Recently, my husband and I were talking about the things we’ve been through with churches and with other church members in our past. We have both good and bad experiences, and I suspect that that is true of most people. One of the things we’ve heard over the years is how many people say they reason they don’t attend church anymore is that they’ve been hurt or offended by a church or by people claiming to be Christians. By the way, I don’t mean physically abused here, although that certainly is part of some people’s history.
I wondered how many people have bad church experiences and whether or not they still are members of a church. So, I’ve put together this little poll. The answers are anonymous, so feel free to be honest.
A Daughter of the Reformation 
The results so far are encouraging. I think the heart of the issue is: what keeps us going to church? If it is the people in it, then we will be hurt and eventually fall away. However, if the reason is Christ Himself, we will see the greater purposes in the pain we experienced among His people, remember the grace we have been afforded, and press in worshipping Him.
BTW, I’m really enjoying Westminster. Wade asked me to go through the new members class, which I will start this Sunday. I certainly hope I can find a job in the area so I can keep attending.
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Timothy knows my story but, I have been beaten and isolated repeatedly in the Church. I attend a church faithfully, but I will not join. Mostly the reason I won’t join the church that I attend is because one of our three elders wants it to be the Church of Nice, and he will not allow anyone to disagree with that gospel.
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Sadly we live in a sinful world with sinners as friends. Its never too hard to offend even our closest companions. Daily we offend our God and Saviour and daily he forgives us. Churches are a breeding ground for sinful behaviour because Satan wants us so much to create instability and if he can prevent people from going to church then he will use any means possible to do that.This is where any church must have good leadership, they must be able to deal with these things in a biblical way. My own church has a Church Covenant, we are currently going through it in our morning worship services and it lays out the responsibilities of everyone who has covenanted together to serve the Lord together. I would ask that people who read this could look it up on Sermon Audio and have a listen. I hope its ok to leave the link. http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?seriesOnly=true&currSection=sermonstopic&sourceid=salisbury&keyword=Church+Covenant&keyworddesc=Church+Covenant
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