Evergreen Experience (Part I)

Lisa1863

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Evergreen Experience (Part I)

« on: March 13, 2018, 08:04:44 am »

Hello - This is my first time posting to the forum, but I feel compelled to share my experience at Evergreen Community Church. This experience has affected my life tremendously, and though it has been over 15 years since I left the church, the years of spiritual abuse I was subject to, changed who I was as a person and stripped me of my faith.

I first starting going to EC around 1993. I was raised Lutheran, but stopped going to church after being confirmed at age 15. I had always been skeptical in my beliefs and by the time I graduated for law school in 1992, I considered myself an Atheist. I suffered from clinical depression most of my life, and was dealing with a particularly difficult time. I started seeing a therapist and began to deal with the sexual assaults I had suffered over the course of my lifetime. I was also diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. I had always dealt with trust issues and isolation which had gotten much worse. I also was waffling with my faith in God. My therapist suggested I seek out a church setting to help me with overcoming some of my issues. I believe she referred to it as a "safe place to learn how to trust people." I had a friend who attended EC and she brought me to a service in Bloomington. I was encouraged by the nature of the service (very unlike my prior church experiences) and intrigued by the teachings. Bible interpretation had always interested me and I wanted to find out more about EC. I attended several more sessions and was impressed by how welcoming everyone seemed to be.

I decided to seek some counseling with one of the pastors and was directed to a particular person (I am not going to call out anyone specifically, but if telling my story makes it apparent who that was, I can't avoid it.) I met with that pastor at his home and was requested to bring a friend to the meeting, which I did. During the meeting, I talked about some of my past experiences and my struggle with my faith. We met a couple more times which proved to be helpful to me.

When the new location opened in Plymouth, I immediately began going to church there, as it was much closer to my home. The start-up congregation was very small and the members became close very quickly. It was a great environment for me given my trust issues and PTSD. I continued to receive counseling from the same pastor and became very close to he and his wife. I babysat their children and spent a lot of time at their home. I also attended the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with the pastor's family. I asked them both upfront if I was just a project to them, because I had heard the rumors about church members "saving" people and then moving on to the next non-believer. I was told that I was definitely not a project and that they considered me their sister (I wasn't sure what that meant exactly, but I was convinced I would be friends with them going forward). I began to trust them more deeply and shared very specific and vulnerable details of my assaults with both of them. I was still getting counseling from the pastor, who was then fully aware of the complicated struggles I was facing. I had been told that he was the "counseling pastor" and I assumed he had some education in that area, but I didn't ask the question, which was a failure on my part. My depression got significantly worse and I was told to believe and pray more so that it would be alleviated.

I threw myself "all in" and became more involved in the church. I joined a singles small group and started to make solid friendships. Soon, I felt like I had become a member of a whole new family. I let myself trust my new friends and started to believe that God was now a part of my life. I went through the whole saving and baptism process. I still had some serious questions about the bible and its truth, but I did think that God existed and I now had a place to go to seek comfort.

Some of the things that did concern me about the church were the responses I got whenever I questioned the teachings of the pastors. This came from the pastors themselves and from other church members. I was comfortable being assertive about discussing my contrary views with respect to all aspects of my life, and didn't hold back at EC. However in this situation, I was told flat out that the pastors knew how to interpret the bible and were correct in their views. Anytime I questioned the validity of the pastors (ex. that they didn't have a seminary background), I was shut down and told to just believe they knew what they were doing. I was also told not to spend time with my non-christian friends if I had tried to save them and they had resisted. This included my sister who I was very close with. Luckily she and my other two close friends wouldn't let me push them away, but I did try and spend less time with them. I was told to focus on my Christian friends instead, which I also did.

Everything seemed to be going along great - until I was sexually assaulted in my apartment parking garage in January of 1996. I immediately told a friend from church who called the pastor and his wife. When I talked to him, I told him I didn't want to report it to the police. This was because I didn't want others to find out about my past assaults. He talked to me and treated me with respect, but when I tried to talk to his wife about it, she was cold and distant. She started to distance herself from me immediately. I asked her about her actions but she told me her life had suddenly become very busy. Several weeks later, I confronted the pastor and was told the same thing. I knew there was dishonesty going on with them, but could not get a straight answer. Finally, I was told by the pastor that I had been a project and that it looked like I had been able to move forward and make new friends who could now help me. It was a devastating blow and I felt like I had been misled the entire time I had thought we were friends.

I told my church friends about what the pastor and his wife had done and I was called a liar and told that I was slandering them. They said they couldn't be around me if I said negative things about the pastor. Many started to drift away from me at that time, but some remained by me - although most of them wouldn't allow me to talk negatively about the pastor. I was told that "Satan" was misleading me and that I needed to spend more time to get right with God. Other friends backed away with no explanation at all.

In addition I was told by church members that God didn't protect me from being assaulted because I questioned my faith and didn't pray enough. They assured me it wouldn't have happened to them because they knew that God loved them and would never let that happen to them. These were the people who help me develop my faith and now I was being chastised (and punished in their minds) for not doing it correctly. Soon, my support system had dwindled down to a few people that I could still trust. None of these people were staunch EC supporters, so they believed what I was saying about the church.

I tried to talk to another pastor about what was happening and was told he couldn't even hear what I wanted to say because it would be slandering the pastor. I then contacted two additional pastors who said the same thing. I was also told that when there was a conflict, many people chose to leave the church and they had wished them well. I was appalled at their lack of accountability and that they had no system for members to resolve complaints in the church.

Many months later, the pastor's wife told me that the reason she had backed away was that she hadn't believed I had been sexually assaulted. She said she didn't tell me before because she thought she would be talking to a fool, which I assume meant that I wasn't a true believer. She also said that she had prayed to God to show her that I had been assaulted and He hadn't done it, which indicated I was lying about what happened. I felt like I was immersed in some surreal universe where God was accusing me of lying. The only conclusions I could draw were that God was lying, she was lying or it hadn't happened. None of which made any sense to me.

I believe it was at that point where my already weak faith was destroyed.


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wisemind

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