Abandoned by the Church

By Stevie Rutledge

Abandoned By The Church reveals that the author, who as a child was raised behind the scenes of the church with its obvious flaws and issues, found it extremely difficult to fully embrace her relationship with God. Through its pages, Rutledge shares her thoughts and challenges questioning the nature of conservative and traditional Christianity and the understanding of Gods love and Gods word emphasized yet often contradicted by the actions of the so-called judgmental Church Foke around her.

We as Christians must learn to accept all who enter the church doors without judgment of gender, skin color, attire, and body hygiene and personality conflicts. We must learn to love others as God loves us despite our religious conflicts or beliefs. Otherwise the church doors will become a revolving vicious cycle of unresolved issues and a mockery to the rest of the world, Rutledge expressed in the book.

As Rutledge shares her life experiences and often heart breaking journeys traveled due to her issues with the church, readers will be captivated by her strength and determination to understand Christianity and the true function of the church without the stigma of fear and judgment but the realization of freedom. This book is a clear indictment toward the church, the ineffective religious processes currently set in place and the questionable leadership assigned. Abandoned By The Church will undoubtedly force you to view the church differently, but more importantly, it will inspire you to reevaluate your relationship with God, His believers and the non believers as well. Rutledge wholeheartedly believes that all people were created with a divine plan in mind. Ultimately, this book calls for a dramatic reform of the church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 19, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450015752

Book preview

Abandoned

By The Church

Stevie Rutledge

Copyright © 2010 by Stevie Rutledge.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Chapter One: Can I Get An Amen?

Chapter Two: So Many Questions

Chapter Three: How Much Did That Cost?

Chapter Four: The Church; Just another Building

Chapter Five: Can You Help Carry My Bags?

Chapter Six: Man Mission Impossible

Chapter Seven: I Cried

Chapter Eight: It Had To Happen

Chapter Nine: Church Foke; Where is the Love?

Chapter Ten: Life After The Altar

Chapter Eleven: Who Cares What Simon Says?

Chapter Twelve: The Missing Peace

Chapter Thirteen: Too Holy To Be Human

Chapter Fourteen: Blah, Blah, Blah

Chapter Fifteen: The Guest Preacher

Chapter Sixteen: Dirty Hands Pushing The Envelope

Chapter Seventeen: The Promiscuous Pastor

Chapter Eighteen: Are You Sure You Told Me to Move?

Chapter Nineteen: The Spiritual Cooties

Chapter Twenty: You’re Safe Now

Chapter Twenty One: And I Danced

Chapter Twenty Two: All Hearts & Minds Clear?

The Thank You Note

Special Thanks

Life Changing Inspirational Exercises

God, Why?

My Bad Place

I’m Sorry

The Beauty

The Center

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DEDICATIONS

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To My Husband,

You knowingly accepted me with all my flaws loving me enough to keep me alive and I thank you. Your life was an inspiration and your conviction to love unconditionally was one of many large steps needed to get me through my healing process. I love you for being the person that you said you were.

To My Son Marcus,

Though being a teenage mom was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do, it was more than worth it. My will to not only live for you but to overcome all of our struggles and obstacles was the firm foundation for my life. Thank you for giving me a reason to want to live and to love. Thank you for loving me unconditionally and allowing me the opportunity to love you back the same way. You showered me with TRUE love. Without you I would have surely given up. You are the reason why I breathe. I love you Chuck!

To My Late Grandmother,

Mother, I wish you were here to see that I kept my promise to you. You encouraged me to move forward in spite of. It took me some time but I am finally moving forward and I pray that one day we can read this book together in Heaven.

To My Big Sister Yvette (aka Big Harlin),

We have been through it all. The good, the bad and the horrible but we survived. You are a true survivor and I totally look up to you and all you stand for. I thank you for taking the whooping when mommy found my journal and thought it was yours. You never said a word and took the punishment in my stead. I never forgot that because it was in that instance I knew that I had a gift to write and because of your sacrifice my passion to write was not suffocated or diminished.

To My Mom,

Though our relationship is often rocky I know you love me. We’ve laughed and cried together. Only time can heal all the wounds we’ve endured. I love you.

Chapter One

Can I Get An Amen?

As I sat closely next to my brother and best friend a short, stout yet masculine female pastor boldly stood in her pulpit and asked several hundreds of her congregants the question of the day, What have you done with the life you’ve been given? I sat there at first and waited for the next cliché to roll off of her tongue, but nothing. There was silence. She just stood there and gazed over the crowd as if she knew she had just thrown a pop quiz on her pupils. She posed the question long enough to actually make me ponder over it and even try to come up with an answer. I thought, here I am simply sitting as a stranger in this foreign place with my openly gay brother looking for nothing more than a little entertainment and now she had the audacity to make me think. My first reaction was to play the victim, but in this church’s environment I had to stand in line. As I sat hostage to the many horrific testimonies willingly shared by the other congregants there I was thoroughly convinced these people were hurting yet still free enough to be open and unashamed.

