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Author Topic: My Marriage and Life are My Own Now  (Read 5600 times)
AgathaL'Orange
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« on: March 13, 2007, 03:28:22 pm »

When I was a member of a GCM church, the prevailing attitude seemed that commitment to the church should be equal to your commitment to God. My husband and I were extremely involved and I thought that this was an admirable state of affairs. I would often sit at home alone on weeknights, while he would attend various meetings and studies. I also had my own meetings and ministries. I thought it was just a necessary sacrifice of time to a good cause.

As the years progessed, I came to feel that my husband was simply gone too much. He felt overinvolved too. As I looked around to the leaders, I saw that as we became more involved with GCM, this overinvolvement would only get worse. It was when my husband was asked to miss part of a very important family event for a weekend retreat, that I saw how commitment to the family really was not the top priority. He refused but he felt guilty. We were asked to travel for various conferences, even if it meant leaving our children. This was not what my heart was telling me to do as a mother. And yet, I didn’t want to be apart fom my husband either while I stayed home with the kids.

Our daughter took her first steps at church while we were there for another planning meeting. We have pictures of it. And while that was a joyous occasion, it shows just how often we were at church. Some weeks, it was almost every night that we would be at church or in a church activity.

I made major decisions based on this church. When to have children, what major I wanted, what career (if any) I would have, when to leave my child for a week, how much money we would give (and what percentage -before taxes) to the church. Was the pressure explicit? Sometimes. We knew though what kind of lifestyles were to be emulated. We knew the way we should live in order to conform.

The pressures we felt were unlike any we had felt in any other evangelical group:

1. We must be committed above all else to the local church– until we die… there is no acceptable reason to leave GCM. Not ever. You should not take a job in another city UNLESS you are part of a church plant. This is just so incredibly unnatural and so different from any other mainstream Christian groups. I have never heard this from any other church denomination.

2. We must be sharing our faith and about the church at all times and in many different methods: Passing out flyers, evangelism, inviting friends, passing out water at outreaches, etc. I began to view people as potential converts instead of simply as people. I began to view everything that I did through the ,”lens of ministry.” In fact, there was a sermon where we were encouraged to take community adult ed. classes– not because this might be interesting or fun– but because we might meet people there to witness to.

This was not a completely new phenomenon to me, however it was the first time where I felt that not only was I trying to convert people to Christ, but I was also trying to convert them to my church, and my church alone.

3. I felt exposed. I felt that too many people were too close to me. It wasn’t a pleasant intimacy, it was a forced intimacy that made me want to run in the other direction. I wasn’t comfortable with the personal level of sharing that sometimes went on in prayer meetings with women, conversations with others, and even sermons, or marriage conferences. There was this strange idea that keeping it real was a good thing. But I think that all of this “accountability” made me feel like I was answering to people not God. There is a place to confess our sins to each other. But I don’t think this should be explicit, nor do I think that anyone should enter into the privacy of a marriage relationship… especially someone who is in authority over you.

This instrusive environment is not an easy place to grow a marriage. When we should have been forming our own family ideals based on conviction, we found ourselves adopting GCM ideals. When we should have said, “No, we are not leaving our children for this conference,” we reluctantly said, “Okay.” I am so happy now to be free to live our lives without this overwhelming sense of intrusiveness from others. Freedom with personal responsibility is good.
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MamaD
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« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2007, 02:49:05 pm »

Agatha,

I’m sorry about all the missed family time you had because of your involvement in GCM. But, I’m happy to hear that you have been freed of that burden.

We weren’t even in leadership and we felt that tug. We can recall many weeks where we did something church related at least 5 of the days 4 of those being evenings.

Our decision to leave a GCM church came after we began questioning many things. And, the bulk of the negative evidence that we found came from GCM itself (sermons, conference tapes, papers, books) not from outsiders who were “slandering” the movement!

Two things came to mind right away as I read your post. The first is a gcnwdads.com article. Number 46 entitled “Building Courage and a Spirit of Sacrifice in our Wives” is telling. One concluding line is, “Sometimes, the only way to cultivate and develop a joyful response to sacrifice on the part of our wives is to plan times of sacrifice into our marriages.”

How twisted is that? The Bible tells us that it’s not the wife that is supposed to sacrifice for her husband, but the husband is to sacrifice for his wife.

“Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Ephesians 5:26

And the thought of actually planning times of sacrifice is beyond belief. And, frankly, cruel.

Another talk at Faithwalkers 2005 was telling (and very sad). I think it was a main session on God’s Revolution on Earth. The speaker says that early in his marriage his wife had asked what one thing she could do that would help him most. His answer was to tell her that he was going strong for God and that the best thing she could do for him was to not be a weight at his feet.

That is not only wrong, but profoundly sad.

God bless your family, Agatha. You have made a wise choice.
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AgathaL'Orange
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« Reply #2 on: March 16, 2007, 02:49:29 pm »

Mama D
Luckily, we have more than made up for all the time spent. And in our new church we explained why we wouldn’t become really involved for awhile. We attend, teach Sunday School, volunteer at special events, give, and help in the nursery occasionally and this feels like we are doing NOTHING compared to what we used to do. Funny, huh?
The weight at his feet statement is just so hurtful, I think. I am sure his wife is fine with it, she seems pretty easy going. It offends me, though, to read it. The part that offends me the most is that it seems that the HUSBAND is the visionary while the wife is sort of like an appendage to him. She can either be a crippled limb or an extra set of legs to help propel him along. It is yet another way where the husband and wife relationship and the Christ and church relationship are just a little skewed. A husband is not a god to his wife. Sarah called Abraham “lord” but that attitude does not apply to me. To tell you the truth, I am just in love with my husband and I love to spend time with him. Ahhh… the “weight” of love.
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Genevieve
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« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2007, 02:49:47 pm »

Mama D,
Thanks for sharing those telling quotes. I’m shocked and appalled that a husband would try to plan times of sacrifice into the marriage. It’s like the husband is the father, and the wife is the child.

They’re saying, “She doesn’t know what’s best for herself and won’t be able to understand this important issue, so I’ll have to train her–no matter how hard it hurts.” SCARY! How incredibly condescending and chauvinist.

Not be a weight at his feet? That makes me so sad. They’re so idealistic and utopian that they forget that love is the most important thing.

I remember one pastor’s wife saying she just waited quietly for her husband to make time for her (or remember her?). They set up weekly date nights, but sometimes he forgot or got too busy with the college group, so she waited quietly and patiently for him to make time for her.

It’s like she thought she shouldn’t have any needs or worked on being invisible–maybe that’s what they mean by weightless.
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