Good for you for sticking to your principles! That takes guts. But you know what is going to happen now, don't you? Tounges will wag, tales will be told about WHY you left - and before you know it, your reason for leaving (according to them) will be nowhere near the true reason. In fact, YOU will be the one with "issues" - they'll just turn it all around. (Can 'ya tell it's happened to me before?). Oh well, knowing you, that's not going to bother you a bit.

Just keep the tithing money until you find your new place of worship, or donate it to a Christian charity for the time being.

Now, is the bridge still smoldering? If so, put it out by dousing it with water. You're on your way to finding a new bridge to cross over!

You're right Valerie, I don't care. Why? Because I know I'm right and that's good enough for me. The pastor said "well, we'll just pray that God places this on the hearts of the leadership". Bull crap, scripture already says what we're suppose to do. Did they pray over what my friend did and how they should handle it? No, their reaction was based upon scripture.

The great difference in your spirit after making your decision is indication enough that you'ge made the right choice. And Valerie is right, of course, they'll turn it around, and you'll have been the one with issues.

But you have your family to care for, and they come first. We're all fallible, pastors and their wives included (why does that last part seem so often to be overlooked?) Church leaders are usually not without fault (see: Jackson, Jesse, and Sharpton, Al), and in the end, you must follow your own conscience.

I'm glad you took the necessary action, and that you took the direct approach, rather than slinking away.

Brave soul, venturing out to find a new church. Good for you. Standing up for your convictions is hard, especially when it's other Christians you're having to go against. God bless you.

Stacy I disagree with everybody. I respect your decision but I don't agree with it. Now you church lost a good family and the sleazy dressers still dress sleazy. I don’t know all of the facts so I will still roll with you on your decision.

You should pick a ministry that you recognize as Godly and give them your tithe in the meantime.

Happy hunting.

BWH-honestly, if they cannot recognize this as an issue, I don't want to be there.

And my tithe problem-I decided that I would give my tithe to my brother's church in Texas until we find a church home. He is a music minister and recently left a rather large church. A new pastor came in a fired everyone. So he is at a new church that is just starting up and I feel that this is the right thing to do.

Stacy, we were in the same position a little over two years ago. Scripture says not to have anything to do with hypocrites, too. We found a small church struggling to grow and have made it home. We love it and are seeing great things in our own lives as well as in the church. God bless you in your steps.

Stacy, as I've posted before, I've had issues with Church. My wife found one that helped her a lot while I was overseas in the military. For four years after that we taught Sunday school, I did all the churches IT work and worked on two boards.
This was a church that was hurting for members, and had none younger than my wife and I (late 20's), most in their 60's.

When time came for a Pastor, they decided to hire a very nice guy, but he had horrible asthma, and the rectory needed $50,000 in work. The church didn't have it, and started solicting. After a few months, they started asking for jewelry, stocks and bonds, etc. I called the new pastor and asked him to resign, as anyone could see that the cost would break the church.

He refused, we left and found a new parish. And, as predicted, his staying killed the Church, which was too bad.

God will guide you in the right direction.

Stacy, there is something definitely wrong-headed about the church you were in. To allow public scandal while punishing a private penitent seems totally wrong headed to me.

I would give make a suggestion, but I have no idea how your denomination is structured. If it were me, I could go to my pastor and appeal to the bishop if the pastor wouldn't listen. I could go all the way to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the department whose previous prefect was our current pope :)).

Good luck, and you made the right decision about the tithes. The escrow idea is a good one, because when you settle into your new "home" you can give it a financial "shot in the arm". We're praying for you and your family because we are embroiled in much the same sort of thing in our church, only with us it's a holy, orthodox and pious priest, and a bunch of crybabies in the pews who don't like what he's doing.

Whatever you do, STAY IN THE CHURCH. Not that particular church, but don't abandon the real Church--the Body of Christ. Find a local congregation of sold-out baptized believers and stay busy doin' the Lord's work.

Good for you Stacy! And yes, why not put the tithing money you would have given to your regular church aside and save it for the new one? Sounds like a logical idea to me.

And I thought I was the only one who literally got goosebumps when leaving the polls!!!

I'm glad you feel that way about your civic duty- for me I think it's more of a pride thing, I waited so long for it. Vote on!

This is the first time I've been to your blog. I like your conservative stance. I found you on Abfreedom's links.

Your disgust with these women is justified. They do run around in what used to be referred to as underwear these days. I personally would have stayed and fought the issue, but that's me. My faith is Episcopalian, so I would have gone over the pastor's head and taken it to our Bishop. But you made the right decision for yourself and, since your kids didn't like it there anyway, for your family as well.

You are right... the man was being a hypocrite because his wife was involved. He needs to either change his attitude or be replaced. Good luck in your search for a new Church Home.

