Checking In
I have not posted in awhile. I have been busy but that is not my real reason for not posting.
Really, I have not cared too much about detoxing from the church. I have left the church and not looked back. I don't want to have to worry about all that right now. Does that make me a bad person? None of my beliefs have changed. Other than the fact that I don't go to church anymore, none of my actions have changed.
What is the goal of my detox? Is it to become a "Changed Man"? I don't know anymore.
Isn't it scary what the church can do to people? The church makes them numb. Numb to the system. Sometimes I just question my reason or ability to fight it. I am only one voice distorted by the steeple. Damn, I worry so much about the church that I neglect time with family and friends. Or I waste the time I do have with them trying to solve the churches problems. In a way, I have learned to hate the church. Just thinking about it turns my stomach.
Just a big group of fake friends stroking each other. I know what people want to say to that ... "Well Josh, you just didn't reach out to us" or "Josh, we reached out to you many times". Sure, nothing every developed because it WAS fake. Or forced. Or required. But never real.
If I am to continue this detox or even my involment with SCP.com, I need to vent more. I need to call people out. I need to hate the things people have done. I need to learn to really love church people.
Yea ... we'll see.
Church People are just so STUPID!!!!!!
Really, I have not cared too much about detoxing from the church. I have left the church and not looked back. I don't want to have to worry about all that right now. Does that make me a bad person? None of my beliefs have changed. Other than the fact that I don't go to church anymore, none of my actions have changed.
What is the goal of my detox? Is it to become a "Changed Man"? I don't know anymore.
Isn't it scary what the church can do to people? The church makes them numb. Numb to the system. Sometimes I just question my reason or ability to fight it. I am only one voice distorted by the steeple. Damn, I worry so much about the church that I neglect time with family and friends. Or I waste the time I do have with them trying to solve the churches problems. In a way, I have learned to hate the church. Just thinking about it turns my stomach.
Just a big group of fake friends stroking each other. I know what people want to say to that ... "Well Josh, you just didn't reach out to us" or "Josh, we reached out to you many times". Sure, nothing every developed because it WAS fake. Or forced. Or required. But never real.
If I am to continue this detox or even my involment with SCP.com, I need to vent more. I need to call people out. I need to hate the things people have done. I need to learn to really love church people.
Yea ... we'll see.
Church People are just so STUPID!!!!!!
posted by Joshua Sager at
6:25 AM
16 Comments:
I start to identify with what you are saying and then it's like I can't go a step further....if I did and followed you I don't think I would be following Him which is not to say you're not...I don't know who or what you are following you are you and I am me...Life....it sucks most of the time and yet more and more I find myself thinking IF I thought more about Him what would happen?? I don't know just rambling and feeling alot of your pain...but also feeling stung by your criticism...I don't know Josh but like you I like to vent...and I used yours here...so keep on venting and doing whatever you need to do to come closer to HIM..whatever....
I feel for you Josh. I remember being where you are now. Anger eventually turns into apathy...then you can move on to the real things in life... the important things. The church? Not important. The heart? That's worth your passion. Hang in there. I love your honesty. I love your transparency. Don't ever lose that! Thanks for doing STP w/ SEC!!
Josh,
Yes! You are pretty great at saying what needs to be said. From reading through your blog I noticed that once you stopped going to church you opened up a bit more, but it was easy to tell that you still seemed to be holding yourself back. I think it's great to take on this stuff that's festering inside you and let yourself "vent" more. I look forward to hearing more from you.
One of the great disappointments I've found when people criticise the church..is they don't name names....so the spiritual criminals continue to get off scot free.
Let 'em have it...and don't hold back.
They deserve it...and more.
I am banned from www.philbaker.net .... (Australian megachurch pastor's blog) and proud of it.
"Hi Lance,
Phil Baker here. As you are aware we have been deleting all your
comments from my blog for sometime now. We gave you around a year of no
restrictions, but I have felt in recent times, such is the consistency
and standard of your comments, that banning you from the site is the
action we have decided on.
So I am informing you that you are officially banned from my blog and I
ask you to refrain from making any comments on it. If you continue to
comment we will continue to delete, but will also look at taking further
action.
Your Sincerely
Phil Baker"
Go hard and show no mercy.
