I'm leaving my church. Please pray.
 

First of all, if you happen to know my true identity, I ask that you please not blow my cover.

I must admit that I write you today with a very heavy heart. Something happened at church last night that has pretty much convinced me that it is time for me to find another church, and possibly resign from the UPC all together.

Let me give you some background before I get into that.

In January 2009 a prophecy went forth in the church I had been attending for 16 years that severe economic trials were coming to some people in our church . Part of the prophecy said that there was a specific person who was going to be defrauded out of thousands of dollars, and that it was going to be a hard pill to swallow, but that they’d have to just give it to God and accept it. The prophecy went on to say that God wanted us to be of good courage and fear not. Somehow in my heart I knew right then and there I was the one who was going to be defrauded, but that God was preparing me for the coming storm. In May of that year, the storm hit. I lived strictly on commission from the company I was involved with. For about 4 years I was making a modest but decent income of between 50 and 56 thousand dollars a year. In addition, I was substitute teaching about 60 hours a month.

That summer I made only a thousand dollars, and of course there was no teaching income because school was out for the Summer. My wife was pregnant with our second child. I began to apply for work because I had this sense that my income was going to soon completely vanish. I applied for work all over our county, but to no avail. Everything is done online now and nobody was even acknowledging they were viewing my resume. Of course this was during severe economic times nationally and businesses were swamped with applicants. My second child was about to be born, the county had stopped using sub teachers due to cutbacks, and I could not find a job. So I put my house for sale in the Fall of 2009.

It was about this time that my mom began to complain of a severe lack of energy. The real red flag came when one day she could not even get out of the bath tub. She checked herself into the hospital on November 22, 2009 and did not leave there until her death on February 2, 2010. Tests showed that she had developed a very rare autoimmune disorder. The prophesied storm was taking its toll.

As a result of my mom’s death, we inherited her house which was a 1980 model , double wide mobile home on 5 acres of land, about 90 minutes from where we were living. This was a silver lining to the tragedy of her death. We would be living mortgage/rent free. However, the place had fallen into some disrepair and it took allot of the small amount of money we earned from the sale of our house to make it livable again. But the good news was our income seemed to be ticking back up. I was making a couple of thousand dollars a month consistently, as well as substitute teaching. We still were not making as much as we had previously, but with no mortgage and a paid for car, we were hopeful that we’d be able to start saving some money.

At that time we made a personal commitment to start tithing off of the gross of our business income. Up until that point we had been incorporated and paid tithes off of the salary we paid ourselves from our business income. We started doing this as soon as we started attending our current church in June of 2010 and continued doing so until the end of 2011. We did not tell anyone we were doing this.

In December of 2011 another tragedy hit us. A couple of guys with the company we were with betrayed us secretly by working for a competitor company. They managed to steal away a considerable amount of the top money earners in my direct lineage, thus completely wiping out my income. The rest of the prophecy of January 2009 had come to pass. We were now totally dependent on my substitute teaching income. It was at this time that our pastor announced that our church was in a major financial crisis and that unless the members gave extra towards the building fund, there could be major consequences. Knowing he was about to notice a major drop in my giving (I ended up making only nine thousand dollars in 2012) I told him about our dilemma. I stressed to him that I was not looking for financial help, but that we did not want him to think we were bailing on him during his and the church’s difficult time. It was then that we divulged to him that we had been tithing on the gross of our business income. To his credit, our pastor had not taken a salary for about 3 months because of the church's financial problems

2012 was a difficult year. I had gotten allot of sub teaching work that spring semester, but I was unable to find a summer job. I mean there was NOTHING. I had to literally cash in gold and silver coins and sell my old boat just to survive. Even after school started that Fall, subbing was hit and miss. The search for a second part time job search continued, but nothing materialized. I couldn’t even land a job bagging groceries. Since the time we started attending our new church in June of 2010, we had been involved in Spanish ministry. Every Sunday we would attend the AM service, the Sunday afternoon Spanish service, and the PM service. For two solid years we did not even go home on Sundays. We brought our own lunch and took naps in the Sunday School rooms. I only mention that to stress that we were involved.

Finally, in November of 2012 I landed a part time job at Walgreens working 20 hours a week for 8 dollars an hour, with a Bach's degree. The manager had initially told me they were not hiring. But 15 minutes after I talked to her, an employee turned in their 2 weeks notice. So she decided to check out my online application, and to her delight it, and to my surprise, my application was flagged “highly recommended”. She would never have known that had she not manually looked up the application. This made me wonder how many more of my applications had been flagged “highly recommended” at the dozens of other places I had applied. But with thousands of applications flooding their inboxes, managers simply cannot view them all. If you don’t know someone at the place your applying, chances are you will not get a job there. I worked for one company from 1988 to 1999, and another company from 1999 to 2008 (besides my at home income). In both cases, I knew someone who worked there who put in a good word for me.

