Did you also have a difficult childhood in the LC?

[ISeeCrazyPeople]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Your story about being gripped with fear when it was your turn to "pray-read" at the SSOT reminds me of going to "confession" in Catholic school. This horrible fear gripped me as my time drew near. I wanted to run! I survived by making up the whole thing. Unfortunately coersion like this do little for one's faith in the Lord. Never helped me, but did help to deliver me from the Catholic Church.

To be honest, your parents seemed much stricter than those I knew in the LC. None of them were hesitant about church activities, except when there was conflict with summer camps. My kids looked forward to seeing their friends again in other LC's, and would try to sneak off to have fun during the long meetings, depending on the speaker. Fortunately, some of the speakers were quite talented, with a great sense of humor, and entertaining for young people. Folks at LSM hated this, however, and demanded that all the kids get force-fed with their endless books and doctrines.

Ohio,
Thanks for sharing your experience with growing up in the Catholic Church. I know some people who are Catholic who seem okay with it. Kind of like the LC. But either way, any church that makes people fearful is probably not good. I am learning more and more about spiritual abuse (though slowly).

And, since you mention it.. I truly remember some really good speakers that made learning things from the Bible fun and interesting while growing up in church. Usually at youth conferences. But, "fun" and "interesting" are also equal to worldly and sinful. It was a confusing thing. I think this was around the time I was also told that bringing people to God through fun and entertainment is wrong because they will be corrupted from the beginning. The bad soil produces bad fruit expression I was often told. So is it better to learn about God through really boring means that make no sense? Yes, I guess so.

Kids from my age group had this thing called a Xanga.. it was a webpage we all had back then. And I remember, there was this guy, from the LSM side, called "LORDSARMY".. it was a huge thing back 15 years ago. He called out young people and youth leaders for corrupting everyone at the church camps called "Mountain Top." He said it was "worldly, degrading, and sinful." He would post pictures from Mountaintop to make his point. Showing young people worshiping with electric guitars and doing other supposedly "sinful" things. I honestly thought everyone at Mountaintop was mostly a bunch of goody goodies, so can you imagine, me hearing from this guy that they were "sinful"?? Church life was a mess. Especially if you were young and naive like I was and didn't have a clue what was going on with the whole Titus quarantine thing.

I still don't really get that. If you are able to shed some light on it, I would appreciate it. I mean, this blog is for ex-LC people, so in my mind, the Titus side, and the LSM side are both not good. But I'm not sure how everyone else feels.

Thank you again