Category: experiences in church | Page 4

Harmed In The United Pentecostal Church Part 2

In two groups, I asked people to share how they were harmed during their time in the United Pentecostal Church. People were also able to respond who exited a different group. I received enough responses to make at least four blogs. These are used by permission and are anonymous. Some responses have been edited for spelling and punctuation. All the ones included in this part were from the UPCI or other Oneness Pentecostal group. Each person is separated between using and not using quotations. After reading this series of posts, perhaps many will better understand some of what can happen to people in abusive churches. See Part One.

What harmed me was being told I couldn’t seek help for mental illness and I couldn’t take medicine for mental illness because it could cause me to be possessed by a demon. And because I didn’t get help with the spiritual and emotional abuse for all of those years I ended up suffering from social anxiety self harm and depression. Thankfully I go to a church now that when I talked to my pastor about my problems she got me in to see a wonderful therapist and the taking of medicine for my mental health issues is okay with the Lutheran church I go to and I am slowly getting better and putting my life back together because I now go to a very loving and caring church that I thank God every day for.

Here are a few of the ways I was harmed:
Financially: My pastor told me not to leave his church in a very small, rural town. I could not find a decent-paying job… or even one with benefits. AND I paid tithes and offerings (15% as taught) on the $5-6/hr I made… and felt guilty for not giving more.

Psychologically: I was taught to distrust myself, to distrust my instincts and to think that anything bad that happened was my own fault. I learned shame and humiliation. I learned not to love my self or take care of myself because those things were said to be selfish and self-centered.

Spiritually: I learned to fear. To fear the future and to fear God in a negative way. I learned that God didn’t have my best interests in mind — that he wasn’t there to take care of me but to be served without question no matter the personal loss… and that he would not only expect, but demand that we face those losses as a way to test our faith and trust in him.

Physically: The stress I was under from the lies and the judgmentalism took a physical toll on me. It affected my health and my strength and endurance as well.

Socially: I was led to believe I should trust people in the UPC above all others and to distrust those who were not UPC. I lost friends and disconnected from family. I missed time I could have spent with Grandpa before he died, and missed good years with other members of my extended family and with real friends I had and could have had outside of the facade of the church I attended.

And… because of the rules of my church, because the pastor had to approve (and usually arrange) any relationships, I never married, never had kids, and never shared many other experiences that would have been positive and which most people would consider normal. I lost hopes and dreams and connections with others, ways to share with and interact with humanity.

I was raised UPC from the time I was eight years old until I left when I was 33.
I feel like I have major trust issues. Once you figure out everything you have been taught your whole life is a lie and you were duped and used as a door mat for nothing, it’s heart wrenching. You can’t look at people the same way for fear of being naive and taken advantage of once again.
I am cynical and critical of all churches and pastors. I never again want to open my heart up to a pastor or their family in case they are not who they claim to be.
I am leery of church comradery because people who say they are your church “family” will most likely leave you high and dry if you stop attending at any point down the road.
Just to name a few things… I’m sure I could think of more if I gave it more time!

I can completely relate to the music stuff! I was there from 9-1 every Sunday morning to sing and from 4-9 every Sunday PM. Plus any extra practices. Any thank you? Nope. Just people ragging on you if you didn’t show up because you were out of town or something! How much family time was lost while I was “giving my talent to God” every week for 12 years!?! Ugh. The illusion of my responsibility to music is a big reason why I stayed in so long.

Before attending the UPC, I loved going to church so much. I’d go to most any church regardless of denomination. I’d walk if it was nearby, I’d take a church bus. (These when young) I knew Jesus would be there, I knew He loved me unconditionally. The UPC took that simple trust and crushed it with their man-made rules and extensive fear mongering. Now, maybe I’m not good enough for Jesus to really love me, maybe I’ll lose my salvation. I have issues with trusting church leadership, I want to go to church, but don’t want my children’s simple belief in God and Jesus to be tarnished.

Second, and I’ve worked through this at this point, when we left I had no friends. I lost them, was shunned. I was so wrapped up in having the UPC as my identity, that leaving left me lost and confused as to who I was, as a person and my identity in Christ. I had to relearn how to interact with every day normal people, how to be “me” and interact in society.

Straight to the point….we felt like puppets on a string and the pastor’s wife was an evil bitch!!!! Sorry for the profanity but that’s the best words for describing her!

We were in the UPC for over 25 years and I believe it was the hypocrisy that we saw over those years that led to our leaving. I have a very hard time trusting those in the ministry because of seeing things preached against and knowing that they were doing those same things. They were always shaming people into giving more money to the church than they could afford, while those that begged for the money never seemed to go without. One day I actually started to study the UPC doctrine and opened my eyes to see it all starting to unravel. While there are some good people in the UPC the basic doctrine is flawed.

