Happy Valentines Day! I have been a member of one church or another for 55 years. I love going to church. I have served most of the regular offices of church leadership at one time or another. Yet I have been convinced for many years that church is not what takes you to Heaven. Throughout history, people have contorted their personalities and souls to fit the doctrine of the church that they were attending. Marriages have been severed and families have been broken apart. The narrow views of church leaders have often done more harm than good. By the time you hear what God is wanting to tell you…it is a bit like the old game of Telephone where what God said for you is completely mangled by the time the message reaches you through the earthly prejudices and bias of ministers. Church Doctrine is filtered through the sinful flesh of men and women. At times inspired by God and at other times inspired by the carnality of the flesh and bone of humanity.
I have witnessed the most base and earthly desires of ministers being sold as the will of God. Poor sincere members of the church are convinced to give up their finances until they have little left for their own needs. Churches can be Pyarimid Schemes where the minister at the top of the Pyramid gets richer while the poor people in the flock continue to become poorer and suffer the deprivation of those who have an abundance of faith…but in a human and not in God…
How did church leadership and harbingers of the truth decide that only some people fit the narrow mold of members of their congregation? Did Jesus tell his special messengers and Club Members that only the wealthy and the supplicants to the Doctrine need apply for membership in the exclusive clique?
Why would you upend your life and struggle to change who you are…as God created you…to please a man or woman who is so mercurial that today you may be in…and tomorrow you are out…
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…,’ does not mean that Christ died for the Chosen by birth or bank account or sexuality or ethnicity!
If you believe that you are God’s Child…do you really believe that you need an intermediary to talk to your Dad for you?
The Happy Traveler 
There is so much that I would like to say in response to this my friend but I will just say I agree with you. I have loved going to church in the past until it all turned terribly horrible for me. I long for the old days.
Church can be a comfort and a sanctuary against suffering…or it can be an elite club gathering for all of the wrong reasons.
Sir , your blog is a must read an article . You appear to be right when you say that Church is doing more harm to the people than good . Everywhere religion has become a means of self-aggrandizement . People at up are squeezing the fruits at the cost of the people from below . Thanks !
Thank you, my friend.