Category: United Pentecostal Church | Page 56

Love Without Fear

This morning I woke up around 4:40 am as usual, because I’m getting older and I have to go use the restroom about that time. After I got back in bed, I dozed off, but the rest of my sleep was rather light and restless. Over and over in my sleep I kept hearing an old verse that I learned years ago, “perfect love casteth out all fear.”

Now, to be honest, I have been in a process of recovery lately. I’m in the stage where I have been detoxing from religion. I have still been talking to God (though irregularly—but, hey, at least I’m still on speaking terms). I haven’t read the Bible in months, and I haven’t been to church since October. I have altogether avoided any religious influence, other than chats with friends, and support groups that help with my recovery process.

So, needless to say, at first I was rather annoyed that this Bible verse kept tormenting me in the early morning hours. Yet it has nagged at my mind all day long as I wondered, what can that verse really mean? On the surface, it sounds comforting and I surely could use some comfort!

Well, this evening I decided to look it up. I got involved in it the way I used to do. My mind is still trying to wrap around the concepts. I will share them with you, knowing that tomorrow I may not read any more. Maybe this was enough for me to chew on for a long while.

My understanding of 1 John 4

^“7Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.”

The cult taught that “sloppy agape” love was not true Christianity. It taught that one had to follow a three step formula to get saved: Repentance, Baptism in Jesus’ Name, and the “infilling of the Holy Ghost as evidenced by speaking in other tongues.” This verse says that ANYONE who LOVES is a child of God, and KNOWS God. That means that many who we were taught were lost are really God’s children and know Him intimately.

⁸“But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

In the cult, there was a lack of true love. “Love” and acceptance came only with a price tag. You did as the leadership wanted you to do, and you were “loved.” You questioned the rules or the leadership’s decisions at all and you experienced shunning, punishment, hatred and vicious disdain. Yet that very “sloppy agape” that was made fun of from the pulpit—that very thing is what determines a person’s belonging to God, according to these verses! So, here it says plainly that if anyone does not love, he does not even KNOW God! God is love, so if you know God you show love. No love=no God.

^“9God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.”

God showed us what REAL LOVE is—by sending his only begotten son to sacrifice his life for our sins. THAT is real love—it wasn’t conditional based on our performance or righteousness. If we have real love, it has to be patterned after that—Unconditional.

^“10This is real love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

The real love is not us loving a God who sacrificed everything for us, because all of us can recognize that he DESERVES our love. Real love is that He sent his Son to be a sacrifice, giving his life, because he saw we were sinners. Sinners—we didn’t deserve anything but death. He gave us what we DIDN’T deserve—that is REAL LOVE!

^“11Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. ¹²No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”

Since God loved us that much…Unconditionally…when we did not deserve it in the least…when we were unlovable…when we were filthy in his sight; because of that, we ought to surely be able to love one another. There has never been a gap any wider than that between God and the sinful human. If He could breach that gap with His love, then anything is possible!

IF we love each other, God lives in us and loves through us. This indicates that the opposite is also true. Does this mean that if we do NOT love each other that God does NOT live in us? If he cannot show his love through us, because we do not let His love into our lives, does that mean we are not His?

^“13And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. ¹⁴Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. ¹⁶We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.”

The 13^th verse seems to back up cult teaching that being God’s and His living in us is based upon whether or not we have His Spirit. However, the verses before and after clearly state that ‘God’s love in us is the true proof of belonging to him,’ so, we have to take the verses in context. Because of this, it seems to me that His Spirit being in us or not is not a matter of whether or not we speak in tongues, but whether or not we have and show His love!

It goes on to say that everyone who declares Jesus as the son of God is infilled with God’s Spirit. There is that idea again—the one we were indoctrinated against because it is just too easy. To declare Jesus as the Son of God is not EARNING anything. Humanity cannot seem to grasp the concept of simple faith and getting something as valuable as salvation without effort. Yet, here it is again and again. We have him living in us and we live in him by our declaration that He is God’s Son.

