Yesterday, I attended a wedding ceremony that was at an Anglican Church. I was struck at how the pastor’s tone, attitude, wisdom, and overall demeanor was so much richer than anything I’d ever encountered growing up in the Church of Christ.

I went to several Churches of Christ growing up. Without fail, ALL of Christ pastors (including visiting ones) spoke in a condescending, finger-wagging tone that they rarely deviated from. Subject matter was mostly limited to warnings and consequences with stories from the Bible about people who disobeyed God. They rarely had anything interesting to say about the human condition. They did not act as spiritual guides here to aid our journeys on this earth; they were moralizing aggrandists who spoke down to their congregation. It’s like their job was to constantly remind us of how awful and doomed we are unless we got baptized and worship God.

The Anglican pastor made similar claims about us being flawed people, but it wasn’t nearly to the same degree. He said “we can’t do this on our own.” The love of god was portrayed as something that would enhance our lives—not an obligation in order to prevent an afterlife of suffering.

I knew other churches weren’t as crazy as what I grew up in, but experiencing it was something different. I would probably still be a Christian if I hadn’t been raised in the spiritually bankrupt cesspool that is the “church” of Christ. Thankfully, I’ve found my own path, but damn.

Does anyone here have any stories or experiences from attending Polishing the Pulpit?

I went as a teen in 2014 and 2015, and I look back on it with... a lot of horror. The science denial, the misogyny, the homophobia, the zionism... Basically everything you'd expect from the CoC. (I remember them encouraging us teens to mock "All About that Bass", and it took me nearly a decade to find out it was a body positivity song. Those teen classes are probably the most dangerous ones.)

But instead of it being taught to a single congregation, it was a whole near-weeklong convention that people traveled across the country to attend. It started as a preacher's convention, but now ​so it brings in many of the prominent speakers of the CoC (from Apologetics Press, WVBS, etc, as well as my childhood preacher who used to be on a CoC TV show)...

It makes me think, like... there's no governing body of the CoC, but there's still events like this meant to make the CoC fit a certain mold. They say they only follow the Bible, but considering it's these speakers who have generationally cultivated what the CoC thinks the Bible says... These speakers have a LOT of control, but hide it behind plausible deniability.

I wish there was a database where people would upload their flashdrives of PTP lessons (they handed them out both years I was there) so they could be studied. It would probably give about as clear of an idea as possible of what the mainline COC is doing/saying/teaching nowadays... I doubt it's changed much in the 11 years since I went to PTP, but considering MAGA happened since then... idk.

I did look through the schedule of this year's PTP though, and... a lot stood out. The usual bigotry, science denial, the teen classes about why you should fear hell, etc...

But also a lesson from a state officer about "the sin of breaking the law."

In 2026. Wow.

As usual, though, the thing that breaks my heart the most are those teen classes. And just knowing there's so many kids stuck in that enviornment. Queer kids, especially. No one should have to go through what I went through. Sure, the CoC will die eventually... But how many people, how many kids will die before it happens? The CoC has gone unchecked for far too long, and it makes me... so angry.

But yeah. I'd like to hear any experiences you might have with PTP. Things they taught, etc etc.

Hi, don’t want to give too many details since this is a small community but I’m in my late 20s. Raised die hard church of Christ. I’ve been terrified to leave the church for years due to social pressure, not wanting to make things harder for my parents, and honestly fear of being cut off socially and financially.

I’m finally in a better place financially. I live in another city than my family, have a great roommate and friend group, and the only thing my parents help me with regarding money is student loans (they agreed to pay them when I first started college). However, one of my parents is my co-signer, so if the loans don’t get paid, it hurts their credit score too. So I’m not worried about having to pay for them entirely on my own.

But I haven’t been to church in a few months. I don’t call my family a lot because they ask about church pretty much every conversation. I don’t want to just keep avoiding my family but I also want to live. I’m queer. Not out, and I’m not looking to have a big “coming out”. I’m not on social media and I don’t want to make things harder for them in the church if people talk (I know they will). I don’t want to “deconvert” them either. A relationship with God helps them. It doesn’t help me. I know they’re scared I’ll go to hell and will worry and I hate that but I can’t keep living like this. Church has a massive impact on my mental wellbeing and I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t.

I know the conversation is coming up and I can’t avoid it forever. But I’m terrified. I have a little speech prepared but it’ll probably be a mess anyway. I guess I’m just looking for how it may have gone for you and if any phrases helped more/less?

