My younger son (almost 3 years old at the time) and I had just dropped off my older son (6 years old) at school and headed to K-Mart. Since my car accident a year before, I started getting panic attacks almost every time I drove; this morning was no exception. I tried to get my errands done early because the anxiety would wipe me out by the end of the day. I white-knuckled it to K-Mart, chatting with my toddler as we drove. Once we arrived, I perused the aisles, taking my time so my body could calm down from the 10-minute drive. Sometimes the anxiety would be so bad that my fingers and toes would start tingling, and then the back of my head. The tingling in the back of my head was the worst. On really bad days, I would have to pull over until it eased up. I had made it all the way there this particular day, but the anxiety was getting worse while driving instead of better. I spotted the book section and quickly scanned it. I spotted a book by a woman I’d never heard of before, Joyce Meyer, “The Battlefield of the Mind.” I snatched it up, desperate for help.

I knew my answer was Jesus, and I knew what the Gospel was. I’d heard it from the time I was in foster care at 5 years old and regularly after that, as my adoptive parents were Christians, and my adoptive dad was a Pastor in the Assemblies of God. Since that time, I had always considered myself a Christian. I was baptized at nine and had prayed to God since I could remember. I asked Jesus to “come into my heart” at least a thousand times between the first time I heard of him at 5 and this time in my life, at 27. But after I moved out of my parents’ house at 18, I mostly quit going to church.

I would attend on occasion, for holidays, and after I got married and we had our first son, my dad dedicated him to the Lord. For the next many years, despite gross sin on my part, I still considered myself a Christian. I didn’t feel a love for Christ, but I did feel a fear of God. I felt I needed to “clean myself up” before heading back to church. But I was never clean enough. I could not be perfect enough or make up for the sins I had committed. The car accident felt like another failure on my part; I had added it to the list. And I could not just “get it together” this time, which had been my default for many years.

Then, at 27, I came to the end of myself. I’m not positive of the order, but it seemed to start with picking up that book, crying out to the Lord, calling my dad, and almost immediately, going to church. My boys had not been to church regularly. I can’t remember if my younger son had ever been. But right away, on a Wednesday night, I felt an urgency to attend. My life changed immediately and drastically. Not in any of my circumstances (the anxiety with driving has never gone away), but in my heart, soul, and will. It was like the scales fell from my eyes, and I saw Jesus, myself, and the world in a completely new way. I felt the heaviness of my sin and, at the same time, saw the magnitude of God’s grace toward me through Jesus. My life has never been the same. I’m so thankful for what Christ did for me and continues to do in my life. Now, even when Christ feels far away, I can look back to that time, the person that I was, and the person I am now, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that it was all him that did it. I could not will myself out of that dark place of sin and despair, but he lifted me out of it.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, as I’ve been considering church, about how glad I am that Jesus saved me outside of “church.” Of course, I know that God brought to my remembrance, at just the right time, all of the seeds that were planted by people he used to share the Gospel with me over the years. I called my dad when all this happened, and he prayed with me (again) the sinner’s prayer (or something to that effect). I knew Jesus had already saved me at that point, but I wanted to share the moment with someone else to solidify it in my mind. I know God saves people through Jesus in a myriad of ways, however He chooses. One of them is by going to church and hearing a sermon, but I’m glad He chose to save me outside of a “church” building, or through a particular pastor, elder, or leader. Why? Because I see how people associate their own walk with God with a specific church, community, or person, to the point that they believe if they leave any of the above, they are somehow leaving God or Christianity altogether.

I look at the church(es) I’ve come out of, and the leadership in those places, and can see how appealing it would be to stay in those places if I had connected them to my very salvation. What seems to happen is that people equate spiritual authority not only with God but also with pastors and elders put in positions to represent him, often leading congregations to idolize pastors and other leadership. People don’t just make up this idea in their heads (although we all love an idol we can see), but many in church leadership propagate this idea. In some instances, by directly saying “I’m your spiritual authority” (or words to that effect). There seems to be a certain style with pastors who claim this type of authority. Their sermons entertain by sensationalism (at times salaciousness) and berate the congregants, not to present Christ or the Gospel, but to build a platform and get followers. This method seems effective, as people keep coming back week after week.

I understood why this tactic would be appealing to some pastors. But I could not understand why people would want to feel “beat-up” by a preacher. I hated the feeling of being berated on a Sunday morning. I had never experienced this style of preaching before in an ongoing way until Pastor 1. I had heard of and seen clips of plenty of pastors behaving this way in other churches. I just did not recall experiencing it for myself as a Christian with my own pastor. What made it appealing to others to sit under that kind of preaching, I wondered? I think many Christians are more vulnerable to this type of thinking because we know that we are sinners and know what we deserve. It seems for many people it’s a form of catharsis and/or self-flagellation. Some pastors who use “biblical authority” language know this and prey on it.

As Christians, though, we don’t get what we deserve because Christ paid the debt that we owed, and God sees His righteousness in us. So, we don’t need to be berated on Sunday morning (I’m not talking about conviction; that is something different, and we don’t need to be yelled at or condescended to to experience it). We don’t need a pastor, elder, or other leader as a mediator, because Christ is our mediator (1 Tim 2:5) and we can go directly to him. We don’t have to prop up mere men to be like God in our eyes to feel close to him, because we have the Holy Spirit that resides within us.

The last 20 years have been a testament of God’s goodness towards me, and his ability to save without a particular person, “church,” or book (although He can and does use those things). Ultimately, He saves through a work of the Holy Spirit. I’m so glad God saved me outside the “church,” because it has made it easier for me to recognize church culture and having my identity in a particular system of church, and move towards Jesus and find my identity solely in Him and be a member of His body, the true Church (1 Cor 12:27).

“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3:5-7

*I am not recommending reading books by or listening to Joyce Meyer.