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When the Wicked Beareth Rule: The Story of a Former Mega-Church Worship Leader with Sage Salazar
712 Plays1 year ago
Mega-churches have been a hot topic in the past several years. Reports of deception, greed, and abuse of every kind have been coming to light, and it’s easy to see why people are so enthralled.
In this episode, we’re going behind the scenes of a megachurch with former worship leader, Sage Salazar, as they share their transformative journey from a starry-eyed believer to a liberated skeptic. Their experiences with a culture of extreme control, church "Hollywood" glam, and heartbreaking abuse are eye-opening.
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Transcript
Introduction: Purpose and Gratitude
00:00:01
Speaker
I was lost in utter darkness I was trapped in toxic shame I was bound by my religion Till I chose to break away
00:00:24
Speaker
Now I'm finding my true colors For the first time I feel free Now I'm learning self compassion And as I heal I'm finding peace
00:00:51
Speaker
Welcome to Now I See, eye-opening stories from the formerly faithful. I'm your host, Amber White, and here, me and my guests share our experiences in loving and leaving rigid faith systems. Together, we shine a light on the dark corners of these institutions and share the joys of rebuilding life on our own terms. I promise you'll leave inspired, even if you are a little teary-eyed.
Guest Introduction: Sage Salazar
00:01:24
Speaker
Hi, and welcome back to Now I See. I'm your host, Amber White, and I can hardly believe it, but we are at our last guest episode of season one. How did that happen so quickly? And how did we pass 5,000 downloads as of last week? I am so blown away by the interest and support of this show.
00:01:50
Speaker
Y'all are so dear to me. These are not fun, light podcast episodes, but you've shown up for these powerful stories and it means the world to me and my guests. So thank you.
Sage's Story: Abuse and Control
00:02:10
Speaker
There will only be one short episode after this before I take a much-needed winter break, so this episode is a particularly impactful one. I'm talking with my friend and colleague, Sage Salazar. Sage is a former Texas megachurch worship leader.
00:02:33
Speaker
If you've seen the Texas Mega Church Christmas videos going around on the line right now, that's the sort of mega church we're talking about. They have a remarkable story to tell, and I'm giving you a fair warning that there are mentions of abuse, overt racism, disordered eating, and pedophilia ahead. When I first heard their story, I was shocked.
00:03:02
Speaker
I'd only heard stories like this on Netflix specials, and here was this beautiful human being in front of me, struggling through the aftermath of extreme abuses of power by church leadership. I'm still in awe of the level to which this church went to control its people. And I'm still in awe of Sage's tenacity, strength, and bright spirit through it all.
00:03:30
Speaker
Sage is a talented musician and is now making music on their own terms. I've linked their song Worst Nightmare, which is one of my favorite songs on my former Faithful Jams playlist in the show notes. And I heard a rumor that they're putting out even more music next year, so I will keep you posted about that.
Message of Healing and Worth
00:03:54
Speaker
I saved their episode for last to make a statement.
00:03:58
Speaker
To you, Sage, and to anyone else out there who's been deeply hurt by spiritual leaders who claim to speak for God. The statement is that you are worthy.
00:04:11
Speaker
You are worthy of love and the best seat at the table. And you are worthy to be celebrated as you are, at any size, at any point on the journey of discovering yourself and your identity, whatever your race and whatever your beliefs. Sage, you are powerful and you are changing the world by putting yourself first. You are changing the world by seeking out,
00:04:41
Speaker
and you are changing the world by creating a better community for yourself and for your loved ones. I am really proud to be a small part of your journey. All right, let's get into the episode so you can see how wonderful Sage is for yourself.
00:05:13
Speaker
Hi Sage, I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. You have a beautiful energy. I love that we get to have the relationship that we do and that you are willing to come on here and share your story because it's kind of unique compared to a lot of other guests. We only have one other mega churchy that's been here.
