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I was recruited into the church in early April, and before I
begin let me stress that I am African American or Black or whatever America calls us
now. Anyway I was invited to the church by a fancy flyer that said "Have you thought
about your salvation?" I have been to many different churches but this one was the
cream of the crop. I have nothing against the church but some of the things that
they do and say really made me believe that there is no way to get to heaven. Let me
start from the beginning.
When I first got to the church, they picked me up, walked me inside, sat me in the
front row, kind of gave me the star treatment. I wasn't use to that but I guess it
was part of their showing love and friendly to new members of the church. They asked
me if I wanted to join the church, I said sure, then I got baptized they gave me
lunch and immediately began training me to be a disciple/missionary. This was all in
the same day. The next service they said I would be testifying in front of the
congregation and I said, I don't want to but I noticed when you say no then 100
members come and tell you why you should, I guess as a new recruit there are certain
expectations of the person that invited you to church. Anyway, after a few services
months of being preached to by Pastor Johnathan Ferriol, I remember I wanted to get
to know a few of the female members of the church as friends of course and I noticed
that they are not allowed to do anything without the Pastors permission.
It is like the members are in Bible Military Camp unable to enjoy all the wonderful
things God provides. Some of the children give up everything leave their parents and
families to live this lifestyle, and I have nothing against that but it is hard to
see them suffer. Some of them I talk to have no food to eat, had to borrow money
from me so they could tithe, it was just sad and pitiful. God wants us to live in
abundance not to suffer for what Jesus Christ has already suffered for. It is kind
of like to punish ourselves for no reason. After attending for almost half a year, I
started to realize this. People were getting blessed with jobs that they needed for
so long then quitting to join the church. Maybe I am wrong but I don't believe God
would bless you to have you say I don't want it anymore, I want to suffer like
Christ did.
After attending for awhile the star treatment vanished and I noticed new members
going through the same routine. People were afraid to talk to me, I noticed sitting
alone in services, no one would talk to me, I thought it was because of the color of
my skin but no, it was because I started to understand what they were doing and how
wrong it was. I tried to talk to the pastor about this and he would persuade me to
think differently or be too busy for me to understand. I noticed since I was at the
church the pastor never said anything to me. Never gave me a phone call or anything.
I spent a lot of time helping out with the church and I realized what I was doing
and decided to stop going and find another church.
In the church I use to go to they would always preach about this not being a
Filipino church but 75% of the message was in Tagalo. I have nothing against the
Filipino People in fact I have a lot of Filipino friends, when I tried to get them
to come to the church they would tell me, I'm not joining there church, you should
run. I guess I understood what they meant now then before. This is a business not a
church, and it is definitely not an American church, maybe because I was the only
black member, white member, hispanic member, not even chinese people will attend the
church they all ran away and never looked back.
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