BTW, my husband grew up in the Assemblies of God. There were a lot of problems in that denomination. About twenty years ago, his parents left the Assemblies of God after a major conflict with church politics, and didn’t attend ANY church for fourteen years because they were so disgusted with church
I was raised pagan, and took a break from paganism to attend an AoG church for about 2 1/2 years during my search for God. The AoG church I went to messed me up way more than I can convey here.
I had been dating a guy before I went to this church that beat on me. After he went to jail he started going to this church and claimed to me he was changed and that I should go. That’s how I got there. I was very involved in this church, teaching Sunday school and Wed night classes, I was there every morning for prayer, and nothing ever seemed like it was enough. A few months after joining this church the pastor informed me during prayer that if I didn’t marry this guy, I would be going to hell. By this point, I was (for lack of a better word) brainwashed. So I married the guy, even though I knew I shouldn’t. He was still beating me, and very abusive. The entire church knew he beat on me too, I’d show up with swollen eyes, cut lips, black eyes, bruises all over and I even told the pastor and others what was going on. You know what I was told? “Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord”, this was the general response to him beating me.
On top of that, whenever I had a question about the Bible (even though I was a Sunday school teacher), I was told “you’re a baby in Christ, you need milk, not meat”. We (most there at the church) were made to feel guilty constantly for anything we did that didn’t match up with what the pastor thought needed to be done. For instance, if we didn’t give more than 10% tithe, we were facing hell. If we didn’t believe just as the pastor said, we were facing hell. If we didn’t do as the pastor said, we were facing hell. It was exhausting trying to be perfect in the pastor’s eyes. Oh yes, I should mention, this was a “name it and claim it” word of life, type church. You know, the kind where they believe that you must give lots of money to the church so you can get rich. and if we spoke anything contrary to what the pastor said/believed, not only were we going to hell, but we were told “you can’t speak against God’s anointed”.
It got to a point with me that my ex, who I never felt I was really married to, tried to kill me and was chasing me with a knife to finish me off. I left him with the kids for our safety (I must mention, none of my kids were his, they were from a previous marriage). After fleeing to another state about 1000 miles away, he found me. At that point, I decided that if he was going to find me anyway, I was going back where I knew people, and file a protection order and divorce. During court, the entire church stood with him in court and I had nobody. I tried to still go to the church after the divorce, but I was treated awful as were my kids, we were pretty much shunned and treated like we were evil. At this point, because of how they were treating my kids mainly, we left the church (except for my oldest daughter who continued there until last April-that’s a subject for another thread though).
After I left the church, they even went so far as to kidnap my youngest son and hold him “until I returned to the church”. Needless to say, I called the police and got my son back fairly easy, but the police didn’t do anything to the church, just told them they weren’t allowed to take kids like that and slapped them on the wrist so to speak.
Because of all this “spiritual abuse” I left all churches, returned to paganism and witchcraft for years. It was only because of the Grace of God that I am in RCIA today. I guess God heard my cries even when I was with this abusive church and pity on me, so He drew me to the Catholic church, the church I believe is the True church.
So in reading what the OP said, I can’t understand why someone would want to go “backwards” from where I have been.
And for the person I quoted here, at least I know that the issues with the AoG was shared by others (your husbands parents), it makes me feel ‘not so alone’ in what I’ve been through.
OP, as someone else stated, there are charismatic Catholic services, I suggest you check them out before making your decision. I will pray for you.
Rachel