A deconstruction journey

We are very pleased to see that a new ecclesia is in the making in Anderlecht.
For many people, it is not so obvious to join a new religious community. Such a move requires a lot of thinking but also a lot of courage.

For some the reason to go looking for another church might not be such a nice experience. Like many people, they might have encountered a time of doubt, precipitated by a life crisis that caused that person to examine everything he or she believed in.  All the doubts and questions that the believer had came rushing to the surface. It could well be that they had probably always been there, but the person never had time to think about it or even the person had always been so busy trying to please the Lord that he or she had never stopped to address them.

For some people, the decision to deconstruct their faith is the result of the accumulation of lots of little doubts that pile up one on top of the other. Systematic sexism and misogyny within the church can also be a catalyst as people wrestle with the disconnect between biblical teachings and the treatment of women in modern-day congregations.

Churchmembers when they start asking questions to their priest are confronted with a negative attitude. In such instances, the church’s unfriendliness towards doubt and questioning can also push believers away, leaving them feeling isolated and misunderstood in their quest for truth. Add to that the disillusionment when Christianity fails to deliver on its promises of peace, prosperity, and fulfilment, and you have a recipe for a profound existential crisis.

Yet perhaps most insidious of all is the experience of spiritual and for some even sexual abuse and church hurt, where mistreatment at the hands of fellow believers leaves deep scars on the soul, driving individuals to re-evaluate everything they once held sacred.

Somehow, there was a turning point or a moment when the drop broke the camel’s back, so that the person eventually took the step to leave the former church and switch to a new church community.

Doing away with a past full of confusion and hurt demands a strong mind.

To enter a big strange church is not that bad or not that difficult. People just disappear into space there. But to enter a house church or small church one must show one’s face and the newcomer experiences fear of threshold. Over the years, many have been in continuous contact with certain doctrines that are not really Biblical, but more to do with the doctrines of the church to which one belonged. Breaking with these teachings is not easy at all and gives rise to a huge internal struggle.
The many questions one faces do not become easier when one is confronted with even more diverse thoughts at those different churches.

It really can hurt when one decides to leave a church and not see a safe haven. Though, leaving one denominational church, can bring some liberation, breaking with the chains of that church. As such, for the one leaving the main church, it can come with the unexpected blessing of being in a safe place to really examine his or her faith for the first time in great detail, to work out what exactly he or she believed and why.

Admittedly, that small church community may be far removed from the large institutional churches with its ideas. It can also weigh heavily suddenly being confronted with Bible texts there so often. In large churches, not much time is usually spent on the Bible readings, while now in such a small church those texts come to the fore. It sometimes seems so difficult for newcomers to be beaten around the ears in that small community with those Bible texts, as it were.

It looks like one comes in a carousel where there is a faith deconstruction as taking a

“Massive inventory of your faith, tearing every doctrine from the cupboard and turning each one over in your hand.”

The point of faith deconstruction is to break down every idea, practice, belief, and tradition of a religious system into tiny pieces and then examine each fragment one by one to determine the truthfulness and usefulness of each part. One must be prepared to do this, and that is not always easy. In the end, the goal is to piece it all back together minus that which is peripheral, burdensome, and distorted.

The risk, of course, is that one can deconstruct their faith out of existence altogether. Some people do. It is a scary place to go — to lay everything you once held true on the table of reasonableness for testing. In search of a new church, people along the way come across people who also want to look further and have set a goal to move towards the Truth about God and His son. Together they are out as pilgrims whose goal is to enter the gate of God’s Kingdom.

However, those who do the journey well, usually end up with a much deeper and stronger faith because, well… they’ve actually checked it all out for themselves rather than mindlessly believing everything they’ve been told by some so-called expert who happens to grace the pulpit on a Sunday morning.

If you are someone who has doubts or if you know someone who has doubts, bring yourself and that person to dare to meet that small church community and ask questions there that can dispel your doubts and his or her doubts.
In any case, the Brothers in Christ bring opportunities to be questioned and to show the Biblical Truth.
Dare to address them and dare to enter an ecclesia of the Christadelphians.

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Find also to read

1. Looking on what is going on and not being of it
2. What is a Pilgrimage?
3. God’s Words for the Pilgrimage #2 Words of God for life
4. A pilgrimage not exactly without obstacles or obstacles #2 Not a cheap or easy flight but a life journey
5. Many looking for the church of the world instead of the Church of God
6. God’s Words for the Pilgrimage #2 Words of God for life
7. Jesse Hemery and the The Goshen Fellowship
8. Bible Students and House Churches
9. God’s forgotten Word 5 Lost Lawbook 4 The ‘Catholic’ church
10. Looking for a biblically sound church
11. When not seeing or not finding a biblically sound church
12. Personal thoughts, communication, establishing ecclesia and guest writings
13. Prayer on the last day of the year
14. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
15. Germinating small seeds, pebble-stones, small and mega churches and faith
16. Finding faith formation and a baptismal place
17. On the way to the altar of the world
18. A new yeshiva or studyplace to be
19. Gathering and meeting for God
20. How to start a house church?
21. How to Form an Ecclesia
22. As a small church needing encouragement
23. Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
24. January 6, 2024 official opening of the Anderlecht ecclesia
25. Who are the Christadelphians or Brothers in Christ
26. Christadelphian people – who or what
27. History of the Christadelphians