Month: October 2016 | Page 5 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Why I Left: Part 3

Continued from Part Two.

As you might imagine I was quite upset with having to wait the whole weekend for some closure. That night I went to bed anxious. I prayed, and did some more self examination. I told my husband for some help thinking and coping. We kind of came to the conclusion that it might have just been my mind playing tricks on me. I tried so hard to see myself as the one at fault because I didn’t want my husband to get overly upset in case I was wrong. I also was conscious of the possibility that this was all just a very strange spiritual attack to cause me to accuse a pastor.

Monday morning came and the counselor’s voice sounded especially comforting and gentle. She told me some of the emails had been forwarded to her for her examination. She asked me a couple questions for clarity and I clarified for her. She then asked me my perspective on the matter. She ultimately wanted to know if I was accusing him of anything. I told her all the reasons why I didn’t feel comfortable accusing him. She was relieved. But I still went back to the issue about my worry about him. Then she told me the the volume of emails made me look like the one who has the problem. I was baffled. We ended the call with her praying for me and then she assured me that she wanted me to stay at church there. And that she loved me.

It almost felt like she was mothering me which felt nice but at the same time I was still in a bit of a fog because she had considered the amount of emails as evidence that I was some sort of initiator of the whole problem. It’s like she wasn’t seeing what was in those emails.

This kept me quiet for awhile just contemplating. Meanwhile, in light of everything, I didn’t see much change in the assistant pastor’s behavior towards me. It’s almost like he still wanted to befriend me. He would keep popping up very frequently and always smiling. I almost felt like his smile was mischievous. One time I saw one of the sisters in front of me looking at him with a shocked expression. He was behind me. I suspect she saw him leering at me. I also felt hair stick up from the back of my neck. I didn’t want to ask her why she had that look on her face. I figured she wouldn’t tell me. I wished she would let somebody know though. I was very aware I had that dreaded label stamped on me. I wanted vindication. But I also wanted it for him too. I hoped to God he wasn’t a weirdo and I so wanted to check myself into mental health therapy.

The senior pastor had been absent a couple months because of a couple surgeries and recovering. But he eventually came back. It then became evident to me the counselor didn’t mention anything to the senior pastor for obvious reasons.

To be continued.

See Part One.

The Butterfly Circus

The Butterfly Circus, released in August 2009, is an inspiring 22.5 minute short film that is supposed to be made into a full-length motion picture, though I haven’t heard anything about their progress in years. People who have been hurt in unhealthy churches should be able to take home something from this film that will lift their spirits.

“At the height of the Great Depression, the showman of a renowned circus discovers a man without limbs being exploited at a carnival sideshow, but after an intriguing encounter with the showman he becomes driven to hope against everything he has ever believed.”

You may watch the entire film for free on Vimeo.

Why I Left: Part 2

Continued from Part One.

Another time I asked what their accountability system was. I got a response: “We have weekly devotionals with the pastoral staff.”

Still another time I asked them why the pastors all seem so standoffish? It didn’t seem Christ-like. I got the response: “We keep fellowship within the ranks.”

But silly me wasn’t content with the answers so I kept probing and often sharing scriptures but I rarely got responses. I think the pastor in charge of reading emails should have told if there was an unspoken rule about answering emails. My personality is just keep probing and asking rhetorical questions, sharing scripture and trying to humbly contend for the faith. So that’s what I did.

Now, I remember wondering if the Holy Spirit was prompting me to email or if it was just my natural zeal. But interestingly, I felt a caution in my spirit when starting emails but thought, it’s the devil trying to intimidate me from contending for the faith, but I also thought it could be God warning me that the devil has put the zeal there and making it appear like God’s prompting.

Anyway, I think emailing somehow either started an inappropriate attraction to me or this assistant pastor decided to subtly turn on the charm to find a way to distract me, test me, or take me off balance and use flattery to find a way to shift blame to make me a troublemaker.

He had started to be friendlier at church but I wasn’t comfortable because he had been standoffish for so long and now I was feeling a bit bombarded with attention from him. He would now always be looking and smiling. I also noticed now he seemed to pop up everywhere more often than before. He would acknowledge me now.

