Category: Oneness Pentecostal | Page 60

Fears

I’ve been told so many times that “perfect love casts out all fear” and that fear actually enables bad things to happen in our lives since it is the opposite of faith. But not all fear is bad. For instance, I’m afraid if I touch a hot stove I will be burned, so I refrain from touching it.

There are some fears that I have relating to my former church, as well. It is a proverbial hot stove in my life, and I’ve been burned enough to know not to touch it again. I don’t think there is anything wrong with naming my fears, nor do I think there is anything wrong with being afraid. So it is time to name a few.

I am afraid people from my former church will cyberstalk me and will find and misunderstand my posts, afraid they will twist them and try to use them against me. I’m afraid that someone will vandalize my property because I left their church. I’m afraid that people will be hurt that I left and will cut me off without ever asking why. Mostly, I’m afraid I will discover by these types of actions that my former church is filled with the bitterness, strife, anger, malice, variance, gossip, racism, and hatred that I’ve sensed in some.

Fear isn’t always a negative thing. There is a negative, immobilizing fear. But there is also a type of fear by which we learn and are motivated to change. Maybe the original Greek, Hebrew, or whatever had two or three words to define fear. I don’t know. I’m no Bible scholar. But I do know that some fear is OK. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Obviously, that is a good fear, a healthy respect that motivates people to serve God. And if “perfect love casts out all fear” surely that doesn’t include a fear of the Lord. So there are at least two types of fear: immobilizing terror and the fear that promotes positive response and action.

The fear that I have is more the positive kind that motivates a person to learn and to respond. For years, I was immobilized by the negative type of fear in church. I was afraid to speak out against immorality and unethical behavior in the church. I was afraid not to worship a certain way or display a certain type of emotion, because someone might think something was wrong with me and I would be attacked. So I became a hypocrite, hiding behind the required fake smiles and amens in order to survive, when all the time the questions built in my mind. Had I been allowed to ask the questions, to grieve when bad things happened, to say amen when I agreed and remain quiet when I didn’t (without being rebuked for it) I would probably still be there.

Over time, I began to look for answers and meaning. Not being allowed to ask the questions or seek the answers in the church, I looked in the Bible. The answers I found surprised me and prompted me to action. I was still afraid, but it was a positive fear that prompted response. My response has included leaving a very negative situation.

Fear doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It doesn’t need to be negative. Some fear is healthy. Some fear is from God. After all, God himself should be feared, in a positive, respectful way. So, yes, I’m afraid. But not so afraid, or terrified, that I can’t face my fears, my concerns and my doubts, and react positively to them.

Curse of the Cult

Being raised my entire life in the controlling atmosphere of this type of religion left permanent scars on me. Sometimes, when I think about it, I feel so angry and betrayed! The cult dynamic leaves you feeling helpless and unable to make it through life on your own.

It’s so powerful because it robs you of your individuality, your independence, and your trust in your own thoughts. It takes away who you are and changes you into a clone. You lose your identity and accept the ideology that you’re going to be some great soldier for Christ, all for the greater good, etc.

In reality what you’re doing is checking your brain at the door, and becoming just another robot marching to the tune of the leader. This pastor is just a man, who has developed his own interpretation of what the Bible says, often to fit his own needs and his own desires. And yet, he himself is deceived into thinking that he’s doing the “will of God.” They have all the power, but they have been trained to think and to truly believe that this is what God wants them to do.

My personal brainwashing began when I was just a baby. I’ve written about how I was trained from a child with spankings that began before I learned to walk or talk. I was under the power of the preacher/father before I had any memory of my existence.

Growing up in this atmosphere, whether by nature or by early early training, I was extremely sensitive, eager to please, and tenderhearted. That left me wide-open to become the biggest clone of all. The model robot I became, and I was very skilled at doing everything I was asked to do. I never went through the rebellion that teenagers go through, for the most part, because I had been trained to be so sensitive to the slightest misbehavior that might throw me out of favor, “with God.”

I did it because I really wanted to please God. I did it because I was scared of what God would do to me if I didn’t measure up. I also did it because I love God. How could I love something I feared so much? I guess because I loved and feared my dad in the same way.

