1 /5 Lauren Liechty: I was so hurt to have spent so many positive years at this church and in this community only to have leadership more or less soft "excommunicate" me or at least deny me, and take partial sides in my divorce and child custody arrangement. I volunteered in childcare here, which is what I have done at church since I was about 10 years old with only a few exceptions. I was asked by other community group leaders, for myself and my husband to start our own community group, which we did. I attended baby showers, annual retreats, community outings. I held my children in my arms while I worshipped. They would have seen me holding my childrens precious hands walking through their halls, holding them during worship in the sanctuary, caring for them during childcare, or working through separation anxiety during drop-offs as a full time stay at home mom who pretty much never leaves her kids. I ended up going through a painful divorce and child custody battle that I never wanted but thought was in my familys best interests. I also had changed my religious beliefs and talked with leadership about it somewhat shortly before divorce. I took responsibility to talk to leadership about it and make sure everyone in the community group was sheltered under different community group leaders and wanted my husband to be able to continue his religious beliefs with a group. I had discussed how I had struggled with how some of the churchs viewpoints didnt seem to align with Biblical texts, but that I loved the philosophy of the churchs creed: in essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things charity. It was what drew me to nondenominational churches. During the divorce process I tried to keep the church community spared from the drama as much as possible. When I read the letter of support for my husband from our female church pastor with a social work degree that was submitted to court, I was heartbroken. Not only did she not ask for my side nor my concerns, I could not believe she wrote with the authority and knowledge at which she wrote for my husband and on what amount of knowledge she thinks she knew what happened inside my home. I could not believe she would write for him without talking to me. In addition, I then reached out to her, a pastors wife, and the female who asked me (and my husband) to start a community group to ask them to write myself a letter of support. They replied more or less they no longer knew me since I had not attended their church in the past ~6 months. Meanwhile I had actually stayed in contact with past community group members, had the previously mentioned staff meeting, and had seen some of the female leaders other places like a BBQ. I asked if they would attest to what they knew of me when I attended, and they replied they could not. I cannot fathom this being professional or acceptable in any other setting outside religion. It affects my spiritual journey and beliefs, my trust in religion and religious leadership, my childrens wellbeing and decisions regarding their lives, my relationship to other human beings, etc. I have struggled whether to post this publicly, but I cannot see further hurt or divide happening through this post that did not already occur; and I think other members or nonmembers should know and have a right to decide if this is the kind of community they want to be a part of.
In addition, 10K of our "joint" charity fund to World Vision was donated to Union Chapel around this general time frame without my foreknowledge or consent.