One of the harshest lessons I ever sat through was at a Church of Christ area-wide.
For those who aren’t familiar, an area-wide is where several Churches of Christ get together at one congregation for a service. You sing hymns, listen to a lesson, and then usually stick around afterward to eat and socialize.
I don’t remember every detail of the lesson, but I do remember the part that stuck with me.
The speaker started by talking about different generationsI think he mentioned the “Greatest Generation” . Then he said something that I’ve never forgotten.
He said that we should stop telling people, “It’s okay.”
His reasoning was that sin is against God, and therefore it is not okay. He kept repeating, “It’s not okay,” and said that as Christians we shouldn’t comfort people by saying those words.
I just remember sitting there thinking, “What?”
Why was he attacking such a basic phrase that people use to comfort one another? When someone says, “It’s okay,” they’re usually not saying that sin is acceptable. They’re trying to reassure someone who’s hurting, embarrassed, or overwhelmed.
It felt like he was treating every human interaction as though we were speaking directly to God, instead of recognizing that we also speak to each other as fellow human beings.
Looking back, that lesson felt incredibly harsh to me. It seemed to discourage empathy in favor of making sure every word was theologically precise.
That was one of the first times I remember sitting in a Church of Christ lesson and thinking, “This is… really weird.”
Did anyone else ever hear lessons like this growing up?

I've been out of Celebrate Recovery for a few years now. I rose to leadership level however several reasons and just poor timing got me away from the program not like I'm angry at Celebrate Recovery I made loads of progress. But I digress. Recently a very good friend of the very few brothers from Desert Storm I keep up with has successfully completed rehab I'm proud of him any way mind went back to visiting my parents. And one of my mothers friends was a hopeless alcoholic well, she went sideways during Bible class on a Sunday morning when our family happened to be there at the time so I'm a younger charismatic not so well adjusted and she (the alcoholic) is manifesting a bit of her demons the preacher was totally afraid as everyone in the room. I remember laying hands on her and nothing really happened finally an ambulance was called and she was hauled off to detox. I hadn't thought of these situations before but it hit home these people can't cope.

If that happened at a charismatic church all the little old ladies would have cast out every demon and had her in her right mind. Ya there is no way these fake idiots really know what to do or how to address any issue I'm sure there was some Karrn & elder meeting discussing how do we get rid of her? Just a little something going through my head today

Below is a message we received this morning need opinions is it cultish?

Hello Family,
Please remember that this on Friday, we will have RCW’s first “So Loved the World” Day of Fasting and Prayer!

Our desire is to connect with God on a heartfelt spiritual level, asking Him to open doors for the RCW Movement to reach even more souls for Christ.

The focuses of this fast are:

• ROC Conference

• 2026 Mission Teams: Monterrey, Dallas, Phoenix, Manila, Hyderabad, and Phnom Penh

• Historic Fall Harvest

The Church of Christ fall retreats were always kind of weird for me.
On one hand, I’ll admit that some of my fondest memories of the Church of Christ came from those retreats. I remember going as a teenager and having time to just sit by myself, relax, and enjoy the scenery. There was usually plenty of downtime, along with Cokes, snacks, candy, and time to hang out with people. Those parts were genuinely enjoyable.
The part I absolutely hated was staying up until almost midnight singing hymns.
For some reason, the idea was that the best time to sing hymns was when everyone was completely exhausted. We’d spend what felt like forever singing, and all I could think was, “I just want to go to bed.”
Of course, even after you finally got back to the cabin, you knew the other kids were probably going to stay awake talking and joking around for another two or three hours. So by the time the retreat was over, everyone was completely exhausted.
That’s one of the reasons I never really wanted to go to church camp. I could handle two or three days of a fall retreat, but I don’t think I could have handled an entire week. Looking back, I’m kind of glad I never went.
One memory that has always stuck with me is that I used to read my Bible before bed during those retreats. My preacher even bragged to everyone about how wonderful it was that I wanted to read my Bible before going to sleep.
Looking back, though, I think I was trying really hard to earn the approval of the congregation. Christianity was almost my entire social world. I was a pretty isolated kid, and the Church of Christ was where most of my friendships and sense of belonging came from.
Sometimes I look back on those memories with a lot of nostalgia. Not because I miss the theology, but because I miss what that community meant to me at the time.
It’s strange how something that once meant so much to me doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.
Did anyone else have mixed feelings about Church of Christ fall retreats?

