Hi, I'm Chris and I'm Micah and this is a special episode of the Donut Box podcast
Well, man, this is like you said it's very special edition of the Donut Box podcast where we're going to discuss a few things
and I guess kind of
break out and do a little bit different than the norm and
Literally just have a free form where we just talk about things that have it we've experienced in life and Chris and I have talked about it today
And we thought about telling about our religious backgrounds and things along those lines and see where that goes from man
Yeah, so we're gonna I think we're gonna title this church hurt spiritual abuse
Yeah, cuz I don't know if a lot of you all have grown up in church
Mike and I have grown up in church all of our lives
And just so we can clarify this is not like we're gonna dog on church dog on Jesus just kick it right in the nuts
We're not gonna do that, but we are gonna talk about kind of our
Experiences because I think it's helpful for people. I think a lot of people have experienced kind of what we've gone through
You think and probably felt a lot of the same things and it's hard because Chris and I have talked about it in in depth
And most of the time people feel like oh man, it's just me
I probably am the only one feeling that and because of other church reasons that will go into
Probably feel you know, hey
I it's just me out there and now you know this actually happened to a lot of people but yeah
I'm excited to dive into it because there's a lot here, but it
I don't know it helps give perspective and then it also helps see certain sides of the aisle
So hopefully this helps formulate your opinion and again, this is all opinion based
There is a bright side to this because both of us have got on the other side of it, right?
I mean, I'm that's safe to say I know I have it's safe to say you've gotten on the other side of it like you know
On a on a good path kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely
Well, let's just dive in and kind of give you a little bit of background
Mike Micah
Before we met each other Micah grew up in a Pentecostal background. I grew up in a small small small Baptist church background
Kind of explain to them Micah. What a what a Pentecostal background growing up is like well, it's it's interesting
So if you don't know what Pentecostal is and this is
This is a very interesting second
it's actually the United Pentecostals and
They had a little bit of a different belief system and things like that
but
Essentially, there's a lot of legalistic rules
and it's it's based on very small scriptures within the Bible but
Literally, you know women can't wear pants. It has to be skirts
That are three-quarter length things like that. No makeup. No
No jewelry and their hair has to be done a certain way. I'm sure you've probably seen people in public look like that
They're probably Pentecostal
And the thing is that's that's how they're there the ladies have to wear and then men they have to wear a jean shorts or not
You know, you're not supposed to show your legs. Nothing like that
You have to be very modest and things like that
They do believe in speaking in tongues out loud and it has to be out loud to be a profession of the spirit
And I can say what that is basically they don't believe that you could possess the Holy Ghost without
I'm speaking in tongues because that's the evidence and there's a lot of debate around whether that is or whether it's not but
Yeah, there's it's like I said, it's very legalistic
well the interesting thing about
Legalistic or legalism with the Pentecostals is they're very charismatic and charismatic means like you're more free flowing with the spirit and
You know, you're not doing everything like I guess and like a Catholic sense where everything's super structured
And like you have to say five Hail Mary's and kind of a thing but then on the flip side of that coin
It's like they're very like you have to follow all these rules and if you even
Look at a beer commercial then you're going to hell and so that's kind of a that's kind of the weird part about it
But Micah grew up in that and so I grew up in a Baptist church very small
And then of course you guys have heard the story about when we met and we were in elementary school and we met at church
And things were fine in elementary and we didn't start noticing things at this church until when would you say you would start noticing it?
Maybe seventh or it's probably high school actually. Yeah. Well, it was middle school for sure
I think it was whenever we started going to the youth group
You know and I'll tell you this much so and this is just a little bit of a backstory
What happened was we used to have what they called cell groups or small groups and they were all within the homes of
Certain, you know leaders and so ours was a guy named Tony shout out if you're listening
But he would have it in his home and how many of us were there probably 10 12 of us something like that
Yeah, one time he got to be like up to 15
Yeah, middle school boys and you know, we would have pizza and it was like a Bible study
And it would we would start off with worship and stuff and it was it was pretty cool because it was a pretty tight-knit group and whatnot
And then, you know, sometimes we would take off and we would have like game nights or we would go play football in the field behind their house
Which come to think of it. They had like this weird archery range back there just behind these people's backyards and I'm like
Okay, don't miss but anyways
You know, it was stuff like that, but what ended up happening was we moved they wanted to move to a more central environment to where they had
More regular church services like a youth service altogether. So we moved to that and then we broke off after the worship and
Things like that to our own small groups, but we were in like Sunday school classes. So I guess it wasn't as
I don't know how exactly describe it. It definitely changed everything. Yeah, it did for sure
Man, I don't really remember but I I guess you don't really realize it until you're out of it
Kind of and it's not like we were in a cult or anything like that
But just some of the teaching and the stuff was just very I had to unlearn a lot of bad theology if that makes sense
like one of the one of the big ones was that
If you mess up too many times God will leave you or the Holy Spirit will leave you
They talked that they preached that really hard. Yeah, it was a lot of hellfire and brimstone kind of stuff and
Where that church came from?
