My parents were never really super-religious. My sister and I were in childrens chior and Sunday school. We went to Vacation Bible School in the summer and also to church camp. We stopped going to church for awhile up until i was 15. My parents were having marriage problems and my dad decided that we needed to start going back to church. I started going to the youth sunday school classes. The people were all really nice to me and I needed friends. Eventually, I started going on Wednesday nights to the youth meetings. They were a lot of fun. one wednesday night, i decided to get saved. i was listening to a speaker one night and for some reason, it hit me. i was a shitty person. i had been living all those years without truly knowing God. i was going to hell. i looked around and saw all of my new friends and decided that i wanted to be like them. i wanted to know what it was like to experience god like that. i wanted to be good. i broke down crying in the service (as a lot of people did) and one of the youth leaders took me aside to talk to me. that night i asked jesus into my heart. i took everything i had done very seriously. i wanted to be a part of that group. i wanted to know that i wasnt going to die and go to hell. i tried so hard to be a better person, but it always seemed like i wasn't doing enough. i started attending church everytime the doors were open. i read my bible everyday. i told other people about my god. i used to really get depressed that i wasnt doing enough. i spent as much time as i could talking to the youth ministers about what was going on. i really trusted these people. they would tell me things like i couldnt call myself a real christian if i associated with non-christians. my very best friend at the time did not go to my church and i was encouraged to start bringing her or stop hanging out with her. i got baptized a couple of months after i 'got saved'. i satyed involved with the church and even went on the spring break ski trip. when i returned from the trip, i found out that my mom had left my dad two days before i got back. i was devastated. i didnt know what else to do, so i turned to my church friends. i became so involved with my church and my friends from church, that i was never home. i could trust those people and i knew that they cared about me because i was their sister in christ. i became involved with what they called 'disciple now weekends'. basically they were weekend long brainwashing sessions. families from the church would offer to host a group of church kids in their home for a weekend long bible study. each group was assigned a youth minister. our parents were told to drop us off at the host family's house on friday evening. if we had cars, we werent allowed to bring them, because we werent allowed to leave all weekend. we couldnt make phone calls or have anyone outside the group over to visit. the weekend was devoted to hours of intense bible study. it would often last until 2 or 3 in the morning. the only time we would leave the host home was when we would go out to witness to people. it was mentally exhausting. i went to those every time they had them up until my senior year. after that, i started to see that the church wasnt all it had once been. i got tired of hearing my friends judge other people for thier actions. i loved everyone, i didnt think i was better than other people just because i was a christian. i started to go out with my old friends again. my church friends did not like that at all. when i lost my virginity, i told one of my friends from church. she swore that she wouldnt tell anyone, but i started notice the looks i was receiving from my other church friends. the first time i tried pot, somehow it got back to everyone at the church. i was an outcast after that. they wouldnt talk to me at all. it really hurt me that all of the people who had once been so close to me could turn their backs on me overnight. ive never been to church since. when ive told my story to other people who claim claim to be christians i get one of two responses. #1...i must have never truly been a christian. had i been a true christian, i would have never left the church. and #2...all of my friends and ministers from church were not really christians. if they were, they would have helped me rather than turn their backs on me. as far as im concerned, i was doing everything i was supposed to do. most of my time was devoted to being a christian. how was i never truly saved? the one thing that i dont understand to this day is who the christians really are. if i wasnt one, and all the people at church weren't christians, where are the real ones? the people at my church were very judgemental, racist, homophobic, sexist, and they particularly enjoyed using the fear of hell and being left behind in the rapture as tools for winning souls. most other churches that i have ever visited are the same way. why would i want to associate myself with a group like that?

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