It's the only way stupid church people understand that what they do..pisses people off.
These dickhead pastors continue to do it...because they think they can get away with it.
This is the moment I've long been waiting for with the Stupid Church people podcast.
Even The Beatles had to go through a 'Yellow Submarine' and 'Octopuses Garden' stage, before they got to 'Hey Jude'..and 'Let It Be'.
Lance.
You vent it, I'll read it.
Josh, from my experience, the only way to get to where you want to go is through venting. I know how original that is, but it's true. The church needs a good enema, so have at it!
Lance,
Did you call Phil Baker a cunt too?
(hehehe... just kidding!)
Bruce,
On the Wittenburg Door site, they have video of Benny Hinn's wife telling us that the church needs a "Holy Ghost enema". You're keeping strange company these days... lol :)
Josh,
just don't rant on me, okay? I'm really sensitive these days...
I think that you're detoxing (by venting, by leaving, etc.) to get all the stupid church stuff out of you, not to be a "changed man". Changed only in the sense that you are the same guy with less of the crap that built up during your stupid church years. You think about the church all the time because you actually love it, and it pains you so much at how stupid it is. I had that frustration to such a degree when I went through detox during the late nineties and early 00's - although I only realized that I had gone through detox from reading your blog. I used to sit in the pew and watch the service, and I would just be fuming the entire time. I had stupid church people doing stupid church things to me. When our arts group really began to grow, I was so active doing smart church people stuff, that it lead me out of my detox and into the next step of emerging. Thanks for helping me understand this process. I look forward to seeing you on the other side. A crapless Josh is a happy Josh.
Jeff
Josh, vent, the only place anything changes is from truth, not pretenses or mask. But its hard to vent because in doing so the risk of being mis-understood is great.
I'm gonna love you anyway venting or not cause I like you..but hey what do I know I'm just a stupid church person walking around in a fog. :P haha!
Don't disappear cause your loved
I think it's important to understand that it's not a sin to be stupid. It's just stupid to be stupid.
Oh phew! I was worried I had another sin to rack up on my guilt list.
Stupid and happy is me ...yay!
we are all stupid, brother.
Lance,
I think it important to rember that we are not the Holy Ghost S.W.A.T. team sent in to kick ass and take names. I am as frustrated as anyone with the church. I can't bring myself to go anymore because of most of the reasons talked about in this blog. People like Phil Baker make me sick to my stomach as well but just because they are wrong, or at least we perceive them as being wrong and complete idiots, does not give us the right to condemn them. I agree that they should be confronted but it should be done in love. If not we run the risk of finding ourselves on the other end of the spectrum. Instead of being "super holy" we become Godless spritual mercinaries. Anyways...that's just my piece.
you all, the kierkegaard's of today, have given me the hope and courage to return to coporate christianity. continue in your time of rest. i used to be so afraid of people i knew at the mega-church i grew up in, two years later, fear is nothing now. josh, walk, keep walking. many things are before, many mysterious will be solved deep down inside.
keep the faith, praise the lord.
About a year ago I decided to give a church conference a chance again, because it was being hosted by a man who I really trust.
While the content of the conference was good, the 'we know the answers' and slick presentation, and maintaining control/power issues were still there.
It really pissed me off.
I asked the friend I trusted to pray for me. I sensed I really needed to let go of the anger and judgment I had towards these leaders, and to chill.
But I couldn't.
So, I decided to go for a drive in my nice isolated tin can. I ended up praying, yelling, screaming, swearing, and crying more than I had in my whole life (at least the swearing) --at God, at the hypocricy of the church, at all the "stupid church people" and more.
It felt good. It felt damn good. It was like God was saying "Well, its about time --you've had all that going on inside for quite a while, obvious to me, why didn't you let it out earlier.
So, while the anger hasn't gone away --some kind of dam wall has broken, and I find I now have more hope and can use my 'righteous anger' in a way that is not weighed down by cynicism and bitterness, etc. (Usually).
Make sense?
Anyway, if any of you hasn't had a chance to just spew some chunks, I'd strongly encourage it --in the right time and safe place for you (with a close friend? a spouse? by yourself -whatever).
With hope,
-Leif (bleedingpurple podcast)
Check this out: "How to Meet in Homes!" by Gene Edwards. Great read!
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