Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

It's not so much fear or guilt as it has been anger. Anger at the manipulation, the blend of half lies and outright ignorance passed around as stone-cold fact, the judgment and gossip. I am far far more accepting and easygoing than I was as a young man, but fear and guilt were subdued long before an...

As an aggregate, those messages sound very much like a typical CofC ramble (i.e., sermon) - just add prooftexts to fit and it's all good. I especially like the wrong word choice being deadly.

FWIW, I agree that there's not much to be gained by being "honest" with your family, and particularly a lot to be lost in a potential feud over religious matters.

There are a few CofCs, like B.H. said, who rely entirely on the men of the congregation to preach. Those churches, IME, tend to be quite small, often just a few families. Yes, the reliance on the paid professional minister is one of the many ways the CofC is just like the denominations they carry on...

I can think of at least 2 different church services where the elders announced disfellowshipping for at least 4-5 people at once, almost all for forsaking the assembly. Efficient use of one's disciplining time, I guess.

Apparently the COC is now using pre-printed placards that say "DISFELLOWSHIPPED" in big, bold letters. A COC-in-name-only friend of mine got me one as a joke after I'd left. I probably still have it in a cardboard box somewhere. According to my friend, the placard would be placed on the c...

Hated. HATED. H-A-T-E-D door knocking. And visitation. At least with door knocking, you could just quickly spit out your little spiel, shove a pamphlet in their hand and leave. With visitation, you showed up actually expecting to be invited in. AWKWARD! Ending those stupid visitations was one of th...

...it seemed strange to knock on doors and solicit like that. We didn't like when the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and others did it, so why should they like it when we did? Exactly. I remember my parents' irritation when the JWs or Mormons showed up at our door, often on a Saturday morning. Of cou...

I have never heard of passing out flyers on Sunday morning. It was always on Saturday, that is the authorized day for such activities. When I did doorknocking and flyer-passing-out, it was almost always attached to a particular campaign or a gospel meeting, and it would often go for 4 or 5 days in ...

Ah, the old "you're a baptised male now, so at the age of 11 or 12, you're a man, and must be yanked from the kids' classes being taught by women" routine? Not only the Bible class change up! What would prevent a baptized, penis-having 11-year-old from attending and participating in a men...