I am about 16 years old and we have just moved to Albany, Oregon. We are still attending church at this time. Mom is trying to get me involved with the youth group but I am not really wanting too attend. So for my birthday we invite 2 of my best friends over to spend the weekend. Mom thinks this would be a great time for me to get to know the kids in the youth group (by taking my friends to the youth harvest party at the pastor's house). I give in and we all agree to go.
Dad drops us off at the front of the house. We walked into the pastor's house only to find girls sitting on guys laps making out and loud secular rap music playing. All three of us thought this was strange. No pastor or youth leader was in sight. We decide to go back out front and talk (by this time my dad had left and would be back for us later). I then spot a bunch of goolish looking decorations out in the yard (that I didn't notice when we arrived). At this time one friend (non-believing) asked me "What is this thing called again? Isn't supposed to be a church thing?" I explained to her what I thought and knew harvest parties to be. This party didn't fit that description. She then asked "Do we have to stay?" I told her no, but we would have to walk and find a phone. At that time, we all agreed to walk 5 blocks to the movie theater and call my dad.
I was concerned that my parents were going to be mad at us for leaving and walking in the dark to the movie theater. But we still decided we would rather them be mad, then for us to have to stay at the party. When we got to the movie theater I called my dad and told him that he needed to come get us. Of course he wanted to know why we were at the movie theater and not at the party. I told him I would explain it to him later, but I just needed him to come get us. He was there in about 5 minutes.
On our drive home we explained what had happened and to my relief he was not agree with us, but actually very proud. He was, however, extremely angry with the pastor and youth leader of the church. He even made a call that night to the pastor to fill him in on what had happened. The pastor was very sorry and said he would look into what went wrong. We later found out that no one at the party even remembered us leaving. And these were the people my mom wanted me to associate with???? I never attended another youth activity (or the youth group itself for that matter).
I truly believe this was the start of my separation from the church. And the beginning of my own soul searching to figure out what it is I truly believed.
