I keep avoiding this topic,which always means I should just talk about it

I notice this reluctance to talk about what actually happened and why we really left. I tend to give vague pat answers like "Oh, it wasn't the place for us anymore" or something to that effect. What really happened was this. Our pastor got on this kick about a building fund and wanting to expand our church. I honestly didn't pay this much attention. The daycare was supposed to pay for a building project,our current building is paidfor and very nice. I just didn't get it,I also didn't particularily care if they built or not. Then there was talk of some agency or ..some people wanting to look at folks finiances and show you were you could work out the money to pledge. This is where I said WHAT! No way. It never happened,but my best two friends had husbands in leadership.I never should have heard what was going on in the leadership meetings,but I did. I think he figured out that people wouldn't take it , that was too far. So it didn't proceed. Our church also runs this program called the Adopt A Block. In a nutshell they go on saturdays to disadvantaged neighborhoods, and the projects. They knock doors, give kids a candy bag, if the elderly or disabled need yard work or osmething done they do it. I say they, cause I never did the block. In the meantime we're donating sodas (must be name brand) toys for a raffle and gift cards. Once a quarter there would be a block party. Kinda like a carnival, rock walls, jumpy houses ect and food. Between the two was church. I will tell you this about Aposotlics, you cannot find better music. I mean , Elvis was a Pentecostal lol. The choir, sign language ministery (My girls really miss sign) would keep folks pretty much paying attention then the preacher would preach. Honestly, I never made it all the way to the end of a block service. From 11-5. Often in the heat. I dont' want a hamburger that bad, and I'm already saved lol. Good was coming from it,I saw people get baptized....but where are they now? Our youth was baptizing people in the fountains downtown. People were "getting saved" but where are those people? Not in our church. I had my doubts about the whole deal after about two years of it and no church growth. But ya know, if ONE child remembers the love they were shown and finds Jesus at some point in their life, It'd be worth all the microwaves,bikes ect. I didn't door knock, I can tell you I am NOT called to that. God has something for everybody,but sending me to the projects to hear all about how life knocks you down doesn't work for me. I was a teenage mother too , have no relationship with my father, I had some childhood abuse too. We were poor, uneducated and we lived right down there in that same neighborhood. Now we don't. Trust me , I am not the best canidate. The point was that you develop relationships with people in those communities. I saw them then go to the relationships with individuals in the church and have their light bills paid, diapers bought ect. Sun we'd have a block party Monday the pawn shop is full of bikes,microwaves ect. I believe in personal evangelism. Pastor would get out the net and talk about casting a big net ect. I just don't buy it. Jesus didnt' have any programs,he just lived and people wanted to be near that. Our life should be our testimony,not handing out a microwave. The whole time this is going on he is preaching about reaching to the poor. In a nutshell if you dont' do my adopt a block your going to hell. I'm the pastor and I've commanded you to do it. Aposotlics are large on pastorial authority and most of them will do something just because the preacher said. Honey and I still went to the block parties,bought a bicycle and called it good. Then from the pulpit pastor said "Don't come telling me God told you to do so and so,why are you telling me anyway? God trumps me so do whatever it is you want me to believe God told you. God don't talk to you and if you were being led in my church he'd give me a confirmation" UHMM WHAT!!! I called him and asked for an explaination. He gave me one and basically said it was somewhat out of context as someone in specific had told him God was leading them to do something that was unbiblical . Yeah, that ait' what he said and it ain't what he meant. Then came the great revival. A man called Brother Phillips came. He was presented as a "prophet" and while he felt REALLY OFF to me. Warning bells were going off in my head, and some of the other people in the congreation too. He didnt start off too strange, talking to folks about their ailments and family troubles and how the Holy Ghost was gonna minister. I went that night and sat in the balcony. Alot of people were in the balcony. Up there where he can't lay hands on ya. That night it was too much. A total dog and pony show. Pretty much it goes like this...." brother big fat man, I see a problem on your 1, 2, no 4th lumbar and God is going to touch that right now." Then he grabs ya by the head and goes to screaming in something that is supposed to sound like tongues but it mostly just scary. I never heard anybody talk in tongues and sound angry before. I was sitting there thinking what is wrong with you people! They at it up. He told someone to shoot the neighbors dog because it had a spirit. Someone else got the same story about a cat. Sell your car, theres a spirit attached to it. Uhmm or you could have the victory and run the devil off..since when do we run from the Devil? Thats the only service our family attended,but I did watch some on the 'net. This went on for six weeks. We didnt' go to church. A family with whom we are very close actually moved. He said as an Evangelist he couldn't preach out from under our pastor because he was letting this go on. It became clear to us that either our pastor was deceived, or he was deceiving people to get those big numbers in the church, and big money for the building fund ect. Either way it ain't cool. He visited two other churches in the area during that six week time. Both of those churches have now split. A year later he came back. We had new service times during the summer. Childrens church Sat. at 6. Sunday services were from 4 til about 7:30. The first half being sundayschool. We went for the first half, stayed for the choir and then left before he did his thing. This is when Nathan and I started to fight. Before we even got in the car good on the way home we were fussing. We fussed if I like something the preacher said, then I might as well go on and join Bro Phillips and cook him a casserole. If I didn't like something I was being negative. I said he was hindering my worship with his attitudes,we fought over NOTHING. For us this is so bizarre. 