiritual stagnation....  

 Six months and 40 days later, you felt even emptier.
  What made it worse was some of the others that participated in the same program and gave glowing testimonies about the program, were now not even coming to church anymore!

Somehow, you kept on giving financially (you had a name and reputation to maintain there, after all), even though both you and your family were struggling.  And you saw things and heard things that did not fit what you had read in the Bible. 

But the years of conditioning to accept whatever was said in justification for questionable actions over-ruled common sense and the ability to be objective when it came to your church ....  

Then came the unexpected crisis.......