Destruction of Two More Country Churches
Last of Series: My Confrontation of Churches
After our experience in the Sandusky and Marlette Baptist Churches, you might have thought we had learned our lessons concerning Christianity. But we were determined to continue on searching for a church home. Our next adventure was in a country Bible church on a side road in Tuscola County’s Dayton Township near a little place called Silverwood.
I don’t remember what attracted us to this church. Perhaps it was someone Doris knew from her job in Marlette. Also the church was located only a few miles from where Doris’s mother lived, so we had a chance after each church service to stop at the homestead for Sunday dinners and a visit with the family.
The people in that church welcomed us with open arms. In fact, it was not long before we were invited to accompany a group from the church to Saginaw to attend a gospel music concert and various other dynamic Christian events. The group liked to end those evening events with a trip to the Texan restaurant where everybody bought giant banana splits that were too big for a single person to eat. Doris and I split ours.
Our involvement there did not last long. Shortly after we started attended services the pastor’s unmarried teenage daughter was discovered to be quite pregnant. The pastor resigned his position in Christian disgrace, proclaiming that he had failed to keep his house in order. The church broke up after that and we were again lacking a church home.
We began attending services for a while in a Croswell Baptist Church, but never felt comfortable there. Then started going to a Bible Church in Deckerville. It was there that we learned about a mission work this church was supporting at Snover, a small town northwest of Sandusky. A small vacant church and parsonage had been acquired, a mission pastor was hired to work there, and some of the church members were volunteering their time every Sunday to get this work started. They needed families. We jumped into the project.
Thus began our last and final effort to serve under the Christian flag. In the end you could not say we didn’t give it our best effort.
I got deeply involved in what was called the Snover Bible Church. I participated in construction and repair of the building, I was elected to a church board that served somewhat like a deacon board if we had been a church standing on our own. I was elected church treasurer so I not only worked each service as an usher, but also was active in passing the collection plate and then counting the money and seeing to it that every cent was accounted for and deposited in the bank. I had a personal computer at home by that time so I learned how to use it to keep the church books.
My other tasks expanded to a Wednesday night adult Bible class. Because I was experienced in standing up before a crowd, and had a decent singing voice, I was always picked to lead the morning worship services when we had a visiting speaker. I opened the services with prayer, led the singing, and conducted all parts of the service except the morning sermon. The responsibility was growing heavy on my shoulders.
There were things about this church that troubled us almost from the start. There were several women who attended that dressed in the most provocative clothes, sometimes succeeding in distracting the heads of most of the males in the church. We also had some young girls, somewhere around 12 or 13 years of age, who acted like the town whores, but came regularly to church. One of our “deacon” members, a somewhat simple minded fellow, appeared to have an unhealthy attraction to these girls. I kept noticing things, like catching him alone with one of the girls in a church classroom and once with one of them seated on his lap in the church basement. I brought my concerns to to the attention of our pastor. Nothing changed.
Then things went from bad to worse. The pastor resigned after getting in a fight and beating up his wife. The incident almost tore the little church asunder. But with the continued support of the Deckerville church, another missionary pastor was called almost immediately and it looked like things were going to be spared. But this man had teenage sons who began also taking an unhealthy interest in those same girls and I saw things going even stranger.
By this time our older children were rebelling and refusing to come to church. Doris, who was getting in a lot of Sunday work, soon joined them. It was just Jennifer and I coming to church for a while, and Jennifer wasn’t happy. She said the other children were picking on her. Jennifer began dating a boy outside of the church, and we started bringing him with us to Sunday night services. That was when one of the women in the church took Jennifer aside and lectured her about loose living. It was an insult after what we had been witnessing among the young people in that church.
The church had a contest for attendance and learning Bible verses, with the winning children getting an all-expense paid trip to Cedar Point, a popular amusement park in Ohio. Jennifer did everything right. She never missed a service, knew her verses and deserved to win. But they gave the trip to one of the local girls even though she did not achieve as well as Jennifer. Jennifer was told that it was because she was my daughter and that one of the less fortunate children in the church should be sent. They said Jennifer needed to be a good example to the other children. Jennifer was justifiably upset about that and so was I.
