Have you ever wondered, just what is the right way to worship God? I just finished watching the Hillsong documentary. I posted on Facebook about how I felt about Brian Houston (who I had never heard of). last week resigning due to many marital infidelities that were coming out and probably over this documentary too.Now there"s Carl Lentz that I hadn't heard of. It just infuriates me so much, I had to write about it. Pastors that are failing people at this level is doing immeasurable damage! I hate to admit what I am going to admit in this blog but I want to be real.
This organized religion struggle is real. My questions for myself are: am I supposed to be Lutheran like I was raised? I didn’t have any problems with it only that so many times it just seemed like a lot of thee and thy wording, and nothing real was speaking to my everyday life. We were told by Billy Graham, that you need a testimony, you need to come forward and be born again. Mom and I did that in Regis theater in Stanley after at a confirmation assignemnt to see his movie many years ago because Billy told us to in the film and we respected him and wanted to. We always listened to him on television. It’s our calling he said, "to call others and lead them to baptism" as well. But it is so foreign to polite Lutherans to ask people, “have you heard the word of the Lord today and if you haven’t let me tell you about it”. To do that you would need to be perfect yourself is the way we always felt. When we moved to Minot we joined First Lutheran Church. I had Brendon baptized there as a baby. I say I, because Kerry and I were fighting over the Jehovah Witness thing his Mom wanted us to be, and he wouldn’t go, so I did it alone. Then we came here to AZ. We tried a few Lutheran churches with the same feeling as before. Christmas sermons that didn’t touch me at all, but I felt good about going because I “should” have. Then we went to Mission here in Gilbert which is a mini Hillsong type mega church. When we first started it was the absolute best! We felt like we had found what we needed and we had a lot of healing to do. The only negative for us was a lot of people had their hands up, praising God and speaking out. Something conservative ND Lutherans don’t do is draw attention to yourselves. We had a charismatic speaker there who was the best I’d ever heard. He had you look up what he was talking about in your bible. You went with your Bible bag. The music was old hymns and new songs … but familiar new songs. Then that music group left and it just wasn’t the same but the messages left you working on yourself for the next week, so we kept going. Then the bomb dropped and the news hit that like Brian Houston our favorite pastor had also been having affairs while speaking on marriage with his wife in the first row, right side. He was terminated and we got a new pastor. That set both Sydney and I back to start.
We are in the middle of no pastor again now there, and after watching the Hillsong documentary I’m asking is why? Why do these people who have everything, let so many people down? I can think of so many. Jim and Tammy Baker with their gold everything and skimming money and Jimmy Swaggart, and Josh Duggar and a lot of others. So many times in my life things are so off with the actual church pastors. When Brendon got confirmed we had a pastor that was calling them “little shits” and other names, a lot of swearing in the regular during confirmation class. Another time the “board” got new red carpet installed in the church and then every Sunday for a month there would be a new board member getting up and asking you to dig deep because this carpet had to be paid for. Shouldn’t we have raised the money and then gotten the carpet because aren’t we supposed to try not to be in debt? Its the money thing for me. Mission too is always asking for more money and they have every single strobe light and backdrop you could imagine. Gone are the days that you raised money to pay your pastors expenses. I have never given a cent to a church in the form of a check because they used those envelopes with your number on them or a check. At tax time, Mom would figure out how much she had give and what more she should give for the taxes in the seventies. When I go now, I give a little cash because I can’t pass by the offering plate, my pride won’t let me do that. But it’s not a lot because I have my own little ministry, and
My point of this blog is to admit that at 66 I’m confused about how I feel about organized religion, tithing, and what God meant for us. I know too much now about the evils, wars and sexual sins that have happened from the abuse of power over many ages. I AM NOT CONFUSED ABOUT GOD, do not confuse what i am saying. I believe in God to the depth of my core and nothing will make me doubt he’s being and that Jesus his son died for my sins, all of our sins. I believe God has a purpose for my life and I will live until his purpose for me is over and only he knows that day. But should I worship this way or that way? If they have their hands up and I don’t… do they feel it more that me? Why do I give money with two single daughters working more than one job, raising kids for them to blow it on trivial things. I love listening to a good celebrity pastor because they are marketed, primed and practiced to be good. I love Steve who speaks at our church, he's my favorite to listen to and I pray for him moving forward that he not get to big for his britches like my Grandma used to say. But lately after so many fall, who am I really listening to? Since my bout with Covid I have really pulled in, like I did in the early eighties, to read what God is saying to me rather personally than thru the lens of another. And I have decided I don’t care if Brian Houston was sinning, a lot of good music came out of Hillsong. I don’t care if Mark was abusing his power thats his to reconcile. Maybe the devil really goes after those making a difference, calling people in, I don’t know. I am praying about it, I’m asking God to clear these things up for me, because I admit I’m lost on it and you know me I always have an opinion about everything. So keep me in your prayers to sort through this and I too will pray for all of us struggling to sort through whats real and what's not.
