Hi Ashley - Would you be able to talk to your pastor about him addressing the congregation about this? Maybe something along the lines of a description of what fibro is and how you are dealing with it, also how you would like church to be the one place you can go and relax knowing you are supported without pressure. If you can formulate ahead of time what would be useful to you and what wouldn't and let them know. Even to the point of stating that it would help if people would babysit for a bit so you can rest or cook some meals or help with housework. See if your pastor would talk to them plainly and possibly be absent that Sunday. Give him all the details to answer most questions so that they can ask him and get it out of their systems.

We eventually stopped going to church, but this wasn't the only reason. My hubby and I got burned out trying to do everything we were doing, and take care of our daughter and deal with idiots.
What we do now is listen to teaching CDs by good teachers and I attend Bible Study that is not linked to our church. We may well go back after a while - but it was interesting and hurtful to see how few of the people we thought were friends just didn't even contact us (Since June last year - maybe 4 people have called about once each!) So be prepared for that too.
We are finding that those who knew us before fibro have mostly dropped away and we are slowly making new friends who really care:-)

Hope you are able to find a solution soon.

Hmmm.....

Lowernotes makes a good suggestion, but....

Try having you hubby call their bluff. My hubby did, when I had my 2011 accident (note: FM came in 1995) and we were desperate for help. He worked 60 hours a week, I was bedridden, it was bad bad bad.... and so when people asked "How are you doing?" he said, "Bad, I could use some help".
He hasn't returned to that church, or any church, since. Their "help" extended only to speaking words. Even a request to the minister to visit me to pray resulted in a phone call--a month later.
Depressing? Yes. Enlightening? Yes.
That said, he can see if people really do want to help---or if the church has a support group---or if he can help start one to organize things like rides to doctors, etc.---you can jump in and start one for spouses to do similar----a church community can be a very great resource.
One thing with chronic pain is---you need to still feel like you are a useful, contributing person. Because we ARE. We just have to find different ways to go about it than we did before. So this could be a way for him.

Cheers,
Leo

Oh, for subject changers, my hubby found it was best to just ask in return, "So you've had your spine and pelvis damaged so badly you might never walk again?" (my case at the time) Yeah. The OTHER person changed teh subject... but my hubby can be a kind of, ahem, blunt individual at times.

A good changer is simply, "That's nice of you to say," and bring up weather, sports, current events. Most people mean well with their words. They probably have no idea how entirely and totally and completely they irritate the he** outta us. (I hope!)

Ditto everything Leo said - including the question - something like "Oh do you have fibromyalgia? What does your doctor say?" or whatever feels right in the situation based on what kind of "help" is being offered.

I will add that, sadly, this is where a lot of people become disillusioned, as in some churches the only "help" offered is of that type. Words only go so far - they don't get you a ride to the doctor when you need it, or someone to cook a meal when you just can't, or someone to clean your gutters, or all the other things that can become impossible with fibromyalgia. If "help" doesn't mean real help, in my humble opinion the offers of help are hollow.

Hope things work out for you - if it's important to you both I hope you can find a way through it.

It's interesting you brought this up today, because I have something similar going on. I hadn't been to church and Sunday school for about six weeks. I previously rarely missed.

Well, in our class my husband would always tell the class I was feeling bad from the fibro and would ask them to pray for me. I finally made it to church yesterday, but not to the class beforehand. So this woman in our class came up to me and greeted me warmly, but then said I needed to get my butt back in Sunday school! Ok, this didn't sit well with me.

Then she started telling me what I ought to do, doctor-wise because "you certainly don't want to spend the rest of your life like this." Ok, of course I don't! If it wasn't for my husband liking the class so much, I wouldn't go back. I only had one person call me all those weeks I wasn't there, plus one did send a note.

So I understand, but I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions. After I talked to that woman, I was wishing I hadn't discussed my health with her. She's the one who brought it all up and was asking questions. Next time, I'll have to come up with some way of ending the conversation.

I used to get irritated by this until I was on the other end....and had two friends with stage 4 breast cancer....both who died. One was an acquaintance friend from high school but the other was my best friend. I was very well intentioned with my questions and offerings of help but I truly didn't understand a thing she was going thru because I've never had cancer. I have two chronic pain conditions but I've still never experienced what they did. I tried my best to relate my experiences to theirs but there's no comparison. Since my experience with this I've tried very hard to not get angry with well meaning people. I would never throw something back in someone's face...asking them if they were diagnosed with this or that...then how would they know how we feel. I'm pretty sure they know they don't know how we feel....but they are trying to find some way in their life experience to relate something to what we feel so they can be empathetic. I do the same thing when trying to relate to something I don't understand first-hand. It's something I've had to learn the hard way.
We complain so much about people not understanding us and what we go thru yet when they try to, we throw it in their face. I think we should use these opportunities to really give true information about what we go thru....if someone really doesn't care you will find that out soon enough! & you can move on.
I stopped going to church in 2007....a church I'd attended for 7
years.....had sang on the worship team once a month every month for 6 1/2 of those years....I was known by most of the over 1000 people at the church though maybe was friends with around 50. I took a break from worship team because I was dealing with health issues (endometriosis at the time...not yet fibro dx)....depression. but I soon came to realize that taking away the thing I loved.....singing.....was doing more harm than good....but when I went to talk to the girl about putting me back on the schedule she said "not until you are better!". I felt so judged....and she was a hypocrite because she too dealt with depression yet was the worship minister assistant. I never went back and not one person ever called to check on me, see why I wasn't there..I will never go back to another church.