From November 2012 to April 2013, I worked 7 days a week between my two part time jobs. I was only able to make it to church one service a week. My participation in ministry came to a halt. I literally had 2 days off during that 5 month period. We have only one car, and for those 5 months the only time my wife left the house was when we went to church.

It was at that time I began to notice a change in my pastor's attitude. He made comments to me like “Brother, I know I do not need to remind you of the importance of church attendance”. Or from the pulpit he’d say things like, “If you have a job that makes you miss church, then you are out of God’s will.” But then one day he made this remark from the pulpit, “If someone in this church is struggling financially, all I have to do is check their tithing record to know why.” Both my wife and I thought for sure we had misunderstood him, so we basically put the comment out of our minds.

Re: I'm leaving my church. Please pray. (cont.)
 

In the Spring of 2012 I filled out my paperwork to be a missionary to Mexico. Soon after that, a major split occurred within the UPC of Mexico and headquarters decided to call all missionaries home. My pastor was actually very supportive of our desire to go on the mission field and encouraged us to go in spite of the UPC’s decision. He was sure that everything would be resolved soon. However, after several months nothing had been resolved in Mexico and headquarters began to assign the missionaries from Mexico to other countries. If God really wanted me in Mexico, it would not be with the UPC.

After much consideration, my sisters and I decided to sell the property where I was living, which we all three jointly owned. Incredibly, we found a buyer without even having to list it! My uncle, whose property bordered mine, agreed to buy it for 100,000 dollars, which was higher than the appraised price. He was going to put 30% down and finance the rest. It seemed like a miracle was in the making. We’d have money to make the move to Mexico without having to do allot of fundraising first.

My brother-in-law in Mexico told us he would actually GIVE us a house if we moved there!! Even my pastor thought God was doing a miracle. So in April of this year I quit my job at Walgreens so I’d have time to finish cosmetic repairs on the house before I handed the keys to my Uncle. Since we expected the closing to be soon, and because we were planning to go to Mexico for the Summer, I did not start looking for a Summer job.

Then everything came crashing down. For one reason or another, the my uncle’s financing fell through. We would not have that financial cushion we were expecting. Thankfully some saints helped us get to Mexico anyway, but once we got there, as I posted previously, all hell broke loose against our finances. If it had not been for people obeying God, we literally would not have been able to return home. Several saints of God helped us financially.

Keep in mind I intentionally did not share our plight with anyone from our church other than our pastor. With our church’s weakened financial state, I did not want any funds diverted from there towards us. our pastor expressed his concern and was even nice enough to pay my ministerial dues for the Summer quarter (93 dollars). He was concerned that my license might lapse.


In the few days we’ve been back from Mexico, our pastor has been noticeably cold towards us. He did not even welcome us back from the pulpit. Last night he preached, which on “greed”. The first part of his message was great as he railed against prosperity preachers. But then he made reference to another type of greed, “robbing God of tithes and offerings”. He made it clear that those who were weak in this area were just plain greedy. Of course he made reference to Malachi’s reference to “robbing God” and how that he “didn’t like thieves , nor did he want to worship with them”.

While I choose to practice tithing, I have never felt it is appropriate to use God’s commands to Israel as an obligatory system of giving for the new testament church. I see it as a principle of putting God first, but I don’t have the right to condemn people if they feel God is leading them another way. The epistles and Acts do mention giving, but there is no hint that the tithing system mentioned in Malachi was carried over to the new testament church, and it is especially troubling to me when pastors tell struggling people that they are “cursed”. The early church would not have told people things like “If you have to choose between paying your light bill or paying your tithes, pay your tithes and trust God.” The early church would have paid that persons power bill! The bible says none lacked because of the generous attitude and love for each other. Certainly there are times God requires us to step out on faith and give sacrificially, but that is different from some preacher bringing you under condemnation.

Our pastor then repeated the same statement he made several months back,

“”

My wife and I knew then that we had not misunderstood him those few months previously. He then went on to say,

I thought to myself, I can take you to the place in the Law where certain people were exempt from tithing at all!! Why are we cherry picking which verses we want to beat up people with??


He made it clear that financial difficulties are connected to “greed”. On the way home my wife said, “well, now we know what the pastor thinks of us.” Sadly, she is right. There is no doubt in my mind this message was partly aimed at us. The irony is, he knows our situation, and he knows we were tithing on the gross income of our business. Yet, financial trials still befell us. I had even told him about the prophecy that came forth in 2009 at our former church.

I have fought with everything in me not to become totally depressed these last three years. I struggle not to feel like a total failure. My pastor is too late to tell me that God is cursing me, the Devil already told me that one. God knows my heart. He knows I love to give. He knows I help people whenever I can. This message was a slap in the face and totally out of line.

