My family has exited the Philadelphia Church of God and all Church of God groups. We just fellowship at home now, and have no plans to ever join another corporate hierarchal church.

After two and a half years in PCG, I came to the frightening conclusion that I was further away from Christ than I had been on entry to the PCG. At that point, I tried to suspend myself as I wanted to spend time on my own with God, only to be told I could not suspend myself, only the minister could suspend me, and he was not going to do that as it was just "Satan" that was trying to "isolate me."

I was a woman alone at that time and it was very difficult for any woman alone to get treated with any respect for her own brainpower and spirituality. After another miserable year with the PCG, I had a very profound spiritual experience after seeking God for what His problem was with me. (At that point I was no longer interested in what the PCG ministry's problems with me were, since it seemed that everything that I said was twisted into something I had not said.) When I tried to explain to the minister what had come to me when I had sought God for His problem with me, the minister just
yelled and screamed at me that I had "Satan" getting at me again.

For the next couple of weeks I made health excuses for not attending services. Finally, during a heated telephone conversation in which the minister screamed at me once again, I resigned. The membership was falsely told I had been disfellowshipped (you are not allowed to resign). At first I was really upset about being out of "the Church" as I thought I was in trouble with God. But then the more I sought God, the more it started to dawn on me that just maybe it wasn't me, just maybe it was them. Words like "megalomaniacs"1 came to me, I had to look it up in a dictionary and was shocked at what I read. Then one time an answer came of "tired of being called of Satan." At that point I realized that many of these thoughts I had had that the minister told me were of "Satan" were coming directly from our Saviour whom I had felt so far from, yet all the time He was trying so hard to get me out of there. It brings tears to my eyes as I write to think how close He stayed to me while I was allowing myself to be bullied by these so called ministers.

A year after exiting PCG I married again. (My husband had attended WCG for a few years in the '80's but has never attended PCG.) A year after that we went to Living Church of God for awhile, but it did not take long to work out that this was just the same in so many ways as the PCG. So we did not stay long with them, once again after resigning, we found members in LCG were told we had been disfellowshipped.

Today we are happy to have a home fellowship with those who are trying, as we are, to sort the manmade doctrine from the true teachings of the Messiah. We have some beliefs in common, but not everyone we are in contact with believes exactly the same. It is refreshing to be able to discuss things with folk who don't get on high horses just because we don't agree with every word they say.

Ephesians 4:13 "Till we all come to unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ"

Sometimes it seems that sifting out the error will take forever, but we believe that we are being led closer to that narrow path each day, and feel much closer to our Creator than we ever did in a Church of God (COG).

We have been on our own for just over two years now and feel we have made more spiritual growth in that time than ever before. Slowly we are coming into contact with more and more scattered brethren, most of whom are carrying a large amount of baggage from the COG's, and we are thankful that we can be out here just having a small home fellowship.

Thank you so much for your help.

By Sylvia
September 30, 2005

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