I am not sure what to do in this situation. My husband and I are praying for guidance in this. Here is a little background on our situation. We met and married 10 years ago. During my childhood/teen years, I did not attend church regulary (my parents never lived together, my mom did not attend church at all, my father had me most weekends, I would attend with him when he did- very sporadic). My husband however says he did attend different church as a child/teen, and feels that the churches his family attended caused him to have a deep mistrust of church in general. When we were getting ready to get married, we met a man who was a pastor of a small church, and became friends with him. He married us, but we did not actually attend his, or any other church during most of our marriage. We had lost touch with him for many years. My husband and I have had very serious problems over the years, and have been close to divorce a few times. Last November we had actually decided to divorce and had decided that after the holidays he was going to move out. We were sleeping in seperate bedrooms for about 3 weeks and not speaking at all. Each of us thought our realtionship was unsalvageable. One night I prayed that God would tell me what to do because I still loved him, but I did not want to be with him anymore with it like it was. The next day after he got home from work, I spoke to my husband. He said that our pastor friend had walked into his workplace (he had only been working there a few months- this was totally God led. My husband said he had spoken to him about our situation and that our pastor said we should come and talk to him the next day. We did, and we gave our lives to the Lord, saving ourselves, our marriage, and our family. This has brought such a change in our relationship, in our selves, and in our children. Our pastor was pasrt of a large church but had left and started a new group a while before we came to him. It was ver small, about 4 families besides us. We would meet for bible study on Friday evening, but he has taught us how to do bible study at home, daily reading of our bible and prayer and worship time each day on our own and as a family at home. We would also have our seperate weekly meetings. He would meet once a week with my husband and they would apeak about their topics, and I would meet with his wife once a week, and we would speak about ours. He has shown us how to have a deep personal relationsip with God, and to live by the Word of God. Our entire lives have changed. The problem is that it is now almost a year later and things have changed in the group. Now there are about maybe 8 or so families that attend off and on, we still attend every Friday. When we started meeting with them, after bible study, we would go to a coffee shop all together and sit and talk as a group. His wife made a point to tell me that the focus was on fellowship, and should not be about going out to eat or anything. Some members would try to push to go to eat right afterwards, but they wanted us to all be able to talk afterwards. We really enjoyed that. My dd9 has severe food allergy so we can not take him to eat out many places, so if we would go, he would not be able to eat. Another couple joined the group and became close to the pastor and his wife, they wanted to start eating out right after. So they had the group go there instead. We went a few times, but when we talked to her about not going as often or going back to the coffee shop, she said our son should be able to go and sit anyways. That is not really fair to him, and thats not what we do to him. It makes us uncomfortable. The last time we went they were rude to the waitress and made fun of her when she walked away. They also started letting the other couple give the messages on some days, but they just don't sound right. Another thing that is really bothering us is that I have been asking the pastor to babtise me, and he has not done so yet. I have asked him about 4 times. Each time he says, that he is sorry, but he forgot, and that he has to find a place to babptise me, but I don't know what to do about this matter. My husband does not know what to do. We are thinking of speaking to the pastor about this, but what do we say? My husband says if it were up to what he is feeling- we would stop going all together, but we are waiting to hear what God wants us to do.
I am so sorry you're going through this. It's rough when your church family changes. I will be praying.
I can understand not wanting to go out to eat if the others are rude. If your son's allergies are an issue, can you bring food from home for him to eat? We do this often with our son (due to his food allergies) and have never had a restaurant turn us away. Of course, maybe it's a different story if he is anaphylactic and you are worried about contamination on the tables and such. Food allergies can be so hard to deal with sometimes. I think it is good that you are waiting on an answer from God. His timing doesn't always line up with ours, huh? Praying this gets easier for you and that God's direction will be clear to you.
If there is one thing I learned while my DH and I were in Bible College, it was, "Don't move until the Lord moves you." He will show you what you need to do and when you need to do it. Waiting can be hard, I know. Will pray for you and pray that for wisdom for your DH.
Good advice, Mom24boys! But I would also discuss with the pastor your concerns. I might also add that YOUR SALVATION IS NOT BASED ON THIS PASTOR OR ANY OTHER PERSON!!! All people are human and therefor not perfect. Your salvation is based on the work of a perfect savior! People will ALWAYS disapoint you in one way or another, but Christ will not. Please do not let a little difficulty turn you off of church altogether!