So they now identified as what's called non denominational or they kind of don't take any sort of affiliation
But they came from what is called assemblies of God, which is kind of close to Pentecostal Church
Similar ideals still spoken tongues. Something else about Pentecostals. We didn't talk about was, you know, jumping up and down
Hands raised very vocal very vocal compared to the other denominations. Like if you pray, it's not just one person praying
It could be everybody praying, right? And that's in
Different churches are different ways like the church we grew up in that happened sometimes
But not all the time and then there are some churches where that happens
All the time it definitely wasn't like the ones you see on TV that are extreme
Where like everybody's clucking like a chicken and everybody's like
Acting really weird because some of those they they get a little weird man. Like some of those on TV. They get really weird. Yeah, yeah
I've seen some in real life like that and some like po-dunk places and I kind of don't want to talk about those experiences, but it's
I will say this and this is one of those lines to where even as we're speaking about it now
It's one of those boundaries we were taught never to cross so it's kind of hard, but we're I
I don't know how to say this, but
I had an experience and we won't go into it too much because I just don't like talking about it, but
It was in the middle of nowhere and essentially it was just very very
I almost want to say blasphemous, but I hate using such a christianese word. You felt like it wasn't authentic
It's kind of maybe what you're saying. Yes, and I'm I would hate to I hate to say this too
But there is that's not the only time the time that I'm talking about as an extreme example
But I've seen other occasions as well
I've seen people running around the church and that's a common place and you know what people have
I've seen people running around the church and I've seen people running around the church
And that's a common place and you know what people have been filled with the Holy Spirit to be able to do that and that and
Not saying that that's not a thing, but you do see the people that it is just a show
I mean I saw a guy running around the church and smack the assistant pastor in the back of the head
The female assistant pastor in the back of the head
On accident, of course. I mean it was the I'm not female pastor the pastor's wife. I mean it she is a
Preacher as well, but still smacked her in the back of the head not looking where he's going
My thing is if that is really really the utterance of the Holy Spirit
Hank will lead you into smacking somebody in the back of the head
Right and I and I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit anytime, you know
The Holy Spirit does something it's to equip edify or bring correction. It's never to bring attention to some person
It's always to bring attention like back to God, right? So, you know
If it's if it's becoming a performance or if it's becoming more of a distraction, you know, like I said, you gotta you gotta ask yourself like
You have to sometimes define the line between
Performance and from what's from the Holy Spirit kind of a thing and that brings me to my next point
Um, we've also I've also been a part of scenarios. I'm not sure Chris. Have you been a part of the scenario too where?
You're you're either a leader or something along those lines and because you you dress or part of the way that you act
Something like that. Maybe it's not necessarily out of bounds by the the means of the bible
but they characterize it as oh, you're not necessarily a good leader or things like that
And they they take signs as like oh, maybe you you aren't right with the Holy Spirit like you should be
Because sometimes you don't do the performative things
Um, I don't know if that's ever
Uh come up
Because I mean, I'm pretty low-key dude. Like I just wore jeans and a t-shirt. So
I don't know. Can you give me like an example? And and maybe this was just my experience, but whenever I became
Um an assistant youth leader and kind of started going that direction
Uh, especially whenever because I don't know. I guess you're kind of a an assistant at one point where you're like assisting somebody
And then once they feel like you're ready, they'll give you your own
You know sell group and make you a full-on assistant and things like that
um
Especially while I was being watched and while I was
You know having that I guess mentor over me
There was definitely that pressure of
And I understand they're formidable kids essentially. I'm in high school. They're in middle school
Like I get it. They're they're in a very formidable state in life and things like that
But I also felt like it was one of those things we also had conversations of well
I haven't seen you raise your hands in church in a while or I haven't seen you do
Like I haven't seen you speak in tongues in a while or I haven't seen you
You know something along those lines and they take that as a
Something is going on with you. Should we remove you from this position because you have something spiritually going on with you
um
And so the hard part is what chris is talking about with it's that hard line of
The performative stuff in some instances. It's even hard of I want to keep this position
So I have to do the performative thing sometimes
Yeah, I've been there for sure. I know exactly what you mean. It's like oh well, obviously you're not
In a right relationship with the lord or you're not spiritually healthy because you're not doing x y or z because we can't measure
Uh what you're doing externally and I think that's what it was like it growing up in that youth group
It was very like I said legalistic to where it was a lot of a lot of performance and a lot of show
and I just remember that
I would really beat myself up
Because you know you would go on these spiritual retreats and you would come back like just on fire
Emotionally charged as you've been if you've never been in that situation like there's a lot of emotion going your spiritual
Relativity charged you like I'm on fire for god
But then by like Thursday you're kind of like
Whining off and it was like one of those it was like drinking a spiritual red bull like you would get all hyped up
But then you would crash and you'd be like wow
I'm not as fired as up as I used to be
As I was on that weekend. Is there something wrong with me? Maybe my love for the lord isn't as real as I thought it was
Or maybe I did something wrong and it was like anytime you messed up anytime you messed up
They would tell you oh, yeah, like you since you messed up. You're not right with god and
You know if you're continuing in a pattern of
Sending and messing up then yeah, that's true
Like you're you're making distance between you and god
But it's like even if you do one little thing you're automatically it's like you're automatically far and far far away
So every time I messed up
I would beat myself up because I was like yeah
I just messed up
And it was almost like I had to work my way back to get close to god
Which is totally not scriptural, but that's what they made you believe and the other fearful part
I don't know if you remember this but something that was really hardcore with me was I remember it was very very very heavy
on
If you get set free from something like because they believe if you're dealing with some sort of addiction
Or bondage or some sort of issue in life, right?
