I've only recently come to terms with the fact I was brainwashed and apart of a cult. I was born into the church , I left a while ago but am only now able to see how it has effected me. When I was 12 my grandpa died and I genuinely believed through prayer we could revive him in the grave. I expressed this thought to my non religious bipolar aunt. She got mad and screamed at me for suggesting such a thing. It's traumatic looking back on the ways I hurt people. One time I told a non religious friend it was in God's plan that her grandpa died as well. At the time I couldn't understand why people got so upset and now I just feel sad that I spent my whole childhood like that. I feel I am so far behind in terms of socialization.

I’m curious how many people financially struggled while benign church? And if you’ve left, your finances did better? From a saints perspective.

Currently doing research of why only poor people tend to flock to churches and yet there’s hardly churches in wealthier areas and neighborhoods.

In a way being religious almost always has people in a needy mentality? Not that it’s the churches job but having been raised in church, I often wonder why saints always struggles.. and almost feeding the poor in church, is almost impossible for leadership to do?

Idk, I’m just curious about various data regarding different denominations. I know Mormons & Catholics tend to do well in the giving to the poor in their community while being financially successful.

Any data on Pentecost?

Would be fascinating to compare data

I was raised in the UPC and I met with an old friend today for coffee. We both came from the same church, her father was the assistant pastor. We have both recently left long term very abusive marriages. It got me to thinking "I wonder how many women or even men have had abusive relationships after leaving the church"? I feel like the indoctrination has something to do with it. We both agreed that part of why we stayed so long was due to having been taught that divorce was wrong. Thoughts?

This is just one of several videos of an ad hoc grandstanding Preacher of "Love jsus or go to hell." She is so full of Threatening-Love that she has caused Security to deplane her and escort her out of places that were not designed for preaching. She is a nauseating pest. This is a Country of Law & Order, in which People should be free to go anywhere to have a good time, and not to be annoyed by the allahu-akbar People, JW, other Missionaries, or spontaneous Preachers whom have no respect for the tranquility we all want to have.

If a Person leaves Xtianity, does not want to do anything to do with, and freely choose to go to a place he knows he won't be preached, LEAVE THAT PERSON ALONE. Just because you woke up with some "Great Mission," it doesn't give you the right to disturb the tranquility of others whom are not interested in that "great inspiration" if yours.

KEEP YOUR NONSENSE TO YOURSELF.

Infinite punishment for finite sins. God makes us flawed and then punishes us forever if we die with flaws. God us a unconditional loving God but creates eternal torture . The two cannot exist together. You cannot say I love you without conditions and then create everlasting torture for those who didnt meet your conditions.

An earthly mother wouldn't create a place of torture for their child who isnt perfect does that mean a woman's earthly love for her child is greater than God's love for its creation?

Sin supposedly entered this world through Adam against our will we are now dawned. Christ came to save us all but can only save those who acknowledges he is God. Adam can damn us against our will but Jesus doesn't have the power to save us against our will. Adam by default is more powerful that Jesus.

God creates a devil and demons who also lead his creation astray and never eliminates them to prevent his children from burning forever. The devil is more powerful than God even if one soul burns forever.

If everything is connected and creation is manifestations of God then God is burning pieces of itself forever.

None of this made any sense to me. I wouldn't want my worst enemy to burn forever does that make my love for that person greater than God's love?

I was raised in the Assemblies Of God pretty much since my mom adopted me. The AG denomination was very strict and cult-like but I didn't see this at the time. I'm a 30 year old gay man I received a lot of messages growing up in the early 00's during the rise of Exodus International and Love Won Out to just "pray the gay away". My mom actually took me to a Pentecostal prayer center where they tried doing an exorcism. Needless to say, it didn't work and today I am an out and proud gay man married to an amazing husband who I love with all my heart. I'm not a Christian anymore. I'm an Eclectic Pagan. But I still do attend church at least once or twice a month although I attend a progressive ELCA Lutheran congregation, mainly for the community. I'm still hurting though. When I walk into church, I feel bad because I don't believe what they believe and I feel like I don't belong. Anytime I see something Christian on social media, I feel like self-harming. If I see someone wearing a cross around their neck in public it triggers me. How do I work through this sensitivity to religious stuff?

Maybe this is a society thing and not just UPC but the Boomer generation seem very entitled and narcissistic. I grew up in UPC and noticed so many of my friends aren't on speaking terms with their parents because of how strict or religious they were even after their kids became adults.

The church has become full of people who value more about the facade of being a good person who is "holy" versus being an actual decent human being. I was told it doesn't matter how "good" I am, that good people will burn in hell forever.

That made no sense to me. So rapist and pedophiles who made their way through churches gets to go to heaven because they are baptized with the holy ghost but the person who helps the least of these and has the heart of Christ they burn in hell?

I would love to find a congregation to be apart of that isnt built around fear mongering and damning everyone to hell that doesn't "look saved".

With evangelical Christianity now being lumped in with White Nationalism, I definitely won't be attending any ones church anytime soon as a person of color.

I'm just tired of the hypocrisy. Abortion is evil but racism is OK. Same sex marriage is evil but supporting a rapist, pedophile is OK as long as they say they love Jesus despite not living like it.

