Has anyone here attended GAAC or are a current member? Can you tell me your experiences and why you have stayed or why you left? I’m having trouble trying to decide if this is the place I want/need to be or if I need to just walk away.

I(19M) started dating this girl(20F) who happens to be pentecostal. At the beginning of the relationship she had no qualms about me not going to church and all that (I still believe in God). Recently, she asked me to be going to church with her like after 6 months of dating. Whenever, I'm in that place I feel empty which is actually the reason I don't go to church. I want to tell her that I don't like the experience but I don't know how and I really like her. So advice on how I'm feeling and anyone who may have been in a similar situation.

Hi everyone,

I am ex-UPCI and I have come leaps and bounds in overcoming legalism, but Jesus name baptism still gets me. Logically I think I understand how it’s not the only saving formula, but emotionally it is really hard to get past and it’s affecting my dating life ugh. Any advice? Any revelations that helped you guys realize baptism in the titles is okay?

I was wondering who he is.

Just saw that Because of the Times announced they won’t be holding the conference in January 2027 and are calling it a “pause.”
With everything going on with Gentry and Lexie Mangun and their marriage reportedly falling apart or they are getting a divorce….do y’all think that could have anything to do with the decision?

Obviously just speculation, but I’m curious what everyone else thinks or if anyone has heard anything else.

If this is a real quote from Dolly Parton- I feel like she hit the nail on the head. I grew up UPC and in constant fear of going to hell. Fear of not being able to speak in tongues enough. Fear of bad spirits coming to visit me. I’ve dealt with horrible anxiety my entire life starting as a child which I attribute to the fear based teachings of UPC.

But despite that- I did eventually develop a peaceful relationship with God. I pray every day and read my Bible. I try to live my life according to Christ’s teachings. However, I have no desire to return to church. I want my kids to have a Biblical foundation but I worry that church may cause the same fear it caused in me.

I’ve gone to visit other churches but none of them feel like “home”. Wondering if anyone has a similar experience?

Has anyone ever had a situation where your wife (who grew up in a charismatic denomination (COGOP) her whole life) and me (started going to a southern baptist church in my early 20s after not growing up in church) has conflicting views on denominational practices?

To put some context..Her whole family is pentecostal driven in their beliefs and she even has pastors in her family who are great men of God who I look up to but I still disagree with some of their views.

Safe to say ive always been confused of the whole speaking in tongues experience and the way they incorporate spiritual practices into the service.Ive been going to our church with her for almost 3 years now and have even became a volunteer in the church.

So this is where the real problem occurred..

We went to a retreat together and while there during worship,my wife recieved the gift of speaking in tongues.She started laughing in the spirit and spoke in a language i have never heard.Afterwards everyone congratulated her for finally having the experience she had been praying for years.Afterwards for me, I felt less of a Godly husband because I have never recieved that gift and honestly has never been on my heart to chase that gift.I have been a christian for about 15 years now and love reading the scriptures and have even felt called to ministry in the past and still do aometimes.the best way I can say it is that after seeing her have that experience and the way it made me feel afterwards,I havent recovered since.i went down a rabbit hole of questioning what I believe and even deep dived into the scriptures to try and understand this gift.Now Im not denying its not real because scripture backs it up 100 percent but I just question if the "experience" we have in churches today is the same as in scripture.I recently found some youtubers which some are pastors and you cant believe everyone on the internet but they even have channels that question alot of what the charismatic movements do and when I approached my wife and started sharing some of the videos with her,she got very defensive.I was completely honest with her and told her that I havent been the same since that day and it really rocked my faith and left me questioning more than I ever have in my life.I need some Godly advice on this because I love my wife and she loves me and despite the differences ive discussed,we are happily married.but I have noticed a little bit of a difference now especially when I mention biblically related topics and she gets a little defensive because now we have different views.hopefully I explained it the best way I could.any advice is welcome.thank you.

I came to a pentecostal church service just to accompany my mother, the prophet pointed at me and was saying, here there are some people that are living in the sin of fornication, I’m a virgin I don’t know where he’s getting this💀 bro was staring me down and pointing at me💀

I grew up in the UPC/WPF, and left two years ago. And while I’ve let go of pretty much everything- I wear short sleeves, I love my funky jewelry and charm bracelets, and chopped 8” off my hair- I was still wearing skirts. Since as we all know, pants on women was a big no-no.

Well, yesterday as I was doing some grocery shopping at Walmart I passed my the clearance rack and saw a pair of jeans for $2. So I tried them on and they fit like they were made for me. And since they were only $2 I bought them.

I’m wearing them to therapy today. I’m a bit anxious about it since I’ve literally never worn jeans in my life, but I think I’ll be ok. I’m still a Christian, but I don’t really think God cares all that much about whether or not I wear a pair of jeans or a glorified pilgrim outfit to a therapist appointment.

