The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Spouses and church

My husband and I are members of a non-denominational church.

I am discontent there. I've always been discontent there. I only joined because my husband asked me to, and in hind-sight I shouldn't have.

My husband agrees that the problems I have are legitimate concerns, but appears to have no interest in leaving.

I am getting more and more frustrated as our children get older.

Have some of you faced similar situations?

Any words of advice or encouragement?

Yes: First, pray, and stick with it.

Second, respectfully offer some solutions. Do a search in your area for good churches. These can include PCAs, OPCs, RPCs and other solidly Reformed denominations.

Third, find out if there is a Bible Study you can attend out of one of these Reformed denominations, and ask your husband to come with you. Lots of times, all it takes is knowing others in a church so that one doesn't feel quite such a stranger when one finally goes to a different church.

Fourth, try reading Jeremiah Burroughs' The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. When I was in a terrible church situation with no apparent way out, this book helped me to understand in a far deeper way that ther Lord was aware of my situation and that He had something to accomplish in me through it. It will help you understand the sovereignty of God even in this situation.

Fifth, pray for the church you are attending now, and about finding ways to minister faithfully there until God provides a way for you to leave.

Sixth, never murmur and complain against your pastors. It can be an heroic effort, but NEVER speak ill of them. God does reward the person who looks for godly solutions to challenging situations and refuses to give in to habits borne of bitterness. Make it your goal to speak the truth in love openly and in love and in accordance with Matthew 18.

Hope this helps.

Cal Gal,

I have been through one change of church due to a clash with the pastor and I think I have some idea of what you are going through. More recently I also had some problems in the church we are now (the one we moved to after problems with the previous pastor).

Although there were quite a lot of people that left the particular church where I had problems with the pastor at that time and one could and still can try to argue that it was justified to leave, even up to today I often think about what happened and that it was perhaps not the right thing to leave. That just didn't solved the problem. It would have been better to stay there and prayed and worked with the pastor to solve the problems. One thing that I still have to do is to reconcile with my previous pastor!

I already mentioned on this forum that lately our church planned to do a 40 days of purpose using Rick Warren's PDL. I expressed my concerns in writing to two elders and afterwards met with them and the pastor. I then again expressed my concerns to all three of them. The pastor agreed with me to a large extent. About two weeks ago the pastor invited me to again talk about the 40 days of purpose thing. He told me that he will never use RW material again in the future. Whether this was due to my "opposition" to the 40 days of purpose I don't know. But he did say that he again read some of the material I gave him. I also assured him that I don't want to go to another church.

The church is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ and we should not tear it apart.

I agree whole heartedly with E F Grant's reply.

Johan