That you need to break free from some sort of sin that you just can't stop from doing
You can get broken free of free through prayer, which is true instantly. They believe it's instant
They believe it's instant like you are healed at that moment. Bam. You're healed and so
What ends up happening?
Literally it was taught that if we break free from this addiction through prayer and everything like that
However, we fall back into that addiction or back into that turmoil that it would come back on a seven fold
And it would be seven times harder for us to get free from that addiction or that issue or bondage
Well, sometimes
Whenever you're walking out through a process sometimes the lord hears you instantly
But sometimes you might have to have prayer and go to therapy or you might have to have prayer and go to rehab
Like there's nothing wrong with that and I remember
You know, even them
kind of putting projecting the belief that if you struggle with depression
Or anxiety that means you're not as strong as of a Christian and that there's something wrong with your faith
You're not putting yours. You don't have the faith of god
I mean, it's
Yeah, it's
It's terrible because there was probably a lot of teens in that youth group that were going through a lot of stuff at the time
um
And you know a lot of it was get through through prayer and yes prayer does help absolutely
But that's not the only answer to things to be honest with you man. I can't remember
Other than being like, oh, yeah, uh, the holy spirit's gonna leave you. I don't really remember him
Our youth pastor ever opening up the bible or ever preaching out a
Something I just remember he would just rant like he would just go on and on and on and rant
And I'd we'd be sitting there being like, okay. What like what's going on if it was
Uh, something like open out of the bible. It would literally be a scripture
And he would base his entire rant around that scripture and around the agenda that he was trying to do pretty much
Is what happened? Yeah, so what we're kind of and I guess
I'll go into it too, but what we're kind of the things that made you like
Step away from church. Like what was kind of
nail in the coffin for you where you were like, hey man, like
I love god, but I don't know if I could go to church right now. Man, that's kind of a long
A little bit of a long things a good thing. We have time
Well, essentially if you have listened to our other podcasts or other episodes and things like that
We've talked about uh appeared in time where we were working so hard, but we would take our liberties, right?
We would go to Hooters and you know skip out part of church
We would do different things and we'd go play basketball and you know what I mean
we would literally since we were there all the time we took our liberties and we did what we wanted to do and
At that time, you know Chris got burnt out and he left went to the explorers. I became
the assistant youth leader there like I was talking about
And what ends up happening was I end up getting burnt out funny enough story and this was how much of a
I guess goody-to-choose Christian kid that didn't know too much crazy stuff
My rebellion music was Motley Crue and I loved Motley Crue and I'd sit out in the park a lot and
Listen and shout out the devil and be like yeah, I'm mad at church and then I'd go in there and play the happy face and
Do what I needed to do and do the role that I needed to do
Um, so pretty burnt out there, but we ended up moving out to Texas shortly thereafter
So we moved to Texas new beginnings new start everything like that and Chris wasn't in the explorers
We were part of the same church together and so we started volunteering and doing everything together
Um, and you know, so it was fine there for a bit
I don't know man. So the church that we moved to when we moved out to Texas it it was a mega church and
It had some like family connections
one of my family members was
uh, the deacon of the year over there which looked like a freaking heisman trophy and um, literally
You know
We kind of thought we had placement in this church, but the thing was so big nobody cares right out
I'll put it to you this way. That's one of the issues with mega churches
There's plenty of them
But when it comes down to its core sometimes church is just too big to be a tight knit community like they need to be
But that's a different subject
um
We got there and we started volunteering and I'll be honest. I really didn't mesh with the people at that church
Like I really didn't I didn't mesh with a lot of the people at the previous church
But I guess since we'd known them for so long that it's like, okay
We know who they are. We know what they're about and everything like that
and of course coming in senior year is kind of interesting because
Um as Chris and I have talked about again, um
You know, they would allow him to hang out or want him to hang out
Because he was college age, but I was a year younger. So I was a senior in high school
So they wouldn't want that so Chris was like nah, we're not gonna have that so literally it was
I don't know. I just really didn't mesh. I I meshed with two people and that was old g-bows will call old g-bows
you know, I'm talking about and
the
How do I describe this?
four-wheeler mom, I'll say that
and those are probably the two dudes that I you know
You know got along with the most but everybody else I really just did not mesh with at all and you know, I
tried to pick up some gals and
I'll be honest with you that did not go well
um, they were questionable at best or as the kids nowadays say they were quite sus and
You know, it was just like I just did not mesh there
And so I wanted to explore because this was also a non-denominational church
But this was a lot more broad and open like they really didn't I wouldn't say they really followed too much because they didn't
What do you say their background came from maybe maybe southern baptist kind of no
It was a siblings of god for sure, but they were so big that like the legalism and stuff was like not apparent
Yeah, and I mean it definitely happened on some level
but maybe I just didn't get far enough in it because I wasn't there long enough and I just
And at the time they had ended up getting bigger like they were building on it was already a big church
But then they built on this whole new facility and everything like that. And I don't know. I just lost my I was just like, yeah
I'm good. So moved on to the to the next church
And I tried what was called an axe 29 church. I don't know if you've heard of the next 29 church
The drinking church the church that lets you drink
Yes, the church that lets you drink essentially it's anything in moderation, right?
