Excerpts

The Day I walked away From Church

As I went through these past couple of years I would leave Valley Point church go out on my own and do my fighting in the battle for hearts. Part of me still believed that conventional church with the nice steeple and stained glass would win out. Yet each time I went out to help some one I saw how churches failed more and more people. Then the day came when I saw how the power of a church and its leaders destroyed a young woman, I tell this story leaving names out of the victim and the accused. As well as the church and the leadership that covered up the crime.

A young woman came to my office one day obviously beaten and hurt. When others in our HR area told her to come see them she simply said I will talk with Patrick only. I took her away from all the drama. She told me that hours earlier her boyfriend came home drunk. Let himself into her apartment and demanded sex. She is the daughter of a retired pastor. She denied him his request. He got pissed and began beating her until she gave in. As she described this I called my detective friend here. Asked him to meet me with his female partner. I asked the young woman about her boyfriend. She told me he was a youth pastor at a local church. That this was the second time he raped her. First time she was seventeen and he had drugged her to do it.

Yet she stayed with this guy as she felt she loved him. Plus her father really approved of him. She winced more and more. I noticed she was beginning to have a rather wide pool of blood show up on the front and back of her pants. I put her in my truck and drove to the hospital. Called my buddy to meet us there. As we walked into the ER. I discreetly told the receptionist who I was and whom I was bringing in. She took us back to a room immediately my buddy and his partner showed up about 2 minutes later. The female detective stayed in the room as the nurses and doctors began working on the young lady. I got the name of the boyfriend from the detective. They went to the girls apartment to arrest him. As she had said he passed out when he got done beating and raping her. My buddy left. I asked to go as I wanted to talk with the young man. He strongly suggested that I stay at the hospital. Actually he ordered me to stay. He knew if I went he would have way more paperwork to fill out. Plus a lot of explaining to do to his boss.

I stayed at the hospital for the morning. The detective came out and told me that the young woman would more than likely never have kids as she was torn up inside. It looked as if she was sodomized by a glass bottle. Which was then broken inside of her vaginal cavity tearing into the uterus, by another type of foreign object. The girl was resting and in shock. The family had been called. They were on the way down. We were asked by the young woman to be in the room when her family arrived.

The mother and father arrived. Mom took one look at her daughter after she told them what happened and walked out of the room. The father (Retired Pastor) looked at his battered daughter the said something that just about had me kill the guy where he was standing. “This wouldn’t have happened if you just gave in to his demands. Now you have ruined his career as a pastor. You have disgraced the church, your family and especially me.” I got up to beat the shit out of this piece of trash with enough force that my chair embedded itself into the wall. The female detective got between him and I. She whispered in my ear “Let it go.” I looked at her knowing she was right. We went back into the room. The detective dismissed the father putting the young women in protective custody. These detectives and I have done this a few times now. I left and got a safe place ready for the young woman when she got out of the hospital. The boyfriend had been arrested at the apartment. We sent a crew over to clear the apartment out of all her stuff.

I called Jose and my wife. Both going wow. E-mailed Frank he had a few choice comments about the father. I then called Dr. Barry drove up to his house for a cigar to talk. I wanted to go buy a bottle of Jack one the way. As Barry and I talked he calmed me down slightly. Between Barry and Frank they had me focus on the girl and her wounds and her heart. I talk with this young woman daily still. In the months that have passed I have seen enough to make me puke when I think about it. The boyfriend was released from Jail. NO CHARGES FILED!!!! The church and the girls father buttered someone’s pocket in the D.A.’s office. The young man was allowed to continue as a Pastor in the church. He walked away scott free Given his lively hood back. All the while the young lady is still healing from the injuries within her. Her heart destroyed by her family and boyfriend. She rails against God for letting this happen some days. Knowing that God let it happen not understanding his bigger purpose in why. I don’t know that answer any more than she does. A few weeks after all this happened I got a phone call from a man. He asked if I was the Smokin Chaplain. I said yes. He sad he just wanted to call and let me know that he had broken the nose of the father when he told him what had happened while playing golf. I laughed. Told him thank you and hung up.

My wife and I were still going to Valleypoint@Pines to hear Dr. Barry. I would look in the room and out of 60 people there were maybe 4 warriors in the place. Barry had heart surgery and was on leave. The final straw came on that leave. The Jr. pastor and servant leaders had come to a decision based on conjecture and hyperbole that Barry had to go. He wasn’t building the church the way they wanted. As their weren’t more asses in the pews on Sunday. Dr. Barry with the team Chaplain for the AFL2 (Arena Football League) Spokane Shock As well as several other organizations. He was in the community ministering daily. We all have faults if you think you don’t go walk on water for me. Then I will believe you. In regards to Barry it all came down in a whirlwind. One week he tells me he has a meeting with the servant leaders, then he and his wife Ginny were having a garage sales for the next couple of weekends. First weekend passed and all was cool. The next weekend we walk up the driveway to see that the house was now being sold. I let a what the fuck slip out my mouth. Sorry Ginny!! Barry looked at my Theresa and I with a tear in his eye told us he was being forced to resign the next morning.

