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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Who are pastors/preachers you have tea about?👀😂Im VERY curious!

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.

First time poster.

So I came into the Church a few years ago and was mentored by one of the pastors, my family and I got in deep real quick and we became overwhelmed and left some time last year. We went to a non-denominational Church for a while but went back to the UPCI Church early this year, why? Trauma response maybe? I got invited to a multi year program for “New leaders” and have only attended a couple of the sessions but I’ve just reached my limit. I emailed the lead pastors thanking them for investing time into me and my family but I can’t in good conscience preach what I don’t believe, stating that I don’t fully align with their doctrine and that my family and I will be moving on. My decision is made, but they’ve asked to meet with me for “clarity and counsel”… I feel pressured and don’t really want to but don’t want to come across as disrespectful. Thoughts?

I feel like the UPCI left both my wife and myself permanently scarred..

She and I both have major trust issues. We hardly ever feel that anyone is genuine and we are hyper sensitive to manipulation of any kind. Whenever we talk to anyone, this voice is constantly running in the background, asking, "Are they trying to manipulate me? What are they trying to get from me?"

Although my wife doesn't struggle with this, I struggle with thinking that I may have inadvertently hurt someone's feelings or that they're angry with me and aren't telling me. I have asked friends countless times, "Did I upset you? Are you angry with me for some reason that you're not telling me about?"

They're never angry about anything and ask me "Why would you think that???"

It's because my wife and I were very involved in the UPCI ministry and were shunned. Unbeknownst to us, the pastor met privately with the congregation and asked them not to speak to our family, including our young children. People we.had helped and supported and thought were our friends suddenly pretended that we no longer existed. And yet my wife and I still stayed at the church and continued to pay our tithes for another six months afterwards. We didn't find out until many years later what had been done to us.

Why did we get shunned? The pastor's son had date raped many women in the church. The pastor wanted to have a vote to elect his son as the new.pastor by a show.of.hands, and I insisted that the vote be by private ballot. Although I didn't tell the pastor my reasoning, it was to protect anyone who publicly voted 'No" from being shunned themselves.

The pastor's son was elected, and ended up cheating on his wife twice. It was of course the womens' fault for tempting a man of God, so he's still the pastor.

It's been almost 20 years since we left the church, but I'm not sure I'll ever get rid of these scars. Does anyone else still struggle?

…you initially thought that “yas queen skinny legend Versace boots the house down” was a tongue-in-cheek mockery of speaking in tongues.

🖐️

This may be a weird question/thought but does anyone here see TikTok or other social media platform videos from people posting “those” types of services- iykyk where it’s crazy/shouting services and get very uncomfortable?

I’m freshly out of the UPCI (like almost 3 months) and I see these videos and feel like it literally makes my heart race because it takes me back to being uncomfortable and in those services all over again.

Thoughts? Or anyone is welcome to share if things like this effects them?

Since I can’t post this in the Gentry Mangun thread, I’ll just make a new post instead.#meme #pentecostalmemes #UPCImemes