This involves a rudimentary understanding of God’s love—the REAL love of God—the unconditional love. By trusting Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, we have put our trust and faith in that unconditional love. We have given up trying to earn our salvation and we have embraced the idea of His unconditional love that caused him to come and sacrifice His life for filthy sinners, loving us in spite of our condition. To wrap our hearts around that kind of love is a spiritual work of faith that really is quite a bit more challenging to the human mind than the idea of striving to DO in order to receive. Think about it! Isn’t it mind-boggling that the God of the Universe sent his son to die for people who were sinners and were not able to pull themselves out of the filth? He took the place of every sinner in order to show His love and to free us from our sin. He says we simply receive that gift and love Him and others in return.

“God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.¹⁷And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.”

We all know that God is love. It is a basic fact we learned as children. But, here we see that all who live in love really live in God. Think about that for a second. If God is love, then to live in God means to live in love. To have God in your life automatically means you have love in your life.

The more God we have and the more we live in Him, the more perfectly we are able to love others. That completely undoes the life many of us have lived within cults. “Godliness” and “Holiness” cannot mean a list of rules one follows. It cannot then relate to judgmental attitudes and haughty spirits who feel that they are more “godly” than others. In fact, it is completely the opposite! The more “godly” we are, the more we will LOVE others—all others, even those who least deserve it.

“To be like Jesus, to be like Jesus, on earth I long to be like him”…remember hearing it during altar calls where you were guilt tripped into crying and repenting over everything imaginable, including your lack of following the rules?

That is not what being like Jesus means! Living like Jesus here in this world means loving like He loved, showing compassion like he did, mercifully befriending the outcasts. When we live like this, we don’t have to be afraid on the day of judgement. We can come to him with confidence because we lived like him here in this world—overflowing with love towards the unlovable and the lowly.

^“18Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”

Speaking of the judgment day, when we live in His love and His love is shown through us, we don’t have to be afraid, because this love relationship gets rid of all fear. What a revelation!

Life in a cult is based on fear. Fear, shame, and guilt are running our lives when we are trying to live by the rules and earn our salvation…always trembling lest we somehow fail and fall into the hands of an angry God. No, no, no! That is not what God wants for us!

If we have fear, it is because we think God is just waiting to punish us. That thought pattern shows that we haven’t really had a full experience of his “perfect love.” Wow! Did you get that?

How is it that one like me can spend forty years of life living to the best of my ability to try to please God and thinking that I had to work harder and harder to measure up—only to realize I had no clue who God really is?

When we understand His perfect love, His unconditional love, there is no longer fear. He is going to love me when I am doing well, and he’s going to love me just the same when I’m covered in mud and filth. He is not searching for an opportunity to punish me. He loves me and he wants me to love him and others. There is no fear in that at all!

This is why a chorus I learned after leaving the cult meant so much to me: “I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God.”

^“19We love each other because he loved us first.”

How are we able to love each other? Because He loved us first and showed us what love looks like.

^“20If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? “

How many liars have you known down through your years in cult environments? I’ve known a lot. I doubt any of them would admit to actually “hating” anyone…but “actions speak louder than words” is an old adage that holds true in this case as well. Lack of love is the same as hatred.

I grew up in a conservative preacher’s home. I heard the verbal vomit about the “liberal” leadership and neighboring pastors who “don’t believe fat meat is greasy.” I heard preachers who claimed to be holy and godly spout out comments like “he’ll never amount to anything,” “he’s good for nothing,” “I wouldn’t give you a plugged nickel for him,” and “I won’t give him the time of day.” These comments were all in reference to other ministers or saints who were in the same organization with the same doctrine, but disagreed over rules and standards of living.

Where is the love in that? Can you say you love God when you talk about another believer in this fashion? When you can be in the same room with another believer and completely avoid talking to him or her because you can’t stand them, is that love? How can you say you love God and behave in this fashion towards his other children?

^“21And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.”

It is a command…the true and only command to indicate our salvation.

What a lot to take in! It really is all in the concept of love. Remember Jesus saying that all the Ten Commandments could be condensed into loving God and loving others? That really is all it is about. It isn’t difficult to measure up, and it isn’t supposed to be an anxiety trip. It is all in that one little word, LOVE.

Kicked Out

I had the strangest dream-memory last night. The dream was very clear flashbacks of my time in the United Pentecostal Church in the late 90s, before Junction City. Oddly I could remember people’s faces and actions so very clearly. Most of the time I forget faces over time.

