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leaving · 04-01-2011, 01:27 PM

So a week after I had my wreck (which the whole church knew about because one of the people that goes to church there saw it minutes after it happened), I asked for prayer for a new van. We're looking for a 12 passenger and were upgrading from a minivan, as our family is getting larger and we aren't sure how large it's going to get and we want a family car, not one we have to sell in a year or two to make room for another child.

Anyhow, I said something to the effect of that we now needed a new van and for God to provide a way to pay for it (I was thinking giving one of us a job which still hasn't happened. Well, my husband has a job, but I'm talking a second job).

Well, the pastor just laughed in the pulpit and openly mocked me saying how we could sure pray for that and while we were at it, we could pray for the new mercedes he "needs" and would like God to pay for.

Thing is, we live 30 minutes from this church, we do have a minivan left but it breaks down all the time and isn't reliable and isn't worth putting any more money into, and yet I was mocked about asking prayer for a van.

Any of you ever had any of your prayer requests publicly mocked by leadership? Or even had your good ideas or whatever mocked?

leaving · 04-01-2011, 01:29 PM

Anyway, the moral of that story for me is that I will NEVER, EVER ask for prayer for anything again. Especially in church when they just finished asking for requests.

**pastor's wife** · (This post was last modified: 04-01-2011 02:07 PM by pastor's wife.)

I'm sorry that you were treated with such disrespect. Turning your needs into a joke is insensitive. Taking an opportunity where someone openly shares a prayer request into a chance to be a comedian is rude.

I hope you will someday find a body of Christians that you can trust with your needs. We are to bear one another's burdens, and somewhere I hope you'll find a church where people are compassionate and gentle and sincere and who seek to live out the "one anothers" as LMcC has mentioned. But I don't blame you for not wanting to ever share anything when that was the kind of response you got.

Darcy · 04-01-2011, 02:07 PM

Wow. You need to get out of that church pronto. Sad

I've never heard anything like that and I've been in some really fundie churches.

TomK · 04-01-2011, 02:16 PM

(04-01-2011 01:27 PM)leaving Wrote: So a week after I had my wreck (which the whole church knew about because one of the people that goes to church there saw it minutes after it happened), I asked for prayer for a new van. We're looking for a 12 passenger and were upgrading from a minivan, as our family is getting larger and we aren't sure how large it's going to get and we want a family car, not one we have to sell in a year or two to make room for another child.

Anyhow, I said something to the effect of that we now needed a new van and for God to provide a way to pay for it (I was thinking giving one of us a job which still hasn't happened. Well, my husband has a job, but I'm talking a second job).

Well, the pastor just laughed in the pulpit and openly mocked me saying how we could sure pray for that and while we were at it, we could pray for the new mercedes he "needs" and would like God to pay for.

Thing is, we live 30 minutes from this church, we do have a minivan left but it breaks down all the time and isn't reliable and isn't worth putting any more money into, and yet I was mocked about asking prayer for a van.

Any of you ever had any of your prayer requests publicly mocked by leadership? Or even had your good ideas or whatever mocked?

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but your pastor sounds like a jerk. I feel bad for saying that, but I can't imagine how his remark must have made you feel.

I worked for a pastor for several years who laughed at most suggestions I made. I stopped suggesting.

leaving · 04-01-2011, 02:20 PM

Well some other stuff went down with that church and we've just stopped attending. But the thing is that my husband only wants to look at churches that are exactly alike. Lol. Hopefully one day we'll come to some kind of agreement.

exIFB · (This post was last modified: 04-01-2011 02:26 PM by exIFB.)

WHAT THE EFFFFF??? Sorry but I would have got up and smacked him in the mouth if he had done that.

I don't agree with my previous pastors, and one of them is a real jerk, but compared to that, he is my best friend. So glad you are out of there.

pblawman · 04-01-2011, 02:29 PM

I'm thankful that I am part of a body of believers where it is unlikely one of the pastors (yes, we have a plurality of elders) would ever say that, and if he did, he would be gently rebuked by the other elders (or by members of the congregation since this was presumably heard by two or three witnesses) and called on to apologize for having said such a stupid thing.

It's too bad that your husband doesn't see that the problem isn't with that particular church and pastor, it's with that type of church and pastor. Replacing it with another dysfunctional body of believers and biblically unqualified pastor won't solve the problem at all.

leaving · 04-01-2011, 02:36 PM

Yeah try about 120 witnesses. Tongue

I think he might be (slowly) coming around. It's been good to visit different types of churches just for both of us to realize they exist.

ExIFB, you make me laugh. You've gone from staunch Ruckmanite type to someone who hints at cuss words. Tongue

(Make me laugh in a "freeing" way not a mocking way).

pblawman · 04-01-2011, 03:43 PM

(04-01-2011 02:36 PM)leaving Wrote: I think he might be (slowly) coming around. It's been good to visit different types of churches just for both of us to realize they exist.

It's liberating when you escape the mindset that just because a church doesn't hold itself out to be an independent fundamental baptist church that there must be something wrong with it.