00:05:37
Speaker
Oh, wow. And your experience is even more production, even more larger than life. And what I love about that is it's the opposite of my experience, which was tiny, small, hometown, no drums allowed church. And so you really are going to bring something totally new to the table. And I'm excited for you to share your story. So thank you for being here.
00:05:59
Speaker
Of course. Thank you for having me. It's such an honor. I'm excited to talk about all of this, get into it and share and relate and help others. I do have my little disclaimer before we begin. Yes, please.
00:06:17
Speaker
I have here, not everyone will believe me, and there are usually people who say I'm lying, which happens every time. I'm sharing what I went through just to raise awareness, to be a voice for others who are silently suffering, and asking themselves if this is what it really looks like to serve God, because obviously it's definitely not. To those who believe me, thank you for your support.
00:06:40
Speaker
I want to set the boundary now and say that to those who do not believe me, let's agree to disagree. Those who may listen and are from this church, please don't contact me. I'm not going to respond. I'm not interested in having any kind of communication with people who are still devout members of this organization.
00:06:58
Speaker
sharing my story is in no way meant to expose the church or the people who work there. I do believe what they are doing is wrong but I have no intention of stirring up negative attention. I'm not naming names or disclosing the church or its location and I'll be leaving out one or two big details just because not everyone needs to know everything.
Megachurch Influence and Impact
00:07:19
Speaker
But I do think it's important to talk about these things because those of us who have been excommunicated from family and the only community we ever knew
00:07:28
Speaker
We feel extremely isolated and when you're in it, it's hard to decipher between abuse and faithfulness. Every psychiatrist I've met with has said that I have like a really unique situation, but I know that there are so many of us walking through the same thing. And I love that you are creating a community for us to share and heal and help others who are still in it to feel safe enough to leave knowing that they won't be alone.
00:07:55
Speaker
They have us. Yes, they have us. I love that disclaimer. It touches on so much that happens when you leave. And for me, one of the hardest parts of doing this podcast has been being called a liar.
00:08:11
Speaker
Oh, yes. Simple times by people that are right next door to me, like in my heart, like my people, my family. And that's, it's a tough one. It is. So I applaud you for recognizing it and for calling it out and being like, don't even reach out to me about this. We're not addressing it. Because that's a boundary you have to set.
00:08:32
Speaker
It really is. They always do. I have my all my social media set up that you have to request me before you can message me and all of that stuff. So it's just it's not worth it. I went through that period of time where it was like, I can explain like I'm going to show them the truth and do it all and expose. And it just was like tearing me apart. And then people were thinking I was insane. So I was like, I'm not I'm not playing that game anymore.
00:08:56
Speaker
That's really wise, truly. The best thing you can do is protect your piece and be there for your community and the people who want to be involved. Exactly. That's good life right there. So I'd love for you to set the scene a little bit for the listeners and tell them where you come from. What was this church like? What were the beliefs like? What's the dish?
00:09:19
Speaker
The dish is big, bring your appetite. It's a 10 course. It is. It's actually like a 10 course situation probably. It's a lot to digest. But yeah, to set the scene, like you said beforehand, mega church, non-denominational, contemporary Christian,
00:09:36
Speaker
But with like DBU inspired thinking Dallas Baptist University. It was not in Dallas though so don't start checking. But a normal weekend we had like 5000 in attendance at what was called the broadcast location. So that's like the main campus. That's where I was located.
00:09:55
Speaker
I checked their following just for this. I never tried to look at any of their stuff but just for this I went to see because I was like I want to make sure I accurately paint the picture. They currently have 60,000 followers. At one point there were about nine other campuses and the city that it's based in at the time had about 350,000 people so it had a pretty large impact on
00:10:21
Speaker
The local area and a lot of people knew about it they would talk about it they had either visited once or had at least been through the doors at some point. Nationally we were on the list of one of the fastest growing mega churches in america and our pastor would go on like good morning america every now and then.
