Author: Grace

Born into family of third generation Oneness Pentecostal parents, to a father who was a second generation UPC preacher, and a mother who'd been raised by UPC preacher father as well. My parents' goal was to raise me up to be "preacher's wife material", which they considered the "highest calling" for a female. I am currently in a graduate program for psychological counseling. I work in the mental health field, with children and families. My goal is to educate and enlighten parents to raise children who are self confident and happy, free from anxiety and depression, as well as other pathological outcomes from abusive upbringing.

Growing Up as a PK

Growing up as a preacher’s kid had its own special set of problems, as well as privileges. While other kids in the church made it clear to me they were jealous of the fact that I got to be around preachers’ families, (some of them good looking boys), there were also quite a few problematic issues.

For starters, my parents were not my own. I shared my parents with the entire congregation, and all the other kids. At one point during my teenage years, I felt very ignored by my parents. This was likely just my perception as a teenage girl, but it did not help that they spent hours upon hours counseling with my best friend. Because by this time I had decided to obey all the rules, and was a “good girl”, I did not require as much attention. At the time I did not know why… I just felt ignored.

Another issue with being the preacher’s daughter was that, when people got mad at my dad, they would often take it out on me or my sister. They couldn’t really take it out on the “man of God”, so they would use us to get to him. This seemed more safe, perhaps because of the scripture “touch not my anointed“. We were not the anointed in this context as seen through the glasses of the cult mindset. Our dad was the “anointed”. So, because they couldn’t touch him, they would go for us. My sister had it a lot worse than I did, because her personality was much like my father’s. We were just kids. We didn’t choose who to be born to…and we didn’t understand what was going on. It was hard.

On top of all that, our dad and mother expected us to be “examples”. This meant that, even though we were children, we were expected to act at a higher level of obedience and be an example to the other kids in the church. This had to do with our attitudes, the way we dressed, the things we did, and the words coming out of our mouths.

We were taught to be conscious of certain people in the church who liked to gossip, and to be very careful what we said around any of the church people. We were taught to keep things that we knew to ourselves, because we did know a lot about what was going on with the pastor’s counseling with saints. We had to be careful that we dressed a little more modestly, and that we did not show our temper, no matter what was done or said to us.

Because I was the one with the milder nature, it was easier for me to comply to all of these things. My sister had a difficult time with the behavior part of it. She had ADHD, (of course undiagnosed), but her impulses were hard to control, especially the words that popped out of her mouth. I think she got a spanking every single day of her life, or close to it.

I can remember other kids and teenagers asking me before church, “what is your dad going to preach tonight?” I had no idea what my dad was going to preach! It made me angry that they would ask me such questions. I just wanted to be a kid blending in with everybody else, but that was never possible.

On the other hand, I did get to hear all the preacher talk when we had visiting ministers. I did get to stay up late when we were in revival and meet other preachers’ kids. I did get to go on a lot of trips across the country to go to special meetings. I got opportunities to see different parts of the country that they never saw.

Still, the positive and negative of every lifestyle blends together to make us who we are. Although I am an adult well-versed in the geography of our nation, as well as being aware of many different cultures, there are some scars as well.

I remember at 14 years old when all the young people in the church turned their backs on me and wanted nothing to do with me. It all started with jealousy towards me because we were at an age to be interested in the opposite sex, and I was getting to “fellowship” with more people of the opposite sex than they were, because of visiting ministers bringing their sons. What they didn’t realize was that I was so shy, I rarely even spoke to any of those people, even sitting across the table from them.

On the other hand, I was trying so hard to fit in with the other young people in our church, and being home-schooled, it was the only peer group I had. I would go with them anywhere they invited me, and do my best to participate in whatever was going on. However, being teenagers, they got involved in some things that were against the rules. They were listening to Carmen, music that was Christian, but had been forbidden by my father. Then there was the watching TV for a few minutes in the mall. That of course was appalling!

I wanted so much to be a part of the group! While we were at the mall, they went to Spencer’s Gifts, just to read the “nasty cards”. I didn’t even know what the cards meant. I just knew we were not supposed to be doing that. However, there is no way that I would disagree openly with them, or say anything to my family.

