It's funny. Your story isn't all that different from my own.

I was actually pretty firmly ensconced in the church for most of my childhood. I still view it fondly and with much greater compassion than many other people I know who have left the church. I like to think I left it under good circumstances - more of a slow realization that there was more to the world, rather than being burned by their mistreatment of me.

But the breaking point came when I was 15 and we went on a mission trip to Europe (Romania, to be specific).

We did a lot of evangelism. Somewhere along the way I got it in my head that we would also be doing something like feeding people who needed it. That was the early 2000's, and the money we brought could have done a lot of practcal good. Instead the youth pastor gave away a sound system to one of the churches we visited. And explicitly ignored my requests that we do something more meaningful.

The church the sound system was donated to was also an orphanage. I hope they quickly decided the sound system was worthless, sold it, and used the proceeds to take care of the kids.

Something in my mind shifted that trip, though. My faith in the genuine-ness of that particular church was broken, and over time I realized that the break was more fundamental than I thought, and that there wasn't another church that could replace it.

J