Testimony after testimony, witness after witness young and old boldly stood in front of hundreds of others and confessed their weaknesses and their faults. They discussed neglect, various battles regarding some of their life choices and mental and physical abuse from their families and loved ones. Even very personal health reports were shared, both good and bad. I was in awe. In all my life in the church, I never witnessed anything like this, ever. There was no way I would have ever stood in front of my church and laid it all on the line like they did. People in my church were way too judgmental for that. Honestly, at first I wanted to sit in my seat and judge but I couldn’t. There was no room in this place for judgment. There was only room to embrace and to love coupled with a strong desire to want to surround myself with people who were so honest, bold and beautiful. They weren’t beautiful because of a fancy hat or a custom made suit they had on. They were beautiful because you could see them for who they truly were. They chose not to wear their masks to Sunday service but instead chose to come as they were, broken and beat down from life’s circumstances yet not defeated. They were honest enough to admit that every challenge they faced began with a choice they made. They understood that some of their choices took them down a road that opened some doors and shut others for them. They readily embraced the fact that some of their choices led to different consequences. The beauty of it all was that they were able to celebrate in the midst of life’s disappointments because in this place they didn’t have to hide their guilt. An atmosphere to share and release and renew was created for them to move on with God’s help and the help of others who truly loved them.

This was not your normal church setting. The male usher that lovingly welcomed my brother and I, ushered us to our seat wearing a staunchly pressed white usher dress uniform. Some of the women wore obvious men’s suits as they sang on the choir with their ties swinging as they worshipped from the elevated choir loft perched behind the colorful altar. I wanted to be uncomfortable. Even having a gay brother, visiting a gay church was still awkward for me, but surprisingly it was anything but uncomfortable. In fact, I worshipped, sang, cried, embraced the hurt, danced with the ones who celebrated and laughed like a child with no worries. For that moment, in that odd place, I was free and unashamed. I didn’t have to pretend or wear a mask. In fact, I would have stood out like a sore thumb had I tried to. This place was different and the preacher’s approach to ministry was totally different to what I was accustomed to. Her question regarding what I had done with my life coupled with this strange yet refreshing environment she created for what many Christians considered outcasts or abominations really unleashed some old feelings within and I was now stumped and confused.

My brother had been begging me to come to church with him for months. This particular November Sunday was Family and Friends day so I finally agreed to visit his newfound church. He often raved about how he was on the praise dance team and how much he loved his church and his pastor and her wife. All I knew was that it was an openly gay church with an openly gay pastor with a wife no less and it was wrong, all wrong and I wanted no parts of it. Visiting this church with my brother was surely a pure sign of love for him alone and nothing in me was going to allow me to either accept this church as normal or take this awkward experience seriously. That was until I got there. Sure I was thrown off by the open guy/guy, girl/girl couples being openly affectionate in what I always considered sacred grounds. The idea of the church somehow trying to convince me that God was feminine wouldn’t fly with me in the least but the concept, the message and the atmosphere was unforgettable. GOD IS LOVE. They lived it. From the time I walked through the doors I felt the love and the sincerity from everyone there and I was more confused than ever. This was supposed to be my Sunday off from regular church, my opportunity to sit back and be entertained and supportive to my big brother. However, this Sunday was anything but entertaining and my support ironically came from complete strangers in a totally different lifestyle. These unconventional strangers emotionally met me where I was. They were willing and able to embrace me and my issues and allowed me an open platform to discuss them without the wrath of judgment from my fellow Christians I normally worshipped or engaged with.

As I sat through the sermon, I couldn’t help but reflect on all the different incidents that happened to me and all the abuse that I endured while growing up in the church. I was as broken as those around me, my issues were just different. The difference was in this openly gay church I was able to release my pain in an open honest environment while in my traditional church I had to hide it in order to save myself anymore ridicule or abuse by the other so called Christians around me. As I sat there I thought Wow they are on to something! Though their obvious differences were out of the norm for me, their entire foundation is what God’s creation and intentions for the church was all about. To love and be loved, to be honest and unashamed and exposed to God. How did they get it right? The very ones who were cast down first from the pulpit had created their own safe haven in an attempt to not feel left out by others in the church who instead chose to frown upon them all the while waving the banner of Christianity.

My first response to what I was witnessing was, had the church God created become the hospital and the safe haven for all, not just those who know how to play church, but for those with obvious struggles and issues to feel safe, there would be no need for gay churches. There would be no need for a separate place for people who are different for whatever reason to hide and heal if the churches were doing the right thing. Instead, most churches have created an atmosphere for show and for a false sense of assurance and security masqueraded by great music, running, shouting and a fast food sermon. Churches have not only shunned the outcasts but ignored the importance of the process of why we do things. The church has sadly adopted the fast paced, care free attitude of the world, often losing sight of the bigger picture God created. Even going as far as downplaying communion in an attempt to speed up the process of church service to appease the same people who unexplainably shouted senselessly for hours in their pews and choir lofts. The Lord’s Supper, a once highly, holy, sacred event is now nothing more than Jesus-To-Go. The very idea of taking communion as you pass the offering plate is tainted and leaves newcomers and non believers questioning the priorities of the church. Where are the safe havens? Where are the people willing to embrace those who are different and struggling? Where are the people who will not judge you because of the clothes on your back or the number of tattoos that peek through your only decent outfit? Where are the Christians that God created and where is the church when our streets are being taken over? How is it possible to have the largest church in town plagued by drug dealers slinging drugs directly across the street from where thousands of people worship and allow them to steal and manipulate our youth? Where is the real power in our churches? Where is the church’s authenticity?

