The Christianity That Broke My Heart

By Michael Stansfield

The Story of a Christian, thrown out of Christianity, for hearing the voice of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387057160

Book preview

The Christianity That Broke My Heart

The Christianity that Broke my Heart

By,

Michael Stansfield

© The Christianity that Broken my Heart, June 23, 2017, Michael Stansfield 

ISBN: 978-1-387-05707-8

Table of Contents

My History

A Witness to the Power of God

Life in Security

A Challenge to My Understanding of Scripture

The Night God Spoke to Me

My Introduction to the Pastor

My Second, Third, Fourth, etc. Church

Going to Seminary

My Journey to Saudi Arabia

Christian Values

My Trip to Palestine

Being Born-Again

I am an evangelical. This is not a story of how I lost faith in God. This is a story of how modern-day institutional Christianity broke my heart.  

My History

I struggled to get marginal grades through school.  My imagination would wander in class, and I would draw pictures on my notes.  People could tell that I was different.  A scrawny little kid I wasn’t any good at sports and had difficulty making friends. Growing up in the Assemblies of God evangelical denomination was the one place I felt loved and accepted as I was.  I attended Christian Schools for most of my adolescent life.  Incidentally, my uncle was also the principal of a Christian School.  Prior to my birth, my mother was a missionary for Wycliffe Bible Translators, and my father received a Divinity degree from Bethany Bible College.  At a young age, my family would play records and tapes of the Bible.  I remember going to my Grandparent’s home in Grants Pass, Oregon.  If the TV was ever on TBN or CBN was playing.  Anytime I got in trouble, which all kids do, the Bible was opened so that I could understand how what I did was in violation of the laws of God.   Needless to say, I was in church every Sunday.  My father would tell me, you must listen to what the pastor says because he is your elder, but always see if what he has to say is in line with the Word of God, because all things must yield to the Word of God.  When I was a child, I would imagine myself as a prophet from the Bible.  I used to love to debate at church and with my knowledge many people would come to hear what I had to say or how I would interpret scripture.  As an adult I went to church every Sunday, tithed my 10% and was an integrated member of my church family.  I even taught Sunday School.  

A Witness to the Power of God

When my father rang the doorbell to pick-up my mother for their first date, my Aunt Helen exclaimed, Nancy your husband is at the door.  

My Grandmother replied, Oh Helen, this is just their first date, and it is a blind date at that, to which my Aunt Helen replied, Not only are they going to get married, their first child is going to be a boy and their second is going to be a girl.  That boy is me, and that girl is my sister Marilyn.  Both my parents had supernatural gifts that I also witnessed growing up.  Imagine the days of rotary phones and five seconds before the phone rings and your mother telling you who is calling and what they are looking for before the phone is answered and the person on the other end is a person she had never met or spoke with before.   I graduated from California State University Long Beach in 1999. After looking for a job for more than a year and coming up empty, I reached a point of desperation. The heart grows faint, and all other endeavors pass away as one thinks only about how to find a source of income.  Sitting on my parents’ porch, watching the sun fade away, I pondered, Is this my life? Is this my future, a deadbeat living with my parents?  At that moment a friend of my mother, Mattie Shaw, whom I did not know, contacted my mother,