they believe in anything in moderation and
Yeah, and that sounded appealing to me at age 18
but at the same time it was
Not and maybe this was just the experience of the church that I went to
First of all, it was like two blocks away from the church that we were talking about
it was like in that neighborhood right behind that church and
It was a small place
But it was mostly college kids and think about like the hipster college kids that have to have their coffee and they had the nice little
coffee bar and it was it was geared strictly towards college kids
And I'll be honest even when I was college age. I kind of didn't mesh with the college kids
Be I'll be completely honest with you
Funny enough story as well
And this is just me speaking of chris for a second
You know who was there from that church?
From the original church that when we moved to texas that I was like, what are you doing here?
Yeah, I think you I think you told me
Her dad worked in insurance. Yeah. Yeah, I was like, what are you doing here? Anyways, um
Because that's something else about church, you know, like it's something if you bouncing around at churches. It's a weird thing
That's how we were always taught like you always kind of stick to that one church
And if you kind of moving around there's kind of a weird thing about that. But anyways, so
But I went to that church and I kid you not man, nobody said a word to me like nobody said nothing to me. Everybody was real weird
um
even even like the pastor was weird and
I just remember the sermon was about how
he
had a stroke
at the age of 35 and
And literally came through it with the Lord's help and that's fine
But I mean the message was maybe 15 minutes didn't have any scriptural backing and was basically his story
And it was then like worship before and then prayer after and their service. It's like, what was that?
um
I don't know and then
Uh, I tried several different other churches didn't really didn't really mesh
um, and then started dating a girl and literally
We went to a church that was south of town that is no longer in existence that had many campuses
and um
I kid you not they started off worship with they're like, we're gonna do our secular song now
I was like what and they started off with an acoustic set of mirrors by
Justin Timberlake
and
Listen, I'll be honest with you with how much I've had issues with some church and things like that and
What all all of this is saying I'll put it to this way
I've heard many theologies many really
And I you know if you're into that thing, I don't mean to say this but it's stupid
Okay, it's a check the block kind of church a lot of the and a lot of the theologies are just whacked out
They're taking very small snippets
And they are making it into fact
I mean it's the fox newses of church literally they'll take one small thing that's in the scripture read the rest of the scripture
It gives it more context
anyways
um
You know and then
Here's where I I think I really got burnt out so all that happened then
um, my parents which I hope they're not listening
um
Ended up taking us to this church and when I say taking us because I currently wasn't going to church then all of a sudden they decided
Eh, well you need to go to church
And if you're going to live under our roof, you're going to go to church. Okay, fine. So started going to this church
And wouldn't you know it?
Nobody had they had no volunteers. They had no nothing. So I had
I ran sound pretty much every church experience we got chris has to I mean we were tech guys, you know
We literally ran sound lights. We did the whole we did the whole shebang
You know all the time lyrics everything and so stepped into that role
and
It was just the most stupid thing
Yeah, they would just harp on the most stupid thing and I'm just going to go into this for just a moment
I don't know if you remember this chris, but there was a sound board and they had given it to us from south plains college
like south plains college had donated it to this church
And he had put it on a default setting the guy that delivered it
They took a picture of the default setting of the sound board
And literally they did not want you to touch any of the dials or move anything
Now for those of you who don't know about sound equipment sound boards things like that. No big deal
I'll just put it to this way sound is dynamic. You have to change things. You have to tweak things
It's not constant
Especially when you're talking about worship at church
You have your fast songs then you go into your slow songs
You have your worship songs. You have your prayer songs. You have all the different genres. You have the different feels you have all that stuff
They would make you go back and I kid you not
they just
the the thing that made me lose it was
one day this lady came back there
And she just chewed me out of you always changing you always changing yours and I said if you you know whatever
And I quit and I left
And literally I tried to go to some other churches didn't really work out shortly thereafter my parents decided to leave
Because my father decided to play chancellor palpatine and it didn't work out and
Anyways, then we go over to
Another church which they went over there because the previous church I was talking about was really poor like they didn't have a lot of money
They were hemorrhaging a lot of money the stupid part that I thought about it was nobody was giving ties and offering right?
Which you got to do your mandatory 10% plus a little extra sometimes, but anyways
They weren't doing that. So the
pastor like literally was
Having to drive a school bus not taking a salary
Meanwhile
He had a parse niche and another parse niche that two of the pastors were living in rent free
Then they were letting the church fans out to
They're freaking
Like, you know parishioners there
For free because their car broke down or whatever and literally it's like bro. I understand it's a church
But we can't run it so much like a charity, you know, like one dude took an amp
Never returned it like I'm gonna borrow this for my band on Saturday night
Never freaking returned it stuff like that, you know, so the church that they went to after that
Wasn't hemorrhaging money. In fact, there were millionaires had a car dealership on the freaking side of it, which I think is kind of weird
Um
And that one was totally totally different, but what did that guy do?
