Convicted....

i feel convicted with my budget... and i'm not sure how to change that. I have nothing allotted for "offering/charitable contributions" and lately i've been feeling all icky inside because of it... Now it would be easy to give... (for me that is) But (there's always a but) i really don't feel i have a church in which to give to. I attend this one place... but it doesn't feel like my church because of some events that took place a few months ago...

A few months ago my church fired its college and jr high youth pastor. He was a dear friend of mine, and i understood why the church let him go... what i don't understand is the Church instructing the School (associated with the church) to fire his wife, a teacher there. I read the emails she received and the church/school opted to blackmail the family into silence (Silence meaning: they couldn't tell anyone the pastor was fired, he couldn't start a church anywhere in the area, she could not say good by to the students she mentored for years....) in order to keep a severance check and medical benefits that were necessary for their survival since the pastor's wife was very ill with medical uncertainty.

Some who found out were asked by the family to keep silent because they didn't want a place that had a handful of bad people to ruin the good that the church was doing. Several people who knew about the incident who were lawyers offered to help them right the injustice,... but the family didn't want the church to split and for many people to stop going... Now i must admit that i have not talked with the senior pastor to get both sides of the story completely yet... but that is because the church blackmailed the family and if i say anything,... they are screwed... But now i'm torn...

i haven't completely left the church yet because i'm involved with the Jr high and so many other leaders left... i couldn't abandon the kids... and i now hang out on Sunday nights at the new college pastor's house... but i don't feel like MVCC is really my church anymore. Until i can sit down and chat with the Senior Pastor about everything... and in essence hear from the horses mouth... i can't choose if i'll leave or not... I've invested so much time into the relationships i have with ppl there... my sister's even coming back to the church... and were going to remold Sunday night back to the way it used to be... but i can't look the senior pastor in the eye... and he's the guy who's working with the Jr high because they have been unable to find someone to fill the old pastor's place...

I just don't feel right about tithing to a place like that until i know everything that happened... What hurts the most is that the senior pastor is the one who baptised me and was my old pastor in high school... i fear since he is the senior pastor that it fell in his lap.... But i feel i should be tithing.... but i find myself convicted because i don't want to promote behavior like that in a church of all places.

I think i'll talk to my old pastor about it... and the new college pastor too. I'm a truly blessed college student right now... i want to give back... but where?