Quote:
Originally Posted by sandy002
Hi all,
I have belonged to an apostolic church for a year now..more or less. Our church is very small and only consists of about 15-20 people. We have our pastor and minister, we are closer to our minister. My husband and I are the youngest couple/people in our congregation and recently my husband and I decided to visit other churches to see if we could meet other couples/people our age that we can hang out with and pretty much just make friends. Our pastor originally said that was fine as long as we don't miss morning service (we only have one service). So we went and checked some out and we really like one and they have an evening service. Then yesterday we went to check out another in the morning and we missed our regular church service. Well, our pastor called us and pretty much reprimanded us for missing church and told us he can no longer guarantee our protection if we don't attend his church and they will pray for us and give us his blessing if we want to leave and that we only need Jesus to fill this void of fellowship and that we need to let him know if we will leave so that he may transfer authority over us to the new pastor. My husband and I were shocked at what was being said. So this incident along with another incident where our pastor rented out our church for business (to another denomination church) without consulting the minister or letting the congregation know at all, has made us began to reconsider our church. I feel as if I no longer feel comfortable and after we were done talking with our pastor, I felt scared and worried that we are going to be punished by God for leaving. It all made me question my faith and made me question if I really want to walk with walk with Jesus. More than likely, my husband and I will move on to another church. We are just really hurt and I'm not sure what we did wrong? Could someone tell me please?
Sorry for the long post!
Thank you and God bless!
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That doesn't sound like a church to me. That sounds like a cult.
You must realize that you have done NOTHING wrong. You will not be punished by God for leaving a church with people in leadership who like to abuse their authority.
You are not called to be allegiant to man or to a church but to God and the Church.