After that, it grew into listening to “light rock”, or easy listening music. I had my own stereo in my room, which had been given to me so I could listen to Christian music. Southern gospel was what was “OK”, so that’s what I usually listened to. Now I started turning on the radio very low to listen to “I just called to say I love you”, by Stevie Wonder. The other songs were as innocuous as that one was, in retrospect. I would turn it down very low and put my head up to the speaker so my parents wouldn’t find out. However, I felt guilty because I knew that I was not supposed to be listening to this music.

As I discussed music with the other young people, I discovered that one of them was listening to “I want your sex”, on a date with a young man from another UPC church in the area. (This was the same girl that had earlier been molested when she was 14 by a thirty-something year old man. In retrospect, her untreated trauma likely led her into some sexual relationships as a teenager.) Although the knowledge of this song being played on a date bothered me, I still said nothing to my father.

Eventually though, a “hell-fire and brimstone message” was preached at church. I became very “convicted” that I knew about this, and that I was listening to music that I should not be involved in. I did not want to go to hell over listening to music that was “ungodly”. Not only did I repent of my “sinfulness”, I felt that I needed to go and confess my sin to my dad, as he was my pastor and “watching out for my soul.” In my confession, I also told him about the girl on her date and what song had been listened to.

In his great “wisdom”, he got up in the pulpit preaching, and in one of his sermons, actually said “you don’t need to be listening to “I want your sex” when you’re out on a date with someone. He went on to elaborate about why that was not appropriate, and there were a lot of emphatic “amens” backing him up. I was horrified, because I knew they would know that I was the one that had told him. However, it was “suffering for the kingdom.” I was helping him “watch out for their souls”.

Sure enough, for over year I was excluded from every event when the youth got together. They would not talk to me, and if I walked up when they were talking to each other, they would quickly close their mouths and turn away. It was a miserable, lonely place. It was devastating to me as a teenager. I think I grew up more in that year than any other time in my adolescence.

At the end of that year, my dad had acquired a youth leader. He worked really hard to bring unity to the youth. This meant that he actually had conversations with the rest of the youth individually about how they were treating me. It was obvious to him, looking on from the outside. My dad never said anything to him about it.

At that point, things gradually got better, but still it never went back to what it was like before. They accepted me, and they invited me to things, but they were careful around me, as if it had been my parents there. I learned to keep my mouth shut about the little things that I noticed. And I didn’t feel quite as lonely. But, every moment I was always aware that I was “different”, and I worked hard to be an example to them. I was already learning about the separation between the “ministry” and the “saints”.

Because I was a preacher’s daughter, I went first through every line at every fellowship after services. They always had the preachers families go first. They often had “preachers tables” or “preachers families tables”. There was a lot of separation, and I was a part of it.

It became my comfort zone, and I didn’t know how to fit in anywhere else. Unfortunately, that is only a tiny part of life. Even though it was my whole life, and it served me well as a preacher’s wife, it caused much more grief for me when I was no longer a preacher’s wife.

That separation that was ingrained in me as a child made me feel that the ministry was somehow “superior”. It was a special group to which I belonged by birth, and later by marriage. When I no longer had that distinction, and I was “just a saint”, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had lost my identity, and I know longer knew what to say, how to act, or how to fit in. I was a ship who had lost my sail.

Not only do I now view this separation as very UN-Christlike, but I also see it as very damaging, not only for the lay people in the church, but for the families of the preachers themselves. Although I was taught that spiritual things and church was the most important thing in life, and my entire life revolved around it, reality is much different. Church is simply a small part of life. A person is ill prepared for life when they stick their head in the sand and feel that they can live in a spiritual bubble.

As an adult I still had much difficulty feeling like I could “fit in” anywhere. Eventually, I found out that people who had never been in these kind of environments seemed to accept me much better. I found that I fit in best with other people who grew up in some sort of dysfunction, even though it may have been very different than my own.

