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Praising God with throngs in the Angels Stadium

Writer's picture: Ruth WiseRuth Wise



Last night I attended a gathering of tens of thousands of believers at the Angels Stadium. All I can say is it was so glorious and precious to lift my hands and voice in oneness with so many members of my divinely related family.


The event was in stark contrast to the indoctrination I had been under that somehow Christians who didn’t meet in a particular community were divisive, that “we” kept the oneness by meeting as THE church in any city and by adhering to one ministry (not simply and purely the Word of God)….


I have found the real oneness with all believers only after recognizing the damage of the subtle beliefs of my dear fellow believers in a church community that avows to keep the oneness while also having no capacity to properly care for fatherless, for widows, for brokenhearted, for abused…. When I was completely desperate, humanly, for safety and help for both myself and my adolescent children , I reached out to in-laws and other responsible ones in that church community, and have been repeatedly ignored, condemned for doing so, and rebuked by a church elder in that community, with such words as: “The elders in Los Angeles avoid direct involvement with the intra-family dynamics of the saints as much as possible, especially when such matters are due to complex factors that decidedly belong in the realm of human affairs tended to by specialist training;” and “We continue to stand by that fellowship and believe the passage of time has proven it prudent for us to not be adjudicating matters which are not only intra-family, but also multi-generational, extra-local, and medical-related.


While I am facing multiple fronts of challenges that no human being should ever face without a supportive community, elders in “the” church in my city, professing to be one with all believers, have communicated in legalese that periodically interrupts long periods of silence, that I would do best to not reach out to them/“the” church for help. I have been accused of publicly miscasting, misrepresenting, and mischaractetizing them. Please, tell me, dear ones, what is anything I have said or written that is untrue that damages your image. If my telling the truth damages your image, I must care for the truth over your image.


I remember being in a Bible training class in that particular church community, and being taught that we should never hear anything “negative” [about “the” church/“the” ministry]. The man who later became my husband asked in that class, “What if we hear something negative?” The answer was, “First, don’t hear anything negative. But if you do, find out the truth.“ But, in my experience, it seems like anyone who speaks the truth about matters that could be labeled as “negative” - matters that must be addressed for a person‘s basic survival, to end abuse, etc.- is silenced, ostracized, labeled as poisonous, quarantined…


At the same time, that church community believes themselves to be superior to other Christians, under a specific ministry that is exclusively worthy of believers’ attention… Most would deny such claims - further gaslighting anyone who discerns such attitudes of superiority and exclusivity… but believers in that group largely claim to be the Lord’s recovery, recovering truths and practices lost by other Christians. The speaking in this group is referred to as “the high peak of the divine revelation.” Other Christians and groups of Christians are, by implication or directly, referred to as degraded.


Anyway, I attended the 35th annual Harvest Crusade… having viewed such events for nearly all my life as “divisive” and “degraded” based on the ministry I was under… but last night, I praised the God of this universe, the Head of the Body, the King of kings, with so many believers, with the conviction that I’m more one with all believers than ever before, and longing for eternity, when/where together we will praise the only One who is worthy of all our praise. … I am, as far as it depends on me, one with those elders who can’t shepherd me or my family because our situation is intra-family, multi-generational, extra-local, and involves medical needs. I forgive them - I have to hope that they simply act in ignorance. I would love to fellowship with any or all of them at any time possible.


In the meantime, so thankful to be in fellowship with all fellow believers who don’t ostracize us at a time when we - specifically I and my now-adult children - need care more than ever.


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