Via William T Prendergast
My association with Charity Church began many years ago when I was just a young child. During those days, our grandma (God rest her soul in perfect peace) would wake up early on Sundays and prepare us to go to church. She didn’t like the idea of arriving late, and to her back then, she would rather get to church first and wait than wait and arrive late.
Apart from Sundays, she would also involve us in voluntary church activities, which, to be honest, I didn’t like. However, I participated because of the love and respect I had for her. Through these activities, I gradually developed a great love for the church. When my grandma passed away, one of the few things I really wanted to emulate and carry on was her devotion to the church and her belief in good deeds, such as church charities and others.
So, I carried on going to church, and even though my parents never really pushed me the way she did, I still found the motivation and courage to attend church without being asked to. I had gradually moved from being taught and reminded about the importance of going to church to now understanding everything and finding internal conviction to carry on with fellowship.
However, as years went by, I grew in body and mind and started feeling odd and unwilling to continue with the Charity church. Even though my body really wanted to carry on with this journey, my soul was definitely against it and was gradually dying due to a lack of sustained interest in the Charity church.
Finally, after a lot of thinking and soul searching, I made the painful decision to end my association with the Charity Church. The decision was not easy to make but was very necessary and timely. I know my grandma will definitely be mad at me wherever she is due to this conscious decision I had to make, but honestly, it got to a time where I could no longer take it so I had to opt out.
If you are surprised and wondering why I had to leave the church then here are some reasons to support your understanding of my decision.
1: The Change in My Environment
I do not intend to sound offensive or urge people to leave their churches. This point here is one of the personal reasons why I left the Charity Church and it has nothing to do with everyone else who goes to the church. You see, I was a firm believer during my days at the Charity church to the point of believing everything I was taught.
However, as I grew and became educated, my perception about the church changed and its teaching changed a lot. First, I never saw any direct connection between what the church was teaching and what was happening in my real world. As a matter of fact, the teachings from my church often seemed to contradict the reality in the real world.
Due to this, I found it hard to continue upholding my initial strong belief in the Charity Church and its teachings which I thought were going to avail greater good to the society. Instead, the opposite happened to be the case.
2: Preaching Water and Drinking Wine
I’m sure many people share this opinion about the church, so you definitely won’t find it hard to understand. In what now accounts for a good number of people leaving their churches, most preachers do not exactly do what they preach.
The absence of leadership by example prompted me to question the validity of my preachers’ teachings, as they themselves seemed unable to uphold the principles they were preaching. Everything here seemed to align with the teaching in Jude 1:4 that for some people who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth, they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ, our only master and lord.
Even worse were cases of some preachers known to me being accused with others even being proven to be taking part in immoral and counter religious activities like adultery among others.
These continued accusations on some of my preachers instilled a great feeling of discomfort in me leading me to reconsider my presence in the church. I felt like the Charity Church was influencing me negatively (and not positively) which is why I had to quit.
3: Lack of Clarity Regarding the Church Charity Activities
While I’m a believer and great supporter of any Charity Church activities, I only do so the to the extent that the activities are honest, transparent and drive a positive change in the society. This unfortunately doesn’t seem to be the case with many Charity Churches—my former church included.
During my days at the Charity Church, I encountered many instances which looked fishy to me. One of them was the charity activities we were taking part in as a church. I just felt like the church was very selective with the kind of people they were helping or the courses they were supporting. For instance, I saw some cases which were very dire and definitely deserved assistance from my church but none was rendered to them.
Instead some other people got the help even though their cases were not as bad. This led me to believing that the church was not being honest with some of its activities. Therefore, I did not see the need of continuing to support activities whose motives and transparency were questionable.
4: The Bureaucratic Nature of the Church Establishment
The other reason why I felt it was no longer important to continue going to the Charity Church was the bureaucratic nature of the church. I just felt like the church did not create proper avenues for people to voice their concerns on any pressing matters. Those that did manage to do so eventually were seen as people who were questioning the authority of the church and were either admonished or even jettisoned from the church.
I personally found this to be very wrong as I felt like the church was focused more on silencing divergent opinions rather than allowing them in and using them to strengthen the fabric of the church. I do not mean that churches and their authorities must always be questioned and criticised by dissatisfied members. Instead, I mean the church should be able to acknowledge the contribution and value its members contribute even if that comes in through some questions its devoted members.
In Summary…
I decided to quit the Charity Church after interrogating what the church was teaching and the environment around me. I felt like there was a huge gap between the teachings I was receiving from my church, the actions of my church, and what was happening around me.