I will be leaving that church. I just need wisdom on how to go about it. I do not want to have an argument with him, nor do I intend on discussing this with anyone in the church. I just want to leave and fade from their memories. Yet I know that when I do leave, he will talk about me to people when I’m not there to defend myself. On top of everything else, he the Florida District Superintendent. I will be blacklisted in this district and possibly beyond. The two years of staying all day every Sunday meant nothing. The faithful giving meant nothing. I’m hurt and disgusted. My family does not deserve this. It’s like some kind of weird nightmare. We are not trouble makers, but we will be treated as such. I know that trying to reason with him in private will be in vain. He has made up his mind.

please pray for us. Thank you.

Re: I'm leaving my chuch. Please pray.
 

If you can relocate to Southern Cal, we'd love to have you (and lots of Spanish speaking Mexicans). I'll pray for you brother

Re: I'm leaving my chuch. Please pray. (cont.)
 

I say this with sincerity and not harsh. You have your head wrapped around all the external trimmings. Aside from that.....someone with a lot more credentials than me on here will chime in for sure.

Re: I'm leaving my chuch. Please pray.
 

I will be praying for you and your family. I hope you guys will find a place and will find peace in the midst of your storm.
God bless you

Re: I'm leaving my chuch. Please pray. (cont.)
 

Thank you for commenting, but would you mind clarifying your statement a bit?

Re: I'm leaving my chuch. Please pray.
 

Very sorry to read about your trials. I will pray for you.

Re: I'm leaving my chuch. Please pray.
 

Sounds like a good plan to leave there. When I Pastored our first priority was to make sure the saints needs were taken care of. What that usually meant was that I would return the offerings to those in need.

I worked a job and the Lord met my needs. I was blessed to me able to help others. Every now and then if the saints were taken care of and we had Christian literature for witnessing I would take some of the offering for myself. In 5 and a half years I asked for an offering ONE TIME.

That was because we started renting a building and could not afford it really. The Lord sent in an old friend that night and his offering paid for our behind utility bill. Soon after we went back to meeting in the home.

It always grieves me when Preachers get so carnal all they can preach on is money. I say let them get a job and work with their own hands that they have need of nothing as Paul instructed the elders at Ephesus.

So sorry to here friend and PLEASE be careful that the enemy does not get a foothold called "bitterness". This causes our heavenly vision of Christ to become clouded. At times it can get pretty hard along the way. It is our hope of eternal life that is our stay.

I have walked down some hard roads too. Yet many others have had it far worse than me. But Christ continues to reveal himself to me and that has been worth it all.

Be strong in the Lord and the power of his might!

Re: I'm leaving my chuch. Please pray.
 

I had a similar experience. My wife and I couldn't attend morning prayer services when I was in the minister's team. We only had one vehicle. I had to get our son to the babysitter's, my wife to work, and then me to work... all before 8AM. The pastor's wife told my wife that "doors might open" if we came to morning prayer. When my wife explained why we couldn't, his wife publically rebuked my wife and I saying we had a "spirit of rebellion". The sad thing is, the pastor had given us permission to not attend because we took the cirucmstance to him. When I appealed to him to help correct her and explain to her that we had already approached him and gotten permission not to attend... he backed her up! It shattered my wife. We had been faithful members for nearly 10 years. Rumors began to swarm about us. Then she began hanging out with her friends at work. Soon after she began to change. I then decided that we should change churches and we did. However, she continued to change and then voiced to me that she didn't want to attend church anymore and she quit. I was so devestated because I had a passion for ministry and wanted to press in and fulfill the calling God gave us. She began to become real worldly in dress, cut and styled her hair, everything. They church we attended began looking down on me, not speaking to me, inviting me along outings, or fellowshipping me. It was like everything was falling apart and nobody was even trying to be there for me. I was totally alone. In absolute defeat and depression... I quit attending also. Several months later I found out that my wife was having an affair with one of the guys she began hanging out with when rolling with her work friends. She told me she wanted a divorce and everything fell apart. I began to spiral out of control. I would come here to Apostolic friends to get my mind off of everything and talk about the LORD. It was my only oasis. She left me and now it's been over four years. I began dating a young lady who was Baptist. Took her to the church I had left and she was baptized and filled with the Holy Ghost... but they were still cold to me. So we left. I began to get more involved in "house churching" (aka Simple Church). I'm slowly putting my life back together. I'm not wanting to rush into a second marriage, but it is nice to have a woman in my life. I don't know why things happened the way they did but this is my reality. I can only trust that God has a plan.

Hey, nurture your marriage and your home. Don't let any of this come between you. You have your family; and in the end... that is what truly matters. God has a plan for you too.

I'll be praying for you. Please say a prayer for me. May God bless and keep you and yours as you navigate these turbulent waters of destiny.

Re: I'm leaving my chuch. Please pray.
 

Your pastor is bipolar or what?

When doors opened it was a miracle. When things collapsed he let his fangs show. Maybe the pastor wants your money so he doesn't have to struggle financially.