It was during the whole election and who did he pump up Ted Cruz Ted Cruz Ted Cruz that guy was all over Ted Cruz
And he was all about his book too
And so all that being said, there's a lot that I had
Gone through that it just it's just
I hate the guys that are all about their book
Like I'm glad that you have a book don't get me wrong, but at the same time
It shouldn't take away anything from the message and what we're here for so to sum it up
To sum it all up. It sounds like you were saying that
Number one people just valued your work instead of who you are
It really take the time to have a relationship with you
Number two a lot of the theology was wack and number three
They made it more about themselves than about Jesus and the main thing
So that kind of sum it up absolutely and uh, we had a word for the the last one self-licking ice cream cones
Those ones are like, oh, we're so great our group is so great
Look at all the good stuff we're doing. Yeah, I think I think what kind of burned me out is kind of the same thing
I think it was um
Just the strict thing of like hey, you're always messing it was never encouraging
It was never life-giving and that's kind of like what church is supposed to be
Yeah, you're supposed to like if I'm severely messing up like if I'm
Smoking crack then I pray that my friends will tell me hey, you're goofing up. You need to get on the right track
Um, but it was always like
Oh, well, you're not raising your hands enough or oh, you're not worshiping enough or
You're not you don't have big enough faith or
No, it was always criticizing and I think too. It was also that no one really cared to like
Have a relationship or I didn't feel a sense of community
Um, and I think that was a big thing man
Like it was you know, you would go there and nobody would say anything to you or they would treat you like dirt
It was very clicked up. It was very hard to get to the point where you're like
Clicked up. It was very much like high school to where there was clicks for everything and
You know, I mean for the longest time, bro. It was us that was
Saying what's up to people? Yeah, and I think it was kind of like, okay
You expect that from people that don't love Jesus like you expect them to be clicked up and everything
But I found out was like people that don't love Jesus were more accepting of me
Than the own church I was going to I mean we talk about it
But like we went bull riding and we went that like a couple times we went back to visit at the rodeo
And we had only been there like one or two times
But every time we went back those guys play. Hey, man, like how's it going?
Like we're so glad you're here and you know, how's life going like they would ask us questions
You'd be like, oh, yeah, I remember when we talked about this
How's this going and it felt like a sense of community and family and I was sitting here going like
Is it church supposed to feel that way and kind of like what you said like there were new people that would come all the time
And nobody would say a word to him and we would say like we would talk to him and buy them because we knew how it felt to be the
Outsiders and I remember bringing this up to the youth pastor and
Micah and I were in the office
because I think I had made a post in my 16 year old self making a dumb post and
He had called me in the office and we kind of aired our grievances
And I remember kind of the thing that like was the beginning of the end for me was he drew a dot on this paper
And he said what's on this paper and we said a dot and he was like what else is on this paper?
I was like, it's a black dot and then Michael was like it's not all the way colored in and then
Uh, he was just like what else do you see what else do you and we just kept talking about the dot
And he was like see you're only focusing on the dot, but you're not focusing on this all the rest of the paper
So you're just focusing on this one problem when the rest of it is so great
And basically he spun it to where it was my fault like and the problem that I was bringing up to him
And after then I said, you know what man? I'm tired of it
I'm tired of people only talking to me to ask me to do something or run something
You know, they treated us like workhorses
And you know and it's like but they believed you and indoctrinated you like if you really love Jesus
This is what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to serve as hard as you can and you work your way to have a great spot in heaven
And you can't say no if you say no something's wrong
Something's wrong if you're saying no if you say no that there is definitely something wrong with you
And I reason why I went to explorers the police explorers was because they treated me like family man like they
They were my family and you know, they brought me and these are people that didn't even believe in Jesus
And so I had to sit and wrestle for a while with like being like if these people are supposed to love Jesus
And they treat me bad and these people don't love Jesus, but they're still my family like what's going on here?
So I had some
You know theology to wrestle with and I and I'll just say this I'd be like
Just because church people treat you bad doesn't mean that God's bad or God treats you bad
So I and I wrestle with that for a long time. Yeah, I I'm gonna go back to something though when we were talking
I had that same
Thing happened, but it was with the bull riders man because when we were hanging out with them and doing stuff
It was just like you said they remembered everything they even remember
You know, it wasn't just they remembered your name
They remembered what bull you rode last time where you were from what school you went to
They remembered I played football for a particular school and asked how they were doing and all this other stuff and
By definition and by what we were taught
These people are supposed to be the scum of the earth almost these are supposed to be the people that are
Nasty doing everything wrong
Pell bound and just you know, we shouldn't really I mean you're
In the church we grew up in it wasn't as bad as some of the other like Pentecostal
Like I know of churches, but it was still definitely like you shouldn't hang out with those kind of people
You know you probably shouldn't be hanging out with those kind of people because these people drank these people slept around
I mean the gals that were there had slept with every dude there, you know like literally it was just
It was like the epiphany of what we thought was terrible
And we're sitting here going but it's not and it's actually
They're actually nice and they're actually good decent people to us. This is really really weird like this is
How am I supposed to you know, it was like the the weirdest
I don't know. It was it was really strange
I think it's like you grow up and you have the maturity now to realize okay, just because
You know one church acts like this that doesn't mean that they're all bad, right?
