Self Help Book Suggestion?

[missourimary]

SeekerOne, it will get better. But it is a really hard transition. I wonder sometimes how many "backsliders'' were simply struggling that we pushed out with our self-righteousness and shunning. Who is a person to turn to when their friends and family desert them?

I have a book called Thank You [for Being Such a Pain]. I've never read the book, but the title has been a huge encouragement.

[missourimary]

Originally Posted by coadie

You gave a very vivid example. I had an employee with an issue with a person outside my company. I helped her innitiate with the other party and they cried and became best friends. Neither lady knew how to approach it and I helped one break the ice. They became friends.

Ah, and these two were from the same Pentecostal church and one still attended and the other did not? One was in a group that shunned the other individual?

You call Rick Ross a self-proclaimed expert?

[coadie]

Originally Posted by missourimary

Ah, and these two were from the same Pentecostal church and one still attended and the other did not? One was in a group that shunned the other individual?

You call Rick Ross a self-proclaimed expert?

He has a criminal history and his stuff is nearly 100% just googling the web for stories. Ross has his one man business/appartment hidden because of some court cases he lost.

He does claim to have handled deprogramming cases.

[missourimary]

Coadie: http://www.nndb.com/people/265/000091989/

SeekerOne: You might want to check into articles dealing with ostracism or teen pressures and bullying from a purely secular standpoint. Even reading novels or watching movies about how people deal with these issues might help. (To Save a Life is one example of a movie that deals with this issue.) Reaching out to others who have also been shunned also helps, as long as those people don't continuously express anger and bitterness toward those who've wronged them.

http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotion...dvice_for_Kids)
http://www.doxtop.com/browse/89d4b03...ial-death.aspx

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by SeekingOne

I don't want this post to start another series of attacks on the UPC way of shunning. It is terrible and wrong for sure, but what we need is a way to help those that have left such movements and their only "sin" is leaving the cult and living for God.

Just for the record, there isn't a "UPC way of shunning". There may be individual churches/pastors that do that, but it's not something that is unique to the UPC or necessarily a UPC thing.

Are there UPCs that do it? Yes and it's sad. My experience though has been the reverse, people that have left shun us for whatever reason. Personally I just brush it off. If I were to leave a church like that I would find another church family and when I run into those folks I would remind myself not to take it personally but feel sorry for those individuals who are so jacked up.

I don't know of any book out that there that deals with this specifically from the stand point of how to get over it. To me "getting over" stuff just seems to be a natural process of time and will

[SeekingOne]

Originally Posted by coadie

This is funny. I would stir things up. Actually if it was me, I would walk right back into that church and initiate a little conversation. That is the last thing they would expect. I attend a good sized church so shunning doesn't work very well if anyone thought of trying it. Too many people would forget the long list of people they shouldn't talk to.

You can't walk into this church. It is not open to you unless you are a member. They have "guards" at the entrance to the property and in the foyer of the building they meet at. Sound like a cult yet? Funny thing is, the community thinks they are sweet wonderful people, because they are. The public only knows how sweet they are, they don't know what actually goes on.

[coadie]

Originally Posted by SeekingOne

You can't walk into this church. It is not open to you unless you are a member. They have "guards" at the entrance to the property and in the foyer of the building they meet at. Sound like a cult yet? Funny thing is, the community thinks they are sweet wonderful people, because they are. The public only knows how sweet they are, they don't know what actually goes on.

Amazing. Can you walk out?

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by SeekingOne

You can't walk into this church. It is not open to you unless you are a member. They have "guards" at the entrance to the property and in the foyer of the building they meet at. Sound like a cult yet? Funny thing is, the community thinks they are sweet wonderful people, because they are. The public only knows how sweet they are, they don't know what actually goes on.

And this is a UPC?

[SeekingOne]

Originally Posted by coadie

Amazing. Can you walk out?

Oh sure, but if you leave, you leave family and friends forever. The people that shun you hurt as much as you do, because they miss you and love you and think you are going to hell. There isn't anyone to be mad at, just a whole lot of pain. I have been there, I know.

[SeekingOne]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

And this is a UPC?

No, they left the UPC and started their on gig. They expanded the UPC stuff and added a whole lot of their own rules about how to get to heaven.