Hi Everyone

Part 1

I was brought up Catholic but felt from a very young age that the church was cold and that there needed to be life and real relating there. Being in the youth group made things a lot better and my social life opened up hugely. I was always searching for something more than that though. As a young adult, a work friend introduced me to a Christian Revival Crusade (CRC) church and I soon made some lovely friends there and settled in. I loved the emotional freedom, that we could interact with the preaching, that there was actual biblical teaching and preaching that was interesting and there was a huge amount of creative outlets. Most of all people were kind and accepting and the love there was palpable. I loved the fact that there were lots of experiential and self development opportunities, that praying and interceding for others became fun and I had lots of purpose in my life. I got involved in the worship team as a singer and then later as a youth leader. I had many happy, blissful years of reaching my fullest potential creatively, even invited to prophetically dance (we did a lot of dancing in that church) despite not being trained. I never noticed however that as the church grew, the leaders became gradually more rigid. I was so involved in church activities that it was difficlt to attend other things outside there. I started to feel trapped. I met my husband who had come from other churches and used to visit ours sometimes. He noticed things that weren’t biblical and actually quite wrong. A dress code was introduced and people made to feel bad if they didn’t comply. People were made to feel that they weren’t committed enough unless they attended every single event. If anyone gave constructive criticism, they were labelled as “speaking against leadership” or “against the vision”. The leadership preached on titheing and there were seriously disadvantaged people adhering to that while the senior pastor had expensive church-funded holidays O/S, with new cars paid for, including fuel, again paid for by the church when others were struggling to make ends meet and yet faithfully serving in the church. My ex husband challenged some things that were happening and the leaders were threatened. They made life very uncomfortable, trying to pit us against each other, which didn’t work. They had spies making lists about him, which included the most trivial of things and then conspired against him. There were meetings held that we were not invited to. D warned me what would happen. I couldn’t believe him and was worried that the stress of the harrassment had made him overly negative. We went to a meeting that we were led to believe was one for working through any differences. It wasn’t that at all but one where leadership had decided to kick D out, (exactly as D had said) offering that I could stay if I wanted to!! They called him “a cancer in the body of Christ” when he’d done nothing wrong. Well I completely lost it, telling them how evil they were and how they underestimated that my very loyalty to them had backfired and I would of course be loyal to my husband. We were instructed not to talk to anyone inside or outside of the church. So-called friends stopped calling. People who’d been closer to me than my own family deserted us and there was no one I could talk to. I had nightmares for ages, was on an emotional roller coaster, couldn’t stop crying and didn’t know what to do. I tried talking to a pastor at a nearby AOG but he was tightlipped, not wanting to hear us for fear that he’d be involved in speaking against a fellow pastor in his community network .

Well that’s the first installment with more to come later.

Ann Maree

Yes, thank you for sharing your story! I would also recommend that book on spiritual abuse! I read it after leaving a Christian cult and it was extremely useful. Anyway, back to YOUR story …

Hi Getting there, Sparrow and Tony

THANK YOU all! It feels nice to be sharing this and heard. I would have done so a long time ago only there wasn’t anybody to tell or who would understand.

I will definitely get a copy of that book. I’m not sure why I haven’t done that sooner or searched around the topic? Maybe I thought I was OK with it?

I watched a show not that long ago about Jonestown and couldn’t take my eyes off it. The fascinating thing is that although we weren’t physically threatened or actually killed in our church, many other things were the same. The ex cult members explained it really well, how their idealistic world (and it was beautiful at the start) subtly changed over time. They were kept so busy, even sleep deprived with less and less contact with the outside world. It became difficult for them to know which way was up. Members were also encouraged to report supposed wrong doings, like any free thinking (which happened at ours too), so that further isolated those who were trying to make sense of things.

And yes, Tony (BTW, do you prefer Anthony or Tony?), this is my first post in this section. I’d started to write my story last year but it was difficult and for some reason the timing wasn’t right. Now feels perfect, and how timely is this? Today is my birthday! Yay!!

Getting there: thanks for asking about my link with gay issues. I wondered if anyone would. That’s another long story yet to come. 😀

Have a great day,

Ann Maree

Thanks for sharing your story, Ann Maree, and Happy Birthday! 😀

I am, strangely enough, writing down my story now too. I had thought I might never do so, but the time seems right for me now, too. hmmmm

This website gives a good definition of a ‘cult’. It helped me to identify my experience so I could start processing it:

http://www.ex-cult.org/bite.html