Theresa cried the whole way home as it was like she was loosing her father all over again. I was pissed people. Actually I was raged. I was going into church the next day to hear Barry say good bye. I wanted to walk in with a freaking AK 74 and just humble people… The Jr. Asshole in charge stood next to me acting as if he was my friend. Wondering if he should have one of the cops in the church sit next to me. I told him it wouldn’t matter. “If I go off. It will be ugly. VERY UGLY!!!!!” Barry resigned that morning. Seething I left my wife stayed behind and all chips fell in place. As she walked in from meeting with the Jr. limp dick, couldn’t fight his way out a douche shower and his bitch of a wife. Theresa looked at me crying. These people had used my wife and I to get Barry fired for their gain. Eight years earlier I would have gone into the church the following Sunday and decked everyone on staff. God calmed me down as did Jose and Frank. Barry’s wife in her graciousness even brought my anger level down.

Yet for the next two months I watched a grown man loose all. His home, his vocation, friends, most of all his faith. He prayed that God would just kill him in his sleep. Dr. Barry and his wife asked that we not act on any of our motives. As part of the resignation package included severance pay that and benefits that they would loose if the Servant leaders felt Barry didn’t keep up his side of the deal. People, I am not one that likes to sit on my hands when my friends are being driven to the point of insane statements. I get even more upset when the work of a few has hurt so many. People would come in and out of the house as my wife and I would help them pack their home as they got rid of almost everything they owned. The day he shut the door on his trailer to begin his journey to TX with his whole life fitting in one 24 foot trailer was the day I went home, after the leaders had come up to the house with their spouses. To me this was the most tactless thing I have ever seen. Pretty much driving the sword they put through his heart to the hilt and twisting it.

Opening my bible searching the book of Acts for what the Lord called church. What we were doing wasn’t it. I would speak to Barry and Frank often. Deciding it was time to just start my own group of believers. Conventional church was done in my heart. I would not step into another one ever again. I had an awakening within. God was showing me again what his purpose was. Why he had sent his Son down to earth to die on the cross for our sins. My desire was elevated to a level I have never known. My wife will say this scared her while at the same time it started turning her on. I had a war to fight. My heart filled with a purpose. People backing us. Her lil Scot/Irish husband was walking into danger again. Frank calls this the “Stud Factor” when we are in the presence of the almighty we are hotter to the women that love us. It’s a God gift thing.” His words folks not mine.

Barry is now in TX still broken. His fight is slowly coming back on some days. Others he is off in a land I don’t I ever found when I was using drugs.. When we talk it fuels a fire within that some how the tears left behind don’t quench. After searching scripture. Then reading “The Shack” www.theshack.com. (To all reading this book I highly suggest that you read “The Shack.”) I was brought to a conclusion that will ultimately offend many. I don’t give a rip. Like Jose, I have no problem telling you are wrong when you are. I have no problem calling a spade a spade. The conclusion both my wife and I came to is this.

Church is big business. It is a fill the seats with people, preach at them until they put their 10% in the basket kind of place. Most Pastors on the pulpit fill the congregations with some fluffy pie in the sky bull shit about God that doesn’t call on anyone’s sin. It just lets people know they are getting a great show on the Evangelical side of church. Once tithe is taken and service is over. The alter calls are made and accepted. They ( the Modern Mega Churches and small ones a like) go to count their money making sure that the salaries of the guy in the pulpit and his minions are paid.

It has been my experience as well as that of others. That when the truly hurting show up asking for help. From asking for help in paying a high electric bill. To asking for help with greater issues such as abuse, neglect, Providing funds to their own community to keep a valued community out reach open. Their check books are some how empty. I have seen countless women and men turned away in despair simply because some one wouldn’t help them because they didn’t believe in God at the time they asked for help.

How would my life have turned out if when I walked into church for the first time I was asked to leave? How would others I have known turned out like Todd, Frank, or Jose. If they were treated the same way? As a Marine we live by two words. Semper Fidelis. It means “Always Faithful.” Faithful to God, Country and Corps. It means you are faithful to those that can’t fight for themselves. It means you live and love each day. By dying each day to your own ways as you pursue the heart of God. His calling for your own life!! Then taking it that next step where you are fighting with him to bring his message to those around you.. Seminaries are full of people thinking they teach this. They don’t!!! You look into church in America and see that the motto is more “Semper Perfidious.” Meaning always faithless or treacherous. They want your money. Not your heart. All in the name of Christ Jesus.


In the thirty years of my journey to Lazarus. Where I finally heard the Lord shout “Wake UP” I have come to realize what church is as YhWh intended way back before he even gave us the garden. In my heart of hearts church is fellowship. It is where you love even when it hurts physically and emotionally. It isn’t a building with stained glass and steeples on top. It is within us. YhWh breathed it into us when he formed us from dirt. Church is LOVE. Love can’t exist outside of relationship. It just isn’t possible. You will not see me or my wife behind a pulpit preaching at you. You will not see us holding our hand out asking for money.