Category: unhealthy churches | Page 130

Loyalty should go both ways

“The only people I owe my loyalty to are the ones who never made me question theirs.”
― Joe Mehl

Were you loyal to your pastor? Did he ever question it?

We had an exodus of about 20 people one year. All at once. It sure took me by surprise. I thought some of them were taking extended vacations that Thanksgiving holiday. But then I realized they had left. Gone. Just gone. I thought “Wow, why, what happened?”

The pastor was obviously upset by it. We lost some of the best workers in the choir, Sunday School and bus ministry we had. How were we going to carry on?

I never did know all the whys and wherefores of that exodus. But it seemed to have something to do with the ones in charge of the Sunday School not being able to fully do their job, which was being very creative. Suddenly (as I remember it happening) we went from doing some really fun things to back to the “old way”. (I thought there was a lot more to it, but I was not privy to all the information).

The pastor suddenly was uncertain of everyone and their loyalty to him, not trusting anyone at all. We had meetings with the department heads (I was one for that year) and all he talked about was how the people who left had been his friends one moment and then enemies the next. We got very little done in the meetings. We began hearing this from the pulpit the same thing. One moment he would be preaching away on a topic and he would suddenly stop and go on about how people had “hurt” him and he was certain more would do the same. We were to be loyal to him. He was the pastor. We were to respect him. He was the pastor. Our leader. This went on for years. Really.

He did not trust any of us. He seemed to think all of us were thinking of leaving. He always told us to “get over it” when we thought he “hurt our feelings.” (He sure was not getting over his “hurt feelings.”) Anytime someone did not show up for church and did not call him, he knew they had left. It was just that we might be sick and just didn’t think to call. Or something had come up, we didn’t always consider his feelings. We were not being loyal to him. We didn’t mean it, really.

I always felt loyalty should go both ways. I have your back, you have mine sort of thing. We came to church and paid our tithes, praised the pastor’s preaching with “amens” and the singing (lead by his wife) with our worship. We were to accept his leadership without question. Sometimes he would say something and someone would tell him that what he said hurt their feelings. He would preach about that later and tell us, “So what if I hurt your feelings? Too bad! Get over it!” After a while I know I stopped feeling sorry for him (so did some other people) as he would go on and on about how people hurt his feelings and made him not trust the rest of us. It didn’t seem we were on a two way street here after that Exodus. I think most of the congregation was over it way before he was. Of course, in a way, we were not directly affected by the exodus the same way the pastor was. They were only our friends. He was their shepherd, pastor, leader.

Those of us left were sure we would never leave that church or pastor and would remain loyal forever. But some of us trickled out over the years just the same. I am not certain but I think his feelings of insecurity toward all of us after that time affected us more that we realized.

How can you be totally loyal to someone if your loyalty is called into question just because a group decided to leave?

Although my leaving took place about 10 years after this incident, I have wondered if there was a change in my thinking or loyalty that helped me out the door.

Cultic Pseudo Personality

When you’re born into a high-control-high-demand group that enforces separation from “worldlies” you unfortunately have a pseudo personality from a very young age. You’re subjected to many expectations and demands used to create submission and conformity. You live in two different worlds – the real, outside world, and the insular cultic world (especially if you attended public school like I did).

These separate worlds carry different value and belief systems. How can you know which system is valid? You’re left confused and conflicted. So you decide that neither world is safe and become even more isolated within yourself. Resulting depression and anxiety starts at a young age. The intense pressure to think and act in two different ways causes a cult identity (“pseudo personality”) to form.

This “pseudo personality” represses your original self and is a dissociative defense which allows the mind to cope with – and adapt to – the contradictory and intense demands of the home and group environments. Critical thinking, feelings, opinions, and questions are squashed. They are evil, worldly, selfish and disloyal. So you enter into a constant state of feeling “different” and “not normal.”

Toxic shame takes root. Dependency and insecurity is created within your young personality. “The world” is your enemy. The true self has to be stifled in order to receive acceptance from your family and community. Your self-perception is greatly distorted. Guilt and shame are fully established before puberty. Fear is the mode of operating. And there is no escape without the loss of all friends, acquaintances, and immediate and extended family. There is no escape. Until there is….

“And the day came, when the risk to remain closed in a bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anonymous

.…when I eventually left in my thirties I self-destructed. They make sure that you do. Here is what I scribbled one night while suicidal and trying to convince myself to keep on living. I had lost everyone and everything I’d known – all in the name of God (who actually happens to be LOVE!!!!).

RAW

Who is she?
Staring blank
Fully numb
Broken down

Is she the sum of her pain?
No escape
No reprieve
It’s a cage

Does anyone see her?
Heart cries
Deep desire
To be known

Do they know?
Pain consumes
She’s pretending
Dissociation does

Does someone care to know her deeply?
Shredded soul
Seismic pain
It takes just one

Do they put her in a box?
Inmost shame
Never enough
Peace sabotaged

Is there light?
Darkest pit
Despair’s dungeon
Torment’s tentacles

Who is she?
Heart decides
No more lies
Knit in womb

Can she find her way back?
Depression’s grip
Shame’s deceit
Grief’s fog

Why struggle on?
Pain paralyzed
Can’t breathe
Death’s entice

Is there hope?
Cathartic talks
Unconditional love
God’s promises

Why?
Not here for me
Speck of time
Refining fire

God’s strength‎!

