corndoggy said:
I saw the original thread and how it seemed to run off the rails (not a bad nor uncommon thing on a good discussion board like this one). I wanted to encourage you but the thread was locked so I'll give it an addendum.
The low hanging fruit: not meeting a pastor's expectations that one attend all 3 scheduled services does not always mean that one is being a casual christian nor a fence straddler, nor luke warm. I'm sure that you know that. I'm a pastor's son, married to a pastor's daughter, have several pastors in my extended family, am a fan of good preaching, have heard more than my share of poor preaching, and am a fan of the local church. I mention this to give credence to my experience that sometimes even reasonable preachers step over the line in their passion to exhort the flock.
Your childhood experience was normative for most of the population of North America until around 1900. In fact, the root of the Sunday evening service was from the era of the circuit riders where folks would come from miles around on the Sunday that the circuit riding preacher would appear in their community (in some cases this would be 1-2 Sundays a month). They would have a long AM service, then lunch on the grounds involving a time of fellowship, followed by a brief early evening vespers type service just before all would head for home.
The history of the mid-week service doesn't go back that far.
That said, my concern has more to do with your isolation (at least that is how I am reading your post) from your brothers and sisters in Christ than what your pastor is saying. When you are in need, who in your church will know/who in your church can you count on? On the other side, without close relationships with fellow members, how do you know when others have needs?
Don't take my comments as criticism. The nature of my job has me spending 50-60 hours per week at the office (when I'm not traveling for business; the travel work day adds another 10 - 20 hrs to the work week at a minimum). I tend to spend around 20 hours per week in preparing Sunday school lessons, another 2-3 hours in disciplining/mentoring...all while striving to attending to my most important earthly tasks (after seeking after God myself) of husbanding my wife and fathering my children.
I have some knowledge of the isolation you refer to.
I recall that both my mother and my mother-in-law rarely had close friends in the churches that our father's served (for several reasons, mostly having to do with the difficult politics that smaller churches tend toward).
Both our fathers had similar situations and ultimately sought out close friendships with other pastors, former seminary classmates and professors, evangelists, local school principals (who attended other churches), and so on.
In each case, such isolation from fellow church members did not serve anyone well.
I strongly encourage you to work to overcome this isolation. More importantly, I will pray that members of your church will lovingly reach out to you and that you will give them a chance.
And pray for your pastor. There is a reason that he is offbase with his comments.
