The Devil is in the Church

Most know me well enough to know that I’m in no means religious.  In fact, most know that I am very anti organized religion.  I’ve always said that you can pretty much believe in whatever you want, and I won’t care.  But as soon as you start infringing on my rights to do so, or spamming about your religion, or putting down my own, I will be up in arms.

I put that disclaimer there, because this post is one I wanted to cool off a bit before I wrote it.  The largest snag we had for the whole wedding turned out to be the venue.  We had issues with it almost immediately upon choosing it, and I’m glad that we spotted the issues with it as it went along.





It makes no sense not putting at least some names in this, as the venue we chose went out on our invitations.  The Assembly of God in Keota, OK, is a large church...well, at least the building in.  Lisa had been going there since the passing of her first husband two and a half years prior, and truly viewed the church and the church family as people that had helped her through that tough time.  She was dedicated to her church, even helping teach Sunday school, spending extra of her own time and money to get it done right.

The first red flag went up when a coup happened within the church.  The original preacher received a letter stating that if he didn’t leave, that a certain amount of people would leave.  He promptly left and never came back.  Upon his leaving, more people left than was originally threatened in that letter.

The upheaval was pretty serious, and to the rescue came the husband of the secretary of the church to fill in as preacher.  Lisa stayed on through it all, resolute that we were going to use the church for our wedding.  But there were many rumors about this pair circulating, so months before the wedding, we decided to hedge our bets a bit.

We knew who was going to do the wedding, it was someone outside the church, but we wanted to make sure we had a backup plan.  So instead of using a large open area at the church for our reception, we decided to use the local community center.  That way we’d always have a place, even if everything else fell through.



Time passed, and other red flags shot up at church.  We verified numerous times, “Yes, Lisa is a member of the church, and can use it for free.”  But I told her, as did a few others, that something would happen to make that change.  It was only a matter of time.

The weekend before the wedding, the shoe finally dropped.  Lisa went to church, and the preacher there pulled her aside telling her that they needed to talk.  The main gist of it turned out to be that there was going to now be a $150 deposit for cleaning, and we’d get it back it if it was clean.  Lisa came out and called me.  She said, “What do you think?”

I said, “They’d find a way to screw us out of that $150 so lets not use them.”  It was my call, and that was my opinion.  What happened next was what truly made us know we had finally made the right choice.  The preacher raised his voice at her, in front of some members of the congregation, trying to put her in her place.

The first paragraph of this blog was me technically stating a disclaimer.  In this preacher’s tirade, he specifically told Lisa to not go spreading rumors about him or the church.  She fired back that she only spread the truth.

All I know for certain is that when all these issues started, the first thing I said to Lisa was, “The Devil got into the church.”  And I stand by that remark.  And the other thing I stand by, Lisa was the last member of the congregation that thought what happened to the former preacher (with the letter) was wrong, and there have been many times when Lisa was felt as if she had been shown the door.  Tacking on a ‘cleaning deposit’ the week before the wedding, out of the blue, when no one had been required a deposit before was underhanded and lame.  And right now, I’m thanking the lord that my prayers were answered, and Lisa was finally delivered out of that viper den before all the negativity and underhandedness ate her soul.