Lately, the word “robbed” comes to mind. Every time I hear the beautiful words of the gospel and how little of the Bible we were taught, and yet we were told there is no place else you can go from here, everywhere else is wrong and hell bound. I cut my daughters hair and was dismissed as someone unworthy to serve. I was treated from then on as if I wore the scarlet letter on my chest. In my mind, the group is too fault ridden to exist. It is not doctrinally sound and they only love each other.

Where do I start? I was born and raised in the UPC although my mother was not “in” church, she took us faithfully every Sunday because she did not want the shaming and guilt from my grandmother. My mom needed my grandmothers help with watching my brother and I when she was between marriages. I was pulled from both sides and in and out of church through my teen years. When I married, my husband and I got back in church and stayed for 25 years I think. He became a minister and pastor. I began to doubt the doctrine and would research and write papers on the subjects to give to my husband. I did not like raising my teen age kids in such a fragile glass house and we were shunned by the church people from parties and etc. In the end my husband ran off with a “worldly” woman and left me high and dry.
So my damages are:

1. Lack of trust in the ministry.
2. Takes me awhile to trust people or their statements of love.
3. PTSD -anxiety and panic attacks.
4. Had to learn that it was okay to love myself….still a work in progress.
5. I still study the Word for myself and do not take a man’s word.
6. I am learning that God loves me and gives me grace and mercy and is not mean and harsh and full of hate and damnation.
7. I will never step back into a UPC ever again.
8. I’m glad I found the church I attend now which we call a Body of Believers. They have accepted me and helped with my healing and forgiving process. They also leave the giving amounts up to me to decide.

Mental health issues such as anxiety and depression stemming from various teachings and indoctrination….Severe perfectionism from being taught God loves us only when we measure up. Ten years of abusive marriage because of false ideas of submission. Fear and panic attacks triggered by opinions of others since that was a key piece in the group.

My time was consumed with activity and nonstop obligations. I feel I overlooked my children’s childhood and have multiple regrets over it. Also I feel like I don’t know what to believe, who to trust, even if I could trust myself for such a long time.

I was in for about 9 years.

Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

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Harmed In The United Pentecostal Church

When one has been exposed to spiritual abuse, great harm can be done. While some escape with minimal or no injury, most do not leave unscathed. Those of us who have been exposed to it grow weary of people trying to minimize or poke fun at what we experienced. If a person has only been in a healthy church or group, they cannot relate. They will wonder why people remained or went along with some things. They simply do not understand the atmosphere in unhealthy churches, nor the harm they cause. Some others who are still part of an unhealthy church love to label everyone as bitter, rebellious, and/or unforgiving and some laugh and say we just didn’t get to sing in the choir or didn’t like the color the pastor painted the church.

In two groups, I asked people to share how they were harmed during their time in the United Pentecostal Church. People were also able to respond who exited a different group. I received enough responses to make at least three blogs. These are used by permission and are anonymous. Some responses have been edited for spelling and punctuation and emoticons have been removed. All the ones included in this part were from the UPCI or other Oneness Pentecostal group. Each person is separated between using and not using quotations. After reading this series of posts, perhaps many will better understand some of what can happen to people in abusive churches.

I feel like I lost time with my immediate family that could have been shared, as Jesus did – with compassion and mercy. My interactions with them (while in the organization) were more about my false appearance of moral superiority, judgement and condemnation. I’ve lost moments with them that I’ll never get back. I only have hope that our eternities will be spent together at this point.

I was taught a dysfunctional and deformed view of God, as a vengeful, rejecting, elitist, which justified me and everyone else to behave in like manner. I became that guy that cut off family, friends, and anyone who rejected our way. I taught and believed anyone who wasn’t Apostolic was a fake wanna-be Christian and wasn’t going to heaven.

Wearing Make Up? Going to hell. Wearing pants? Going to hell. Wearing shorts? Going to hell. Seeing a shrink? Going to hell. etc, etc, etc. Thus, I spent 15 years judging people instead of loving people. Sure, I’d wave, but I’d turn around and snicker – yea there’s a harlot…

I was taught to mock people who left or were different instead of following Scriptures example. Years ago a local businessman came to me and said, “I know you are a Christian, and I highly respect you, and I want to confide in you.”

This man confided his addiction to pornography to me, explained how he tried and tried to quit, the hurt it caused his family, his failings, etc. In the end, he asked me to mentor him, to be an accountability partner, to support and pray with. I told this man that if he had the real Jesus, not his fake Jesus, he wouldn’t have these problems and that he needed to come to church, get baptized in Jesus name, get the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues or he was lost to hell, and until he did those things I wouldn’t be able to be that connected and close to him.