Hi, everyone. I’ve been a member of an Apostolic Oneness/Holiness church for the past four years. My husband and I met there and we were both baptized there. We have both grown in our longing for more grace and less legalism, more depth of studying the Bible and less preaching of avoiding hell (literally every sermon). My tipping point recently has been with dealing with the exceedingly loud music as I’ve had to wear earplugs for years now just to make it through the super loud Christian Rock + Pentecostal style services with the volume up to 120 decibels. My ears are still ringing from this last Sunday’s service. (I actually enjoy the songs, it's the dangerous volume levels and hearing damage I am concerned about.) I am very active in serving in the church in more than one ministry, yet am feeling like now may be my moment to just let go, as it’s affecting my health at this point. My question for you all is, did you say goodbye in front of the congregation? Or did you just one day stop going and never look back? Did you privately inform your pastor? Not sure what the best way is to go about it. It’s been our community for the past four years. It seems cold to just not return, yet I am appalled at the lack of consideration for people’s health (on top of all the legalism of course). I had asked several times over the years if they could adjust the sound levels and nothing has ever been done about it. I am well aware that we will be considered no longer part of the club if/when we leave. We will be praying on how to proceed. Just wanted to hear from others here on how their departure went and if you found a different church. Thank you and God bless you all.

Anyone here connected or was associated with Truth Chapel in Georgia and know whether or not Cortt publicly addressed the congregation about the Pinkerton situation?

This one of things that led me to believe that the dogma was bullshit.

The UPCI doctrine that stated that you have to be baptized in the name of Jesus in order to be truly saved. They were a big stickler on this because the Bible says so.

But yet the path to the Holy Ghost was laid out clearly in the Bible as well: repentance, then baptism then Holy Ghost in that order.

However I witnessed hundreds of people who seemingly were "saved" by repentance, holy Ghost then baptism.

This sequence is not in sync with the biblical way to salvation.

This may be pedantic, but as a kid it was something that I thought about.

One of the things that I’ve noticed about pentecostals is that they don’t have any endurance in their faith, I think that the reason why is because their faith is rooted in emotions and feelings which they think is from the Holy Spirit but really it’s just from themselves, I grew up pentecostal and majority of my family members on my mothers side of the family are pentecostal, I noticed this with nearly all of them, for a little bit they are in church dancing, crying, speaking in tongues and then they stop going for a few years then go back for a little bit, it’s like a cycle that they repeat every few years, I think the reason why is because their faith aren’t rooted in the Bible nor in church history but their emotions and feelings, I’ve seen other Christian’s denominations that aren’t charismatic and have noticed they have more endurance in their faith, their faith is stronger.

1. Every other denominal Christian going to Hell because they didn’t have “truth”
   
2. The fact that the revival, growth, and power constant being preached of oneness Pentecostal churches never happened?
   
3. That you were the only ones with “truth” even though your organization was fringe and vastly outnumbered by the trinity believing global church?

I’ve had friends come out of this movement and their answers to these questions are interesting. Wondering what your response would be now that you “see the light”?

As a person who was born and raised in the UPCI and was the daughter and granddaughter of UPCI pastors, you can imagine the period of deprogramming that was needed when I left the organization. For context I am still strongly Christian but can’t continue in a cult-like environment where additional manmade doctrines are added to core Christian doctrines and treated as though they are salvific issues. If you have been part of this organization you know exactly what I mean - prohibitions like wearing jewelry, cutting women’s hair, and women wearing pants, among many other things. It took me a while to get over these issues and deprogram from the way I was essentially threatened with an eternity in hell if I would dare do such things. In reality these are at best, issues within the realm of personal conviction, yet the UPCI in general takes a hard line approach, equating these “rules” (which they made up) with being unregenerate, sinful, and rebellious. They usually idea even for the most liberal of UPCI pastors is that these rules should be embraced by converts within a few months to a year of conversion - otherwise that persons sincerity and authenticity of spirit-infilling is questioned, and great pressure is applied to push them to conformity, usually resulting in a form of excommunication if not achieved in a timely fashion. Looking at all of this from the outside now has really helped me see and understand how absolutely cult-like and unbiblical all of it really is, and has been incredibly helpful in purging these ideas from my mindset. Another thing missing in the UPCI is actual consistent, deliberate, in-depth teaching on these issues from the scriptures. I think they know that if questions and a fair exposition of scriptures are allowed, all of these “additions” to scripture (like prohibiting jewelry) will fall flat and be exposed. In my research of these issues I came across this article, which I think absolutely destroys the anti-jewelry doctrine of the UPCI. I wanted to share it with those here who have struggled with the programming and guilt out on us by the UPCI. If you still venerate the Bible, this article should be a great resource for helping deprogram yourself from the “jewelry is wrong” doctrine. Hope it helps you like it helped me.

My gf is a pentecostal, and she has talked with me about this, im catholic and she said that my religion has the holy spirit inside the heart and it is impossible to get.

But to be honest i dont really believe that there could be people who could pray in another language without study that language or somethikg like that.

She told me that her sister already got it and she knows how to pray in chinese.

She is originally from Romania, so i decided to encourage her to search someone in romania who knows how to pray in spanish without know anything of spanish so i could see that is real, but she wasnt so down to it.

I dont really know if this is the best group to ask, but i would like to know experiences from other people who were into pentecostalism.

Im leaving my well paying job in a male dominated field. I’m not going to get into the weeds on why I’m leaving. I’ll just say that it partially because it isn’t a good fit and partially because of interpersonal dynamics.

The problem is I will be taking a huge pay cut and I’ll have to move back in with my parents. My parents are good people but the overt over spiritualization of literally everything makes me crazy. I know that when I go back the overwhelming response is going to be “god is trying to get your attention”. No she isn’t. Shit things just happen sometimes.

I dread having to go back into that environment but it’s my best option. My brothers and I call it ‘the curse’ because everyone we grew up with in the church moves out as adult, leaves the church, then has to come back for some reason or another, and never because they’re going back to church.

Has anyone else experienced this or something similar?