Story 06

Calvary Christian Center, Yuba City

There is a lot coming out about the Assemblies of God right now. If you’re unfamiliar with my history I was highly involved in Assemblies of God. Attended an Assemblies of God church as a teen, did multipe internships, and attended a primarily Assemblies of God college.

In 2025 I returned back to therapy to work on stress, anxiety and burnout. I’ve done a lot of unpacking of my time with the Assemblies of God during therapy and learned a lot of memories were trauma blocked. I’ve also reconciled and forgave myself as many of these experiences happened to me as a teenagers- early 20s. I look at people that age now and feel the desire to protect them oftentimes wishing I had the same.

I come out with all of this to say that others may have the same experiences as me but might be afraid to speak up. The abuse and traumatic experiences that are being revealed right now is awful. More should’ve been done to protect, nourish and call out those involved in causing harm.

A little bit of stuff I’ve been processing: watching a youth pastor hit the walls/file cabinets near my face when YP was mad in intern meetings, being publicly insulted/humiliated from a pastor on the microphone in front of my peers, being made sure I was publicly spoke first before someone “more talented” than me to avoid brand embarrassment, was told repeatedly sickness and healing was contingent solely on my faith same with financial blessings, required to skip holidays to work long days to put a service on, when expressing burn out told to get used to it, and there is a lot more. This is what was done to me, I’ll leave other experiences to those that more happened to.

This isn’t to call anyone out by name as each one know will know if it’s about them. This is to take a power back for so long I was fearful of admitting and hope it helps others somehow. I had my first intern at my business this year who was 17 and look back at myself at that age. I cannot imagine handling those under my leadership and care like myself and my peers were handled. I hope everyone can do better and things get called out to stop this from happening to anyone else.