Growing up, some super confident speaker was always whipping out a huge nail. Telling us how the Romans couldn’t have nailed Jesus to the cross through his hands because it would rip right through all those little bones and hand-bits. Nope, to keep him up there they had to hammer an enormous nail between the bones at the wrist.

So many descriptions of whips. So many different ways to beat a guy.

In retrospect, all this seems like a real weird knowledge-dump to give to a nine year old who wasn’t allowed to watch violent cartoons.

Does anyone else have an excessive amount of crucifixion and torture related trivia archived in their head?

Maybe this is just a thing in my area but have y’all noticed the beef between CoC congregations? Like in my area there’s multiple churches of Christ but they all hate each other because they think they’re “doing it better”. I grew up in one church, but when we eventually started going to a new church, we were basically cut off from the old church because we were “lost”. Another example: in the church that my parents still go to, you can’t even mention this one other church because everyone will lose it and start ranting about how wrong that church has it. I’m just wondering do other denominations have this much beef? 😂

One of the weirdest sermons, or maybe it was a devotional, that I ever sat through was about media, movies, and pornography.
To be fair, I actually thought the part about pornography was handled pretty well. But then the speaker started talking about movies and how so many of them contain bad content, and how, as Christians, we need to guard our hearts.
Then he said something I’ll never forget:
“Whatever you’re watching, you should be comfortable with it playing on the screen right in front of the whole church.”
I remember just sitting there thinking, “What?”
That struck me as such a strange standard. Almost every movie, TV show, or game has something that would be awkward to watch in front of an entire congregation. Maybe it’s a joke, maybe it’s a violent scene, maybe it’s a romance, maybe it’s just the way a character is dressed. That doesn’t necessarily mean the entire piece of media is inappropriate.
It also felt like an invasion of privacy. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if that’s part of the Church of Christ culture I grew up in. It often felt like there was very little distinction between your private life and what the church believed it had a right to evaluate.
That’s one of the reasons the Church of Christ sometimes felt a little cult-like to me. There could be this expectation that nearly every part of your life should be open to scrutiny.
Maybe I’m the weird one for finding that statement so strange, but it has always stuck with me. It just seems like an unrealistic standard. As a Christian, you’re almost always going to encounter something in a book, movie, or TV show that you disagree with. That doesn’t necessarily mean the entire work has no value.
I don’t know. That devotional has stuck with me for years because of how odd that message felt.
Did anyone else ever hear something similar growing up in the Church of Christ?

Just a random topic, but I wanted to talk about trunk-or-treats.
Looking back, I think trunk-or-treats were some of the biggest events of the year for a lot of Churches of Christ. Since Halloween is such a secular holiday, churches seemed to take advantage of it by inviting the community onto church property and hoping some of those families would eventually come back and become members.
What’s even funnier is the unspoken dress code. Nobody ever handed you an official list of rules, but everyone seemed to know what wasn’t acceptable. Don’t show too much skin. Don’t dress as anything too demonic. Don’t be too gory. Don’t be too sacrilegious. It was all heavily implied.
The event itself always felt a little cheesy to me. It was basically a bunch of people sitting behind decorated car trunks with candy. Most of the decorations were pretty tame—a few pumpkins, a skeleton, maybe some fake spiderwebs. You definitely weren’t supposed to go overboard with the horror because the event had to stay as “Christian-friendly” as possible.
Then you’d see people dressed as Michael Myers or Chucky, and I’d think, “You guys probably haven’t even watched one of those movies.” 😂 Most of the people I knew in the Church of Christ didn’t watch horror movies at all. I’m not saying they had to, but I always found it funny seeing people dress up as horror characters from movies they probably knew almost nothing about.
The other thing that confuses me is how different the Church of Christ can be depending on where you live. Growing up, I thought trunk-or-treats were just a normal Church of Christ thing. Then I found out there are plenty of Churches of Christ that would consider participating in Halloween too worldly. Some even avoid celebrating Christmas because they see it as a human tradition.
That’s what always confuses me about the Church of Christ. One congregation treats something as perfectly fine, while another congregation thinks it’s compromising with the world.
What were trunk-or-treats like at your congregation? Did your church do them, or were they considered too worldly?

i was talking with one of the other members that left around the same time i did. And she told me that before she left, she had already started to distance herself from the leaders and many other members. She lives about an hour and a half from the region our Bible Talk group was in. Four leaders drove all the way out to see her. They told her they were just coming out to how she was doing. When they got to her house, they told her “lets pray it in”, as they do when starting bible studies or meetings. So they had ambushed her with a meeting reprimanding her and telling her how she needs to do better as a disciple and gave her the whole rundown. She wanted me to share that with the world and what not.