I have never learned how to fit in with saints in any church. I simply do not know how to communicate without holding back that one part of myself and maintaining that separation. It’s hard to make friends in that way, so, my best friends do not go to church.

My best friends are people who have been abused as children or adults. They are people who have been hurt and wounded. The people that I fit in with are those who have been abandoned and struggled to survive.

I realize now that there is nothing wrong with me. I’ve gained a new identity. I am broken, healing, a work in progress, and happy to be honest about it all. I am learning to be authentic, something that is almost impossible as a part of the preachers family in a cult environment. Now I am free. I can just be me, and realize that me is a pretty cool person to be.

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Bloody Hands, Wounded Souls

*WARNING: This contains material which may be triggering to some*

As I spent the rest of my growing up years as the pastor’s daughter of this church, many different things happened. A lot of them were things that I did not understand at the time but later came to understand, and now feel very shocked over.

One of these situations was when a 14-year-old girl in the church was seduced by a thirty something-year-old man with a 12-year-old daughter. This family had moved in from somewhere else, and my Dad was not aware that he had been a pedophile with teenage girls previously.

In those days it was not looked at in the same way it is now. Still, he seduced this young girl in the church and began having an ongoing sexual relationship with her. He would pick her up from school without her parents knowledge, and take her to his home where they would have sex, or to her home, when her family was not at home.

When my father found out about this, it was called “an affair” and both of the parties were punished equally with church discipline, meaning that neither one of them could participate in any kind of leadership in the church services for an extended period of time. The girl was young, and had not been participating in the services other than to play a rhythm instrument in the congregation. She was not allowed to do this anymore at that point. The man was involved in church leadership and he was also placed “in discipline.”

It was not until many years later as a grown woman that I realized how horrible it was for that young girl to be punished, as if she had done equally wrong as this thirty-something-year-old man. She was just a child, just having come into puberty. She was taken advantage of by a grown man. Not only was this horrible child abuse, and not only was it not reported, but the girl was disciplined, punished and shamed just as much as the man. She was the victim, and yet on top of being victimized, she was also made to feel that she was somehow at fault.

Sadly, she developed a pattern in her life of being with abusive, controlling men. To this day she is in a marriage where she is treated as a second class citizen. I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened had she received compassion and been pointed to counseling instead of being condemned.

In another case, a child I grew up with was obviously troubled, had anger issues, and very bad social issues. It was known that her dad had been in trouble with the law various times for exposing himself in public, masturbating in public, and wearing women’s underwear in public.

He had supposedly repented, and regularly played an instrument in church, as well as singing with his wife. As this girl grew into her young teenage years, her rebellion and anger grew. At times I was the only person near her age that would even talk to her. I always felt sorry for her, feeling like something was wrong.

Often she would sit and talk to me in detail about her feelings of anger toward her family. Eventually she shared that her dad had molested her sexually. As a young girl her age, I did not know what to do. I told my parents about it, and they called her in privately to talk to her about it.

She shared with them that she had been molested, but as they pressured her to make sure it was true, she changed her story and lied, saying it never had happened. As they continue to talk with her again she began to cry and say that it had happened, but eventually under pressure said that it had not happened. In their inexperience with such situations, they never did anything about it.

Eventually, she had a one night stand with a man who was sleeping around with different women in the church. Finally, she left the church and married some guy she had met. The last time I saw her she looked like she was about 80 years old. She’s been using drugs for years and cannot seem to break free from it. She’s been homeless living under a bridge, she’s been beaten by previous spouses, she’s terribly addicted to drugs, and only a shell of who she once was.

She gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl, and signed custody of those children over to her mother. While those children were growing up, her dad repeatedly got in trouble with the law, for flashing people in parking lots while wearing women’s underwear and a woman’s wig.

Because my dad publicly exposed his deeds to the congregation, and eventually ask him to leave, they haven’t attended my dad’s church for many years. They attend another UPC (United Pentecostal Church) church in the area. Those children grew up, and recently the girl turned 18, left home and the UPC church, and publicly came out and said that both her grandfather and her brother had molested her sexually.

