My Pastor Tried to Scare Me Away from Conservative Churches - Heiko and Sabine Klien

Right in the beginning of my walk with Jesus, um, I had found a church in our area, and we went to the church, and Heiko was not a believer at that time. And the boys, of course, weren't believers because they were still small. And after a while in this church, it happened to be that a woman preached, and they allowed women to preach in general. There wasn't a female preacher, but when the pastor was, um, I don't know, on vacation or something, they asked random people also, including women. Then I addressed, um, the pastor, and I asked him why, as it is in the Bible, that we as women shouldn't teach, and preaching is teaching.

And, um, I couldn't, um, stay in a church where women are preaching, as it is against the Scripture. Um, and to make it short, he said, "Okay, if you would leave our church and go to a more conservative church, your husband and your children will not become Christian because they are too strict. It's legalistic, and don't do that." And I was just, like, crying and crying, and I said, "Well, I'm in a conflict here.

My conscience says it's not right, and I cannot agree with it." And, yeah, I then left the situation and, um, prayed, and I praise God that they became Christians despite extremely conservative Christians in our lives. And on the other side, as an unbelieving husband following a believing wife into a church service, it's very interesting to look from a different point of view, from an outsider, just what's going on. And it's very interesting, and just, I think that's very important for us believers now, that somebody from outside can quite easily identify who you are following.

Easily, very easy. Just understand, if you—if there's a church service, and at the end of the church service, you're gathering, maybe a cup of tea and having a small talk, and just you just stay there and hear what they're talking about.

When you are a part of a football club, so, and after the game, what do you talk about? About football. So after the church service, what do you talk about? If you talk about football, or your vacation, or your new car, that sounds, from an outside perspective, interesting, I would say. And then you easily can see, okay, they talk about the sermon. They talk about, oh, what does it for me? What's going on? Or what the Scripture says? Or I had a situation in my life doing this and that. So you see what's going on in their lives by just— It was so interesting. The first church was really kind of liberal. They also had a, um, a band playing with worship songs and stuff.

Anyway, Heiko wasn't very impressed. He went along. He was just curious, but he wasn't very impressed. And then during that time, sometime we got in connection with a mission in Ireland, and we made a trip to Ireland just as a family trip. And I asked him, "I would like, if we go to Ireland, I would like to just visit the Mennonites there. I would just be there on a Sunday and visit the church service." And so we we planned the trip according to that, and we stayed in Waterford, and I went on the Sunday morning to the church service. And then Dan Yoder, he was the bishop at that time of the church, he said, "Well, Sabina, you would like to invite your family."

And I was like, "Oh my, Heiko, he just looks so hippie-like." But anyway, I said, "Yes, I'll ask my husband, and then if we can go, come, we'll come." And then I asked him, he said, "Yes, why not?" I was curious because— Interesting. And then we came back from—I'm sorry. We came back from that, I don't know, was it tea break, coffee break, whatever, I don't remember that. But we came home to the apartment that we had rented for the vacation, and he said, "Well, this is different. I really appreciate these people. They follow Jesus, and I can see that." That's what he said. Wow.

And so you did go then to their home, I guess, like for a meal or something? That's so interesting because I interviewed Dan, you know, last year, and that was lovely, you know, to hear his story. And he even said, being not a believer, this is really a humble man. He really appreciated Dan's attitude.

That's so interesting because you'd been told previously that, "Oh, if you go this direction, that'll be legalistic, and you'll—and the rest of your family won't come to Jesus," which, oof, that's a heavy thing for someone to tell a new believer, for starters. But also, that wasn't the point, it sounds like. No, it was not the point. You know, the legalism and the rules and all of that, it was the love that you saw, right?

The way people interacted with you. It feels like that's the real point here. Yes, if you want to do something, just do it. Don't talk about it. It's just, it should, yeah, you should see it in your life. It needs to be authentic. It needs to be authentic.

And it's, it's, yeah, and we met different—we were in different church services, and I could easily, easily understand what's going on in this church and what's going on in this church. And just think about, if you invite some unbelieving neighbor, they would see what's going on at the church. They definitely would understand. And the pastor in our first church even praised his long, beautiful hair from the pulpit.

So my, yeah, he wanted to win him, like, yeah, yeah, of course. And Dan never addressed—Dan Yoder never addressed the issue of his long hair, but he just invited him, was friendly, took interest, talked about his beliefs and stuff, and was more winning.