And keep up the good fight for what's right in this world! Blessings.

You're right Eugene, I will delete any comment you leave; it's been deleted. And . . . I will not go to your site to see your response to this post. I have no desire to visit your site, and honestly could less as to your opinion. I have a pretty good guess, you'll probably call me a hypocrite, you'll probably bash Christians, you'll most likely make me out to look a fool; but I do not care. Your opinion is irrelevant in my life.

Sounds like everyone else has already said what I'd say -- good decision, Stacy. We'll pray that God leads you and your family to where you need to be next.

Hey Stacy - Eugeneboy tried leaving the response at MY place. I marked him as "spam" and moved on. The nerve of some people, I swear.

Stacy, I pray that you and your family will find a haven at a church that worships Christ Jesus and not the fashion of the month.

My grandparents grew up in my old church. My parents grew up in my old church. I grew up in my old church. But during the 1990's a "select group" slowly and quietly started "taking over" and began their "my beliefs are more correct than yours" transformation of what was once a bedrock of the community. A huge split occurred in my church pitting brother against brother. When I finally realized that I could no longer worship in my old church, and that "they" were not going to loosen their hold over the church, about 125 of us walked away and eventually formed our own church.

It was a very sad day for me. I stayed out of any church for about a year. Then I got a phone call from an old friend and she told me about a "gathering" of those of us that wanted to worship Christ Jesus and not play politics or decide "who's in and who's out of the club". Stacy, that Sunday was one of the warmest days of my life. I saw real love and real worship. I felt wanted and needed. It actually helped bring my family tighter.

Now it's 9 years later and, although Jesus had nothing to do with all the bad things happening with the split, I easily see today that He had His hand in shaping and building our little congregation. I am the part-time Minister of Music and my gentle bride is part of the Children's Ministry Team - we are more active in worship now than we've ever been in our lives.

And we worship Christ Jesus. Period. No rules on how we have to worship, what things we have to say, how we have to dress (or not dress), songs we have to sing or songs we cannot sing, etc. We threw away all paradigms. We no longer focused on budgets and programs - we open our lives to God and He takes care of the details.

Even though what happened was a bad thing, trust me when I say that God can and will make good come from this. I believe that you will find a place of worship that accepts you and is Christ-driven, and in the end you will be better for it. Miracles and blessings are in your future. Just stay grounded in your beliefs, and keep your faith strong.

Oh, by the way. Guess what we called our new church? HAVEN, like a place of rest, safe from the storms. We call ourselves a hospital for sinners and not a country club for the saved.

Is Gene-boy STILL pestering you? Geez, he needs to buy himself a Nintendo or something.

Yea, I guess he got bored. He use to never close my page out, NEVER. But I haven't seen come around in a while. Mid-terms are done so I guess he has nothing better to do.

Oh, and this too guys; I've received a whopping ONE hit from Eugene's site today, one. And it was someone from Texas, rarely do I run across a liberal from Texas.

Hi Stacy, I don't know how I got around to you. In a round about way, actually involving an angry person named "Eugene." Anyway, I totally disagreed with his post, because it didn't make any sense and he seemed to be bit angry. Anyway, I just wanted to say that you should totally find a church that meets your needs. But don't let the sun go down on your anger - go and talk to your other church and make amends. Jesus doesn't want us to have a spirit of resentment. It's OK to move-on, but it's not good to harbor these ill feelings. I hope you find a great church that you can serve in and feel the hand of the Lord moving through it.

uh...I think that was me. (the one hit from Texas.) I read his blog! I'm SO ashamed! Its like a hideous, bloody car wreck. I can't look away.

Anyway, church is not the place to dress like a tramp. Yoogeen can't tell the difference I guess.

Hi Stac,

I have no opinion, because I didn't see it with my own eyes, and that's probably good. But I do hope that you find another place to worship that you love. David wrote how the the zeal for God's house was burdening him, and I have felt that many times too.

Hey Stacy,

Eugene evidently hit all the blogs of the folks who posted here, complaining about you deleting his comments. The funny part is, when I went to his site half of his posts had "comments deleted by adminstrator". So I went back to my blog and deleted Eugene. (figuratively, of course)

Stacy,

Really busy tonight, but will send you an e-mail on this one.

Hugs,
Rae

Hi there. I've been an on-and-off reader but never a commenter.

I want to say that I think it's important one find a church home - a family - that she's comfortable with. So in that vein, you clearly made the right choice for you.

I'm not always impressed with the way some choose to dress at my church, but frankly, I'm not there for their fashion show. Personally, and it is not a judgement on you or any who commented here, just my own thoughts - I'm in church to focus on improving myself. When I start to wander too much in picking out what everyone else has done wrong, I'm ignoring Christ's command to take the log out of my own eye first.

