How many cults have you belonged to?

A couple of days ago I wrote about cults. If you read it, you might surmise that some of these events were mine. That would be correct.

If you look up the definition of “cult” in a dictionary, you would find mostly positive definitions. Random House Unabridged defines it as “a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies”.

I’ve been thinking about all the churches that I have attended throughout my lifetime. They all had definite rites and ceremonies. A “rite” is “the prescribed or customary form for conducting a religious or other solemn ceremony”. (American Heritage). Therefore, it could be said that any religious group that holds to a customary form in the conducting of a ceremony is a cult.

Wait a minute. These weren’t outrageous cultic groups. The churches I’ve attended since birth are of a wide variety and persuasion and most would be considered to be within the mainstream church realm.

I was born into an evangelical denomination in the Midwest. It was a small rural church and they taught that I needed to be born again in order to get to heaven. Nothing radical there, right? I resisted this teaching until I was 17 years old when I made a public profession of faith at an evangelical crusade in a neighboring town. I know that I definitely had a salvation experience. I felt like I was a new person. Certain aspects of my behavior changed overnight and I knew that I had nothing to do with it. I knew God accepted me because my sins were forgiven. My sins weren’t hanging over my head with impending judgment coming. I was happy and free. I wasn’t so sure about future sins. The “lay me down to sleep” prayer, which I learned as a child, seemed to take care of those. At least for a while.

The next church I attended after leaving home for college was a Baptist church near the college. I attended Sunday morning service for most of my freshman year. It was easy to come and go because we were college students and we had commitments elsewhere. I was a part of the Campus Crusade for Christ group at school so didn’t feel any need to participate at the church.

Several friends of mine from college had exposed me to the charismatic movement during this first year. The whole charismatic/pentecostal experience was totally foreign to me until I read a book they gave me. This started me thinking that if this experience was real it might explain why I felt empty so much of the time. I didn’t get along well with my roommate (a strong Catholic) and this bothered me.

In the spring, a singing group from a nearby Christian Bible college gave a concert on our campus. After the concert the choir members came into the audience and “ministered” the baptism of the spirit to those who wanted to be prayed for. Of course I was sitting with the friends who gave me the book and I thought what could it hurt to be prayed for. After that experience (tongues and all) I felt a depth of love inside me that I didn’t have before. I attributed it to the “baptism” experience. Something definitely happened… but what? Another salvation experience?

No longer could I attend the Baptist church. I had to go to a church that accepted my new experience. My choices were between a spirit-filled Lutheran group and a Pentecostal church on the other side of town. Someone from the Campus Crusade group convinced me to go to the other side of town. I experienced culture shock… to say the least. These people seemed on fire and in tune with God. I thought “this is much better than the previous church. It’s alive. These people know how to get in touch with God.” Much to my dismay over the next two years while attending several churches of this denomination in several cities, my life didn’t become more sanctified but just the opposite. Looking good in church and being someone else behind closed doors became a large part of my life. It wasn’t difficult to do. On the contrary it was quite easy to play the game.

Next, I found myself going west where I became involved in a startup Pentecostal church (different denomination) in southern California. The church didn’t last long. I never gave it much thought why. Personally I was relieved when it was closed because I could never put my heart into visiting people in their homes asking them to come to our church. I figured there must be something wrong with me. I never felt good about doing all the things we were supposed to be enthused about doing to fulfill our pastor’s vision.

My roommate, who was part of this church, found a para-church group in town that piqued her interest. After I attended a few meetings, I was hooked. The people were very friendly and took a personal interest in me. This was overwhelming. Being part of this organization over the next 14 years proved to be the best of all my experiences in organized Christianity. Not only did I meet and marry the man of my life, three of our children were born during this time. There was group Bible study every day. We lived on the same property with other believers and shared our lives with each other.

It was great at first. My heart was to be part of a group that was “really doing something for God“. I felt that this ministry’s heart matched God‘s heart. After a number of years however, the group thing wore thin on me. One example of this would be having to answer for our whereabouts. As a family we felt controlled and manipulated. This ended when the pastor died in his sleep one night. From that point the group dissipated.

Less than two years later we moved to my husband’s hometown in northern California. We had three children under the age of eight and no worldly possessions to speak of. My husband’s parents helped us get settled. Our way of dealing with the past was to simply start doing something for God. We joined a local church. Not just any church but a church that was antithetic to the one we just left. This new one had Baptist church affiliation that leaned toward the Willow Creek seeker-friendly approach. Part of our decision to attend this church was because we believed Christians were supposed to be united despite doctrinal issues. We found ourselves amongst friendly people. Friendliness, however, proved to not be enough. After a couple of years, doctrinal issues surfaced. My husband had begun to minister the baptism of the spirit to some of the members and they started speaking in tongues. Oh, oh. We found ourselves gently escorted out the door. This experience was quite difficult for me. I struggled for a number of months with the question... Where was the unity and love in all that?

Then I realized, through the turmoil of this experience, that we were going to start a church. Evidently my husband and the previous pastor had talked about it as a next step for us. My memories of these decisions are very dull. It is hard to believe that I was alive during this time. I had absolutely no heart to be a pastor’s wife. It terrified me. I was raising three boys. How could I find a heart to raise other people and their kids too? It didn’t seem fair. After a few months of trying, we dropped the idea and we found another church to attend.

We’ve always endeavored to find a place of service to God wherever we‘ve gone. A place where we could “serve God’s people“. This was our heart.

The next 12 years at this next church proved to be the culmination of all our efforts to please God. This is where we played out cataclysmic experiences which served to catapult us out of traditional church.

We raised our boys and a late edition daughter at this church. We gave our time and energies to this church, and so did our children. Practically every time the doors opened some representative of our family was there. We wore ourselves out in the name of God, over and over and over again.

Personally, I got tired. I felt alone. I hid this from those around me. I became a non-person, disconnected from life itself. I lost heart and gave up hopes of having abundance again. The basic message from the pulpit was one of reaching the lost. Being a full-time mom and teacher to my children left me little time or energy to go out and get people into the church building so the pastor could preach his messages to them. The Gospel of peace and grace was not taught. There had to be a way to live the Christian life abundantly. This dissatisfaction went on for years. We thought the church experience was good for our children. Eventually all hell broke loose. Our personal lives fell apart. I’ve written about this in earlier posts. Expectations which I had for the church to be able to help us fell short. We left quietly.

In almost two years since that time my life has returned to me. The grace and peace of the Gospel is restoring life to me. The obligation and expectation that I functioned in for so long finally caught up with me. I now choose freedom. That doesn’t mean there aren’t days that I struggle. There are plenty. But the good days far outweigh the bad.