Greetings

[fieldsofdreams]

Where do I start?

To make a long story a little shorter, I grew up in the C.o.C. for 25 years and left two years ago. Even though my old church was considered "liberal" by some (we had a kitchen and playground, plus we actually fed homeless people), my family and I had a growing tension with various points of C.o.C. theology for some time.

There were two main breaking points. The first (I told you my old church was more "liberal") being that my parents got in the habit of wearing jeans to church when they weren't slated for specific, visual volunteering. My dad often led singing, but when the scheduled guy called in sick, our preacher (who had a booming, quality voice) just led from his seat. After church, it was made clear to my dad that he definitely COULD have filled in, if not for his attire. This wasn't taken well.

The second, more unfortunate breaking point was when a lifelong family friend of ours was killed in an army training accident. We had known him from church, and I looked at him as that older brother who was way cooler, way better looking and would blow up way more stuff (which he did. I heard the stories) than I could attain. He was close enough to my family that my dad was his first contact so random army dudes wouldn't show up at his mom's house to break the news. My dad's new responsibility meant handling everything related to our friend's estate, and the burden "interfered" with his serving as a deacon, so he resigned that post in order to do what he knew God wanted him to do by legitimately ministering to a grieving family while we were also grieving. While preacher was more than gracious and understanding, this didn't sit well with an elder, eventually leading that elder to asking my dad, "Don't think [name redacted] would just want you to get over it?"

So, we bailed hard. I only keep in touch with one person out of the 300 from that church, who also shares my same theological convictions. I've only even heard from one other person from that church through Facebook comments (other than my parents close group of friends), but exactly no one has tried to get me to come back.

My parents have since moved and gotten involved in a more modern church (and are happier/more joyful for it), whereas my recently acquired (August) wife and I have settled in at a slightly more modern but not as performance/theatrics driven church where I play guitar ever week (I am aware of the irony here).

That said, I still love Jesus and am more joyful than I've ever been. I've also cleared a request through email a whopping two years ago (I've been kinda busy) to start a thread for people willing to give their experiences specifically for a book I'm writing on theological problems with the C.o.C.

I'm excited to be here. Looking forward to talking with all of you.

[B.H.]

Welcome to the board.

[agricola]

Welcome to the board. Pull up a chair and set a spell.

[Moogy]

Count your blessings that you were not harassed after leaving! Welcome to our group.

[bnot]

Nice introduction. Welcome to the forum! Glad you got away from that

[Porcupine]

welcome

[lvmaus]

Welcome to the forum. Lots of good stuff here; hope you find something worthwhile.

[fieldsofdreams]

Thanks for the warm reception, everybody.

[Porcupine]

welcome