Church “Family”?
Since my family left the institutional church for good 5 years ago, there have been many times my wife or I have encountered people from those old churches, and invariably at some point in the conversation they will say, “Hey, we really miss you guys!” or, “We really miss your family!”
Really? You miss us? Does your phone not work? Did you lose our number? I don’t seem to recall getting an invitation over to your house lately. If we really mean that much to you, how come you have never reached out to us since we left?
When someone from the institutional church tells you they “miss you”, what they really mean is we miss you at church.
~ Andy
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
“When someone from the institutional church tells you they “miss you”, what they really mean is we miss you at church.”
For sure!
We could add to that “we miss you at the institutional establishment, a man made construct functioning as a spiritual control agent of the masses, for the purpose of getting and keeping butts in the seats to perpetuate the fake narrative of a God invoked power structure as the means of ensuring the great unwashed are entirely dependent upon this fabricated reality for their eternal salvation.”
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So, I joined my first church in 1983 and was a member of churches in Ohio, Indiana, and Texas. When you stop going to any given church, the relationships with the other members cease. Why? Several different reasons, but think about this one: church demands a lot of your family’s time so any relationships you have at church are based on church activity. So, when you leave that church, you also leave everything the relationship was built on. However, curiously, this principle does not hold true for pastors. Why? Because believe it or not, their lives and family are not that invested in the church they are ruling over. Pastors, while demanding full devotion to the local congregation, have lives outside of church. Pastors go golfing with each other, go to conferences together, and see themselves on a different cultural level and reality than the “laity.” Do they not publicly pontificate about the laity’s struggle in understanding the life of a pastor? Trust me, I was a pastor, I can tell you all about the “us against them” mentally when pastors get together. They are the biggest bunch of freaking crybabies on the face of the earth. I smell a series for the conference about this dynamic; that is, this mentality versus body function of the justification by new birth gospel.
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Whenever I get this comment, I just reply, “I bet”. Because my family takes up a whole pew, we really help the numbers. It makes them so uncomfortable! Hee hee.
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I don’t miss church one bit, in fact, it makes me nauseous to think of going through another plastic fish experience. Life is different when you think about who you are daily and why and how you choose to do what you do. You think deeper in so many ways without the baggage and trappings of the institution. And goodness knows what you evil in the name of Jesus you might be supporting and have no idea! I have seen too much.
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