I Loved God But Disliked Going To Church
Church was a very important part of my family. It was tradition to always go to church. I grew up going to a specific church. I did not understand the concept of denominations until I was much older. The denomination my family was a part of happened because of proximity. I started life as a Baptist because the church was close enough for my family to walk to in case something happened with the car. We did not walk very often though.
I believed that I loved God, but I disliked going to church. I somehow separated God from church because I found church could be very boring, tedious, and long. That was not the view that I wanted of God. There never seemed to be any variety in church unless there was a funeral, a revival, a program or a visiting group of people from another church. I fought hard not to go to sleep because if I did, I would be later punished at home. So I fought boredom by becoming intensely observant of everything around me. Most often, I daydreamed about being somewhere else.
I did enjoy the times of praise and worship. I always found the singing to be harmonious to my ears. Singing was always acapella without the use of any instruments. For some reason, the church people I grew up with considered instruments to be tools of the devil. They did not want to be associated with anything that was used in the secular world. [Yet, these same people – including my own family – frequently listened to secular music as soon as they were inside their vehicles on the way home.]
There were much older people in leadership roles within the church. They did not like changing the status quo. When anyone younger suggested the use of the piano, drums, or a tambourine, only the tambourine was allowed for with members of the junior choir. Even though a piano was donated to the church, it was never used at all while I was a member of that church. I found this strange, but no one seemed to outwardly question these strange ideals about the music at all. There was at least one church that I knew of that actually incorporated musical instruments into their songs, and I secretly thought it was cool but loud. The drums were my favorite.
Needless to say, I did like the hymns that we sang. I would grab a hymnal and attempt to read through it during the service, but could never get away with doing so while sitting with my dad. Sometimes, he did not always sit with my mother, siblings, and me because he had a position in leadership as a deacon. Oftentimes during the service, he would be sitting at the front of the church closest to the pulpit where he completed his ceremonial duties. He would sit facing us during those duties, so our eyes were always glued on him. Doing anything else meant my siblings and me were up to no good.
As a family, we participated in two to three services – Sunday school, Sunday worship, and weekly bible study. Occasionally, we would venture out to other church denominations for visits. My dad believed in being open to learning and understanding others, but he was indeed very religious. Oftentimes, he and members from other congregations would meet together just to argue about their views on scripture. I found these debates annoying to listen to because each individual believed he was right in his own views.
Overall, I grew quickly burned out from church services even as a young child. I always found them draining. I did not know it then, but I was hypersensitive and highly introverted in nature. I only learned much later in my youth that this was the primary reason that I would be so glad to exit the church when service was over. I did not ever like hanging around after service, but both my parents would find it necessary to have long conversations with other members after service which prolonged the amount of time we were at church.
I did not make friends readily while at church either. My dad did not consider church to be a place to make friends. According to him, we were there to give our attention to God. We were there to learn, worship, and pray. That was all fine and good for the most part because by nature I always found the church crowd to be less than stimulating unless a teacher or the preacher said something that I found intriguing. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance, family drama, and hidden innuendos of whispers and gossip. For the most part, I would spend long services thinking myself out of existence.
Unfortunately, I never found my place in the church as a child. I never quite knew where I belonged in the grand scheme of things. I felt oddly different and very much out of place. I spent time attempting to hide myself away in the hymnals wishing to replicate a musical note. I would also observe the details in the intricate designs of the stained glass windows and diamond-shaped pieces of the hanging chandeliers. I would also watch and listen to the melodious harmony of both young and old singers of the two different choirs.
During my primary years, I was not actively involved as a church member. I was more or less a spectator. I watched as things happened, but I was never directly involved. My dad often had to coerce me into joining in on nearly anything that required me to talk or interact with others. Everyone assumed I was shy, but I did not necessarily believe so even though I did suffer from social anxiety [often to the extreme]. I just did not have much to say – particularly to my peers. I would much rather have spent time listening to the stories of the elderly men and women of the church. This age group always fascinated me, and because I showed such extreme interest, they would even allow me to ask questions.
Yet, for the most part, I had the sense that the church environment needed to be treated with more respect than I believed that it received even though I had no idea what it all really meant. Yet, I had a keen awareness that maybe God was not as pleased with the church scene as the people believed He might have been because I was never certain that He actually showed up according to members. But maybe this was me being judgmental of an environment that I did not completely understand. Of course, I would have a lot to learn, and I would learn more than I wanted to know throughout the course of my life being a part of the church.
Stay tuned for more in this series of posts on Church Tales of Narcissistic Abuse.
My Voice Unchained 