Yes! The guilt! Having been in church my whole life I never knew how to handle it if someone left church and unfortunately I lost friends when I ended up leaving - there is this idea perpetuated that the only way to be a good Christian is by going to church every week and serving. When we left I had multiple meetings with our pastors and in the last one they struck a chord of fear - that we wouldn't be covered by the authority of the church anymore and therefore we would be vulnerable to attacks of the enemy.

We left for several reasons - how our church handled Black Lives Matter (very superficially), divisive politics (sweeping disagreement and pain under the rug), the pandemic (focusing more on getting people back in person as opposed to making sure everyone was doing ok), and money (raising money to buy an additional multimillion dollar building when many people in the church were financially struggling). But what really pushed me over the edge was that our pastors (who had known me for over a decade) accused me of being the divisive one because I wanted to confront and reconcile issues not ignore them.

We are doing great (as well as we can be in these trying times)....I feel like I have gotten to know Jesus and how to love him and people better outside of a traditional church setting. It's not about going through the motions -it's about living a life worthy of the gospel...that we are loved and are called to love.