Or just because all these bull riders act good doesn't mean that they're all saints
So I think it was for us. We had just been longing for that
Community and longing for just kind of a place to belong and longing for a place where people encouraged us and not been like
Oh, well, you're not a good christian or you're a bad
Do you have bad faith or you've messed up or you're not doing enough?
Yeah, or you're I think that's the big thing that it was for me
I and I know you probably did too. I would always beat myself up. It was like I'm not doing enough
You know, god doesn't you know, I failed my math test this week because god's punishing me because I didn't do I didn't serve last week or something
And that's a really messed up theology because that's not the way they got at no not at all
and you know, I think about some of the other people that we sat there and sell group with and
I could think of one in particular and I feel so bad for this kid because you know
We had talked about him for a while about his theology and things like that
But he truly believed that if you did something bad enough god would just strike you down dead
Like over one thing over one thing over one sin that you did like god would just strike you down
And I think it was also too like people just being ugly. I mean, you know, you got into it with the worship
Worship youth worship leader who just treated you really ugly for you know, you the youth to sum it all up
The youth pastors wife had told you hey, we need to start right now
Let's wrap it up and you are the sound guy. So you're telling the band like hey youth pastors wife wants to start
So we're gonna start and he'd be like no, this is my band
We're gonna start where I want to and just treated you really ugly and then I remember a couple
a couple
Of one of the kids that you were a small group leader of they invited you to their house
And you got in trouble because you talked their son how to play blackjack and they got they really like ran over your case
Just for teaching them a card game. Oh, yeah
They really but they had talked to the youth pastor and everything else and like I had a meeting in his office about it
It was a whole big thing, but I mean the the thing was you put me in charge of
You know 12 to 13 middle school boys
I'm just saying
We didn't have
Really anything besides a deck of cards. So I mean we could play go fish or I could teach them how to play
21 I didn't tell them what it was. I didn't say like oh you can go to the casino and bet money on this
I just said hey, this is 21
I'm gonna give you two cards and you could say if you want more if you want to stay right there
And you're playing against me and explained it that way
Um, there's definitely worse things that we could have been doing
for sure, but
It was extremely
I mean you you couldn't hardly do anything out of place
In their mind, you know
I mean heck even pepper spraying you in the face. They got upset about that
They you know, I mean
Looking back on it if if I have one of my church kids pepper spray another kid in the face
I'd be pretty upset about it, but it was just it was there was man. There wasn't I would just say there wasn't love there
You know, uh, maybe there was but like you just couldn't feel the love and I felt I felt like some people cared, um
Like uh, yeah, I felt like some people cared, but it was how do you describe it?
It was almost like that passive care like yeah, you here
So we're gonna love and care about you, but you felt like if you saw them on the street
They probably wouldn't acknowledge that you were there or say hey to you or something like that
You know what I mean? You had that you had the people that just straight up didn't really talk to you
and then you had
You had some people that would but most people were just kind of
I guess casual
Relationships like it was just like I know them but really and truly
I mean every time we would go on trips and stuff like that we talked about going to six flags and doing like church trips and stuff like that
Uh, we had a very small group. Whereas a lot of other people traveled in very big groups
Uh, it was like chris and I and maybe two or three other people every time when we would go to those trips
Just because that's that's how it was is uh, we really only meshed with maybe two or three people who we were
You know
Cool with at the time and those kind of came and went to be honest because some people were just like
Ah, they ain't kind of they ain't cool no more kind of let's kind of take a little turd and kind of go the positive way
how did you like maybe heal from it or
recover from it or
Kind of get past it. Well, and I will say
I am still on that road to recovery if you will
um
I go to church passively and what I mean by that is I go every now and then
um, and right now I'm going to a Lutheran church, which is
Definitely different than how I was raised
but
um
What I like about it the best is
It's scripturally based and that's exactly what I was looking for
Um, and there's not that expectation and I'm still worried that that expectation is there and that's why I don't go all the time
um
That I'm going to get sucked in I don't know I'm going to be doing a thousand things before too long
You know what I mean?
Like I'll be I'll be the volunteer and I'll be the lead of this and the
And you know and I'll be there on sunday
And it's one thing when it's like you right and you're there on sunday from sun up to sundown
But that's your job in sunday's your prime time. It's like for me. I don't I don't want to do that
I want to go to church. I want to have our relationship with god sure not necessarily take the block
I want to get fed but I also don't want to make it my life because
The biggest thing that we've talked about this entire time was church was our life
It wasn't just a it was our second job. I mean school was our first job
Church was our second job. We were there. I mean there were some days
We were there or some weeks. We were there every night of the week. I mean, that's just how it was
so
Now that i'm on that other side of that I understand that that's not how it has to be and that's one of the biggest things
I understand that's not how it has to be and how I came to that conclusion
Only 10 of the church really volunteers and does anything right
But the 90 percent sit there and still partake and nobody's mad at them, right?
