Things seemed to be going great. I do remember a few mixups at home, mostly because of the things that we were being taught in our youth program, we were advised not to share with "others", "What goes on inside these walls is not for other people's ears" (mainly meaning our parents). It was very strange, which now I see as less of a coincidence than when I was younger of course, but whenever we would have a activity or get together, whatever we were calling it that week, we (the teenagers) would go home with some sort of attitude toward our parents, all of us, resulting in us getting in trouble. I mean, wouldn't you have an attitude with your parents when these men and women of God are telling you that your parents are basically holding you back in your relationship with God. Your parents are just sinners because they smoke/drink(even occasionally) and don't attend church every time the doors are opened. Which now that I think about it, my parents were always there, helping, cleaning and fixing things with the money out of their own pockets, never asking for reimbursement, mainly because if you did, you would receive it, but along with it you would get this lecture " I thought you were doing this for God, as part of your tithe, using your talents to further the ministry" so you didn't want to feel like you were "robbing God", so you didn't ask for any reimbursement. But back to the other thing, it never failed, after spending time with the youth group, we would have an attitude. The parents were putting it together, and when they would call it to the attention of us teenagers, of course we would explode, we would be threatened that we couldn't go if that's how we were going to act, they would call it to the attention of the pastors, who coincidentally would add something in the sermon the following service saying "Church should never be used as punishment, what would God say, you should never forsake the assembling together" etc, etc and so on and so forth. So of course, it would all be glossed over and our behavior was likely the result of bad parenting or that we weren't truly following the will of God that week. Whichever held more water that week ya know. I do remember that it always seemed like there was some sort of drama going on with our youth pastor. There was always some girl stalking him, trying to have there way with him, getting too close or being to friendly. Of course these women were pretty much run out of the church, and if they didn't leave they were pushed away from the non existent core group of friends.
The Core Group, which has been denied for eternity to not exist but clearly does, consists of the youth pastor, his co-teachers for the teens and a few others. And of course there were a few teens involved in this group, not many, but a few. And for awhile, I was one of the lucky few. I think it mainly was because I was related to my cousin who was miss super christian and was the favorite of everyone there. Anywho, if you happened to cross in any way these certain people, that was it, church society suicide. I remember this one incident, the first big incident where I heard the word "cult" used to describe our church. The youth pastor had a downstairs office, with a window that you could see inside his office with. One day one of the members of the "core group" went by the office during the daytime hours that the pastors held, claiming that when she walked by the window she saw something that was really disturbing to her. She claimed that she saw him in his office alone with a teen age girl who was sitting in an awkward position, and the whole scene was very inappropriate. She immediately went to tell him and the head pastor that she thought this was inappropriate behavior and she didn't like it. Well of course, this was the beginning of the end for her. She was accused of stalking the youth pastor, they told everyone she was a liar and that we really shouldn't have anything to do with her. They said these things in not so many words, but it was made perfectly clear if you get my drift. I was torn, this girl was my friend and I didn't see why, because she spoke up, said what she felt that we had to throw her to the wolves. I remember that after awhile, she and her family left the church, we had a friend in common and I would give her notes to give to this girl for me. And the last note I got from her was one that said "Look up the definition of the word CULT and it will describe our church to the tee". Let me tell you, it hurt my heart so bad that she would say that, so i quite talking to her and passing notes and until this year, I NEVER would look up the definition to the word, mostly i think out of fear that she was right.!.
Wow!
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