I realized during the dream-memory that all of this happened nearly 15 years ago. The children I remember are now grown. One is probably married and another probably engaged.

The dream-memory mainly revolved around the kids. I’ve never been much of a kid person. I prayed as a pre-teen that I would never be able to have kids. I really thought babies hated me. The first babies/toddlers I was ever around much that seemed to like me were the pastor’s kids at this church.

They had a boy and a girl. The boy was around 3-4 when I started attending, and the girl was no more than 18 months, I’d guess, and probably quite a bit younger. With the pastor up preaching and the wife with a nursing baby, there were many times when I would take care of the little boy during church. I’d take little things with me in my purse to entertain him, and later the little girl, too. I’d stay after church and entertain them while their parents counseled sometimes, too.

They were cute kids. It was hard on me when the pastor kicked me out. On top of all the regular reasons, it was hard because I knew my disappearance would hurt them. I’ve never been that close to any other kids, even my niece and nephew, because I saw them so often and spent so much time with them.

In the dream-memory one of the other things I remembered was how the pastor’s wife wanted the little boy to have a suit, but they couldn’t afford one. One of the other members and I found a suit at a yard sale that would fit him. I was hesitant because the pants didn’t have a zipper, just an elastic. But there was a tie and a vest and it was cute. I figured he could wear those with regular pants and look dressed up. We bought the outfit and took it to her. I told her that I knew the pants probably wouldn’t work but she insisted. The boy came to church the next Sunday in the outfit, embarrassed half to death about his pants with the baby elastic in them, and me embarrassed for him. I never saw him wear the vest or tie (or the outfit) again.

I also remembered clearly, once again, the night the pastor and his wife called me into the kitchen area after church where the pastor accused me of lusting after him and told me if I didn’t change, he’d throw me out. That they were leaving to evangelize and when they returned I’d better have changed or I’d be gone. It wasn’t his words I remembered, but that when he stopped accusing me and told me that he’d now pray, the pastor’s wife linked the tips of her fingers with mine. It was like she was shaking as hard as I was, like she was holding on. I always wondered about that. I wondered why she didn’t get in trouble. I wondered why she did it to start with.

For years I blamed myself for getting kicked out. I thought that because he was a ‘man of God’ he must have known something about me that I didn’t know. I fought leaving because he ‘prophesied’ that I would leave and cut my hair and put on pants. He ‘prophesied’ that it would happen immediately, but I still fought leaving just to prove him wrong. And then I felt guilty for doing that, for wanting to make a ‘man of God’ a false prophet. I felt when he kicked me out that I would be sinning to ‘backslide‘ and sinning, as well, not to, because it would be proving him a liar.

I know, that’s messed up. But it’s how I felt at the time.

I just needed to remember, and then to write it down.

Years later, looking back, I realize that she was abused. I remember specific things he’d do, things she said had happened even from the day after their wedding, that should have clued me in that he was abusive. I remember seeing him abuse his kids, especially his daughter. Of slapping her legs again and again while she screamed and he yelled he was going to break ‘that woman spirit’ in her. A child still in diapers. I remember his refusal to stop long enough to let his little boy use the bathroom on road trips, the wife’s admission that she’d made her son pee into diapers because he had to go so bad and her husband wouldn’t stop, the child’s humiliation. I know the little boy wet his bed, probably at least until I left when he was 7-8. And I know there were reasons. I think one of the hardest things about leaving there was leaving those kids, knowing they were being abused but staying silent, afraid to say anything because they might be taken out of that home and ‘the Truth.’ And because we weren’t supposed to say anything. He was the ‘man of God.’

I struggled after leaving, have struggled for years, with prayer. God didn’t answer my prayers- my pleas- that he’d make a way that I could stay. My dream of finally being in the inner circle was shattered, and so was my confidence in prayer and in God in general, in much of what I was taught. I knew in my heart that I’d done pretty much everything I was supposed to, that I sacrificed, that I gave, that I obeyed unquestioningly even to the point of accepting a false accusation that I was lusting after that man. My hope that I would marry, my hope of having kids, recently awakened, all were gone. I doubted whether I could even eat with other believers without making them sin. There was no way I could be anything in any church. Not in my mind, not at that time. And not for a very long time after that.