I was taught from early on to be sensitive to my dad’s moods and get out of his way if he seemed like he was tired and grouchy. I was trained not to talk to him if he was busy, because I would be bothering him. I was trained in so many other ways.

I loved his hugs and his cuddles, when they were given, and the rare approval that I saw in his eyes. Yet I feared him so much that I was scared to ask for anything that I wanted. I knew that I could approach him any time to tell him that I loved him or to give him a hug, but I knew that if he looked at me sternly, I was in huge trouble.

That’s the same way I looked at God. For the better part of my life, even as a grown adult, I was scared to make a move without the approval of the pastor. I was scared to think a thought that would be contrary to what was taught by the pastor. I was scared to make a choice on my own without seeking his advice. Many people, grown men and women, we’re afraid to make purchases, or move, or get a new job without consulting the pastor first to get his approval on those choices. The pastor’s approval was equated with God’s approval.

When one lives in this environment, without using their own brain, getting out can be very difficult…even scary. For the first time in your life you have no one else to blame for your mistakes. If anything goes wrong, you have to take responsibility for your choices. You’ve not had much practice making choices, so it’s a pretty sure thing that you’re going to make some wrong choices along the way. That could be terrifying, especially when people from the cult point their fingers at you and say “well you should’ve stayed in the church.. you should’ve asked pastor for advice and followed his advice.”

The thing is, we don’t learn how to make choices without making them. Our brains are like muscles. If they haven’t been exercised, they will buckle under weight. When other people were making small choices like what kind of clothes to wear for school, or whether or not they wanted to try out for the football team, we were not allowed to make those choices.

We couldn’t choose our friends, we couldn’t choose what activities we wanted to do, we couldn’t choose what music that we wanted to listen to, or what entertainment we enjoyed. We never learned to choose what clothing we wanted to wear, what hairstyle we enjoyed the most, or whether not we wanted to wear make up. We were given instructions to follow about all these personal things. We didn’t learn how to make choices.

When we finally break free from the cult and we start trying to make decisions and choices, we don’t really have any background information to use to make the wise decisions. We are in terror trying to decide and often it is difficult to make any decision at all. However not making a decision is a decision, and that’s where we get into trouble. That’s where things get difficult for us, because life gets a little harried.

I’ve had my own list of ‘bad choices’ to try to live with, once I got out on my own and could actually make these decisions for myself. However, I’m learning to make decisions. I’m learning how to balance my budget. I’m learning to make career choices, life choices, and of course wardrobe choices, hairstyle choices and even ‘how to raise my kids’ choices. Do I always make the right decisions? No, absolutely not! However, I learn more and more.

Each failure is only a step in the right direction, because I can take that information and use it for future choices.

Yes, I grew up in a cult. You talk about a dysfunctional family! It was a dysfunctional world where we were not allowed to fellowship with anyone else. I was homeschooled, and my entire life revolved around the cult.

Getting out brought such freedom! But, getting out also brought a lot of terror and fear.

Every day I still deal with the brainwashing. Every day I am filled with self-doubt. Every day I battle those little voices from the past who tell me that I’m “nothing but a worm,” that I don’t have a right to make my own decisions, that I need to lean on the words of someone else to try to understand what God wants of me. It’s the perfect recipe for codependency.

We were taught that we could not make it on our own without leaning on the church and the pastor. We were trained to not make it on our own without the direction and control of the pastor. I sometimes feel completely helpless, trapped, and very dysfunctional. However, I have to cut myself some slack when I stop and think about the years and years and years where I was not allowed to make choices, to think for myself, and where I was taught that I had to have someone else to lean on.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be confident and independent from the past. I know those scars have affected me for life in many ways. However, every step I take to be more independent, and every choice that I make gets me just a little bit closer to being the individual that I really want to be.

Prosperity Churches Vs. Poverty Churches

I don’t have experience with these two church types outside of Pentecostalism, so I don’t know how it is in other denominations, but I’ve noticed that in the United Pentecostal Church and in Apostolic churches there seems to be several that have a definite bias towards either ‘prosperity salvation’ or ‘poverty salvation.’ I don’t know if I’m using those terms correctly, that’s just what I called it in my head when I first started noticing it. I’m sure I heard it somewhere.

