[Faith-talk] being healed from blindness

[Ashley Bramlett]

Debby,
My goodness, now I understand more of your struggles to find a church where 
you feel accepted.
This definitely illustrates church politics. If a church is divided and asks 
a pastor to leave, its going to upset a lot of people. Those who like the 
old pastor will be upset and likely leave. We've seen this happen in some 
churches around my community.

I hope you feel up to trying church someday. I'd suggest a smaller church 
with active groups such as a women's group.
In these churches, you are more likely to be remembered. At large churches 
or mega churches, they are so big that you cannot meet people unless you 
attend small groups and include yourself.  Even then, you only know your 
small group members.
I speak from experience as I did try a large non denominational church and 
the women's bible study was good and intimate, but never saw them at church.

For now, you can study the bible on your own and still pray and things like 
that as christian. Church isn't all of what being christian is.

Merry Christmas.
Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: debby phillips
Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2013 5:27 PM
To: Faith-talk,for the discussion of faith and religion ; 
faith-talk at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [Faith-talk] being healed from blindness

Hi Ashley, I know that it's very easy to generalize, and I
shouldn't do it because I hate it when other people do that.  We
started attending a small Free Methodist church, and I soon was
on one of the worship teams, and volunteered at the office.  I
made phone calls, answered the phone for the staff, and did other
things.  I had a pastor who was a good pastor, he helped me a
lot.  I was praying about what I should do with my life, and was
feeling that perhaps God was calling me to some kind of full-time
ministry.  One day he suggested that I should begin the process
of becoming a pastor within our denomination.  I began filling
out the papers, and reading the books that they recommended.
Then I went away for the winter and did some work in the RV park
where we stayed for the winter.  The pastor of the church in the
park asked me to help with the ladies' Bible study, and I
preached a couple of times.  All of this, of course, I reported
to my pastor back home.  When I returned that spring, everything
was awful.  There was a huge division within the church, and
there was talk of the pastor leaving.  Instead of coming back to
a situation where I was going to be more involved in things, I
came back to fighting.  I was allowed to go to staff meetings.
They were stiff and horrible.  At the beginning of the summer I
was hopeful that something good would happen.  But as I left to
go south for the winter I had a sad feeling about the church.  My
friend the old pastor was no longer there when I returned in the
spring, and there was a new pastor.  He clearly had no time for
me, and was not willing to mentor me oh do anything to help me.
The Board had a discussion in which I was not involved, nor even
informed of the results.  Eventually I found out what the results
were, but only because I blew up.  Anyway, I left.  I have had no
desire to return to church anywhere since then.  I tried a couple
places while I was a student at CCB, but I just couldn't get
myself to care, I guess.  Anyway, that's kind of where I'm at.
my old pastor, Pastor Greg definitely had some issues which I
think eventually led to his leaving and retiring.  But he really
did care about people, and he did his best to show people that he
cared.  One summer a group of us went to Alaska on a mission
trip.  I actually wasn't going to go, but he encouraged me to
think about it.  So I ended up going.  It brought about huge
changes in my life, or so I thought.  Sigh.  But he did some
interesting things.  We played games like croquet and some other
games, and everyone else had to be blindfolded.  I didn't suggest
it, I didn't even know that he was going to do that.  Anyway,
anything I wanted to do he always let me try.  I miss him a lot,
and I'd probably still be in church if he was still here.  Sad to
say, I probably had my little part of causing him to leave,
because there were times when he did make me angry and one time
when I felt he went over the line and I probably added a little
bit to the drama.  I am so sorry for that.  I wish that I could
go back and live that part of my life again.  Sorry, I didn't
mean for this to be my whole life story.     Blessings,    Debby

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