We sent Jennifer to summer Bible camp with other children in the church. Halfway through the week Doris and I were summoned to the camp to pick Jennifer up. It involved a long drive to the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. We learned that Jennifer had been sent home from camp after she had been accused of stealing something from one of the other girls. Jennifer had been set up. She denied the charge. The “stolen” object was found in Jennifer’s purse which she left in the cabin. Our pastor was at the camp and refused to back Jennifer up. Jennifer never went to that church again.
I stayed a few more weeks but was so discouraged that I finally decided it was time to go. Our pastor was away for a week so I had to hang around to conduct the services. That last Sunday night I told the people of the church that I was resigning and it would be my last service. People asked where I was going and why I was going. I told them nothing more and just left. I felt very bad about having to give up but I knew the sickness permeating the heart of that place was not going to be fixed. In fact it seemed to follow us everywhere we went.
Jennifer and I made one last attempt to find a church. By then we had moved to the place on Deckerville Road, so we went to Caro Baptist Church, where Doris attended church as a young girl. We went to a Wednesday night prayer meeting. The church members gathered to sing a song or two. The pastor introduced us. Then everybody broke up into groups for prayer. Nobody offered to pray with either Jennifer, who was moved to the basement with her age group, or me. I sat alone in the sanctuary. Jennifer was left on her own in the basement. It was an extremely embarrassing experience for both of us.
Needless to say, we never went back. I have not been in a Christian church since, other than to attend a couple of funerals and I think one wedding. Each time I had to walk into one of those buildings, however, I felt as if I was in a place I did not belong. The spiritual path for Doris and me and our children was by then changing forever. We have wondered to this day if our presence in those churches didn’t in some way cause them to collapse as they did, or if we weren’t being taught the reality of everything that is wrong about the ancient belief systems still effectively preventing people from true spiritual growth. The churches all fell in spite of my own personal efforts to help keep them afloat.
Last of Series: My Confrontation of Churches
After our experience in the Sandusky and Marlette Baptist Churches, you might have thought we had learned our lessons concerning Christianity. But we were determined to continue on searching for a church home. Our next adventure was in a country Bible church on a side road in Tuscola County’s Dayton Township near a little place called Silverwood.
I don’t remember what attracted us to this church. Perhaps it was someone Doris knew from her job in Marlette. Also the church was located only a few miles from where Doris’s mother lived, so we had a chance after each church service to stop at the homestead for Sunday dinners and a visit with the family.
The people in that church welcomed us with open arms. In fact, it was not long before we were invited to accompany a group from the church to Saginaw to attend a gospel music concert and various other dynamic Christian events. The group liked to end those evening events with a trip to the Texan restaurant where everybody bought giant banana splits that were too big for a single person to eat. Doris and I split ours.
Our involvement there did not last long. Shortly after we started attended services the pastor’s unmarried teenage daughter was discovered to be quite pregnant. The pastor resigned his position in Christian disgrace, proclaiming that he had failed to keep his house in order. The church broke up after that and we were again lacking a church home.
We began attending services for a while in a Croswell Baptist Church, but never felt comfortable there. Then started going to a Bible Church in Deckerville. It was there that we learned about a mission work this church was supporting at Snover, a small town northwest of Sandusky. A small vacant church and parsonage had been acquired, a mission pastor was hired to work there, and some of the church members were volunteering their time every Sunday to get this work started. They needed families. We jumped into the project.
Thus began our last and final effort to serve under the Christian flag. In the end you could not say we didn’t give it our best effort.
I got deeply involved in what was called the Snover Bible Church. I participated in construction and repair of the building, I was elected to a church board that served somewhat like a deacon board if we had been a church standing on our own. I was elected church treasurer so I not only worked each service as an usher, but also was active in passing the collection plate and then counting the money and seeing to it that every cent was accounted for and deposited in the bank. I had a personal computer at home by that time so I learned how to use it to keep the church books.
