Feelings on the destruction of my old home church by a fraud pastor

I have been part of Trinity Church of the Nazarene in Monterey Park since 2012. It was a wonderful church. It was my home church. It was a great place for people to love God and love one another as a united community. The church actually had a second location in Rowland Heights. I grew to love the people at that church too. This was my home church and I envisioned being part of this church for the rest of my time in Southern California. But the church was in a middle of a transition. The church was looking for a new lead pastor after the previous one was called to a new position in Northern California. It became a two-year search. But finally, after that long wait, a candidate was chosen and was offered to the congregation to a vote on whether or not they would extend the position to him.

A discussion about race

The George Floyd death and protests is fresh on our minds. Check out the first 90 seconds of the video.

Is it OK for me to wear a T-shirt and shorts to church?

For the longest time, I believed that this was the way it had to be for me at church.

Earlier this week, I read a blog entry called “I Hate Church” and it described an experience a lot of people who don’t go to church go through whenever they first visit a church. Check out their info, they’re pretty awesome.

Does the church actually make it welcoming for outsiders? What if a man in a torn shirt and ripped jeans showed up to the church — would we make him feel welcome? Here’s a bit from the blog that is the inspiration for this blog entry:

“…My wife and I find ourselves deciding to visit some prominent churches in our city, as well as churches that we have preached at in the past. She would wear a mini-skirt, I would wear some baggy jeans with a hat put on backwards, with big diamond earrings in my ears, and we would pretend like we didn’t know much about how “church worked.” In almost every single church no one would say hi to us, people would simply stare at us, I had people in services tap me on my shoulder and tell me to take my hat off… Some of my Pastor friends didn’t even recognize it was me and were absolutely shocked when I revealed myself. All in all… most places left me not wanting to ever come back. I remember in one service I couldn’t even focus on the message because I was so infuriated as to how this one lady treated me. I wanted to tell her I’m an ordained minister and read off my rap sheet out of some misplaced sense of pride, but I managed to keep it together.”

This experience is something I get. I never dressed out of place in church. In fact, I was programmed to be that person to stare at people who dressed in “non-church clothes.” I was that judgmental person.

I Hate Church…

Word.

How I found my perfect church

This is a story I’ve told before on my blog, but I told it again, hoping to reach more people about finding the perfect church.

Churches shouldn’t be so Hollywood even though we should have a Hollywood-like Christian lifestyle

Our Christian faith should be very Hollywood without making it so Hollywood.

Having now lived in Los Angeles for over a year now, I’ve started to adapt to the culture and the lifestyle of my environment. Now I’ve started to take a lot more notice on presentation of outfits, the way people act and also the ways of Hollywood.

Hollywood to me has always been a fantasy. Growing up in the Bay, I always viewed Hollywood as celebrities living a lavish lifestyle, getting everything handed to them and to a point, a separation from the real world.

It still is in a lot of ways. Especially with TMZ rolling around, their lives are so high-profile that anything and everything done is big news. It’s kind of neat but also very scary. For some people, they get so absorbed in their own falsehood of reality that they lose touch. It’s what drives people away from Hollywood.

My search of the church that isn’t “perfect” but strives to be “perfect”

It would be so much easier if our lives had easy directions like this.

As some of you know, since moving down to SoCal, I have been looking for a church to get plugged into. Due to my work schedule, my search took a hiatus for the past two Sundays.

My friend suggested that with my struggle to find a church, that I should dig into a book called “What is a Healthy Church?“. I did just that and I am in the process of reading it.

I came across a chapter that inspired this entry. It simply asked the question of how we should describe a healthy church. This is what it said.

How come I can’t find a good church to go to?

For nearly 20 years of my life, the above video pretty much summed it up for me and church. I grew up in a Christian family and attended this Episcopal church in Chinatown, San Francisco. It was a community that basically had the same thing every Sunday.

It was stand, sit, kneel, hymn, lather, rinse, repeat. Every Sunday it was the same routine. It was boring. It was not inspiring.

Sunday school wasn’t much better either. It became a contest of who had more Bible knowledge than the next kid. I usually “knew” more and got my gold star next to my name. I could tell you everything about the Last Supper, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Asked me why Jesus did all that, I had no answer.

Bittersweet Christmas day for me and the family

So today during the Christmas service at my home church, it turned out to be a bittersweet day. Well, I have to paint the picture first.

Since going to college and the subsequent days following my graduation, I have not gone back to my home church on a consistent basis. Part of it was due to my job. But the other part was that I didn’t like it any more. There was no growth and I just didn’t feel right about going back to a place that wasn’t really Jesus-centered.

I grew up in this church but despite all that, it was time for me to move on.

Church politics is stupid

I might just end up rambling, but that’s OK.

What has always bothered me about my home church is that it’s old. It’s old in so many ways. The people there are old. Seniors, people nearing retirement and whatever. Then there are the kids. The youngest one probably isn’t even in high school yet. And then there’s me.

But that’s not even the part that bothers me. The part that bothers me is the church is full of not full of Jesus. Every time I go there, I don’t feel like people are growing. It becomes to the point where people go there just because they go there. It’s a tradition to be in those four walls on Sunday. There is no inspiration and no actions that are great.

Now, the part of this is because it’s a very old style Episcopal church. It’s one of those ye olde English, hymnals and choir robes kinds of places. And I’ve grown to accept that some people believe that that is the way to worship. But when it comes to being straight forward with Jesus as the center, I don’t see it.

There’s too much politics in my church. You have to sign contracts to be able to serve. You have to be paid a certain amount. Everyone has an assignment and people get angry when someone doesn’t do their assignment (with no forgiveness). And what sucks is that every time I go, I just see a business. I don’t see people being uplifted. I don’t see the Holy Spirit running wild. All I see is a bunch of people trying to keep a suffering engine on the road. It’s too much work. I thought Sunday was a day of rest.