To me, a good Christian is determined by what lies inside - not what packaging dresses the outside. I might not agree with the choices everyone else makes, but I do try not to judge them for said choices. It's not my place to do so. When I start to pick out who is worthy and who isn't of that Christian mantle I try to remember who Christ picked to surround himself with. I think it's fair to say, they aren't the type of people some would finger as "proper" Christians today.

Sandy, I do appreciate you coming by but I have to disagree with you to a certain extent. This is someone who is a church leader, not someone sitting in the congregation. We are commanded to be humble, not to cause lust in the eye or heart; her dress is a distraction from the word. Men are men and they will look, period. Having enough respect for the house of God to not create a distraction is required of all of us.

Stacy,

Reading what you've said, it sounds like you're making the right decision to leave that church. And I (obviously) don't have all the facts, so feel free to ignore what I'm about to say if it doesn't apply.

But the impression I get is that you've only talked (or emailed) about this issue with one person so far, and that you're leaving the church because you feel the issue isn't going to be resolved. If that's the case, I'd ask you to consider whether you've done enough to try to resolve the issue. In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus tells us that if we have to confront someone about a sin, we should first speak to them alone -- which you've done. Then if they won't listen, bring one or two others to confirm your position, "that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses" (Matt. 18:16, ESV). Then if they still won't listen, take it public in front of the whole church.

You've already decided that you're going to leave this church. If the issue doesn't get resolved, that is probably the right decision. BUT if you leave now, you'll be leaving behind a church with a cancer still growing inside it. Is that truly a good result?

If you pursue this issue farther -- getting "two or three witnesses" (people who agree that the immodest dressing of these women is a real problem) together to raise the issue, and going to the whole church if that fails -- it will probably cost you significantly. Even if the problem does end up getting resolved, there will probably be long-term fallout from it. My best guess is that if you pursue this course of action, many people will end up seeing you as some sort of troublemaker, you may be gossiped about, and you may possibly end up having to leave the church anyway. That's not what *should* happen -- I hope it doesn't happen -- but even Christians do act sinfully sometimes (much more often than we should), so you should be prepared for the consequences. But on the other hand, the consequences may be good: in the long run, that church may end up dealing with an issue that would otherwise have festered until it broke out into very public problems like adultery. Unconfronted sin is never a good thing.

As I said, you know more about this than I do. It's quite possible that my perception (which is that you've only tried to address this yourself, without bringing in more people to support you) is wrong due to my limited knowledge. But if that perception is correct, I'd urge you to rethink leaving so soon. Leaving may well end up being the right thing, but if you're going to leave *anyway* (and probably get gossiped about *anyway* as some other commenter pointed out) -- then perhaps the right decision may be to pursue the issue until it becomes a public discussion in that church.

It's your decision, of course. If you read Matthew 18:15-20 and say, "Actually, I've already done all of that," then you're clearly making the right choice by leaving. I just hope you pursue getting this resolved long enough before you do throw up your hands.

I'll be praying for you.

Thanks for your opinion Robin. I really should update this story. I did actually speak with some other church leaders about this and was told that I did the right thing. But after I insulted the associate pastor's wife I highly doubt that I will be welcomed back with open arms. I'm choosing to view this as an opportunity to be elsewhere. It was mostly because of teaching that I remained at this church as long as I did.

I have considered your opinion of gathering others to confront this; but in judging how things have been approached in the past with this church, and don't get me wrong-it's not a bad place, I just don't see anything being taken care of. I've been praying much about this; we'll see what God says. ;)

Maybe nothing will be done even if you take this issue a step or two further (first step being gathering two or three others, second step being to take it completely public). But if you don't take it a step or two further, it's certain that nothing will be done about it. And your bridges are already burned...

My pastor just got through a series of sermons on "Hearing God's Voice". He mentioned that God speaks to us in many ways: through the Bible first and foremost, but also sometimes through the advice of wise friends. (Naturally, test any non-Biblical advice against the Bible, as 1 John 4 says to do). I'd recommend you take up with people whose counsel you trust (such as, perhaps, the other church leaders who told you you'd done the right thing so far), and see what they advise you to do regarding taking this one or two steps further.

As I said, I'll be praying for you.

P.S. Your comments section's "Preview" button seems to be broken: when I try to use it to preview my comment before posting it, I get an error messagee saying "Build error in template 'Comment Preview Template': Error in tag: Can't find included template module 'Remember Me'". This may or may not mean anything to you, depending on how much of a "techie" you are, but I thought you should at least be informed about the problem. :-)

Yea, I know about the problem. It's a MuNu/Movable Type issue. They're changing servers soon and are hoping that this kind of stuff won't happen anymore.