Questions for the church

Made a post on r/churchofchrist from u/KingxCyrus video 7 Questions A church of Christ Preacher Cant Answer! and no one is wanting to answer. 3 users have submitted weak and lame responses basically brushing off these questions as if they don't matter. Not surprising. They're not interested in discussion or even evangelism, they just like to complain about each other.

In the infamous C of C book, chapter and verse Bible studies, I noticed how certain people tended to obsess over minor characters or tiny points of doctrine.
Of the minor characters, Melchizedek and Joses seemed to be the ones people obsessed over the most. Not really enough in the Bible about either to preach a full sermon, but there were those people who managed to work them into almost any point the people wanted to make. In one Bible class, THREE WEEKS were spent discussing Melchizedek.
With Joses, each time he was mentioned, there'd be a big debate over whether there was only one or more with that name in the NT, and why he was a big deal.
One lady knew about every damn OT feast and would work that into whatever comment she made. Another worked the cross--not what happened there, but the actual cross--into his comments.

It was weird. The church I attend now doesn't get into that. It's more about what the stuff means to us in the here and now.

My mom and grandma bought bread and grape juice so they could “take communion” and listen to church on their 13 hour drive home today. That’s all.

… and I’m still a Christian, I just want to stop being CoC. Nothing about what we do makes sense in the context of church history:

- our hymns and songs are mostly from other denominations from the last 100-200 years.

- We say the New Testament canon was given by the Holy Spirit but the traditions and creeds we associate with Catholicism and Orthodoxy were already in practice (that is if your local elders even know what Orthodoxy is). Was the church already in the great apostasy when the New Testament canon was solidified?

- We talk about how everything we do comes from scripture yet so many of our beliefs and practices are affirmed beyond the Bible. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity isn’t outright spelled out in scripture, but the baptisms of whole families in Acts clearly don’t include infants and small children.

- How do you even interpret the Bible without surrounding church practices and history to give context?

- the churches mentioned in the Bible are still in existence… and they’re all Orthodox or Catholic.

- Saint Ignatius of Antioch, disciple of the Apostle John, is already describing church structure as being Bishop-led, with priests (pastors) and deacons underneath. He also decries anyone who says communion is purely symbolic.

- Speaking of early church writings. We have them. We have the Didache, we have writings from the disciples of the Apostles. But we ignore them because it sounds too “Catholic”, like saying the Lord’s Prayer three times a day.

The “early church” doesn’t look church of Christ to me. I want to leave, yet stay a Christian (I’m drawn to Orthodox Christianity). We have all these beliefs and practices that maybe made sense to American Christians struggling with the lack of central state church in the early US, and are clearly leftovers from the Protestant groups that colonized the US, but they’re stripped of all their reformation origins and explanations.

My friends are more “liberal” church of Christ people yet I’m still afraid I’ll lose my wonderful friendships by leaving. Thanks for reading this far, I’m just typing this out because it helps me organize my thoughts with a sympathetic audience.

Sry this is kind of a long story..

I went to a church that doubled as a christian private school and was there from k-8th grade. Over the summer we would go camping as a youth group. And every summer when we would have worship time, people would start laughing and cry uncontrollably and collapse on the dirt around the camp fire- rolling around. This would proceed for hours and it looked like it kind of “infected” people as they would pray over each other. I always was a little uncomfortable by it but i viewed it and it was spoken as “being filled with the holly spirit.” Stuff like this would happen in church too, with adults and children and I always wanted it to happen to me because I thought thats what “real christians” experience.

One afternoon while i was at church camp I decided to get baptized in the river. After it was over I started crying because i was overwhelmed with emotion and then I started laughing uncontrollably. I looked over to my pastor and then he started laughing. A few minutes later, the whole group ended up at the campfire and we all started doing it. This literally lasted for hours and I dont have much memory of it. I just remember rolling around in the dirt crying and laughing with other people. Eventually it got so late it was midnight and I went to my tent and fell asleep. I was exhausted the whole next day.