Nobody's sitting there going that 90 sucks and they need to get off there behind and do something
Maybe the salty people like us who have been burnt out
but you know for the most part it's like
When you go to those bigger churches or when you go to the more well organized church like the one that I've been going to
literally
They have enough volunteers and they have backup volunteers
and it's like they you know
people aren't
Burnt out because they're doing 40 things so I know that things are taken care of to where I necessarily don't have to
Volunteer to keep the thing afloat
Because that's my biggest thing. I do have a big heart
And so the hard part for me is sitting there if I see something not being done
It's like man, we really need volunteers. I will be that person to say no problem. I got you covered
But it's a slippery slope a lot of the time
um, but to to keep going
um
From the bad theology
I have a bad or I have a very
Tight radar for that stuff now
I could sweep it a mile away and it's it sucks because when you're trying to get back into it
It's very hard because you're sitting here and anything that somebody says you're like. Oop. Oop. Yep. I I mean there was even a pastor one time
I went to a christmas service and the guy was talking about he was like, yeah, you know, we all know what christmas is really about
It's about the presence and everything and he wasn't joking
And like that just I didn't have to listen to the rest of it. It just shut me down
And it was over the smallest thing
But that's what happens when you've heard so much bad theology out there when you start to get that taste of like
Ooh, this might be going wrong. This might be going. You're like, I'm gonna stop this right now because it makes you mad
It makes me physically mad still. It's just like don't be saying that crap
Especially when it's the personal agenda stuff and that's another reason why I like the church that I'm going to now is because
They're very scriptually based and they're very fact based and they also understand
And this is what my biggest deal was. They also understand
That chris's experience through life even through church and things my experience through life
Even though we've had similar experiences are going to be different. I can read the bible and get something out of it
He can read it the same passage that I read and get something totally different out of it because
We've had our own dynamic life and that's the biggest thing too
Most organized religions nowadays put God in a box and that's something I cannot stand
He's such a dynamic guy and you just look at the bible, right? It can go a million different directions
Some things are very black and white and cut and dry. Absolutely. But there are some things to where it is just
It can apply to multiple you can read the same passage in multiple times in your life and it can help you in different ways
You know and so
It's just it's one of those things to where
I
My beef is with religion
Not with not with Christianity or following Christ
If you're doing it to the purest form and here's something else
I'm going to remind everybody too and this is the biggest and hardest lesson I had to learn
And
Where are the best places for sinners and people who are doing wrong? It's the church
And so the thing is you're going to be full of and that's where you're going to be full of and they're going to be sitting all next to you
And that's understandable, but at the same time the best churches
Operate with that human error, but at the same time they weed that stuff out in positive and effective ways
and so
That's the main difference and so
We're still in the beginning stages of going through this church in particular all as well so far, but at the same time
You know you still got to be that little bit of leery at the very beginning because yeah
Everything's fine and dandy because you don't know the nitty gritty of everything just yet
But hopefully everything's going to be okay, but still kind of in that process to answer your question
Yeah, man, and there's never going to be like a perfect. There's always going to be something about any church that
um, you know
That it's not always going to be perfect or up to your liking you might not like all the worship song
But I think I think kind of going back to it. I think what we did is we put
Working at church in place of our relationship with God and I think that kind of got
That's where it gets gritty because if you're just focused on what you do for church
And you don't really have the relationship with God then you're going to get burned out soon as those people fail you
I think for me, man, um
Honestly, and I'll be honest about it because it was it was a time in my life that I was going through tough
I had to go to therapy to be honest with you and I had to I had a therapy with a licensed professional
Counselor, you know, he was a believer. He was Christian and everything like that
But it wasn't like one of those everything was applying spiritually
He applied everything mentally physically
Emotionally and then he would ask like when we get to the spiritual parts
He'd be like, hey, can I have this spiritual conversation with you?
He would ask me about it, but it was one of those things where man, I had to unlearn
Uh, a lot of bad theology and realize like hey
Like I'm not serving a god that's you know there to get me
I'm serving god who loves me and I'm not serving a god who's always
Criticizing my worst mistakes. I'm criticizing or I'm serving a god that like looks at my
What he made because the bible says that we're fearfully and wonderfully made right so
You know so I had to do a lot of unlearning and that was even after going on staff at a
Uh, a spiritually abusive church like I would get called kind of the same thing
It was like, oh, well, you're not praying enough and we don't have enough numbers
because you didn't pray enough this week or
Um, you're going to lunch too many times with the maintenance guy and the worship pastor and that's promoting disunity in our staff
And you have a bad spirit and I was like hey, man like anybody could show up to lunch like this isn't a closed invitation, man
um, and so it was like I would get uh called in the office and in trouble quote-unquote for a little I got in trouble
one time for going to another church for their conference and uh, they were like, yeah, you need to
Be here and you need to be getting stuff to feed our people and they would tell uh, they would say
Our church is like a restaurant. We can only serve the people that come and which is totally not true because the bible says that
You know, Jesus leaves the 99 and goes after the one and so we're supposed to share Jesus love with everybody
And I always had a problem with that
But I think a lot of it was of course god doing the healing in my heart
But man, I had I had to have some conversations with some professionals
And if you're going through church heart and stuff or spiritual abuse, um, don't be ashamed to go to therapy
There's nothing wrong with that. No, you got to go through and go to therapy and talk about some of that stuff because
there's a lot of
unrooting and a lot of unlearning things and especially if you've been going to church since you were a kid
Like if you have been born into the church is what they say
Like heck yeah, because you're talking about stuff that was rooted in your mind since you were very very very very very small
And this is where I turn over the leaf and talk about parents that are going to take their kids to church
You want to be very careful of what the church is about and what they are doing
You want to be very cautious
as well
Because the thing is
All may seem fine. I'm sure our parents thought everything was fine, right?
