Visiting Other Churches

[MusicMan826]

One thing I remember about growing up in the CoC is the constant nagging and pressuring to invite your friends to church with you...if you didn't bring any friends to church with you, people would ask questions and make you feel like you weren't doing a good job at "bringing people to Christ". But of course, if any of your friends invited you to their church, you always had to tell them NO.

This always bothered me. I dated a couple girls in high school, and both of them came to church with me a few times. They stopped coming once I was never allowed to go to their church, and of course people advised me that I should move on from them if they weren't willing to "come to Christ". I brought two of my baptist friends with me once during vacation bible school. One of the elder's wives sat right there and started bashing baptists and their beliefs right there in front of them...I was mortified, and they obviously never came back. Yet when I was invited to their church, I always had to tell them no.

I always heard the excuse, "We don't miss our church for another church." yet we expected everyone else to miss their church to come to ours. I wasn't even allowed to go to any of my friends' churches for a revival, special service or vacation bible school, even though the time didn't interfere with our church times. "They don't teach the truth!" I was told then. I always wondered how we supposedly knew so much about what these other denominations believed if we were never allowed to go to their church...of course in later years I would come to find out that the majority of things I was taught about denominations were either flat out lies or exaggerations to make them sound bad.

Did anyone else experience this? I was always embarrassed enough whenever any friend of mine came to our church (that should have told me something right there...I knew at an early age that the COC was strange...), but then I always hated having to turn them down when I was invited to their church. And I was expected to tell them, "Your church doesn't teach the truth, I'm just trying to teach you the truth!" Yeah, it never happened...I just told them that my parents wouldn't allow me to go to their church, and yet the CoC wonders why people rarely brings their friends from outside of "the one true church" with them...

[FinallyFree]

When I was growing up, I was never allowed to visit other churches. I did have a couple of friends come to church and VBS with me, but I did have one Baptist friend whose mother would never let her. (I guess she knew about the CofC!) When I was a little girl in the '60s and early '70s, I remember the whole focus of church was saying how everyone else was wrong. That was all I got out of it. I do think that changed later, though. Looking back, I was never really happy. I just thought something was wrong with me.
Now that I am in a different church, I totally feel differently and understand the concept of grace. I don't constantly judge everyone and look down on them. I feel free, happy and at peace.

[Lev]

I would submit that very few "converts" to the COC are actual converts to the Christian faith. To me it seems that most have simply been poached from other denominations. Of course, the COC rhetoric does not reflect this reality. To convert someone from another denomination to the COC is seen as converting them to Christ.

Lev

[B.H.]

I went to a few Baptist Church vbs's and an Assembly of God vbs and worship service once as a small child. The reasoning behind it was that I was small and it wouldn't hurt because anything taught was just basic stuff along with games and puppets. I never did see the devil peeking from the behind the corner.

[faithfyl]

I wanted to attend Young Life (Christian organization for teenagers) when I was a kid and my parents said no way. I had attended one time with a friend and really enjoyed it. I would like to know if there's one in my area because I think my daughter would like it in a few years from now.

[agricola]

'They don't teach the truth!' and 'You know the truth, you don't need to hear anything the denominations have to say'.

Yep, heard that often enough, any time the subject came up. I was supposed to invite THEM but in no way shape or form would I ever be given the okay to visit THEIR church.

The nearest similar thing was - you remember all those forms we had to fill out at school every year, and it asked you to check a box for 'Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, other'? I was instructed to check 'other' and write in 'Christian'. (I never did that, I always checked 'Protestant' and felt guilty).

The base message for both those messages was that we were completely and totally different.

Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, you know.
Keep yourself unspotted from the world (going to denomination was inevitably getting spotted).
Not all those that call Lord, Lord....
The few, the proud, the saved - that was us. And not all of us, either.

[Lev]

The few, the proud, the saved - that was us. And not all of us, either.

Nice conflation of theology and patriotism! Another hallmark of the COC and similar fundamental American churches. "My God-given right to bear arms..." Sheesh.

Lev

[williamray123]

My grandparents on my Dad's side were baptists. My mom's parents were CoC and she had converted my dad after years of nagging him to come to CoC. My baptist grandparents asked us to come to their revival - small baptist church in Tennessee in the late 1970s - I was around 8 or 9. I honestly don't remember if we were told not to sing out with the organ or I was already so brainwashed I knew instinctively not to but I have a memory of me, my parents and siblings standing there mute with weird looks on our faces while the rest of the congregation sang. Seems like we just should have gone if we were going to make it weird.

[onward]

My grandparents on my Dad's side were baptists. My mom's parents were CoC and she had converted my dad after years of nagging him to come to CoC. My baptist grandparents asked us to come to their revival - small baptist church in Tennessee in the late 1970s - I was around 8 or 9. I honestly don't remember if we were told not to sing out with the organ or I was already so brainwashed I knew instinctively not to but I have a memory of me, my parents and siblings standing there mute with weird looks on our faces while the rest of the congregation sang. Seems like we just should have gone if we were going to make it weird.

Change the state from Tenneessee to California and everything you wrote matches my experience visiting non CoC groups. Even your history of Baptists on Dad's side, and CoC on mom's side. I will always regret it was my efforts that swayed my Dad over to the CoC persuasion .. not proud of that!

[Tsathoggua]

My mom never made a big deal of it -- I attended Baptist, Methodist, Catholic and Pentecostal services with friends every once in a while. She was COC, but not extremist / fanatic -- I think she always had a problem with the "We are the only true church" crap.