“Church.” For years, that word made me cringe. It did so due to the association it had with many painful events in my life.

I was “born into” (meaning, I didn’t have a choice - it was just how I was raised) a particular Christian denomination — one of the countless denominations. To be specific, the church group I was raised in is called the Plymouth Brethren Assemblies. My family influence in this church went back to my great-grandparents. While I still have good and healthy relationships with many people that attended and still attend there, my experience there as a child was far from healthy.

(I will say as a disclaimer that other assemblies may not be like this, but I can only comment on what I experienced, so this is my first-hand experience)

Aren’t Christians supposed to love? Supposed to have grace and mercy? Well, I was taught how to hate. I was taught how to judge. I was taught how to criticize everyone different than me. Every other denomination in Christendom was wrong — WE were somehow the few hundred people in the world that got it right. (note the dripping sarcasm there?)

We all were very clearly taught how to mock other denominations, condemn people to hell (ha!), laugh/joke about severe violence to homosexuals, etc… Aside from the inner turmoil it created, I was bullied on a fairly regular basis. Kindness seemed to evade these “Christ-like members” (read: not all, but enough to impact my life).

During my childhood, I was also home-schooled with a curriculum from none other than Bill Gothard — have fun reading about all of his “recent allegations”. My parents did a good job in raising me in a home that felt safe, but I could still see the rigorous, rule-based system creating a world of confusion, exhaustion and overall lack of true life-giving Christianity.

My early schooling along with church influence definitely created a pretty hard-nosed, critical, hurt and frustrated person. When I turned 14, I attended Fourth Baptist Christian School, which was the absolute worst two years of my life. The bullying was severe, the cruelty was constant - the daily passive-aggressive spiritual abuse from the teachers and staff was damaging to my soul. I literally felt traumatized after attending this school (I’d have nightmares every night for many years afterwards), and countless other former students echo the same experience. God was NOT in this place.

A few years after high school, I attended the official college for the Plymouth Brethren church group; Emmaus Bible College. From day one, I could tell that this would be a very difficult experience. The cliques, hypocrisy and general “lack of love” just continued to hammer home that God was a wrath-filled, cruel, hate monger and that his followers were evil, back-biting, loveless lemmings.. I only lasted one semester before leaving this school…. there was one amazing, shining, beautiful take-home from this college, however: this is where I met my wife, Laura!

My church…. homeschooling experience…. high school…. college….. all of it weighed so heavy on my heart. I felt like God was there somewhere but could not seem to see or find him anywhere. So much judgement, hurt, pain and sadness…. was God there? Did He exist? Did He care? Did this thing have a male gender? Was there even a deity at all?

Oh yeah — starting in 2003 until present time, I started experiencing a complete breakdown of my health, living in pain (primarily joint/muscle) 24/7. This just compounded all of the frustration and emotional torment I was experiencing.

Over the years, I’ve read from countless others that had similar upbringings where a traumatic life event such as divorce, loss or a health crisis really served as an impetus for bringing about real change.

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At this point, I’ll let this video do the talking… on December 22, 2019, I had the opportunity to share my story at an Advent church service (with nearly 1,000 people) at the church we currently attend - Church of the Open Door.

Update: If you read some of my later blog posts, you’ll note a continue pattern of growth and movement as I forge ahead on life’s journey and attempt to live a truthful life.

In 2008, when we left the church and I started my voracious reading, these were the books that tremendously impacted me. I read them in this particular order.

Influential Books:

When I ventured into studying Greek/Hebrew to learn about original text/context, Blue Letter Bible was and is incredibly valuable.