Maybe it was my imagination and maybe it was my vanity playing tricks on me. Maybe it was the devil psyching me out. Maybe he was just trying to be more friendly in a Christ-like way since I brought it to his attention that they all seem snobby. But I was starting to get creeped out because I also felt a horrible sense of anxiety at home before going to church or after coming home from church and this anxiety really brought me to my knees. I started to really probe myself. I wondered if I was the one feeling attracted because of the change or if the flattery just swept me off my feet a bit. But it was creeping me out really bad so at church I felt this repulsion. I felt like God was also protecting me so I just kept praying hard.

One day I confronted him in email because it just needed to stop. He ended up forwarding the email to the female counselor. Strangely, I received a copy of what he was sending her. It read: “I think it will only reinforce what she is imagining.” At first it made no sense, then I thought, it’s as if he talked to her and she told him to answer me to ease my worry, but he chose not to. So then he either accidentally forwarded me a copy or covertly did by making it look like an accident, in order to either hint to me that I was imagining things or simply to try to dodge a potential accusation to the counselor.

So soon after I read that she called my phone earnestly telling me: “Stop emailing because it is inappropriate!” Thinking to myself, what? I answered okay, but can I explain why I emailed? She said no, she was busy that weekend but to call her the following Monday morning.

To be continued.

Why I Left: Part 1

I left Calvary Chapel church on Mother’s Day. Before that, over a span of several months I was dealing with a lot of weird stuff with some of the pastors and female counselor. The concerns I had were nagging.

When I first started attending there, I remember not feeling too welcome by the senior pastor, but figured he was either shy, paranoid, or just didn’t like me for whatever reason. The other leaders were quite standoffish as well. The women were friendly and some of the men, but regardless the ambience felt overly ‘us and them’ hierarchical.

My last church wasn’t that way. In my last church the pastors were more cordial and respectful. But in this church it was like I was automatically a second class Christian and would always be even if I served there. I figured the leaders interpreted the Bible a little off balance. That brought me to start emailing the church. That’s when the weirder stuff started happening.

To be continued.

1 Corinthians 5:5

1 Cor 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

I’ve had this verse used against me quite a bit now. No, I haven’t fornicated or committed any other sin that shocked even people who are not in the church, like this passage discusses. I am not one, as verses 10-11 indicate, who is “…covetous, or extortioners, or …idolaters…” or “a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner.”

Above that, this verse is not discussing walking past the person as though they don’t exist, giving them a withering look as you pass them in public, refusing to accept change from them at the store or buying anything of theirs at a yard sale or even applying with their company… it isn’t talking about being RUDE in other words. The verse tells the church to deliver the person who does the things listed above (idolatry, fornication, drunkenness, extortion, covetousness, or railing (abuse)) to Satan (in other words to put them outside the safety and support of the church)… not to act like the devil themselves!

God never approves of rudeness and outright cruelty, self-righteousness or pride. Read what Paul wrote (NLT): “Then you must cast this man out of the church and into Satan’s hands, so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved when the Lord returns. How terrible that you should boast about your spirituality, and yet you let this sort of thing go on. Don’t you realize that if even one person is allowed to go on sinning, soon all will be affected? Remove this wicked person from among you so that you can stay pure.”

Think about the bolded and the list in v 11 for a minute. If we are not to fellowship people who claim to be Christians and do the things listed above, and if we could be affected by those things if we allow them to continue in our midst, is it wrong to leave a church where these things are allowed to continue, and even encouraged?

I don’t advocate throwing people out of churches if they have these problems. But after having had this verse used on me more than once, I have to believe that if it is ever used, it should only be used as it was in this passage. This was an extreme case, for a widely known sin. The action wasn’t recommended for something people guessed might have happened, but for something that was well known both in and out of that body of believers.

If a church believes in removing someone from fellowship based on this passage, they can remove the person from the support of the church without removing them from the pews, and without being rude. We can help the swindlers without putting them over the offering, the drunkards without putting money for their next bottle in their hands, the sexually immoral without allowing them to teach our Sunday School classes, and the railers and abusers without putting them behind our pulpits.

Paul isn’t talking about banning anyone from all Christian contact or treating a person rudely, he is simply saying not to give that person the full benefits of true Christian fellowship. Separating him or putting him out of the church at that time didn’t mean casting him off a pew or out of a building. There weren’t pews or churches to throw him off of or out of. It simply meant to stop counting him as a complete part of the church until he repented.