I woke up this morning whispering a prayer for those kids. The son, now a man, the young girl, now around 18 or 19 probably, and quite possibly soon to be married off to who-knows-what in exchange for a good place for the dad or the brother to preach, and the youngest, born after I left.

Leaving an Unhealthy Church #11: Confusion & Not Knowing Who or What to Believe

At first, what had led me to seriously consider leaving my United Pentecostal church was not doctrine or standards, but a mess of problems stemming from the church owned daycare where I was employed. My best friend at the time was the head teacher and we’d been experiencing difficulties in our relationship. She was hardly there and didn’t teach (we ran under her teaching credentials). One thing led to another so in 1993 I turned in my resignation, which was effective at the end of the summer session. During this time I started to feel that it was no longer my church as the daycare events seeped over into church- a terrible feeling after almost 13 years as an actively involved member. I still recall speaking to one of the daughters of the pastor, who was no longer a member of the church but worked at the daycare, and saying that if things didn’t change I’d have to think about leaving the church as well as the daycare.

Needing to be able to think clearly, I took off and crashed at a friend’s home in West Virginia for about three weeks after I resigned and spoke to them about what had been happening. It was a couple I’d met in the late 80s who had spent time at the church and knew the people and how the pastor operated. They’d become like a second set of parents to me, arriving shortly after my mother had passed away and my father had moved out-of-state.

While I was in West Virginia, the pastor at my home church had taken an entire Thursday night service and played a tape of a Christian radio broadcast (read a transcript of it here) that a former couple from the church made on the topic of spiritual abuse. His reasoning was to show them what people were saying about us. The church members seemed very upset by this couple. One would not have known what church they were referring to unless they had known them since no names were mentioned. I didn’t like what I was seeing and was curious to hear this ‘horrid’ broadcast. I borrowed it from the pastor and listened to it in the privacy of my home.

My reaction was far from that of the many church members who heard it while I had been away. Though I disagreed in areas, I understood what they were saying. It caused me to start wondering about the validity of standards taught in the United Pentecostal Church.

From here I ventured to Pennsylvania for a couple days to stay with another couple who had previously left our church and whose present church had dropped out of the UPC. I took the tape with me, played it for them, and while they listened and agreed with all that was on the tape, I paced the floor. It was starting to really hit home about some actions made by the pastor and I was realizing he did some very wrong things. It was quite upsetting and hard to come to grips with it. Here I had been seeing first hand the other side of what had happened to others before me, due to my involvement with the daycare. None of it felt good.

Immediately upon returning home, I visited with the one pastor’s daughter and her husband and discussed some issues and spent a few hours at their home. Now I had even more to digest as PKs see and hear a lot.

I started seriously wondering about the standards taught by the UPC and ventured into the uncut women’s hair doctrine. I wanted to know the truth! Though there were some issues I had studied more in depth while a member, though I was seeing through UPC glasses, this is one that had only been looked at on the surface. Their explanation of 1 Corinthians 11 seemed to make sense and I had long ago stopped cutting my hair and followed the teaching. I wanted to please God.

The confusion hit big time as I started to delve into the matter. I had writings from the UPC to read as well as a few other things which gave differing viewpoints. One day I’d feel the UPC was correct and the next felt they were in error. Talk about wavering. I recall getting together with a friend who is a lawyer and we’d bat things back and forth, coming back at each other with responses that the UPC would give to different points we made. How was one to know for sure? Was the UPC correct in their teaching? Were they in error? I did not have the answers.

Upon further study, I decided to jump head first into the Bible, looking for any and all mentions of hair in both the Old and New Testaments. Surely if this were a principle important to God, it would have been taught in the Old Testament. Yet nothing was found there to support the doctrine. The confusion started to ease as I studied more and dissected 1 Corinthians 11. What had once been clear to me as a UPC member, now was not. My findings showed that the Bible did not teach that a woman could never cut her hair.