So from my experience, Prosperity Churches tend to insert implications (or come right out and say) that if you were in the will of God, doing what you were supposed to, (which means following all their rules) etc., that God would bless you financially. It was said or implied that if you were having difficulties financially, you were doing something wrong. Sin, lack of faith, lack of works, SOMETHING was wrong with your Christian performance and walk with God or else your needs would be met.

The Poverty Churches liked focusing on Jesus’ statement that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. This passage was elevated the same way Acts 2:38 was. Any possession that wasn’t the bare minimum requirement for living was considered an “idol” and the person who owned it would be ‘preached at’ regularly and it would be implied over the pulpit that unless the item was sold, the bare necessity purchased, and the rest given to the poor (which usually translated to ‘donated to the church’) that the owner was lost and hell bound. They were the camel trying to fit through the eye of a needle.

In the Poverty Churches, people developed serious dysfunctions in regards to owning things. Something like a nice car bought for a good price could be labeled as an idol and the person who owned it would be made to feel like a heathen in the midst of saints. A nice dress (even if it was a hand me down) usually was viewed as evidence of a Jezebel spirit, because clothing that was nicer than necessary for decency and comfort couldn’t have any other purpose than self-glorification.

Members of a Poverty Church would be told constantly that if they put ANYTHING before their relationship with God, that either God would take it away by any means necessary, or they would be lost if they should happen to die before repenting and getting rid of whatever unnecessary person, place, or thing they were allowing to come between them and God.

I’ve seen pastors of Poverty Churches that used this slant on the doctrine in order to squeeze every last penny out of their congregation so that they could live like kings – in complete contradiction to the things they taught. I’ve also seen pastors of Poverty Churches that really believed their slant on the doctrine, and lived it. These that truly believed it were (in my experience) usually the ones most likely to call people out by name from the pulpit or give so many details about who they were preaching against at the moment that no names were necessary. They were the most hurtful with their words when explaining to someone why that person’s particular idol was going to send them straight to the lake of fire. I’ve also seen the children of these preachers leave home and become extremely materialistic due to being deprived of so many commonplace things growing up.

The Poverty Church doctrine sometimes affects marriages too. A married person might feel that if they love their spouse too much they’re putting them before God. This fear often takes one (or both) of these forms: fear that God will take their spouse away through death, or that they’ll go to hell if they don’t distance themselves from their spouse (while staying married of course). I’ve also seen mothers apply that line of thinking to their relationship with their children and proceed to intentionally distance themselves emotionally from their children. Especially small children.

I’m of the opinion that neither of these biases are correct. Yes, people can make possessions, hobbies, or relationships more important than God and that’s usually not good. But considering everything you enjoy an ‘idol’ deprives you of so many of the joys in life that were created by God (such as the husband/wife relationship, or the mother/child relationship). It also replaces that joy with fear and anxiety over the possibility that because you enjoy something, you’re not saved.

As far as the Prosperity Churches, anyone who has financial trouble immediately feels that they’re no longer pleasing God. They may also believe that they’ve lost their salvation, and will not believe that they’re saved again until their trouble is alleviated. Job comes to mind as a direct refute to this way of thinking. He lost all his assets and his family specifically because he was SO pleasing to God, that God bragged on him. There are other instances in the Bible that (IMO) easily refute both the Prosperity and the Poverty slant on salvation, but the example of Job is so clear to me that it seems unnecessary to reference more.

As you can probably tell by the fact that I had much more detail to give on the Poverty Churches, I was mostly raised in Poverty Churches growing up. Even with such clear examples in the Bible, this way of thinking was so ingrained in me that it was hard for me to get past. When I still believed what I had been told about missing my last chance for repentance, I became very materialistic. When I tried to become a believer again, I found myself going back to that sacrificial Poverty Salvation mindset. I’ve lived with an almost primal fear that having something nice, enjoying an activity, or loving someone would send me to hell.

The End Was Only A New Beginning…

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.” ― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery

Growing up, I knew nothing of the Apostolic church. The United Pentecostal Church, as far as I knew, didn’t exist. I didn’t have any friends in it. No family was part of it. It was a completely foreign subject to me.

