Growing Up as a PK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Finding God in Spite of Men

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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God Is Love

My whole life from my first memories of God was a vision of Him as an angry, full of retribution God. I had fear of disappointing Him and paying dire consequences. ‘Be careful little, eyes, ears, mouth, etc. Because there’s a Father up above’. ( We got the looking down but the love part wasn’t emphasized and didn’t register).

As a PK, I heard all about the horrible things that happened to people who left ‘the truth’.

Of course horrible things happened to our church people too, and even to us but ‘wasn’t it lucky we were in the truth and God would see us through’!?!?!?!

Good things that happened to people outside the truth were because they were getting their only reward here on earth, but good things happened to us because God was blessing us for being good.

This 4th of July we celebrated freedom. The freedom of our country from tyranny. We also this year celebrated our freedom from ‘the truth’ which is not the truth but another Gospel of bondage that Christ died to give us grace to overcome. To be free in Christ is free indeed!

For we are saved by grace and that not of ourselves lest any should boast. God’s grace through Jesus Christ cannot be improved upon by feeble human rules and regulations. We do our best to be holy as He is holy but holiness is a matter of the heart and cannot be created by what we wear or don’t wear. Holiness comes from an honest heart filled with the love of God. Love the Lord with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, on these two commandments rest all the law.

A heart full of fear and judgement has no room for the love of God.

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so!

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Life after 60 outside the cult

Some won’t like that I said cult but I could have said asylum 🙂 ok, my apologies to the more serious among us.

Anyway, I am finding life to be very peaceful, rewarding, joyful, and surprisingly kind to me. No lightning strikes, fear, intimidation, etc. God is still good, kind, awesome, a source of strength and rest. His Word is still true and still hidden in my heart and slowly untwisting from years of cult manipulation. I find it easier to pray and sense a caring God listening with love instead of the harsh, threatening, far away God from the legalistic church.

I find it increasingly easier to trust God and to trust others; having faith in His love allows me to believe others truly love me and infuses me with love for others, friend and foe.

The spirit of judging, both myself and others, comparing, ranking spiritually on a ridiculous legalistic scale is a thing of the past.

An old children’s song says it all “Have faith, hope, and charity, that’s the way to live successfully, how do I know the Bible tells me so”.

So 60 is good. Out of the cult is good. God is good. My heart is full and I am in love with God, family, friends, life in general and even see the possibility of loving those that despitefully used me. God bless us one and all.

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What’s the attraction ‘Then and Now?’

I can’t help but wonder how my fairly bright, for the most part- honest, kind, compassionate, hard working – family got so enmeshed in this out of the mainstream religious group.

Here’s what I came up with:

My paternal grandfather died very young, leaving my grandmother with 13 children to rear during the depression, my father was next to the youngest at 5 years old. My grandmother was a big woman (I am 5’10” and have had aunts also this tall) stern, honest, religious –a very strong woman (she had to be). She was a Methodist, back when the Methodist also ‘shouted their hair down’.

From what I have learned, this Oneness group started out with a great deal of emotion, caring, and a desire to get as close to God as possible, but without a lot of the legalism now such a big part of it. I can see how the early Pentecostal group would be attractive to a single Mom with almost nothing to call her own and 13 kids to care for.

I remember stories of her praying while bags of groceries magically appeared on her porch and praying for money for shoes for her kids and finding a couple of dollars in the ditch beside the road. I also heard stories of her whipping the kids with a razor strap on their bare behinds –they could not afford pajamas or underwear so slept nude and were a prime target for discipline at nite. My dad says he immediately started bawling and did not get whipped as hard as his stoic older brother. Four of her five sons became Oneness preachers. One a National foreign missions director, one a state district superintendent for over 20 years, one a lifetime minister who started 3 churches, one (the youngest) a local minister. Admittedly, they were ALJC (Assemblies of the Lord Jesus Christ), not UPC (United Pentecostal Church) –not sure even Grandma would accept the legalism of today’s group. She was killed in a train accident when I was 10 years old so I guess I’ll never know how she would have felt about all the changes.

My maternal grandmother also lost her husband early on; my mother was 16 when her dad died of a stroke. Neither grandfather had been in the church. My maternal grandmother was very short (under 5′ tall). She was very kind, sweet, loving. She had come into Oneness with her own mother when my mom (her youngest) was around 6 and my grandfather was being a bit of a womanizer; supposedly my mom has a sister about her age somewhere. He was also a non practicing Catholic and there was almost no contact with his side of the family b/c of the difference in religion. So, I can see this kind, sweet, grandmother being led into this with her mother, seeking peace from a difficult life. As a child, I sensed she didn’t buy into some of the ‘rules‘, suggesting I needed a haircut (at least bangs) and buying me pants to wear in the cold weather and shorts or pedal pushers in summer.

So that’s where it started for us. My family had a bit of drive and made a place for themselves in the churches; this encouraged their children in turn to remain where there was a sense of belonging and maybe a bit of importance. Later, some were successful in business and/or education and they tended to not stay so close to the group. By the 3rd generation, many were no longer in the group –some had switched to UPC (more power, more people, etc.), some stayed in ALJC (either out of loyalty, or to remain significant). Some opted out altogether but tended to not go to church anywhere else and just attend the group church occasionally –it is difficult to accept somewhere else when you have been indoctrinated so intensely. By the 4th generation, the group was losing ground and only the diehards were staying, but this is a big family and a not so big organization, so it is still easy to find someone in the organization that knows someone in the family, particularly in the ALJC.

So, I have answered my question, “how did my family get sucked into this?” I was one who stayed longer b/c I am typically pretty loyal and obedient but also b/c I gave myself and my family a bit of lenience with some of the rules throughout the years.

If we had never been born into this and my grandparents lived today never having heard of this, I would like to think there would not be ANY of us in this today.

Why would anyone want to be a part of this? I guess it is b/c it is promoted as a way to draw closer to God and also a way that one can actually do something important or be someone important –after we are ‘King’s Kids’.

Hopefully, now that I have gotten that out of my system, I can keep moving forward in God’s grace without the baggage – maybe.

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