For those that left the UPC...

[Sabby]

Originally Posted by Mirth1981

I never said that I struggled with standards. I was struggling with how to leave the UPC. That was the point of this thread. I wanted insight from those that had also left, because the organization makes it very difficult for people to leave without being mistreated.

And I did leave the UPC btw. And I have no regrets whatsoever that I'm not a part of that organization anymore. I feel relieved actually. So relieved.

Mirth,
I really appreciate your post. I am a former licensed member that left in the late '80s. In my case it was a cumulative effect. Let's just say it wasn't a good fit for me. While stationed in the military overseas I was baptized with the Holy Ghost. A couple of years later was working for the UPC with a Christian Worker's License and upon ETSing came to the states to go to Bible College. Graduated with a double major and hoped to re-enter the military as a military chaplain. I met Will Brewster overseas before he received his chaplaincy endorsement and it was an exciting time. The bloom soon fell off the rose, so to speak, after coming to the states. There was just SO much organizational politics and backbiting. Paul talked about it:
"But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another" Galatians 5:15
My wife and I were falsely accused by the pastor of "trying to split the church"...with no winessess, just hearsay. Needless to say, we were crushed and given no choice began attending a missions church in a neighboring town, minus the needed pastoral "blessing". When the home mission pastor refused to baptize some new converts because they weren't dressed (by they I mean the mom and the teen-aged daughter) right and in the service following quoted the scriptures together:
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" Mark 16:16 and
"Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." John 20
I thought it was time to "exit, stage right"