When I was 17, that all changed. I attended a small private school, where there were several UPCI students. I hung out with some of the students, and even started to date a girl whose grandfather was the pastor of the local UPCI church. (Note: Her grandpa was also the presbyter of the section, and almost every church in the section was pastored by members of his family.)

We dated several years, and basically, I was accepted as part of that family. The early stages of my ministry even began, and I received a lot of the perks of being part of the ministerial family. I received attention, respect, and felt important – this was a totally different world than the one I grew up in, and I loved it. I was somebody.

Time progressed, and while my relationship with the girlfriend’s family grew, our relationship was falling apart. It was a bad deal, and to sum up quickly, one night she crossed a line where her verbal abuse became physical abuse, and that was it – it was over.

With that, came a strange and unusual problem.

A constant teaching within this family was that you should follow and obey your pastor. They “watched over you.” When you follow and obey their voice, their “anointing flows over you, also, and protects you.” If you ever turn away from their teaching, then you were in a lot of trouble. Not only were you disobeying them, but you were disobeying God, you were out of His will, and you will be sorry for doing that!

A short time after this, I was called into the pastor’s office, the grandfather of my ex. He made small talk for a bit, and then approached the subject about how I needed to stay at the church, and then said, “I want you to know, your breakup won’t have any effect on how I pastor you.”

I remember him saying that. I remember his voice being calm and that he was trying to be friendly. Looking back, I think he actually believed what he was saying.

Still, he was wrong.

One positive after the break up was that I was able to go out and hang out with people from other churches. I even went out on a few dates. I was instructed by the youth pastor that I needed to seek the pastor’s permission of anyone I wanted to go out on a date with, which stupidly, I did.

On one of these dates, I received a big shock – I was told how the pastor’s wife warned her about me. She relayed to me a bunch of flat-out lies which had all originated from a conversation several of the pastors had.

I went to my pastor, and he said he would take care of it. He didn’t say anything more. That was it. I trusted him. I went on my way.

Well, as I tried to go on with my life, there were still a lot of things being said about me. During this time, I was receiving harassing phone calls at all hours of the night. I was young, and still living with my parents. The calls were coming from the pastor’s family, and again, I told him about it. I saw his annoyance this time, but again, he said he would take care of it. This was the last time I trusted and believed in him.

The harassment went on, and the third time I mentioned it, instead of saying he would take care of it, he got angry and starting criticizing me over stuff I didn’t even know anything about. What was he told by family members? I have no idea. Looking back, I have trouble remembering everything he said, but not his attitude. I sat there, finding it impossible to believe this was happening.

I left his office with a breaking heart. The people I’d believed in were not only neglecting being ministers of the Gospel, but they were lying, and actively attempting to destroy my faith and hope. Sure, they may not have seen it like that, but what else would you call it?

The abusers kept on preaching in their churches. They kept singing the worship songs. They kept playing the music. There were NO repercussions for their actions.

At the same time, my ministry was over. The pastor even told me not to ask him about it again. No reason was given; my voice in church was completely silenced. I was being punished. It was so different from several years earlier, when the pastor shook my hand, hugged me, and told me thank you for everything I was doing to help keep the church alive. (There were a lot of behind-the-scenes problems the main family was keeping quiet.)

Now, I was nobody. I was a problem. It was obvious the family didn’t want me at the church anymore. Some couldn’t come out and say it, but their attitude and spirit showed it. I hated going to church. I felt like I had done this incredible evil because I would not tolerate abuse from my ex.

At the time, I was still a UPCI guy. I bought and believed all of theological kool-aid, especially when it came to “obeying and serving” the pastor. I didn’t have enough biblical knowledge at the time to understand the errors of its theology. One member of the family even called my house and told me that they would make sure I never have a ministry again, which was still so very important to me.

Dejected, defeated, and feeling lost, I went to the pastor’s house one day, and just told him this was wrong, and that I wasn’t coming back to his church. Every ounce of strength I had, all of the boldness I could muster up, I used it to do this in the “right attitude.” That was a big thing for them. I wanted to leave in a mature way, so if anything negative was said about me, it would be a lie.