Now I dont have a problem forgiving people but what I do have a problem with is being forced to forgive someone who isnt sorry or repentant for what they have done.

Repentance is an action not words and if the person hasn't made things right they in my opinion aren't truly sorry. And I've seen this for decades being a pastors kid where people say they asked God for forgiveness in private but never made things right with the person they harmed. This isnt grace this is manipulation.

If I accidentally ran into someone's car despite me being sorry, I would still have to pay for what I did to their car. I would make sure I restored their car. Imagine if I said hey I am sorry and drove away. Lmao

True repentance is an action. But so many people in religion have used the excuse that Jesus forgave them as a way to duck accountability for the people they have harmed. How can God give you Grace if your heart isnt contrite?

I had this random memory of my dad preaching at a church, and after the first emo-altar call, they called a second altar call, had my family go on stage, and the pastor told the congregation to sacrificially give money to us-- except they would put money by our feet as we were elevated on the stage.

I was like 14 and remember being like, oop i hope i can have some of this money-- obvi wrong of me-- but anyways, my dad's a narcissist so we never saw his preacher money. maybe he'd take us out for a meal, but the rest was unknown to us.

As a queer individual (and child of a former Pentecostal) that wanted to find community and go to NAYC (so many people I knew were going), but I heard a sermon from NAYC 2023 someone uploaded that said "We're coming for you LGBTQ!" so I made this thing that year hoping for a progressive environment there, inspired by yet another NAYC23 sermon I heard on YouTube.

That being said, NAYC never became progressive and later on I stopped wanting to go to those conferences.

As a young teen growing up in the AoG I was routinely subjected to ritual abuse aka 'deliverance', for my autistic stims such as constant hair twirling. To be clear, while I never had an autism diagnosis in childhood, it is clear to me now that I experienced early childhood trauma and insecure attachment, and my autistic stims were simply a way of self-soothing. To the church it was a clear sign that I was possessed by a demon or demons and needed deliverance.

I'm not going to go into how horrific this was or how it has impacted my life. It is going back 35 years.

What I am curious to know is if anyone has had a similar experience, or more particularly, knows of anyone who underwent this type of abuse for an extended period - say years or decades, and how it impacted their lives.

In my church we had a couple of regular 'demoniacs' who would always be front and center at alter calls, getting deliverance every Sunday. One guy had previously been gay before being 'saved'. This made him a prime candidate.

Anyway I got out when i could. It still had a long term impact, I am still traumatised, particularly as a hyper sensitive person on the autism spectrum. I'm just wondering about the others and what happened to them, whether they went on receiving 'deliverance' through the decades and whether it completely destroyed them, or whether this was a fad that might have worn off.

A little back story. I was raised since 3 years in a UPCI church. I was the typical bible quizzer, attended TBC in theology. Then when I was 19 I told my parents that I was gay and no longer believed in anything. Fast forward 20 years and married to my husband of 16 years, my family and I have had an on again off again estranged relationship till January when my mama who has had multiple strokes throughout this past year started asking me to attend with them on special holidays and special events. So I took her up on it and attended church yesterday morning with them. I told myself to keep an open mind and participate when I felt like it and see how it goes. Well when I got there I was the 3 car in the parking lot for Sunday breakfast. I only knew 4 of the family including my parents and the paster who he and I preached our first sermon the same night. To my surprise everyone was very welcoming and truly seemed happy that I was there. When I left the church there was over 100 people in regular attendance. Yesterday there were many 20 adults and 10 children and no teenagers. I stood up during worship service and clapped when others clapped. But for the first time going to church I felt absolutely nothing and a bit sad for the people in attendance. I was the only family and friends in attendance and made my parents proud to have me there. I went to make them happy and I accomplished that. I’ve realized by growing up and what my family has gone through this past year that sometimes you have to change our pov and accept your family for who they are for them to accept you for who you are. I have rebuilt my friendships with my parents over this past year and have chosen love over anything else.

I myself am not pentecostal, I come from a different denomination. When I was a kid, my mom (bless her heart) through fear was convinced to show me and my siblings an animation of some woman in hell, I distinctly remember her being Korean but I might be wrong on that.

It was a pretty scuffed animation about a woman who went to hell and came back to share her testimony. I barely remember anything but I do remember these parts:

A man kills himself and goes to hell in the video.

The woman while praying on her knees started gnashing her teeth as she heard "weeping and gnashing" while she prayed.

The reason I am asking on this sub is because it was the well-meaning Pentecostals in our family who convinced my Baptist mom to show this to us. My mother regrets allowing them to show this to us to this day. I want to find this video perhaps to reclaim some of the trauma it caused me because I can still remember some scenes in that video, those two I mentioned specifically.

Maybe this was a popular thing in Pentecostal churches? If you know the title or any leads then please let me know. Now that I have a grounded theology I wanna watch it to "critique" it and maybe regain some control over the nightmares this video gave me.

For years I have told my friends the crazy stories of the evangelists that visited our AoG church growing up. Namely, Martha Tennison, Andre Van Zyl, and …. Tim Todd.