This man was seeking Jesus, and I could have been part of that, and helped a MAN with a problem most men face. Instead? I judged, condemned and rejected like a good Pentecostal should.

It took me three months after leaving the cult to circle around to as many people as I could remember that I rejected and personally and face to face ask for forgiveness for the things I had done, said and exemplified.

I grew up with a very unrealistic view of the world around me. I was a good student in public school and a PK at home. I felt schizophrenic because the two worlds were always in competition. I attended the cult college instead of real college but thankfully met and married a wonderful man. He was clueless to all the hurt and abuse women suffer in the UPC. I was robbed of the fun and joy of being a young wife. I felt like an old lady at 30 and looked like one. So many things were not ‘allowed’. We were allowed to eat so I got fat. No makeup, jewelry, feminine things that make a young wife smile. I never fit in, my kids never fit in; not because we broke the rules but rather because we followed them too closely. I was miserably judgmental of myself and everyone around me. The peace that can be found when you leave this legalistic, self righteous group is unbelievably amazing!

…I did not even touch on the financial in my last post. From our pastor insisting we buy a van as a young married couple so we could haul people to church (and his assurance in 1973 that we would never have to make all the payments because the rapture was imminent). Then my making all our clothes, even suits and jeans because there was a cheap mill fabric store and a huge portion of our money went into the church. We shared drinks at Burger King while the pastor ate at Bennigans with our tithe. We had major life events including my husband being injured and spending almost two years in the hospital and a year of waiting for military pay to kick in while living on $40 a week from Red Cross and painting a house myself in lieu of rent. No church offered any help whatsoever. That year I had $19 for Christmas for three small children. Although we were assured we would have huge money issues and go broke if we left and did not pay tithe, we have flourished in the seven years since leaving, even though we still give to the poor and needy and those who struggle and to our own families (even those still in UPC who still struggle) but not to the fat cat preachers.

I lost my youth. I lost out on relationships with extended family before I left and now with my immediate family and most childhood friends since I left. I was uneducated, depressed and married at 20. I hated my life and didn’t even recognize it until I left.

Being a former 4th generation UPC kid and growing up under the church pews, I learned to hide who I was quickly. I learned my body should be hidden. I wore clothes several sizes too big for 27 years. If I wore something that fit me (even as a kid), it was too sexy and I would be causing some old penis to sin. I was taught I shouldn’t find interest in sports or things because the dress code for those things were “inappropriate,” I really hate that word! It was used for anything that didn’t fit the UPC mold: friendships, clothing, jewelry, heels off in church, sexuality, creativity that didn’t serve the church in some way… I was taught to not speak up, to hold my peace. I wasn’t to listen to my instincts because they were inherently evil. (I still struggle with this! It’s gotten me in some pretty awful situations over the years.) I felt I often needed to apologize to people I cared about in the church for my family’s treatment of them in the name of God. The church taught exclusivity from “the world.” I could have had some pretty amazing life-long school friends had it not been for the church! I missed out on joy, being more athletic, being a dancer, feeling beautiful, being playful, having relationships with my non-UPC family, getting help with my developmental disabilities outside a school setting, and not making plans for my future past 18. (It was a rule in our house we had to graduate high school, but I didn’t plan for marriage, college, career, kids, or anything. The rapture was going to happen! Hallelujah. Amen. Why try to dream about things that’ll never happen?!? It really made the first few years of my marriage super tough. I didn’t know how to live in the real world. I was so flipping naive! I didn’t know what I wanted to do for work, so I got fired a lot a lot! I didn’t know how to pay bills. I’d always lived with my parents. I could spend money like there was no tomorrow at the grocery store. My poor husband was/is still super patient with me when it my lack of street smarts/worldliness pops up.) There is sooo much more.

The constant call for money and giving more than you could afford caused much heart ache in our family. Even to giving our whole month paycheck to the church. Not even a thank you and it going into the big black hole that was existing at that time. My husband and BIL were asked to sign on a huge loan and they wouldn’t. That next Sunday was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The church was asked who would support the pastor in anything they did or say by raising their hands. We did not of course. That’s when we were snubbed leaving that day. We had had enough. 1/3 of the church split. We were with the split. That pastor left us to go evangelize and we felt betrayed. The new pastor sent in by the UPC also betrayed us by leaving in a month. That’s when both of us gave up on the UPC. My husband went back to it after awhile but I never did.

