One year ago, my wife and I loved our church. Recently we quit going for a number of reasons.

As a Christian, I have always felt that I should give worship on Sunday mornings. But being in introvert who loathes dressing nicely and making appearances around groups of people, I stayed away from church for many years.

Last February, my wife and I found a church in our home town that we enjoyed. They preached the Bible and salvation through Christ, which is what I longed for from a church. Over time, however, we started getting annoyed with some things.

Serving.

I signed up our family to be on the serving team. We didn't mind coming in once a month to greet people as they entered the building. But late last summer they got the idea to buy a large bull dog costume and have somebody wear it and walk around to wave at the kids. Guess who got asked to wear it? Yep, me. And so there I was, sweating profusely in a ridiculous dog costume and walking the grounds acting like a goofball. At least I had anonymity behind that costume.

My wife and I would still get asked to greet, but more frequently I was asked to "be the dog" and she would stand alone and greet, which we disliked. I expressed that I preferred to be with her and not in the costume. The assistant pastor said that was fine, so someone else took over dog duty for a few services, then it was back to me getting asked every other Sunday. It seemed that the more we said yes to serving, the more often we were asked to get involved. It was making both of us stressed out and uncomfortable. We missed just being able to show up for service, sit down and hear the message, then go home. Having two restless children hanging on to us made serving even more difficult.

Too young and modern.

I am 34, so I'm not old, but I am also no young pup, either. Our church blasts top 40 pop over massive speakers before and after the service. It never felt right to hear "Little Jeezy" or whatever these rappers call themselves as we approached the building for worship service. Considering modern pop music is saturated with sexual messages, I never understood why they played that each Sunday. The demographic of our church is very young. Many high school students and twenty-somethings (still kids in my opinion) attend service, which is good, but sometimes I felt like I was an old fart among all those youngsters.

The church held events outside of regular service, such as Sunday evening discussion groups, baseball and kickball games, and so on. I attended them, and I never felt more uncomfortable. Our church felt like a slap-on-the-back good ol' boys club. The events were very clicky, like high school. There were the jocks that joked around and had nicknames for each other, then there was me... the quiet and awkward guy who doesn't talk much. I don't care one bit about football, basketball, or golf. So that made me an outcast, just like high school days all over again.

Pushing too hard for growth and giving.

Our church is the fastest-growing church in our county. There were close to 500 members by the time the church was a year old. Growth was exploding. Yet each Sunday they pushed us hard to reach out and get more people to come. Their goal was to reach all 22,247 residents of our county. But their financial report showed the church was already bringing in a small fortune from tithes and offerings. I couldn't help but feel like their ambition was their profit, rather than spreading the news of Christ. So when my wife and I served on Sundays, were we really serving God, or just working for free for an incredibly profitable business? They even held an entire service last month basically telling us to step our donations. That really upset me and my wife. I struggle with the concept of increasing my financial giving when we have a lead pastor who likely makes twice my salary.

Christmas Eve.

To me, Christmas is a magical season. And nothing feels more right to me than a good Christmas Eve service. But my wife and I think our church blew it. They turned the service into a rock fest with screaming guitars and drums. Not one traditional Christmas hymn was played, and we were disappointed. I am very traditional in my taste for what a Christmas Eve service should be like. I prefer candlelight and songs like Silent Night and O Holy Night. Not Sammy Hagar-style rock and roll (not that I don't like Van Halen!)

In conclusion.

So there are my reasons we left our church. I never want to distance myself from God, but I felt more like our church was about building a successful business rather than anything else. We may stop back in for a Sunday service to give it another try, however. We didn't hate our church, after all.
But another thing that bothers me is that while we still tithe by an automatic draft from our bank account, not once has our pastor reached out to us and asked us to come back or to talk about why we left. That doesn't make me feel any better about our church. It seems as long as our money keeps coming, they couldn't care less if we show up or not.

Have you had any negative experiences with a church? Or are you completely satisfied with yours?

Feel free to share your stories or comments with me! And thanks for reading this lengthy post!