Blogs | Page 174 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Living free

I went to a baby shower at a church I’ve been visiting this weekend. I’ve been to lots of baby showers in the church, hated them, and felt guilty for hating them. This one was totally different.

On Thursday, I emailed one of the ladies in charge and asked her if she’d like me to bring a tray of food. She replied they’d forgotten the food, and that would be wonderful, then asked what I would be bringing. I replied briefly a veggie tray and maybe a fruit tray. She said great.

In Pentecostal churches, I have been intimidated to bring food to anything for a long time. What I brought to carry ins was rarely eaten. Ladies would tell me how to improve it, or remind me that they preferred more spices or more meat, or less fat or higher quality ingredients. What I brought to bake sales was set aside on the back corner of the table. My things rarely sold. What a waste of time, effort, and money!

So I went and bought the food for the trays. She hadn’t put limitations or expectations on me, so I was able to be more creative, and wasn’t so worried about what I got. I don’t have to impress these people, after all. If they need impressing, I’ll go somewhere else. It was fun choosing items for the trays, for a change. No agonizing over what fruit would be perfect or whether Sis Snooty would think there was enough. Just fun, making choices and considering what they would enjoy most.

When I got home, I was surprised to realize I had enough for three trays. Crackers and cheese. Veggies. Fruit. Each tray was filled with the things that would keep over night. Then on Saturday I put the remaining foods in their proper slots-even a slot for marshmallows, just for fun, and because I knew any kids that came would enjoy them.

My former church ladies would have had a fit. The grapes weren’t the freshest. They weren’t the largest. There were marshmallows in the fruit tray, and some were quartered regular sized ones, so they were a little sticky. The apples hadn’t been treated with lemon juice. Etc.

The ladies yesterday were just happy to be there. They complimented the trays, and laughed about how much they enjoyed the marshmallows. They chose foods politely, rather than piling their plates high and hoping there would be enough left over for people at the end of the line. They ate everything they chose- nothing was shunned as not good enough once tasted. No one complained about anything at all. It was absolutely amazing, and it was wonderful.

Then came the gifts. Oh, I hated choosing gifts for events in my former church. Once, a lady stopped me in Walmart, looked in my cart, and asked if that was what I was taking to the shower. She asked what else I was buying. I told her that was it. She proceeded to tell me that I needed a pricier brand and bigger box of diapers, took mine away and put her choice in my cart! What an interesting way to be helpful… though I know that’s what she thought she was being. At showers, gifts were always compared. Pricey gifts were expected. Brand names were a must.

Yesterday, gifting was different, too. Each gift was praised for it’s own merit. None was compared to another. None was shoved aside. All were passed around, admired, enjoyed by everyone, and placed neatly in the center of the table, together- not according to who gave what or what was deemed best, but as one large group of gifts, all respected, all admired. None was shoved on the floor or cast into a chair to one side. All were gratefully received.

Again, I was amazed. I have hated showers all my adult life. My gifts were never good enough, pricey enough… never the right brand or the right quality. But this weekend it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that there was a baby coming, and that we could celebrate the coming birth together. Not as family, but as friends, all in our own ways and with our abilities. And isn’t that, after all, the way the family of God should be?

The Few, The Proud, The…

One sign of an unhealthy church is when they teach that almost everyone else is wrong and lost except them. It isn’t speaking of those outside Christianity, but those within. This may also be said of some of the churches within their own organization, if they belong to one.

I remember when my former United Pentecostal Church pastor would say we were the only church in the area with ‘the truth.’ Yet in the nearby town, just minutes away, was another church in our same organization. He felt that pastor was lax on standards as all those attending didn’t fall in line (as if all those attending our church did). He also sometimes spoke against our long-time District Superintendent, Wayne Trout, claiming he ‘stole’ people from our church. I was personally warned about this by him. Through the years I have heard far worse stories than the things my former pastor would do.

Besides believing that outside their doors there are few that are saved, some particularly unhealthy churches also tell their members to not go to any functions at certain churches within the same organization. The reason behind their detest for these churches may be they feel the pastor is lax on the standards, or perhaps not in line with the ‘higher’ standards he holds. It might be that they allow the use of some form of media that is taught against, like filming services. Perhaps he doesn’t like the other pastor for some personal reason. The jealousy between some ministers is a shame.

Some of these elite may even go on to a ‘preferred‘ way, a ‘better’ way, that puts distance between them and those they feel are abandoning ‘truth.’ They will uphold ‘the old paths,’ even though those alleged ‘old paths’ are not found in scripture. You can almost hear them sing, “Tradition, tradition! Tradition!”

An unhealthy church has no problem disregarding Galatians 5:13-15 as they bite and devour one another. What was it that the early Christians were known by?

¹³For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. ¹⁴For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another. (NLT)

Gossip

I have heard way too many times that basically God just dumps trials and tests on us as Christians, because “he that the Lord loveth he chasteneth,” and “the trying of our faith worketh patience.”

God is NOT responsible for people’s lies, gossip, spite, malice, and so forth. God is NOT the author of confusion. So He doesn’t tell people to do those things to us, nor does He decide to “put us through” those types of “trials.” When people backbite, gossip, slander, or abuse people, those aren’t trials God has put on us. That isn’t God testing us, that’s people sinning against us! I don’t care who does them. It can be the pastor’s pet, his family, or him, it can be someone who talks in tongues daily or hourly, but when they do those things, it’s still not of God. It’s still sin.