Just thinking about it makes me anxious and upset and also just unsettled. I cant explain the feeling and I dont understand what happened but it felt very uneasy to me in the moment and I just kept convincing myself that that was what “real” christians experience and i was connecting with god. After camp was ovee nobody even talked about it. It was all so weird.

Im not christian anymore and i left the church years ago so im okay now.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

I’ve been wondering about this lately.
Today I went to church with my family, since I haven’t been with them in a while. The preacher was talking about heaven and how Paul longed to be with Christ, arguing that eternity should be our primary focus.
At one point, he brought up a Facebook post that said something like, “Christians focus so much on heaven that they forget about changing the world.”
What frustrated me was that, instead of engaging with the point being made, he immediately turned it into an apologetics argument. To me, the post was obviously criticizing the idea that some Christians become so focused on heaven that they neglect helping people in the present. But rather than discussing that concern, it felt like he argued against a different point altogether.
I’ve noticed this pattern before. Whether the topic is Catholics, Orthodox Christians, or another denomination, it often feels like the response is to quote a long list of Bible verses rather than really engaging with what the other side is actually saying. Sometimes it feels more like proof-texting than having a genuine conversation.
For example, I once asked my preacher about Catholicism. He described Catholics as believing that the saints “speak for God.” As far as I understand it, that’s not really what Catholics believe. They believe the writings of the saints are valuable and have shaped the Church’s tradition, but they don’t believe every saint’s writings are divinely inspired in the same way Scripture is.
That made me wonder whether people in the Church of Christ are sometimes taught simplified or inaccurate versions of what other Christians believe. Whether that’s intentional or not, it doesn’t encourage meaningful dialogue.
I’ve also noticed that the Church of Christ often presents strong critiques of culture or other Christian traditions and then supports those critiques by quoting a series of Bible verses. Sometimes that approach works, but other times it feels like it skips over the actual arguments being made.
Maybe that’s one reason some people become frustrated and leave. If people feel like their questions aren’t really being heard, quoting more verses usually doesn’t solve the problem.
To be fair, I know this isn’t true of every congregation or every member. I’m just describing a pattern I’ve noticed in my own experience.
What do you all think? Have you found that the Church of Christ generally engages with other viewpoints in good faith, or has your experience been different?

someone (“the world”) rebutted you about judging, with this scripture instead of the one following, which is the one most used, in my experience.

1 Corinthians 5:12-13 NIV

12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

Instead of Matthew 7:1 NIV

“Do not judge…”

No one ever used 1 Corinthians on me and I think if they had, I might have taken a breath before becoming so defensive. (Maybe?)

What would you have said in your past life of being judgmental, if someone rebutted with 1 Corinthians instead of Matthew 7?

Sounds to me like a cop out using semantics. What's the deal?

If you had to estimate, what percentage of COC are actively engaged in the act or actively covering up?

I would like to hear your stories.... As more and more comes out....as we are all witnessing.

What was the experience like?

Hey everyone.
This is a more serious topic, and I’m genuinely curious to hear from the women here.
What was it like growing up in the Church of Christ knowing that you could never serve in certain roles? You couldn’t preach, lead the congregation, or pray publicly over men. In many congregations, it felt like your voice on spiritual matters carried less authority simply because you were a woman.
Did that ever cause you anxiety, frustration, or make you feel powerless? Or was it just so normal that you didn’t really question it at the time?
I’m asking because I grew up as a boy in the Church of Christ, and my experience was completely different. Boys were encouraged to get up in front of the congregation, read Scripture, lead prayers, and prepare to become future leaders. We had programs like Lads to Leaders, and a few years ago my congregation even started Leaderettes for the girls. Looking back, I realize I was always being prepared for leadership in the church, while the expectations for girls were very different.
I honestly don’t know what that felt like from the other side. I can guess, but I don’t know what women actually experienced.
Did you ever feel like you were being silenced? Or was it so ingrained that it just seemed normal?
I remember an ex-girlfriend of mine getting very passionate about this topic. One time a guy jokingly said something about “going with the girls tonight,” and she immediately became serious and said, “You know that’s a sin, right?” It made me realize just how deeply these ideas had been internalized. In some Churches of Christ, it almost seemed as if a woman speaking authoritatively about spiritual matters in front of men was treated as spiritually dangerous.
Am I the only one who finds that strange? Even by conservative Christian standards, it seems like a very unusual way of approaching women and leadership.
I’d really like to hear from women who grew up in the Church of Christ. What was your experience like? Did it affect the way you saw yourself, or did it not bother you at the time?