Too often we are lost in the pews fighting over things that don’t really matter in the big scheme of things. While the dying and the lost are directly in front of our faces, in our homes, on our jobs looking at the so-called Christian as hypocrites and phonies. Wondering where can they run when even the church’s foundation seems unstable.

Sitting in that pew surrounded by gays and lesbians, a huge sense of guilt had fallen over me. With all that I had endured in the church I now had become that same judgmental person I once despised by closing my eyes and my heart to the lost and broken. The question resounded in my head repeatedly What have I done with the life I’ve been given? My answer was sad but true, NOTHING. I’d done nothing and there was too much work to be done for me to sit around and do nothing. That memorable Sunday morning of November forced me to push my life and my way of thinking into full throttle in order to try to help create a safe haven for all and not just for some.

Chapter Two

So Many Questions

As a child being raised behind the scenes of the church with its obvious flaws and issues it was extremely difficult to ever fully embrace my relationship with God. Being the youngest daughter of a Pentecostal Pastor, witnessing firsthand the lies, the deceit, and the blatant disrespect for God’s often taught word made me wholeheartedly question the authenticity of Jesus Christ. I can clearly recall one wintry Sunday morning while sitting in church next to my mom adorned in a beautiful brown suit with fur trimming and a fancy tilted fur hat to match. I nestled under her right arm helplessly as she sat there crying in obvious distress noticeable to even a child. It baffled me why no one ever offered her a hug, a small rub on the back or even dared to pass her a tissue from the plethora of boxes strategically placed near the altar. Everyone just sat attentively like she wasn’t there as they listened to my father teach a lesson about loving your neighbor and even daring to offer advice to the lost. How ironic I thought. How can we manage to love our neighbor when we can’t even love the person in our own home? My mom was clearly hurting and yet he chose to ignore her pain and trained others around him to ignore it as well. Were we not lost? Was the actual person teaching the lesson’s very own family not lost? In that moment for the first time in my life I really wondered if God was real or just a fictional character in my head like Wonder Woman or Spiderman. I wondered why my mom didn’t just stop pretending and going through the motions for people who obviously didn’t even care. I wondered how my dad could get up there every Sunday and preach about things he didn’t even believe himself. I wondered what this whole church thing was really all about. I couldn’t stop wondering. While sharing my mother’s pain, I became even more baffled as to why people shouted Sunday after Sunday that this God they worshipped had the power to change and fix every situation, but yet my situation never changed. My dad would preach until he lost his breath, that God was real, but I never saw Him. Not even when I closed my eyes real tight and said those magical made up words I heard in church, I never saw God. I never saw Him at home or at church. I never saw Him move or use His powers. All I ever saw was grief, heartache and disappointment. After waiting many years for my hero to appear and rescue us, my situation still never changed—besides getting worse. My life was like a movie—a horror movie no less. At least in the movies though someone was creative enough to conjure up an ending, whether happy or sad it eventually ended. My ending always seemed too distant to even comprehend and my hero in my head was too absent to even convince myself to believe in. I felt terribly lost in a horrible script that seemed as if it were clearly written just to destroy me and my family. I was hopelessly desperate for change and from the flood of tears streaming down my mother’s face that cold Sunday morning, she too was desperate. Life’s circumstances had me in such an unfairly awkward place separating what I heard from what I witnessed. I was way too young to fully understand the direction the forcible differentia had me headed in. That memorable wintry Sunday morning was not going to be the last time me or my mother shared a silent moment of doubt while questioning the authenticity of God and the way He operated.

I can clearly remember all I ever heard was God is first and God is love. But in my home, God was last and love was last. It just didn’t seem to add up. If God was love, then where was God? Where was this God I heard so much about? Where was the love I heard so much about but never found inside the church or inside my home? When was God going to finally flex His muscles and defeat all the enemies and negative forces that had me and my family surrounded? I had so many questions and very few answers at this point in my life. Like so many others, I just followed the routine and hoped that one day this God we always made such a fuss over would make sense of it all—if there really was a God. I wanted to believe there was a God. I wanted to believe that my life would one day be normal. I wanted to believe my parents would work it out. I wanted to believe that not all people in the church were mean judgmental phonies. I wanted to believe something good. I was willing to believe anything—besides what I had seen. Besides the horror I had experienced. I wanted to believe. I really did. But what did I have to base my beliefs on? The fact