Category: experiences in church | Page 7

Signs, Signs, Everywhere A Sign

“Signs, signs, everywhere a sign….” Remember this old song? (I took the liberty of adding an s.) In some churches it is all about signs. Seeking signs. Desiring signs. Disappointed if there are no signs. It’s not a good service if there are no signs. What is the next sign going to be? I want something more!

This mindset is not good. Jesus and the apostles warn us against desiring and following after signs. Yet despite these warnings, what do we see in some churches but people flocking after the next big sign.

You can hear the circus barker, “Step right up, folks! See the spectacular! The unbelievable! Watch jewels suddenly appear before your eyes! Gold dust fills the air! People fall at the wave of a hand! Come on in and marvel at the sight!”

Gold. It came in the form of dust, fillings and entire teeth. Angel feathers. Jewels. Laughter. Falling out. Oil. Spiritual drunkenness. Slain. The list goes on as people line up and get carried away by every wind.

People are drawn to the spectacular. We want to see amazing things. Why would the people in Jesus’ days be reprimanded for seeking signs? This is why we have so many problems in the churches which focus on emotionalism. We want gold fillings. Then gold dust. Then we want to see pulpits broken in half or people shaking uncontrollably in and out of services. There’s always a search for more and more, bigger and better.

Who is getting all the attention in these things? Does the focus come on a person or people, the pastor, the church? If God is going to do something miraculous, HE would be getting the glory and the attention, with the result of people turning to Him. In the New Testament, miracles happened to confirm the Gospel being preached and the apostles didn’t run after or focus on them.

Oftentimes things like these help fill up someone’s wallet, be that the pastor’s, evangelist’s and/or the church fund. The love of money causes many to do things which they ought not do.

What happens at the places where these things occur? Is all the talk and emphasis now on the “move”? Do they lose a focus of preaching the Gospel? How is their teaching being distorted by these signs? Does the emphasis become that of experiences trumping Scripture? (It has to be true or of God because it happened in church and look how many are at the church! Because it makes me excited and I feel good! I know that isn’t in the Bible, but God can do anything, can’t He?) The dismissal of Scripture is a serious thing in these “moves.” Experience is placed above it and the Bible gets interpreted through the experiences and not the other way around.

What’s the fruit of it all? Why would God perform such acts? What does gold teeth or gold dust mean to Him? Does He really focus on these material things? Would he really leave jewels laying around at a church? Really? Where do we see anything similar happening in the biblical accounts of the early Church?

Stop and think about it. Why would God go around indiscriminately distributing gold teeth in people’s mouths? It makes no sense. People need emotional healing, physical healing, but hey- they got a gold tooth instead.

Examining Teachings #1: Drunk In The Spirit?

You may have seen people in Pentecostal type churches, acting like they were drunk during a service. Perhaps even the minister said something like, “We all need to get drunk in the Spirit!” Is this thought biblical? What passage is used to justify such behavior?

This is a good area to examine as there is a teaching that because some onlookers referred to those on the day of Pentecost as being drunk (Acts 2), that it must mean they were exhibiting drunken behavior such as we see allowed in some churches today. I believe this is far, far from the truth.

Since the Bible warns us against drunkenness, why would God cause a behavior which would make us appear to be exactly what he tells us we should not be? Stop and think about it. It makes no sense. The Bible warns us to abstain from the appearance of evil in 1 Thessalonians 5:22. In Galatians 5, we see a list of some of the acts of a sinful nature and drunkenness is listed. Furthermore, we see no biblical instances which show the type of behavior seen today which is termed being drunk in the Spirit.

Let’s look at Acts 2. Verse two shows us that they were sitting when the Holy Spirit came upon them. So what attracted others to go and see what was happening? Verse five says it was because the crowd heard the believers speaking in their own languages. If you were in a different country and heard someone speaking your language instead of that of the country you were visiting, it would likewise get your attention. It doesn’t mention anyone was slurring their speech or stumbling around or acting incoherent, laughing like people often do when they are drunk, or passed out on the floor. What attracted them was the sound they heard as they were hearing their native languages being spoken. This is made very clear in the passage.

This stirred conversation. They knew the believers shouldn’t be speaking in their languages. They questioned why and what it meant. This is when some mocked and proclaimed they had too much to drink. That remark was in reference to the speaking in tongues that they heard and not any drunken type behavior. Nowhere in Acts does it show believers as exhibiting any evidence of possible drunkenness.

Haven’t we ever heard someone give a lame reason for something which they observed but couldn’t understand? How would being drunk cause someone to be able to speak a foreign language they did not know? In no way does this passage give any indication that the believers were acting in a drunken manner as some teach today. This is when Peter and the other apostles stood up while Peter proclaimed Jesus to them and let them know that drunkenness had nothing to do with what was happening.

This teaching is one which really bothers me. The Bible is clear about the issue of drunkenness and being careful when drinking and that those who follow Christ should not drink excessively. It is evidence of our sinful nature, the works of the flesh, and not the fruit of the Spirit. There is absolutely no way that God would teach against this and then cause believers to act like they just finished drinking several Long Islands.

Some may also be interested in reading a related article: The Presence of God.

Examining Teachings #1: Drunk In The Spirit?
Examining Teachings #2: Jezebel and Shamefaced
Examining Teachings #3: Peculiar And Separate
Examining Teachings #4: What Must I Do To Be Saved?
Examining Teachings #5: Faith Without Works Is Dead

Salem

In doing some research for a class project a year or two after being thrown out of a church, I came across an interactive activity enacting the trials. I sat clicking through it, stunned. I had been familiar with the trials, but I had never thought of them as closely related to my life. But here in an interactive about a bit of 300 year old history, was a reenactment of my expulsion.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/salem-interactive/

Are you a witch?
Why do you torture these people?
How do you know you’re not a witch?
We know you’re a witch!
How long have you been a witch?
Don’t deny it! Why won’t you confess?
How long have you been in the snare of the devil?
Why would you laugh? Don’t you see, you’re hurting these people?
You can’t expect peace without a confession!

You would sob, but it’s too much. You stood before your neighbors, your God and your judge and spoke the truth. They saw you, they heard you, and they jailed you.

Now, all of Salem, hungry for drama, seems to have squeezed inside the courthouse…

And on the story goes. Though it’s not precisely accurate, it’s not far from the real proceedings. https://web.archive.org/web/20160106151023/https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/texts/tei/swp?div_id=n24

The interactive haunted me. For the first time after I’d been thrown out, I had found an incident that was very similar to my own. Here is basically my interaction with the man who threw me out:

I feel in my spirit–you aren’t right! You’re lusting after me.
ME: “NO!”
Don’t argue with the man of God! I know you’re lusting after me, and you won’t destroy my ministry!
If you don’t get right, I’ll throw you out!
I don’t even know if you can be saved.
I knew someone was hindering revival!
You’re hindering revival! You need to repent!

He went on to tell me why he thought I was lusting. He had the spirit of discernment. He felt it in his spirit. I’d made him grab a folding chair I was sitting on and drag it around the room. I’d gone to the store at the same time he and his wife were there….

And so I identify with those tried as witches in Salem.

What happened in Salem, and why did the witch hunts and trials take place? Why were they allowed to go so far? Superstition, lack of knowledge or common sense, emphasis on the devil doing things to people, mass hysteria, toxins in the water or food, boredom, a fear of secret ‘sins’ being discovered, or guilt for those sins still hidden, the power of a few, the jealousy of others… there are many guesses as to what happened in Salem. I think it was a combination. And I think witch hunts still happen today.

Read Parts Two and Three.

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.

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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