One of the reasons this was so hard was because I felt if I tried to leave, it would be a one-way ticket to hell. Obedience to ministry (and the verse often used was to obey those who rule over you) was an important piece of salvation to these people. I was so afraid that I would go to hell, because to go against the pastor and his thought on “God’s Will” was damning. That is one reason why it took me so long to leave. I just came to a point where I was so miserable, I knew being away from it, I wouldn’t feel any worse than I already did. I also hoped that God would forgive me for leaving. It was a gamble in my eyes, but I didn’t know what else to do.

Looking back now, I can see that this experience really broke me. I don’t think I ever fully felt at peace in the UPCI after this. (On a side note: I eventually ended up at another UPCI church far away from this family, and my ministry did get going again. In fact, I eventually became a licensed minister in the UPCI for a while. I ultimately left because of theological differences, and the fact I was constantly seeing spiritual abuse in a lot of other places. Eventually, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to be part of that anymore, and I left.)

Some years later, after getting my UPCI license, I bumped into my former pastor’s wife, talked with her, and before leaving, I said, “I love you all and think of you all often.” She retorted, “Well, it was your choice to leave. You didn’t have too.” Not wanting to argue, I just replied, “Yeah, but I needed too.” She just smiled and shook her head. She didn’t get it. I thought to myself, if I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t be licensed, I might not even be alive.

I realize that pastors are people like you and I. They make the same kind of mistakes we do. Recognize though, that a good pastor will put your needs first. Not his. Not the church’s needs. If he is to be a good spiritual adviser, he can’t put traditions, doctrines, numbers, and his church before your own well-being. If the church is destroying your faith, someone who cares will do whatever he or she can to rebuild that faith, not punishing you because of family gossip. By biblical definition, YOU are the church. Not a congregation that meets on Sunday and is controlled by a man.

The end turned into a new beginning…

After leaving my home church, my broken heart was only getting worse. I wasn’t attending any church; I was too scared. I worked in a public place and was always seeing church folk. Some treated me like a backslider; I was in a really bad state. In the middle of one night, on the floor in my room, I just broke down and cried, and cried, and cried, like I can’t ever remember crying before. Everything was going through my mind, and I just kept asking God “why” all of this was happening.

Out of the blue, I just felt something that was so strong, it seemed audible.

“John, I love you.”

Everything changed after that. That small sentence felt more real than all of the tongue-speaking, all of the choirs, all of the crazy services, all of the preaching, all of the prayers, all of the education, all of the speeches from church leadership, and all of the study. That small sentence was the strength I didn’t have anymore. It has been my anchor in life. Through all of my trials, journeys, spiritual walk, and battles, I go back to that, and I have no doubt, He loves me. He still loves me. And as I journey on, His love will continue to be my guide.

He loves me. I hope that telling my life stories, you realize that He loves you, too. He never abandoned me. Even in the confusion and pain of spiritual abuse, and bad theology, the Love of God was still there.

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The nature of God

The CREATOR, The Great I AM, The Father, The Intercessor, The Savior, The Son, The Spirit, The Comforter…

In my former religion, it was said we could define God with the following explanation: I am a father, a son, a husband but my name is John Doe. How arrogant!!!! YOU are not God!!! You didn’t create heaven and earth and the sun, the moon and all there is! You are not the great I AM! You cannot die for lost souls or save them from hell!

Can you define love in a neat little package of words that is a final, clear explanation? Can you define eternity so that our human brains can actually conceive it? And yet you provide a neat little packaged definition of the Almighty that equates Him with what you are!?

He that cometh to God must believe that He IS and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him. There is no demand or need to define Him to fit neatly into a theology so as to exclude others who also believe that
He IS.

His thoughts are far above our thoughts. Yet He provides us with a simplistic way of salvation –Believe. Faith is counted as righteousness. By faith . . . . . .

I don’t pretend to have a better understanding of God or what the UPC terms the ‘Godhead’ but I can read His Word and I can understand what He has made so plain that a wayfaring man though a fool need not err. God is love. He has made His plan for whosoever will believe on Him. He is not willing that any should perish but that all should have eternal life.

There will always be discussion and agreement and disagreement about the many aspects of God, His nature and His plan. The thing that is clear is that God’s love is for whosoever and that surely meaneth me. . . and you!

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