u/Ok-Volume5327

Hi all, (Long post alert)

While in college, I attended a church that became a backbone of my life. I had been at the church for eight years and during the eight years I thought it was wonderful. In reality it wasn't. I now realize that is a high control group, manipulative, etc. I won't go into to many details (although some later in post). This was the kind of church that to be a member you had to do interviews with the elders and be voted into the congregation, etc. They even went as far in this community as highly suggesting (read: force) that you moved to the immediate area of the church. If you for whatever life circumstance could not do that and still wanted to attend the church they would just make you feel very uncomfortable each Sunday (read: harrass). In my case, I couldn't live in that area for personal reasons but loved the church at the time and would have loved to move. For me, they would ask me sometimes three times on a given Sunday "If I had moved yet, "Why I am still living there instead of here" - after I responded to the question, thinking that was the extend of the conversation - the same people would ask me the same set of questions the next Sunday and the next - until one day - among many other things that happened that I won't get into I just decided to not go back to the church. I was deeply involved but I lived about 30 minutes away from the church and realized that I was part of the problem, that I should not drive myself 30 minutes to be treated so poorly.

I will explain a few things to give context:

While the church was under 100 people (read: small) and there was an encouragement that we live in community (read: are involved in each others life, "doing life with each other"), there were cliques. After eight years of knowing many people, I was always suprised when I wasn't invited to any weddings of my friends (they would pass out invitations at church and skip over me, etc).

My pastor's children (7-16 yo) would say racists things and he would not correct them.

a dear friend of my at the church who i really trusted invited me to an event. the event was downtown so I drove us there. She got out of the car while I got parking because it was downtown. When I parked and went to the building it was locked. I called my friend and she didn't respond. I called her several times, still no response. She ends up coming downstairs after the event is over and saying - "it was a complete lapse of judgement " that she forgot to come and get me and that she was sorry. I ended up driving her home. To make matters worse, when I would eventually leave the church, this person called me "bitter" for leaving and alluded that I was probably sinning out there in the world and should come back. (read: bitter black woman)

As previously mentioned, without pomp and circumstance, I decided one day to just not attend the church from thence forth. I was in grad school at the time and was busy too so I just ended up not showing up. Initally, they did church "wellness check texts" but for which I ignored all of and then they started emailing me threatening excommunication essentially. The argument was that while I could leave the church, I had to have another church lined up for them to affirm my faith. I wasn't at that point. I needed space from church in general for a while. They kept pushing I kept pushing back. blah blah blah. I ended up having some pastor at a church I had attended a few times write them so I could stop recieving their threats of excommunication.

After leaving, I have a therapist and a spiritual director who is helpful. I cannot help but feel like as I process through this experience, I am not reaching all the conclusions that I need to. I have explored the agency, autonomy, racism, control angle but I think something that deeply hurts me more than I realize was how people who benefit from going to churches like that will never critisize them to the extent that they need to be critisized. The idea that people would rather speak badly about you and call you bitter (read: bitter black woman) than to call out sin, etc. These people benefit from the church programming for their kids, etc so they treat defectors as godless, etc. It's hard for me to make sense of how people will deny truth if it will make their world less comfortable.

Let me know what you all think. What angles should I work through ?

Hi all, (Long post alert)

While in college, I attended a church that became a backbone of my life. I had been at the church for eight years and during the eight years I thought it was wonderful. In reality it wasn't. I now realize that is a high control group, manipulative, etc. I won't go into to many details (although some later in post). This was the kind of church that to be a member you had to do interviews with the elders and be voted into the congregation, etc. They even went as far in this community as highly suggesting (read: force) that you moved to the immediate area of the church. If you for whatever life circumstance could not do that and still wanted to attend the church they would just make you feel very uncomfortable each Sunday (read: harrass). In my case, I couldn't live in that area for personal reasons but loved the church at the time and would have loved to move. For me, they would ask me sometimes three times on a given Sunday "If I had moved yet, "Why I am still living there instead of here" - after I responded to the question, thinking that was the extend of the conversation - the same people would ask me the same set of questions the next Sunday and the next - until one day - among many other things that happened that I won't get into I just decided to not go back to the church. I was deeply involved but I lived about 30 minutes away from the church and realized that I was part of the problem, that I should not drive myself 30 minutes to be treated so poorly.

I will explain a few things to give context:

While the church was under 100 people (read: small) and there was an encouragement that we live in community (read: are involved in each others life, "doing life with each other"), there were cliques. After eight years of knowing many people, I was always suprised when I wasn't invited to any weddings of my friends (they would pass out invitations at church and skip over me, etc).

My pastor's children (7-16 yo) would say racists things and he would not correct them.

a dear friend of my at the church who i really trusted invited me to an event. the event was downtown so I drove us there. She got out of the car while I got parking because it was downtown. When I parked and went to the building it was locked. I called my friend and she didn't respond. I called her several times, still no response. She ends up coming downstairs after the event is over and saying - "it was a complete lapse of judgement " that she forgot to come and get me and that she was sorry. I ended up driving her home. To make matters worse, when I would eventually leave the church, this person called me "bitter" for leaving and alluded that I was probably sinning out there in the world and should come back. (read: bitter black woman)

As previously mentioned, without pomp and circumstance, I decided one day to just not attend the church from thence forth. I was in grad school at the time and was busy too so I just ended up not showing up. Initally, they did church "wellness check texts" but for which I ignored all of and then they started emailing me threatening excommunication essentially. The argument was that while I could leave the church, I had to have another church lined up for them to affirm my faith. I wasn't at that point. I needed space from church in general for a while. They kept pushing I kept pushing back. blah blah blah. I ended up having some pastor at a church I had attended a few times write them so I could stop recieving their threats of excommunication.

After leaving, I have a therapist and a spiritual director who is helpful. I cannot help but feel like as I process through this experience, I am not reaching all the conclusions that I need to. I have explored the agency, autonomy, racism, control angle but I think something that deeply hurts me more than I realize was how people who benefit from going to churches like that will never critisize them to the extent that they need to be critisized. The idea that people would rather speak badly about you and call you bitter (read: bitter black woman) than to call out sin, etc. These people benefit from the church programming for their kids, etc so they treat defectors as godless, etc. It's hard for me to make sense of how people will deny truth if it will make their world less comfortable.

Let me know what you all think. What angles should I work through ?

I have found interviews with Yamine Lamal and Lionel Messi saying that while they understand 100% of english, they cannot speak it or do not feel comfortable speaking it. while they might be more proficient than they give themselves credit. It makes me realize that comprehensive input alone cannot stand as your only method of language learning. What do you all think?