I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if her mother’s reports of sexual abuse had been taken seriously. What would’ve happened if she had gotten counseling and help, as a young teenage girl? Would any of this further pain have occurred at all?

During the time that she was still at home, her parents welcomed a close relationship with a young adult woman who was in her early 20s. This woman eventually began to show sexual attention to their young son, who was about 14 at the time.

Again, my father, as pastor of both the woman and the boy, dealt with both of them equally. He strongly rebuked the woman, and called the boy in for a “counseling session.” He described to our family how he talked to this boy about the fact that this woman had kissed him, what feelings it must’ve stirred up in him, and how he would’ve felt her female curves pressing against him while she was kissing him. Neither of them ever said that there was an actual sexual act that occurred. Still, she was seducing a 14-year-old boy, and should have been reported. Nothing was ever done about it. That boy grew up into a man and left the church.

Although there are countless other stories that I could share, I will skip forward to my adult years. At a time when my own children had suffered child abuse at the hands of their father, I had them in counseling with a professional children’s counselor.

Another woman in my dad’s church asked me for the name of the clinic where my children were being seen. She had just separated from her drug addict husband, who had been very abusive to her son. She wanted her 15-year-old son to receive counseling, to help him recover from the situation. I gave her the name and number of the clinic where my children were being seen.

As a “good saint”, she told my dad that she planned to take her son there. He told her not to take her son to a professional. He told her he would do any counseling that her son needed, and then he privately rebuked me for giving her this information. (I won’t go into my reaction to his rebuke in this post.)

His “counseling” of that teenage boy was to have him come out and mow his lawn repeatedly, and gruffly try to give him some advice. He also had the boy hang around while he worked on different projects, helping with physical labor. That was all the “help” the child ever received.

This young boy was being homeschooled by his mother, but she now had to go work a full-time job. He was left at home bored, and began to wander the streets. My dad publicly rebuked him about this from the pulpit, in front of the entire congregation. This was a very shaming and humiliating scenario, with a lot of loud amens from the congregation.

The child was now branded, and as one might expect, he simply ran the streets more than he had before. He never graduated from high school, but soon got a job. He then proceeded to impregnate different girls, eventually receiving drugs from his dad.

The last I heard about him, he was regularly shoplifting, robbing different places to support his drug habit, and sometimes selling drugs. He had children by different women that he was not taking care of, and couldn’t hold down a job. His mother’s only child, she is left with this heartache and a distant relationship with her son. She tries to do what she can to indoctrinate these little children he’s procreated, whenever she gets a chance to bring them to church. She often has to clean them up and show them nurturing that they’re not getting at home.

My heart breaks every time I think of this story. Could he have been saved, if only he had received the professional help he needed? Why does ego get so involved in these spiritually abusive cultures? Why does a pastor think he can be everything in all ways to the people he pastors? When did pastoring become ruling instead of just preaching?

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Finding God in Spite of Men

My dad became the co-pastor of the church my grandfather pastored, and it was here that I spent the rest of my childhood. It is my understanding that they had the agreement all along that this would be the way that my dad would take over the church when my grandfather wanted to retire. This was to make sure there was no opening for the district to try to put in a pastor or influence the members.

It was during this time that I received the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues. I was eight years old, and had been “seeking” for a couple of years. The weekend before this happened, another little girl in the church had received the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues at a youth rally. I figured if she could do that, I could probably get it too. For me, there was nothing negative about this experience. It was wonderful in every way!

A few months before I had asked to be baptized, but my parents talked me out of it because they felt like I was just doing it because my friends were doing it. However, after that experience, I was allowed to be baptized. My grandfather baptized me in the name of Jesus. I know that I felt wonderful after being baptized!

However, even though we were little children, we were expected to pray for people in the altar, pray a full 30 minutes before church each service, and live “good holy lives.” It seems that before this point, I was not aware of the stipulations and rules about performance. After I received the Holy Ghost and was baptized, that burden begin to get heavier and heavier, as I slowly became aware of all the things “God expected” of me.