But were they really checking the content of what was going on and what we were being taught and what we were being told?
No, that didn't happen and so
it's
Our situation could have been worse. Absolutely. But at the same time
It's hard when you get to this point in life because there's a lot of stuff. I'm having to unlearn
I mean
I'm I will be completely honest with you
It took me near about 10 years to get back into church nine 10 years to get back into church
Just because of how I mean just barely going to church would make me angry about a lot of this stuff that would happen
and so
That's where you got to seek professional help and understand
That you got to have tools that maybe you don't personally possess because that's totally okay to ask people for help
And there are those people that have that
um, and it doesn't have to be a spiritually
um, you know licensed professional or anything like that
so it's just
I don't know
And this conversation is one that we could go forever on because it's
We're barely scratching the surface where we're talking about like we're jumping around with points
But each point that we're going to we can go on to eons about
What it is and what we've gone through with it
um
Like I'm sitting here looking at it and I'm going man. I can't believe we've talked this long about all this stuff already
But yeah, and I think I think it's important for us to talk about it
Um, not for us to bash church or bash anything
But I think to help people man because I think a lot of people
Kind of they have a bad experience or they get hurt by the church and whatever way that is
And then they totally write God off and it's like, you know, man
Just because you had a bad experience doesn't make you a bad God, but I want to help anybody
It's not for me to bash anybody. I just want to help people
You know help people get through it because it because for some people it is
It might be a little bit slower process for them to ease in back in the church and
That's okay. Like if it takes you a little bit slower process
That's okay and remember something and this is something that I remember through that whole process as well
It says in the bible where two or more gathered he will be there
So really and truly you can make your church anytime as long as you have another person
Crack open that Bobby you can have yourself a church service anywhere you go
And that's what what it says. So just because you're not going to the brick and mortar building at the time because
You know the religion portions pissing you off
There's you know, you can still maintain a relationship with Christ and that's the biggest thing that I think a lot of people miss
And it's
It's honestly, it's natural because most churches promote if you're not going to church. You don't have a relationship with Christ
and
I mean even even ours did too. I mean, there was a lot of if you're not coming every single week
You know, you don't have a relationship with Christ and that's not true
Church is helpful because it is and a healthy church you have that community and you're not going to have a relationship with Christ
You know you have that community and you have that people that's around you and you know, like Michael said you can have church
Any time the church is the people not the building but don't let the pendulum swing the other way and be like, yeah
I have church on the golf course and you're just playing golf like that's not church. That's not church. Yeah
Yeah, no
No, trust me. Trust me. Micah had church at the airport a few times and that's not that's not church
It's just that's just you going and hanging out there in church time
Yeah, exactly. So it's
It's it's just one of those things to where
you know
It's always that balance, right?
but
Chris is right church is a place of community and I'll tell you this much if you go to one that does good potlucks
You're you're doing. Yeah, let me get it. Let me get on this subject too
That's the thing that is missing from the modern church right now is people don't know how to give a good church potluck, bro
And if you don't know you ain't never been to a church potluck. It's where most of the time if you're going to a good one
It's where all the old ladies they bring out their
Best dishes and they all bring it all together and it's just one big feast. But nowadays man
These young people don't know how to do a church part potluck and it's and if it's in a toxic church
Then it'll be good food and the old ladies will be angry at each other because sister betty brought the good china
And she said she wouldn't and I have the best platter and she stole my she stole my spoon
And that's my serving spoon see my initials are on it and you get to watch dinner in a show
So well, we just wanted to I know it's a little bit different from our usual
Thing we wanted to change it up. We will be back to our regular scheduled programming next week
But uh, hopefully this episode
So helps you out and at least the or entertain you and gives you a different perspective on
Things maybe you've never thought about heard about because you know, some of these some of this stuff to our listeners around the world
might be rather different and
Might not have heard about some of this stuff. So yeah, the people in singapore are probably like, oh church like, you know
We're talking about american church. It's different western eastern church and church man people know how to have church in africa
They know how to have church in china, bro. You can go to them church. They know how to have church
They get down. I mean malaysia singapore. Y'all know how to get down too. I mean, I will say this
African-american church, they know how to get down too. Maybe that's what I'm missing. Maybe I should just go to an african-american church
You know, maybe that's what we're missing too. Yeah, that's what we're missing because I always love the music
I always love the preaching. Yeah, it's always it's always great
Anyways, now you're gonna be there for five hours, but it's great
Oh, but you're gonna get spiritually fad and you're gonna be sweating from head to toe by the time you leave
Well, tell them where they can go to find us tv trash can dot com. That's tv trash can dot com
Go give us a look. All right. Well, I guess it's time to sign off
I'm Chris and I'm Michael and this is the donor box podcast. We'll see you next time.
Uh-huh