17 years and we rarely fuss. These were getting to be knock down drag outs. My husband was angry with the church and was having a very hard tiem seperating it from God. I looked like the church I guess all that hair, and no make up ect. So he lashed out at me. It was so bad, we took an rv trip in June and we were worried if we could stand to be in the rv together! Funny, the futher from home we got the better we got along. I started noticing some serious theological flaws in my girls, and big time judgemental attitudes. I was SHOCKED,they aren't learning this at home. They told me that one of their little friends who is saved as Billy Graham and comes from a wonderful christian family A told me they "only have a portion of the truth, they aren't walking in the fullness of it" How insane. I dont' believe you have to speak in tongues to go to heaven, never have. Have told my kids that isn't true..but they go to sundayschool. There is a serious elitism about standards. I went to Honey,..we can't raise our kids like this! Honey said to wait it out. Our business was consuming his every thought at that point, we were behind on some contracts and he was working 16 hour days. He didnt 'have the time or energy to change something. The guy left and church resumed as normal. The length of those services is insane. The volume of the music makes your head ring, we never made it to the end of the service. My youngest started this compulsive repenting. I would tell her to repent over and over lacked faith. Just tell God your sorry one time and move on. Your 7, how sinful can you be that it requires all this bawling! She carried these huge feelings of guilt for the slightest things. One of them being the ear piercings she got when she was 5,but took out because they didnt' heal properly. The pastor is bererated everyone constantly who may not believe in the Word of Faith the guy spoke. Interesting, he started out a prophet, the ended up just operating in the gift of faith..Yeah cause if he was a prophet then what he said WOULD HAVE TO HAPPEN. IT wasn't. The words of the Lord dont return in vain. ( I'll have to find the verse for that) Meantime, as long as Honey misses church we get along ok, but not great. Then I notice that my "friends" aren't talking to me. I am finding myself uninvited to things. Wow, this is wierd! I'm being shunned while I am still there. Not by everyone just my close circle, who happen to be leadership. I heard the pastor say, "you can't be in leadership and disagree with me, what flows through me has to flow through you and out into the body" Huh, thats a load of manure. then some things were said about not fellowshipping with people you know are in sin. To gaurd your hert against infleuances ect. I was being put out of the sewing circle cause Honey and I stayed out of church while Brother Fraud was here. I see. Cool thing about that is, that allowed me to step back and see the whole picture. Before I had two other ladies who also were anti to discuss this with..or to listen. They did far far more talking than me. They still attended though, clapped and smiled. They played the game..I did not. When Sister somebody calls and says lets go to the park! You pack your little lunch pile up the kids and we all go. We're talking about kids, maybe a little about church but we aren't thinking about the whole picture. It kept my mind on the small and immediate things. Take that away, I had time to chew on it. I didnt' have to worry about my girls losing friends if we left. They had lost them while we were there. There were no more consequences! Hallejuah, I see all this so clearly. The very last service my grandparents came. The pastor said " I never understood people who won't accept the word of faith spoken into their lives. I really dont' understand people who mock the man of God. Matter fact, if he prophecied that her cancer would be healed and you mocked it I hope God puts her cancer on you" My grandfather leaned across my grandmother and the children and his eyes met mind down the end of the pew and I could see we were gonna chat rather I liked it or not. I was done, stick a fork in me done. I have heard all about how disagreeing with this man and murmering against him would suck you in a hole, plan your funeral God will curse you. Now , my own pastor is cursing folks with cancer! In the parking lot my grandfather told me, people in authority over you can speak things into your life. This pastor has lost his mind! This isn't Biblical. I can't tell you or your husband what to do or how to do it,but I'm praying your'll find another place to go to church. Honey,thankfully was at work. I told him what was said. He said that was enough of that and we'd attended our last service there. I'm sure I forgot some things, or that some of this doesn't make sense. I am not proofreading , even spell checking. This seems like it'll be easier if I just let it be a stream of consciousness kinda deal and dont' think about it too hard.