I remember one night during a very emotional service, my friend and I were falling out in the floor and rolling back-and-forth, because we had heard about the “old days” where people were “holy rollers.” Everyone was always “wanting to go back to the old paths in the old days.” I guess in our little minds we felt this was very spiritual. I remember one night during this time my dad “shouted”, which he rarely did, but when he was dancing, he turned over one of the pews on which a little boy was asleep. The child was not hurt, but did get dumped unceremoniously into the floor.

I remember one lady had difficulty giving up her cigarettes, even after being baptized and speaking in tongues. Several members of the church, including my parents, (which meant I was there too) stayed and prayed with her for hours, trying to help her “get the victory” over those cigarettes.

During those days, it was more common to have someone come to church who was “demon possessed“. When this would happen, and they would be trying to rebuke the devil out of this person, all of us children were sent into another room, presumably so the devil wouldn’t come out on us.

Very loud worship was encouraged, and if it was a really good service with a “real move of God,” people were usually dancing, having a “victory march”, “shouting”, or someone got the Holy Ghost. It happened a lot during that time.

I recall my dad getting frustrated with my grandmother, because during the long preaching, she would draw pictures for us on a tablet of paper and let us copy them. Once, my dad called her name out from the pulpit to rebuke her for drawing for us. It was not uncommon for him to call out certain children or teenagers who were not behaving during his preaching. Embarrassment seemed to be something he felt was effective for dealing with these kinds of problems.

As a shy child, I lived in fear of being called out in this way. It was very mortifying for me to have attention drawn to me negatively. I was very sensitive as a child, and a simple rebuke in private could bring me to tears. These public humiliations were a nightmare for me, and I did my best to avoid them at all costs.

Eventually my grandfather handed the church over to my father. He and my grandmother moved to another city to retire, and attended the church of my uncle, who was not United Pentecostal, but independent Oneness Pentecostal.

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Evangelism in the United Pentecostal Church

I was five or maybe six when we first started evangelizing in a small trailer. I remember how tense things would get when it was time to get ready for church. We would have to climb up on the bed and be very quiet and still while dad would get ready for church. We often got in trouble for not being quiet enough or still enough. Once dad was out of the trailer, mom would get me ready and send me to him, then get my sister and herself ready. I later discovered the reason for this was because the trailer was too small for more than one person to move around at once. This is the same reason we were allowed only two or three toys each.

Evangelizing meant lots and lots of church, everywhere, all the time. I heard my parents stressing over offerings that were not big enough to take care of our family. I heard conversations where dad got reprimanded for something he preached at a church. Once my bike was stolen when we were parked outside of the church. I never got it back.

Homeschooling while living that lifestyle was the worst ever! I can recall mom being so frustrated trying to teach me that she would send me inside the church, where my dad would be studying, in some area that the pastor had allowed him to use. He would try to teach me, but without fail, it would end up with him yelling at me, and then I would be too anxious to think straight. Although I later found out that I was fairly intelligent, I sure didn’t feel it during those times.

Eventually we ended up parked for several months outside a family member’s church in a different state. This family member pastored what, at the time, seem like a fairly large United Pentecostal church. I remember being babysat by a couple of teenage girls in the church. It was funny because the girls would spell things to each other, thinking that they were talking above our heads, not realizing that I very well knew how to spell those words. They were often talking about the pastor’s sons and their romantic involvement with them. It was not a very positive conversation.

At one point, this church ran a huge campaign on a college campus in that city. The campaign was to advertise a series of services they were planning to have, to expose the rock music agenda. I remember being terrified during those services as rock songs were played backwards to reveal secret messages, and fearful language was used to “bring conviction”. The place was packed out, but I don’t remember what the results of the services were. I do remember being terrified, and standing with my mom in the back, and then my mother taking us out, because the content was too scary for us. I appreciate her doing that.

There were a lot of private adult conversations that went on during that time, and I was vaguely aware of unrest. I never figured out the gist of those conversations. Abruptly, we left, and my dad took the pastorate of another small church.

At this new church they had a tradition of singing happy birthday every Sunday morning to all the people who had birthdays, and singing to all the people who were having anniversaries. Oddly enough, the anniversary song was “When the Battle’s Over, We Shall Wear a Crown”. I remember thinking that marriage must be really difficult.

