Last week I told you about my first church experience and my ego. When I left, I thought that my problems would simply disappear. After all, they weren’t really my problems, were they? They were someone else’s and I was simply a victim. Having this kind of mentality is dangerous and with the path that it took me on…I am simply lucky to even be alive.

So I left that first church and moved on down the road to the next one. Because I was not following God’s plan for me, I walked right into a really bad situation. They say that all that glitters is not gold…and they are right. This church had some major issues and with my ego coming through the door, it was about to have some bigger ones. I could write an entire book on the saga that was this ministry experience, but I can shorten this posting by simply saying that your problems never disappear when you ignore them. The problems I faced at my previous church only followed me to my new one and when you combine that with a church that is already in turmoil, it makes for a terrible combination. I stuck it out for a year and in spite of the problems, I was able to build a pretty successful music program. I want to give God the credit here, but somehow I think He was just sitting back and waiting for me to fall so He could catch me. With the events that proceeded during that year, combined with my inability to show humility, I became a very angry and damaged young man. I was vengeful, spiteful, hateful and mad.  It showed in who I had become. I had no one to really turn to. Every person that initially showed me compassion ended up judging me in the end and I saw the ugly side of “Christianity.” Shooting your own wounded and turning your back when your brother is in need, is the worst thing you can do for someone like me. If only Care for Pastors had been there then…..but I was likely not wounded enough yet to have accepted any help that came my way.

I folded my ordination, letter style, and mailed it back to my ordaining church along with two invisible copies of my middle fingers and I left the ministry. Taking my family with me, I embarked on a two year journey of rebellion that started that first Thursday night when I threw up all over my flip flops in a drunken stupor in a gas station parking lot. The next two years seemed to be the answer to all of my problems…but looking back, they were really Hell on Earth…

(Check back next week to follow Geoffrey through his healing process.)