We were very involved with our church. It was the body that welcomed us as we reasoned through the process of becoming Christians, and we were very attached, integrated, and assimilated.
But after several years, and watching the politics, back-biting, gossip, and religiosity (in the negative sense), we had enough. The first shoe to drop was the shunning of a couple because there was a dispute between the wife and the pastor's wife. The shameless way that the church leadership just assumed the righteousness of the pastor's wife was extremely transparent.
The second shoe to drop was when they began each service by breaking the congregation into small prayer groups within the sanctuary, to huddle together to pray for prosperity, so that people could give more to the church. The idea was that within these small groups, people would feel accountable for their "tithe", since it was specifically being prayed about by the group.
One Sunday was bad enough, but they decided to make it a weekly feature. That, coupled with the outright betrayal of the aforementioned couple, and that was enough for us. The church body to whom we entrusted the nurturing of our newfound faith became something very negative.
And all this, in an environment where we were told repeatedly that the congregation was a "family". When the offenses became so great, it was easy to juxtapose our notion of family with the caricature of it being sold to that congregation. You don't treat family like they treated people who were no longer members of the church.
We've re-entered a new church. But we chose a mega-church, where we can be invisible to the degree we choose - which for now, is "entirely". Never again will we fully trust a church, pastor, or congregation to the degree we did before. That church served its function - it helped bring us to know Christ. But it left a bitter taste and distrust in its wake. The further in time we get from those days, the more we think that there were many aspects of that church that were very cult-like. We're unsure if they became that way over time, or if it was that way all along.
