Did you mourn leaving the UPC?

[Walk and Talk]

Originally Posted by tater

I did not leave a UPC church, I left a charismatic/shepherding church. Although they were trinitarian there were many similarities with OP churches that I've heard about. They had the same ideas about not questioning authority. They had a powerful peer pressure to force their beliefs on you. There would be no one saying I had lost my salvation because I left that church, however, it definitely meant to most that I was leaving the "cutting edge of God's move on the Earth today" in so many words. It also meant I was probably backsliding to many.
It would have been hard to leave a few years before I did, for any reason, because I was swallowing all they taught completely. It wasn't hard to leave when I did because I'd become convinced that the manipulation/intimidation were wrong. Real friends do not try to manipulate and intimidate so the group had stopped being my friends and then I left.
That group has ceased to exist anymore ending a 35 or 40 year presence in that town of that movement (shepherding/CGM/Ft. Lauderdale 5). There were many in our church that left before and after I did.
I am now happy being part of a local small Southern Baptist Church. No, I don't agree with everything taught there but there certainly is freedom for me to disagree without having the label of "rebellious" or "backslider". I'm really liking that.

Wonderful.
Been there, done that; so I can relate.