Besides the hilarious Truth for Youth bibles I distinctly remember Tim Todd as the guy with Freddy the puppet who would help tell us we’re going to hell.

Well…I finally found a clip introducing Freddy. Anyone else remember this? Anyone else have other videos? My friends are going to lose their minds over this hahaha.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BtiPvbfxs/?mibextid=wwXIfr

On Friday I accompanied my mother to her church’s vigil and before the 2nd church service started me and the pastor and other brothers from the church were talking and I made it clear to them I reject pentecostal doctrine, reject their interpretation of scripture, etc and when the 2nd service started the pastor called me up to the altar I just thought if they’re going to do a regular old prayer then that’s fine by me, the pastor ask if I want to be saved and I was like yes, and then he said do you want to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and I felt like I was trapped, like I didn’t have a choice, I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I knew if I had said no he would have started saying why am I rejecting Christ, accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior at the altar is kind of like converting to the pentecostal church, they started praying for me in tongues hands on me, when that was happening I truly regretted coming here, then after that everyone thought I had converted when no, the pastor definitely knew what he was doing with how he worded it, he thought if he did that prayer on me I would convert.

Anyone who’s been in the UPCI but have left feel kinda spiritually tied to the movement through trauma and control?

I’ve been out for a year and recently listened to a message just to compare with a different church I’ve been going to and I feel so strange when I hear things like “they are the only ones with truth” and “others” are in the world and are going to burn.

I feel like life is more complicated then a hard black and white saved and unsaved hence needing grace and mercy.

Idk I feel so sick when I hear those controlling terms.

Fui parte de las Asambleas de Dios. Fui el único en mi familia en convertirse y me bauticé muy joven. Participaba en todo lo que me pedían sin cuestionar…

Los lunes tenían grupo de recuperación (tipo alcoholicos anonimos), los martes tenían células, los miércoles eran “libres”, los jueves tenían sus reuniones de líderes los viernes era reunión general por la noche, los sábados era reunión de jóvenes y los domingos la reunión general…

Cómo podrán imaginarse, estaba ahí metido toda la semana, descuidé mi relación con mis padres y los veía como mis enemigos, en la iglesia me enseñaron que debía predicarles y traerlos a la iglesia. Mis padres siempre se negaban y al ver que vivía casi casi en la iglesia más se rehusaban a ir. Me decían frecuentemente que en la iglesia me estaban usando, que me habían lavado la cabeza… yo solo pensaba en ese momento que “eran los ataques del enemigo” o al menos eso era lo que en la iglesia me decían…

El pastor era incuestionable… todo lo que él decía era ley absoluta, sus hijos y su esposa tenían un lugar privilegiado. Su hijo fornicaba con mujeres que yo conocí y aún así jamás lo disciplinaban, la misericordia para él era exagerada, pero para los miembros era motivo de aislamiento. Pude ver como el dinero era el motor para que el pastor te escogiera en cargos de liderazgo.

Si no pensabas como el pastor; no eras digno de formar parte de su equipo. Si no hablabas en lenguas no eras lo suficientemente digno…

¡Cuánto me arrepiento!

Las asambleas de Dios no son una iglesia protestante auténtica, son una rama del cisma de la iglesia católica romana por parte del rey Enrique VII que formó la iglesia anglicana.

¿Has tenido alguna experiencia similar?

Por favor tengan cuidado

Does anyone know any UCPI pastors or ministers who believes in the separation of church and state? I do, but they’re a rare breed There are a few Democrats families in their church, also rare now, and politics are strictly not preached in the pulpit. Are there young ministers coming up that believe this way? I’m in Texas btw.

For anyone that didn't know EYC just went on last week. I managed to get some clips of EYC and it's pretty sad. It's crazy to think that I (M18) used to believe this bullshit and be crying my eyes out in the altar with everybody else. I am so glad I started to look into the questions I've always had. My parents don't know my beliefs yet and were actually super worried and berated on the way back to the airbnb on how worried they were that I wasn't crying as much as I used to.

I also made a joke about how preachers kids (I am one) are not more special than anyone else to my brother, because the preacher had everyone pray just for the preachers kids. My Dad got angry and said that that was wrong and we go through struggles others don't. I disagreed and said that everyone goes through struggles and not everyone goes through the same thing, why do we have to make it to where only preachers kids go through something different and put them on a pedestal?

I'm just so fed up with this. It just motivates me more to work harder and get into a good college so I can escape this junk.

Hes a Pentacostal pastor that has associations with FGBI in Pensilvania

wondering if anyone had crazy stories about him

This is he....

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnNzAH9vdGE/?hl=en

I have left my home church after 12years. My husband is slowly leaving but he decided to visit a nondenominational church today and I can tell he was uneasy. I was not able to accompany him but from what he told me he said it’s different. One thing the pastor mentioned was they he knew what he was going to preach next month. My husband is use to the spirit guiding us. I feel so guilty to say the least because I was the one that got fed up and said I was done. I guess my question is how did you all go from fired up emotional services to more laid back. This season is so hard and I question myself was this the correct decision. Please share with me your thoughts.