It seems like the last few years people in churches I’ve been to have stopped blaming the devil and started blaming God for all the hurt they cause others. When will they ever take responsibility for their actions?

Footloose & The United Pentecostal Church

Many are aware of the Footloose movies. They are loosely based upon what happened in Elmore City, Oklahoma. What you may not know is that a United Pentecostal Church minister stood against the high school having a dance. The UPC has taken a stand against dancing for many years. (See the last page of their 1952 Articles of Faith.)

Quoting from the source linked to here: “As the Rev. F.R. Johnson of the United Pentecostal Church in nearby Hennepin was quoted in People magazine as saying at the time: ‘If you have a dance, somebody will crash it, and they’ll be looking for only two things – women and booze. When boys and girls hold each other, they get sexually aroused.'”

This is from the above referenced May 19, 1980, People magazine article about the school and its first dance.

Among the modern vices that never took hold in Elmore City was public dancing. In fact, it has been forbidden by law since the town was founded. …Last January the juniors and seniors at Elmore City High School asked that the rules be changed, or at least bent.

…Sides were chosen immediately. “No good has ever come from a dance,” thundered the Rev. F.R. Johnson of the United Pentecostal Church in nearby Hennepin—the father of two teenage daughters. “If you have a dance somebody will crash it and they’ll be looking for only two things—women and booze. When boys and girls hold each other, they get sexually aroused. You can believe what you want, but one thing leads to another.” The Rev. Johnson insisted he spoke for many of the churchmen in the area and many of their parishioners. At a town meeting to consider the question in February, a local citizen predicted that after the dance there would be a surge in pregnancies at the school “because when boys and girls breathe in each other’s ears, that’s the next step.”

The United Pentecostal Church in Hennepin was and still is (even in 2023) an affiliated church, which means there is a legal affiliation between the church and the organization. Affiliated churches may only have a pastor who is UPCI licensed. I am unsure of when Johnson became pastor as I don’t have a complete set of old directories.

In July 1973, Freddie R. Johnson became pastor of Life Tabernacle Church (renamed First United Pentecostal Church) in Alamogordo, New Mexico and was a presbyter in the Texico District. Prior to then he served in El Paso and Colorado City, Texas, Thomasville, Georgia and Grants, New Mexico. By 1985, he was pastor in Allison, Texas. It appears he is still with the organization as of 2016, and is in Oklahoma, but is no longer a pastor.

The Oklahoma District of the UPCI is no stranger to controversy, both before and after the school dance in Elmore City. After a General Conference in Tulsa, when Murray Burr wasn’t elected as General Superintendent, numerous disgruntled ministers split and formed the AMF (Apostolic Ministers’ Fellowship) in 1968. Some of these ministers had a lingering hostility toward their former group many years after the dust settled and they had walked away.

Ernest Bass and the First United Pentecostal Church of Tulsa made the news in the 1990s due to a slander lawsuit. It was also in Tulsa where some unhappy UPCI ministers met to form a new, more conservative “preferred” Apostolic organization in 2008 called the Worldwide Pentecostal Fellowship. This happened after the organization passed a resolution in September 2007, allowing advertising on television.

God’s flying this boat

This is something I wrote several years ago…

God’s flying this boat! And if He wants to fly a boat, he can. What happens in our lives doesn’t always make much sense, if any. Or at least, not in my experience. But if and when you find yourself at this point, remember Who is in control. And if you wake up one morning to find your boat flying or your life seemingly upside down, well, it’s really too late to tell Jesus that boats don’t fly.

It scares us to death when things like that happen. But when it happens to you, what will you do? It’s not unrealistic to be afraid. And it isn’t nonreligious to be afraid. It is rather un-Christlike. But given the fact that you’re probably human, and given the fact that humans find certain Christlike things very disconcerting at times, what will you do?

You will find yourself in topsy-turvy times sooner or later. Jesus seemed to enjoy putting the disciples through things like that. (Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t still a favorite pastime of his…) I’m thinking of 12 disciples in a boat in the middle of the night. There’s a bit of a storm, and they’re rowing hard. All of a sudden, they see someone walking toward their boat. Normally, no problem. But they aren’t on shore. They’re in the middle of the Sea!

“And they cried out, and were sore afraid.” They were human. And they were scared. But Jesus said “It is I, be not afraid.” And they all said, “Whew!” “You had us going a minute there, Jesus!” “Ha, funny trick!”

Nope. They kept shaking. They were still scared. But brash Peter said, “OK, if it’s you, bid me come out to you.”

And Jesus said, “Come.” Peter walked to Him on the water. Was Peter unafraid? No. He was scared when he saw the wind and waves- he began to sink. He had just forgotten to be afraid for a minute, in his eagerness to get closer to Jesus.

And when Peter did become afraid and sink, did Jesus say, “You got yourself into this fix, now get yourself out”? Did He stand by and laugh? No. He reached out to Peter. He took Him by the hand. And immediately they were in the boat. No ropes thrown to them. No climbing in. They were just there. But suddenly it didn’t matter that it wasn’t a normal entrance. It just mattered that Jesus was on board.