00:10:41
Speaker
We had books and we were signed to record label. And I think it's interesting because the city itself had a very heavy Hispanic influence, but the leaders of the church were white. And so they would use that contrast to make it seem like glamorous and standout to kind of draw, quote, regular people in.
00:11:02
Speaker
So I hope that kind of paints an accurate picture of just like the size and the level of production and the level of like thinking they were putting into how they appeared. Yeah. Isn't it interesting how the church and whiteness really mesh themselves together in that way? Like somehow you're in a holier place if it's a wider place. Yeah. Which
00:11:28
Speaker
absolutely bash it to me. But the more I step back from it and the more I appear back in from the outside, it's so obvious. Yeah, I think it's interesting that you used to hear like, Jesus washed me white as snow. And then like, I don't know if other churches did this, but our church was very much like,
00:11:49
Speaker
the candy cane is like the blood of Christ and then the purity that we become whenever he died for our sins. Like there's so much language around like white is right in that situation. Yes. And the more dark something is, the more evil it is, right? The blackness of evil, you know, which is true in media in a lot of ways, right? Yeah, it's interesting. Just not in humanity and skin color. Right.
00:12:19
Speaker
So tell me a little more about your role in this church because you had a very public role. You were known, you were seen. Yeah. So I, to like make a long story short, my mother was a successful worship leader. So I wanted to be just like her following those footsteps. Um,
00:12:42
Speaker
we had just moved to this town. I was like 12 years old. And it was my first mega church experience. So walking in and seeing like the gigantic concert, like we were called, like where we held worship, we referred to as the auditorium. And so like, it was a big giant fun thing. It felt like a concert. And we went and checked out like the youth worship team, which was also a large thing and felt like a concert.
00:13:12
Speaker
Um, and so immediately my teenage brother and I, we were like, we have to audition. Like we have to be part of this worship team. Like this is so cool. And it's like, of course being like sold to us as this is about God and like you're calling in life and like.
00:13:28
Speaker
So we were just like, let's get involved on the worship team. So I ended up on the worship team. I was singing and playing keys very quickly became like a weekly commitment. And because the like a weekly commitment playing keys, and then I became one of the lead vocalists in the youth ministry, even at such a young age, the broadcast worship pastor would come to our run throughs and he would tell me a 12 year old
00:13:56
Speaker
that I was going to be the next big thing or going to be the next worship pastor of this church. So even at such a young age, like the grooming began and I was like getting locked in because I was super starstruck by this like really cool guy that I see on stage every week and he's like coming and telling me that like I could be that one day. So I was just like already hooked in and ready to like
00:14:23
Speaker
get into this and be there for a long time. And these performances were larger than life, right? Yeah, they were pretty massive.
00:14:39
Speaker
concert style, it blows my mind because I grew up in this tiny little town at this tiny little church. It was a big deal to get up with our piano or our guitar, but these were productions that took weeks of rehearsal and practices and you're 12 and then there's this godlike figure coming in representing God. It's huge.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah, it was certainly way too large to be putting children into. It's important to also note that at around this time, my current spouse was also
00:15:16
Speaker
a young little kid like getting involved in the same worship ministry. And so like, you know, you take two pre-teens or people in middle school and we're like all of a sudden thrust into this very big situation. And like we're getting a taste of like being micro niche worship leader celebrities in our local town. And I think the only way to really explain it is like literally picture like
00:15:45
Speaker
What's big right now? Like the Taylor Swift, the era's world tour or like Beyonce's tour or like something a little smaller, like in an arena kind of thing. Like that's Adele. Yes. Oh, that's a perfect example. Adele doing her
00:16:01
Speaker
her Vegas residency. Yeah, it's like around that size. You know, you've got the big LED wall and then you've got like the live camera shot of you on stage projected 50 feet wide for like the whole room to see and there's production, the light shows. We even had like pyrotechnics. We had those little like
00:16:23
Speaker
whoosh things that spray steam out of the ground. Highly necessary to bring God to people's hearts. Oh, absolutely. Just to 100% about Christ and not about us looking super cool. Eco? Where? And strobe lights, confetti, snow machines. It was as big as a full production can get.
