Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

My name is Joshua and after being raised in the church, I left the CoC 13 years ago. They officially withdrew about 10 1/2 years ago. I've never reached out to a group like this or talked about my experience before. I picked up one of my bibles yesterday and started flipping through after having not touched one in years, I suppose reading some verses was enough to help me come to the realization that blocking out memories will only work for so long.
Since this is only and introductory post, I'll give a rough overview:
34, middle Tennessee born and raised
Home schooled through grade and high school
Studied greek and latin to be a better preacher
Studied under our preacher as a "preacher in training", later preached on occasion at local churches in the area

Hi, Joshua, and welcome! So they waited over 2 years to withdraw from you? That sounds weird. Were you in a relatively mainline COC or in one of the splinter groups? I was non-institutional aka “anti” aka NICOC.

I homeschooled my son, but fortunately for him, I had already left the COC. So despite remaining a Christian (Methodist), I considered myself a “secular homeschooler.”

I grew up in a very old congregation established in the 1860's, they would have been more of a splinter org, ultra conservative. I found disfellowshipping me that late odd as well, it's like being fired from a job 2 years after you quit. I had actually moved to a different congregation and attended there before I stopped going, when the original church heard I wasn't attending they disfellowshipped me because I hadn't "notified" them I would no longer be a member.

Wow. I wouldn't have thought a coc congregation even existed from that long ago and was still in existence in the first place. So - wow.

Welcome to the 'ex' board. There is a lot of variety here; feel free to explore and comment - you can resurrect old threads any time you want.

Welcome, Joshua!! It is indeed an honor to have you here with us. I look forward to hearing more of your story.

Welcome! I know you are going to have some interesting stories.

Your story about the delayed disfellowship reminded me of something from my own past. After I started attending an LCMS church regularly, I visited some family and was invited to preach at their little CoC in KY. I did. Later on, some nosey individual called a third party to check up on me for some reason and discovered I was not active in the CoC anymore or at that time. There are people who still haven't forgiven me for preaching that sermon and it's been 7 years. The best part is, one man actually admitted it was really good but it was still wrong of me to do.

Shane R wrote:Welcome! I know you are going to have some interesting stories.

Your story about the delayed disfellowship reminded me of something from my own past. After I started attending an LCMS church regularly, I visited some family and was invited to preach at their little CoC in KY. I did. Later on, some nosey individual called a third party to check up on me for some reason and discovered I was not active in the CoC anymore or at that time. There are people who still haven't forgiven me for preaching that sermon and it's been 7 years. The best part is, one man actually admitted it was really good but it was still wrong of me to do.

Hopefully they learned something from your message.