We did not stay at this location very long. Again, I was too small to know all the details, but apparently my dad “butted heads ” with some of the older people in the church and was either asked to leave, or realized it was best to leave. We were again evangelizing, homeschooling, and experiencing family stress. We were in church services constantly.

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UPC from a Child’s Perspective

My earliest memories were of my mom, dad, and maternal grandparents, who were apparently helping my father build a church in a town that did not have a United Pentecostal church. I can remember my preacher Grandpa working on the building and my grandmother taking me out to see him on the scaffolding. I recall my mother reading me Bible stories, and some visiting preacher teasing me about my imaginary friends. I often played in my dad’s workplace, as he could not provide for the family without working a secular job.

When I look back at the pictures of that time, I see a happy little girl with curly blond hair and the prettiest dresses. The pictures nor the memories of that time reveal anything to me other than being loved and cared for. I wonder if my parents were perhaps different then. I heard them tell stories of “winning a family to God” only to find out that the man was beating his wife, so my dad addressed that with him and he eventually stopped. These are the stories I was told.

Eventually, we left there and went to another town where my dad took the pastorate of a church. I was preschool age, but I do remember him telling my mother about going to the home of one of the parishioners uninvited, at an unexpected moment because he felt the man was being deceptive about his lifestyle. He “caught” the man watching TV, which was strictly prohibited by the UPC at that time, and he confronted the man about it. The man made up lie after lie as an excuse to hide this “sin”.

There was a woman in that church who suffered from bulimia. I remember the judgement and disgust with which she was discussed, with never any hint that this could be a serious illness. As a mental health provider, I now cringe at what she must have suffered in addition to the bulimia and its root causes. Religion without compassion can be very hard on people with mental health issues.

By that time I had an infant sibling. I remember church people getting mad at my parents for taking my sister out to spank her during church for things like fussing during church or other such age appropriate things. I remember being spanked with a “skinny belt” for asking one parent if I could go home with a friend and when that parent said no, asking the other parent.

My friends in the church had me over to their house one day in December and their mother said, in front of me, that there was no difference in a Christmas tree and the Christmas lights my mother had in our home. I was about five and I can still feel how sad I was when I told mom what these people had said, only to watch in horror as she took down all of the Christmas decorations in order not to “confuse and offend” church people who were being taught it was a “sin” to put up their Christmas trees.

My dad was often joking and fun during that time with us, and with his preacher friends. I often heard them sit around the table and argue about scriptures, and then in the next breath tell racial jokes that are appalling to me now.

During that time, I first became aware that I was “lost” because I didn’t have the Holy Ghost. I went down to the altar and cried, not understanding everything yet. I told my family I was now a Christian and had the Holy Ghost because I went to the altar and prayed. They explained to me that I had to “speak in another language” in order to get the Holy Ghost. My sister by this time was getting old enough to play church with me. We were strictly forbidden to ever play like we were “getting the Holy Ghost” by jabbering nonsense. Instead, we would close our mouths tight and jump around to show that we were “getting the Holy Ghost” in order to not play with sacred things. I have a distinct memory of a teen who was “seeking” the Holy Ghost and fell out on the floor with people all around her. I was fascinated by watching her mouth upside down as she was speaking in tongues.

I was constantly watching my baby sister with a stuffed animal in church and feeling so jealous because I wasn’t allowed to play. I would secretly pretend my Bible was a baby and I was it’s mother, but if I moved it around too much I’d get in trouble so I had to be careful.

Eventually there was some kind of church problems of which I’m still not clear on all the details, but my dad resigned that church and bought a trailer to evangelize. They were already homeschooling me, so they would continue to do so as we traveled around the United States. I’ve heard my parents recount often the story of how they “dusted their shoes off” out the window of the vehicle as they left that town. My dad says God showed him there would never be a thriving church in that town because of the rebellion in the hearts of those people.

I was just a little girl. I don’t know the ins and outs, or if the people were truly rebellious. I can only share what I remember and have heard from that time.

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