People go to prison for breaking and entering a house. But these groups can break into your soul, spirit, mind, heart, body, emotions and cause absolute devastation and destruction and there are no consequences. Nobody holds them accountable. (Well, I guess God does in the end.) It takes a long time to process the anger and to forgive from the heart. To heal from the complex-PTSD. If they’d only experience the living God of LOVE they’d stop this nonsense. I’m convinced that the controlling and cruel spirit behind these groups is the same spirit that is behind ISIS. Consider that..!

There is healing. There is light at the end of the darkness. The deeper the pain, the higher the joy at the end of it. It’s called “Post Traumatic Growth.” And in a very strange way it can end up being a gift. A spiritual awakening.

Peace. Love. Joy. Hope.

Religion or Christ?

When your salvation depends on what you do rather than what Christ did, it is not salvation at all but just another doctrine of men. When your church promotes pride in identity of their own brand rather than the love of God to all mankind, it is not of God.

When you are taught to shun, look down on, attribute rebellion and bitterness to those who leave your particular group, it is not the family of God. When your leaders are held in awe, elevated above the membership, seen to stand in God’s stead, paid to perform, they are not men of God. When your church loves money and demands it of their members including the widows, the poor, the indigent while your leaders live in luxury, it is not following God’s plan. When you are afraid to question your church, your leaders, your organization, you are in the wrong place.

God is love, he embodies all the attributes of love, he is no respecter of persons, his mercy endureth forever, he looks on the heart, not on the outward appearance, he died that we might live, he proclaimed the two greatest commandments are to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and love thy neighbor as thyself- that all else is based upon these simplistic commands. Love is the missing factor in the ‘religion’ I grew up in as well as many other institutional churches in our world today. There is peace, joy, . . . . . . . In living by faith in God’s love and grace.

Leaving an Unhealthy Church #8: The Way Of The Transgressor Is Hard!

You left an unhealthy church and now something bad happened. Perhaps you had an accident, lost your job, have a financial problem or an affliction in your body. Certain fearful words that you heard dozens of times echo in your mind, “The way of the transgressor is hard…”

Your former pastor would warn of what awaits the person who leaves, sometimes adding stories of frightful things that allegedly happened to others. They are considered backslid as they walked away from ‘truth.’ Oh, the tales of the auto accidents, even deaths, may ring in your ears. Perhaps they were right and you are backslid, maybe even without hope.

It is interesting how, at times like these, we forget all the bad things that happened while we were in our former churches. In a post awhile back, I shared: “I recall all kinds of bad things happening to people who were in my former church. A home burned down, there were all kinds of vehicle and job problems, car accidents, financial difficulties, marriage trouble and divorces, and people getting diseases with some dying. The church itself was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. It would be an extensive list of woes if everything could be mentioned. Being a member of the church and being involved did not keep us from the things of life that can happen to anyone.”

When bad things happened while you were in church, you probably heard the pastor proclaim, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” or maybe, “The trying of your faith worketh patience.” The bad would happen because you were following God. Perhaps the devil himself was out to get you. The devil always seemed to be after the church and the people there. He received a great deal of credit he didn’t deserve. But that’s another story.

If you had remained at your former unhealthy church and the same bad thing happened as is happening now, you wouldn’t be thinking you were a transgressor. So why are you now, simply because you stopped attending your former church? Have you walked away from God or have you simply walked away from a particular church? Have you walked away from God’s principles or have you walked away from man-made doctrines?

Think about it. You had plenty of bad things happen while you attended, so why should it be any different because you left a church building? The rain falls on everyone alike. This is life and in life there will be things happen that are bad just because you are alive.

Leaving an Unhealthy Church #7: It Happens To Ministers, Too

Another aspect of unhealthy churches is that the talk, lies and abuse happens to ministers, too. Sometimes we do not think about or discuss this.

When I was involved in the United Pentecostal Church in New Jersey, there was a neighboring pastor from the same organization that my pastor would talk about negatively. He would accuse him of being lax on standards, proclaim that rebels went there (our church had years before split and some who left attended there), and he even put him down for attending a tent revival run by someone outside our group. These weren’t private one on one comments, which would be bad enough, but were remarks openly made to the entire congregation. While sharing about the other pastor receiving his ordination at a district conference, my pastor complained in a sermon that the District Superintendent, Wayne Trout, called him up front to pray for the man.

I knew a minister who was pastor at another church in the organization, about two hours north of us. When that church went through the established process of leaving the organization, various things were said of him. One was that he ‘stole’ the church from James Lumpkin, the previous pastor. He personally shared with me that when he resigned his license, Nathaniel Urshan, the UPCI General Superintendent at the time, wrote cautioning him against leaving & I believe basically saying that those who exit do not end up well. That church is still in existence in 2023 and Terry Smith is still the pastor.

Then there is a former UPCI minister in Michigan, Joel Chipman, who since leaving has been bad-mouthed by his former pastor, Robert Henson, in Flint. I have no doubt that similar has happened to other former UPCI ministers, as well as ones from other church groups.

Anyone involved in an unhealthy church can be hurt, even those in the ministry. When you leave, your name sometimes becomes mud, even though you may have previously given your life to the group.