My other tasks expanded to a Wednesday night adult Bible class. Because I was experienced in standing up before a crowd, and had a decent singing voice, I was always picked to lead the morning worship services when we had a visiting speaker. I opened the services with prayer, led the singing, and conducted all parts of the service except the morning sermon. The responsibility was growing heavy on my shoulders.
There were things about this church that troubled us almost from the start. There were several women who attended that dressed in the most provocative clothes, sometimes succeeding in distracting the heads of most of the males in the church. We also had some young girls, somewhere around 12 or 13 years of age, who acted like the town whores, but came regularly to church. One of our “deacon” members, a somewhat simple minded fellow, appeared to have an unhealthy attraction to these girls. I kept noticing things, like catching him alone with one of the girls in a church classroom and once with one of them seated on his lap in the church basement. I brought my concerns to to the attention of our pastor. Nothing changed.
Then things went from bad to worse. The pastor resigned after getting in a fight and beating up his wife. The incident almost tore the little church asunder. But with the continued support of the Deckerville church, another missionary pastor was called almost immediately and it looked like things were going to be spared. But this man had teenage sons who began also taking an unhealthy interest in those same girls and I saw things going even stranger.
By this time our older children were rebelling and refusing to come to church. Doris, who was getting in a lot of Sunday work, soon joined them. It was just Jennifer and I coming to church for a while, and Jennifer wasn’t happy. She said the other children were picking on her. Jennifer began dating a boy outside of the church, and we started bringing him with us to Sunday night services. That was when one of the women in the church took Jennifer aside and lectured her about loose living. It was an insult after what we had been witnessing among the young people in that church.
The church had a contest for attendance and learning Bible verses, with the winning children getting an all-expense paid trip to Cedar Point, a popular amusement park in Ohio. Jennifer did everything right. She never missed a service, knew her verses and deserved to win. But they gave the trip to one of the local girls even though she did not achieve as well as Jennifer. Jennifer was told that it was because she was my daughter and that one of the less fortunate children in the church should be sent. They said Jennifer needed to be a good example to the other children. Jennifer was justifiably upset about that and so was I.
We sent Jennifer to summer Bible camp with other children in the church. Halfway through the week Doris and I were summoned to the camp to pick Jennifer up. It involved a long drive to the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. We learned that Jennifer had been sent home from camp after she had been accused of stealing something from one of the other girls. Jennifer had been set up. She denied the charge. The “stolen” object was found in Jennifer’s purse which she left in the cabin. Our pastor was at the camp and refused to back Jennifer up. Jennifer never went to that church again.
I stayed a few more weeks but was so discouraged that I finally decided it was time to go. Our pastor was away for a week so I had to hang around to conduct the services. That last Sunday night I told the people of the church that I was resigning and it would be my last service. People asked where I was going and why I was going. I told them nothing more and just left. I felt very bad about having to give up but I knew the sickness permeating the heart of that place was not going to be fixed. In fact it seemed to follow us everywhere we went.
Jennifer and I made one last attempt to find a church. By then we had moved to the place on Deckerville Road, so we went to Caro Baptist Church, where Doris attended church as a young girl. We went to a Wednesday night prayer meeting. The church members gathered to sing a song or two. The pastor introduced us. Then everybody broke up into groups for prayer. Nobody offered to pray with either Jennifer, who was moved to the basement with her age group, or me. I sat alone in the sanctuary. Jennifer was left on her own in the basement. It was an extremely embarrassing experience for both of us.
Needless to say, we never went back. I have not been in a Christian church since, other than to attend a couple of funerals and I think one wedding. Each time I had to walk into one of those buildings, however, I felt as if I was in a place I did not belong. The spiritual path for Doris and me and our children was by then changing forever. We have wondered to this day if our presence in those churches didn’t in some way cause them to collapse as they did, or if we weren’t being taught the reality of everything that is wrong about the ancient belief systems still effectively preventing people from true spiritual growth. The churches all fell in spite of my own personal efforts to help keep them afloat.