Having finally laid that matter to rest, an uneasiness came over me and a thought came: “Now just what else is wrong that you’ve been taught?” Oh, yuck! I didn’t enjoy that thought at all. Talk about feeling like the rug has just been pulled out from under your feet and you were wobbling, trying to catch your balance. Where did it end? How was I going to know? Was any of what I’d sworn was true really true?

These were some of my thoughts. I now had a leeriness toward pastors and would forever be changed in this area. No more would I simply accept what a minister told me without finding out for myself. No more would I blindly defend any Christian denomination as if they could not be wrong in doctrine.

Did all of the confusion magically disappear? Were all my questions and thoughts suddenly answered? No. It was a process…a process which varies from person to person. A lot depends on whether or not one is willing to tackle the areas with which they find themselves confronted. Confusion will diminish and go away as one comes to terms with any teachings/incidents they find themselves questioning. But I thoroughly believe, that as it was with me, that this confusion may not fully leave until one studies the Bible for themselves and rests their conclusions solely upon what it says.

This was part of my experience. Confusion, not knowing who or what to believe, is surely part of the exiting process of any abusive group. But there is hope and there are answers to your questions. Regardless of the turmoil one may feel as they go through this stage, trust that God will lead and guide you and open your understanding to what the Scriptures truly teach.

Dresses, Dresses, Dresses

Do dresses make you holy??? After I was declared to have the Holy Ghost, I did not receive any inspiration from the Holy Ghost to begin wearing dresses. In fact, being a teenager when I arrived at a United Pentecostal church, my wardrobe consisted mainly of jeans, shorts, and mini dresses. It was the spring time of the year when I began going to this church and the following summer, I went on vacation with my family wearing pants, makeup, and bikinis. Funny thing is I don’t remember having any feelings that this was wrong or that I was betraying the Lord in any way.

My main memory of beginning to wear only dresses came from my concern that I could possibly be seen by someone from my church with the wrong clothes on. I also remember my mom, who was not a fan of my new church experience, questioning me “so you’re not going to wear all those clothes anymore?” This new way of dressing had to become my passion because I needed a whole new wardrobe! And hey, dresses were going to make me holy, right?

At first, I was at the mercy of one of the seamstresses in the church who had a penchant for heavy double knits. I considered myself to be somewhat of a fashionista so before long I purchased a sewing machine so I could make my own dresses. This was the early ‘70’s when the only dresses you could buy were short and unacceptable for making me holy. Thankfully, a few years later hem lines dropped and I could buy some of my clothes. Until then, you found me spending hours and hours making new dresses. Dresses are serious business in my UPC church! You must wear your newest and finest for the big Sunday night competition.

All those hours I spent sewing dresses never ever made me holy as the UPC claimed. They did make me different which in UPC world is considered a good thing. They love nothing better than being noticed for their different way of dressing. Once the pastor called me to come forward before the congregation as an example of what he expected the women to dress like. Even then, I knew, as far as my standing with the Lord, dresses meant nothing.

For about seventeen years, I wore only dresses but when I realized I could tell a lie easier than I could put on a pair of pants, something was wrong. There was no holiness in my clothes or any inside of me. I was an empty shell practicing a religion of works similar to those who are compelled to wear a head scarf or holy underwear. None of these things are what God is looking at. He is looking inside of your heart and your motives for doing what you do. All of these outward things people do to make themselves acceptable to God have no value. Man-made commandments and doctrines are only self-imposed religion and will in no way make you holy. In reality, they only serve to make you proud of yourself, your effort, and your appearance. True holiness described in Ephesians 4:24-32 comes from a heart, mind, and will that is controlled by the Holy Spirit living within.

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, and do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using— according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. Colossians 2:20-23 NKJV

Videos on Women only Wearing Skirts/Dresses

Just under five minutes, this is a video from a woman who grew up in a Pentecostal church. She refutes the holiness standard of women only being allowed to wear skirts and dresses. She also lightly touches on other standards taught by performance based churches and shares a little of her background and experience.

EDIT: Unfortunately, the person has made all these videos private, so they are no longer available.

Part 2 is just under ten minutes.

And part 3 is just over 9.5 minutes. Here is where she starts sharing her background.

Part 3b is just over six minutes. The sound is low on this one.

The final installment is just over ten minutes. The sounds quality fluctuates on it.