Reply #48: The FIRST church I left was due to the pastor having an affair [View All]

[JuniperLea]

with one of the married parishoners... and then his wife slit her wrists upon learning of his dalliances. This was a good 20 years before the whole Jim and Tammy Faye fiasco.

The second church I left, at the tender age of 17, was where I started a music ministry of my own... I was rockin! I regularly filled the congregation with new people who had come to hear me sing. Long story short, two very horrific things happened within a week of each other. First, one of the church elders told me I had to "tone it down"... Put Your Hand in the Hand and Oh Happy Day were too much, he said, too "worldly". I said the Lord worked in mysterious ways, and I felt he was the one to put those tunes on the "worldly" rock radio stations. He didn't agree, to put it mildly. "That beat comes straight from the depths of HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!" The second strike was when I was cautioned about the black kids from my school who came to hear me sing... the church elder felt they belonged in "their own church." I said, this is the point, they don't have a church and would like for us to be their church. That didn't fly. So I did.