Worship Leader LEAVES Christianity For GOOD!

Deconstructing one’s faith takes courage and bravery. It is the hardest thing I have ever gone through and I’m 64. I am always interested in stories about changing your thinking. I am full of admiration for anyone that does it well. Love this channel.

I've never seen a person with a missing limb have it grow back by a miracle.

I love these conversations. It helps a lot of people like myself to feel less guilty for walking away from being perpetually manipulated and fear mongered into a living in a very specific type of behaviorism.

I was the "sound man" in my old Pentecostal church. I never paid much attention to it until my later years, but the music and song directors do purposely choose songs that resonate with the mood they want to set. I controlled the lights too, and I dimmed and brightened them when needed. It's about controlling the emotions.

I asked Jesus to cure me of my cold, and 3 days later, I was better!

That was so kind. Thank you both ❤️❤️

Great convo. I can totally relate. I was in the ministry for many years and I used to love leading worship and preaching. To this day that's what I miss most, but you can't hold back the desire to know the truth!

So good!!! Very relatable too! All the best with the exciting journey we individually orchestrate as well as the symphony that we participate in solidarity with other travellers.

"They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us." ~1st John 2:19

Thanks for sharing another personal story. So many are not able to expose their thoughts, doubts, experiences so openly.

Jon is awesome, got a lot of respect for him. It takes a lot of guts to basically accept you will become a pariah in both your family and social circles simply for being your authentic self, for being true to yourself and the people around you when you say "i just don't believe any of it". They don't care that you're being honest with them and yourself, they liked you better before, when you were blowing smoke up everyone's ass. 😂 Props sir!

Not so much placebo as the power of suggestion. When I was studying to be a RN they always told us to tell the patient “this will make you feel better” when giving medication as it worked better if the patient believed it would.

Whether you believe in Christ or not, we should all conduct ourselves as" Christ Like"!!! Loving, forgiving, humble, and kind!!

I went to Bethel. It was about power and very toxic and hurtful. I was spoken to harshly by a leader one day, so I asked my “mentor” what to do. She said do nothing, but I felt that I should follow biblical advice and go to the person directly and ask if everything was ok between us. Because I went to the person and asked that one question and didn’t blindly listen to my mentor, I was barred from continued volunteering in ministry unless I attended another year of ministry school. Apparently, I was “rebellious” and “didn’t trust authority,” although I’d never been called that in my life. I was completely shocked by the whole thing since I had grown up in a very loving, small, Presbyterian church where I was completely supported and encouraged by people who actually knew me. Anyway, I watch the videos and feel cognitive dissonance, yet I still struggle to forsake my faith. It’s not the church part, but the experiences I feel I’ve had with God, that are hard to let go of. I still want to believe God has spoken to me, although many of these “promises” I felt I’d received have not happened after many years. However, there were enough times that felt undeniable, and it’s comforting to know God cares especially when you feel pretty alone in the world.

This is such a pleasant conversation and Jon seems to be a nice guy. You don't need to go through traumatic experiences, just a clear mind and a little bit of critical thinking to come to the conclusion that the Christian believes are standing on extremely thin ice.

Fantastic conversation. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

Religion is a plague upon humanity

Thank you so much for making this, and I really appreciate your guest. He’s putting a lot of things into words for me my experience was somewhat similar.

"He wasn't really a Christian!" "He didn't have the holy spirit!" "He was in the wrong denomination!" "God/the Bible said it. I believe it. That settles it." "Only believe, only believe..." I got tired of it all as well. It's especially hard when one has been groomed in it from early childhood. Thanks for speaking up!

Looking back upon my own Christian community it was clear that we were not really any better than non-christians. This shouldn't have been the case if we're now " born again", had God's spirit within us and the sinful nature is put to death at conversion and baptism. And when you leave Christianity the lack of empathy from those you leave becomes very apparent ( with a few exceptions) ❤