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

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Leave/Vacations and the Church

Other bloggers mentioned how difficult it was to take vacations or even visit family in abusive churches. My experience, especially when I was in the Navy, wasn’t any different.

For those unfamiliar, the military offers 30 days paid leave per year. Compared to civilian employment, it’s a sweet deal. The church I attended saw this as a golden opportunity to use its military parishioners as “free labor.” The leadership would exhort us to place the needs of the ministry first when it came to taking leave. In fact, we were told that if we spent two or more weeks away from the church on leave we were in danger of backsliding and we weren’t placing God first.

Special emphasis was placed on the Christmas holidays. We were encouraged to wait until the second leave period (usually December 30-January 15) to go visit family. The first leave period (December 15-30) was meant to “be available” for service members who “weren’t able to go home for the holidays.” While this by itself was a noble gesture, and even an effective outreach, forcing parishioners (in particular the single men) to sacrifice time with loved ones was a wrong approach.

For most of my 16 years in that church, I sacrificed my Christmas leave to participate in the activities and give visiting sailors and other service members a place to get away from the base. I only went home for Christmas twice when I was in the church; one such time was in 1991 when my brother, who was in the Air Force, had returned from a tour overseas and was visiting my parents and other brother in West Virginia. It was a strain on my family because they would have loved to have me home to visit more often.

Indeed, I spent a lot of leave time puttering around the church instead of visiting my family and even traveling and enjoy some personal time. Looking back, was I truly sacrificing my vacation to fulfill the gospel or was I simply another pack mule for the leadership? It’s painful to realize I was duped. If Jesus is truly the same yesterday, today, and forever, wouldn’t He be the same in a small town in West Virginia as in a church in Norfolk, Virginia?

When I left that church, I had two years left in my naval career. My departure occurred at the same time I transferred from a ship to my final shore duty station. Unlike previous leave periods, I took a long trip home. It was a good visit as I got to share with my parents that I finally broke free of that church and was trying to make sense of everything. I spent the remainder of my leave at my place, just chilling out and relaxing, even going to the beach. It was a big adjustment, being in charge of my own vacation time instead of being told how to spend it.

God still is first in my life, but now I realize family is very important. No organization should ever force its members to diminish the importance of family.

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Eating the Forbidden Fruit of Truth Part 3

Continued from Part 2.

September 11, 2001. Anyone old enough to remember knew where they were that day. I was aboard ship, and heard the order to go underway; I would be deployed for seven months, most of that time in the Indian Ocean.

A few months into the deployment, the woman who created the website with her husband reported aboard the same ship where I was stationed. Almost immediately shipmates approached me, wanting to know why we were so polarized when we attended the same church and believed very much the same things. I prayed about talking to her because I wanted answers.

What was intended to be a brief Q and A session became a two hour conversation that opened my eyes to the ugly truth about the founder. She told me how, during her shore duty tour, she was able to obtain a copy of the court records concerning the founder’s trial and conviction. I listened closely as she shared of how the founder allegedly attacked her husband when he was a single man in the church. I could tell she wasn’t lying to me.

I realized I could no longer defend the founder anymore. I read through the court records, and my mind was blown. So many people whom I thought were pillars in the church were implicated in the closed door activities. I couldn’t believe it at first, but the truth was there in stark black and white. I had been duped into thinking we were such a holy bunch, but in reality there were two groups within the church. There was the majority, who made the church look wonderful on the outside. Then there was this – the dark inner circle where all the secrets and lies were kept.

What was I going to do with this knowledge?

Eating the Forbidden Fruit of Truth Part 1

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God Asked Me to Buy…

We all heard the news recently of a prominent televangelist who told his followers God said to raise million of dollars to buy a personal jet airplane. Why in God’s name do people who live in Section 8 housing, collect food stamps, and are on Medicaid fall for the sales pitch?

I fell for a similar sales pitch in 2002. The church I attended was looking at gathering funds for a high end car supposedly for church use. I was approached because I was careful with my finances and somehow the church knew I had some cash on hand. Being the good brother and elder, I offered to give $1000 towards purchasing the vehicle. It was a sweet ride, but then I noticed it never was used by the church as much as it was used by the pastor.

For the generous donation I made, the least the church could have done was let me drive the car. I felt like a big horse’s rear end, realizing helping with the purchase did not mean I could even sit in the driver’s seat.

For those who feel the urge to donate for airplanes and other high end merchandise, ask yourselves this: will the pastor let you have any use of those items after you donate? If the pastor is living in a luxurious home and you live in the projects, wouldn’t it be possible he could take out a personal loan without trying to dig in YOUR wallet?

Do yourselves a favor and don’t give these charlatans one dime.

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