Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

Just an interesting topic. I think our COC experiences may have been different based on how we got there. Multiple answers are accepted.

Mother joined 'the true church' as a teen, and brought Daddy in when they got married - he was Christian Church/Disciples of Christ so it wasn't really a HUGE move.

My birth was announced in the weekly church bulletin - I'm 'born and bred' but not 'royalty' (i.e., multi-generational).

I really like that survey, Moogy. I selected the first option. I was the fourth generation on Mom's side. Maternal great-grands, grands, my mother, then me. Fourth generation, right? On Dad's side they were Christian Church members (Disciples of Christ, I think), and it seemed to me not very religious although they did believe. Dad was baptized into the cofc after my parents married, but fortunately for me (and for him) he never became really hard core. There were many arguments in my childhood home when Daddy would occasionally decide he didn't want to go to church at the next appointed time. I can laugh about it now, but it wasn't funny back then.

How I ended up in the coc is kind of odd I guess. The building was just three buildings away from my street as a child. I could see the back lot of the building from my front yard. I was 6 going on 7 at the time, and playing alone outside when I noticed the cars parking and wandered through two back yards and went in the back door to have a look around. Of course one of the adults saw me, and could only assume I was a neighborhood kid. I asked if I could stay and they took me back to my house to ask if it was OK. Mom said yes (probably just cause she wanted me out of the house for long enough to get a chore or two done without me bugging her). Guess she and dad didn't figure I'd want to go back on Sunday, but for whatever reason I did.

Flash forward 22 years and I'm talking with my then about 6 months away from dying dad. He admits to me the reason why they let me go to the church: It was so they could get me out of the house for a couple hours on a Sunday morning so they could have sex (which resulted in my little brother who came along when I was almost 12). He said what once my brother came and the fact he was tired of driving me to where the church had moved a mile and a half from the house, he was hoping I was bored and would quit. Unfortunately for him I wasn't, so he had to resort to the tactic of making a then 13 year old walk (and the building sat on a busy road right next to the expressway). Since the only friends I had were there, and I was naive to how things really were; I kept going. It wasn't until after his death that I finally started seeing the coc for what it is and slowly pulled away over the course of about 18 months.

shlybluz wrote:How I ended up in the coc is kind of odd I guess. The building was just three buildings away from my street as a child. I could see the back lot of the building from my front yard. I was 6 going on 7 at the time, and playing alone outside when I noticed the cars parking and wandered through two back yards and went in the back door to have a look around. Of course one of the adults saw me, and could only assume I was a neighborhood kid. I asked if I could stay and they took me back to my house to ask if it was OK. Mom said yes (probably just cause she wanted me out of the house for long enough to get a chore or two done without me bugging her). Guess she and dad didn't figure I'd want to go back on Sunday, but for whatever reason I did.

Flash forward 22 years and I'm talking with my then about 6 months away from dying dad. He admits to me the reason why they let me go to the church: It was so they could get me out of the house for a couple hours on a Sunday morning so they could have sex (which resulted in my little brother who came along when I was almost 12). He said what once my brother came and the fact he was tired of driving me to where the church had moved a mile and a half from the house, he was hoping I was bored and would quit. Unfortunately for him I wasn't, so he had to resort to the tactic of making a then 13 year old walk (and the building sat on a busy road right next to the expressway). Since the only friends I had were there, and I was naive to how things really were; I kept going. It wasn't until after his death that I finally started seeing the coc for what it is and slowly pulled away over the course of about 18 months.

Very bizarre story!

shlybluz wrote:How I ended up in the coc is kind of odd I guess. The building was just three buildings away from my street as a child. I could see the back lot of the building from my front yard. I was 6 going on 7 at the time, and playing alone outside when I noticed the cars parking and wandered through two back yards and went in the back door to have a look around. Of course one of the adults saw me, and could only assume I was a neighborhood kid. I asked if I could stay and they took me back to my house to ask if it was OK. Mom said yes (probably just cause she wanted me out of the house for long enough to get a chore or two done without me bugging her). Guess she and dad didn't figure I'd want to go back on Sunday, but for whatever reason I did.

Flash forward 22 years and I'm talking with my then about 6 months away from dying dad. He admits to me the reason why they let me go to the church: It was so they could get me out of the house for a couple hours on a Sunday morning so they could have sex (which resulted in my little brother who came along when I was almost 12). He said what once my brother came and the fact he was tired of driving me to where the church had moved a mile and a half from the house, he was hoping I was bored and would quit. Unfortunately for him I wasn't, so he had to resort to the tactic of making a then 13 year old walk (and the building sat on a busy road right next to the expressway). Since the only friends I had were there, and I was naive to how things really were; I kept going. It wasn't until after his death that I finally started seeing the coc for what it is and slowly pulled away over the course of about 18 months.

By the time you were 13 and the church relocated, did you feel like you would be lost if you didn't go? Did none of the good brethren there offer to pick you up so,you didn't have to walk?

In Agricola's words "born and bred, but not royalty." I was not from a multi-generational line. My family was first generation.

My immediate family (of origin) was (and still is) all coc, but none of the extended family was.

I can only imagine how immense the pressure to stay would be when in addition to parents and siblings, the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are all part of the fold as well.

One of the unfortunate aspects for my family is that this got us into the nasty habit of not only denigrating others (behind their back of course) who were bound for hell, but also our own family members (that is, the aunts, uncles, cousins) for their unbelief in the coc.

One of Daddy's brothers also married into the coc, so I had coc cousins on that side, and one of mother's sisters did the same - AND into the 'non-institutional' branch, AND he was a preacher! Another coc cousin.

My sister and my step-siblings and step-mom are all coc, still. My sister's kids - as far as I know they are still coc, although her daughter married 'out' (Catholic) so I'm betting that connection is probably 'lost to the church' if not already, then soon. My brother is firmly 'nothing', although he used to go to services with Daddy off and on, before Daddy died.

My coc-raised paternal cousins though - one is Methodist, one is Anglican, and one is Presbyterian: they didn't leave the coc for 'licentiousness' so much as they left for AUTHENTICITY. More power to them, in my opinion.

Mom's sister only had the one surviving daughter. We are only in sporadic touch but I think she is still coc. I don't think her kids are, though.

Uncle-the CoC-preacher: when they visited us, he wouldn't go to church with us - he would drive miles away to attend an NI church instead. I am pretty sure that is the very definition of NOT following the original plan of Campbell/Stone!

As I've noted in other posts. I'd never heard of the Church of Christ until both my wife & I ended up with our immediate supervisors being c of c. We had new jobs because we had recently relocated from another city.

My wife's supervisor talked her in having a Bible study with his preacher. We were happy Baptist at the time but ended up being baptized into the Lord's Church as a direct result of that Bible study.

My father joined the CofC as a teenager, but my mother was raised in it. My grandmother joined the CofC as a young adult. I remembering her commenting that what she did was so wonderful because she had a granddaughter and great grandchildren who were being raised "in the church". I often thought that it was very unfair to have my religious destiny decided by someone who only completed the 8th grade. Anyway, her son left after he got married and raised his daughters in no religion at all. When my mother found out we had joined the Christian Church, she said my father and grandmother would be rolling over in their graves.