00:16:52
Speaker
And you wanted this, right? Like you wanted to grow in this. And so how many years did you spend, you started at 12 and you are 19 or 20? Yeah, my last year there I had just turned 21 and then I left like a few months later. So right at about almost a decade. Wow.
Church Manipulations and Expectations
00:17:11
Speaker
Wow.
00:17:13
Speaker
Culturally behind the scenes. I'm curious what this was like because I'm sure to the crowd like to the the audience of you know church members This was cool. You guys were it you were special you were chosen and you were entertaining and spiritual but behind the scenes Making that go is is a different thing
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, the culture was really interesting because you just can't be on a stage in front of a couple hundred people every week without it becoming like people just know your face because they recognize you and they start to learn your voice and they start to kind of like create that parasocial relationship with you. I find it really interesting.
00:18:03
Speaker
when your face is on this big screen it's like people are having this like face to face moment with you and so they feel like they know you really well they feel like they interact with you a lot but you've never seen them before so then like you'd have people come up to you in the lobby and like
00:18:23
Speaker
just start talking like they know you really well and because you're like in a Christian situation you're like I want to be kind and I want to make sure this person feels heard and you know we'll like pray for them and stuff and but it's like imagine being like 13 and trying to figure that out it was it was just a lot but I loved it I was like this is
00:18:47
Speaker
I was very obsessed with Hillsong at the time. And so I was like, this is my dream in life. This is all I want to accomplish. And it's already starting because I joined this church. The culture itself was really interesting because it started out one way and then it evolved over time into the complete opposite way. But no matter what, I took it very seriously. I was going to be a devout Christian. I was going to take this so serious, I was going to be
00:19:16
Speaker
God's favorite, not favorite, but you know what I mean? I was like, I'm gonna honor God in every little thing I do. So I was reading my Bible every day, I was praying constantly, I was doing it. I was like, don't make any bad decisions, do everything for Christ. But the culture itself is like, it really drew people in with, our youth ministry had like game, what is it called? Xboxes, not game boxes.
00:19:44
Speaker
Xboxes and like lots of video games to play and like lots of food and snacks and like obviously the big concert feel was really fun so it was it's like a club for kids like you just go and have fun kind of and then during the sermon we would go into like extreme purity culture
00:20:03
Speaker
anti-dating, the whole like friends to fiance thing. Oh my gosh, it's so true. Yeah, there was also in this particular church a very heavy missionary culture. One of our worship leaders who like everyone adored, she had her own thing about missions work. And so like all of her like girls that were serving beneath her all started like, I want to go to this country and serve and I want to go to this country. And so like,
00:20:33
Speaker
It just kind of turned into like, well, it looks like we have this whole group of missionaries now. And it's like 13 year old girls just wanting to be like the cool, cool singer girl that they see every weekend. The 13, they want love and acceptance and a feeling of purpose.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yes, and at the same time, you know, they're being taught that like, this is the way to serve God, and this is what it should look like. Part of the culture, I would say, like, also is just like, it was so big and fun that we would be having worship service in the youth area, which was like, up on the second floor in an other large place, which I'm not even sure how they get that on the second floor, but
00:21:13
Speaker
When we would have worship and everyone was jumping, the people on the floor below, like the ground would be shaking and like dust would be falling. And we would always say like, if we fall through the floor, it's God's will, we went out worshiping. So that's the vibe of like, just kind of the mindset. Another big part of our culture was the summer camps.
00:21:39
Speaker
that was like our biggest event of the year each year. And like, that's where there was a lot of cult tactics, like only letting us eat certain times and like lots of sleep deprivation. People would be staying up the whole night cause they'd just be like worshiping and praying. And then they'd be like hearing from God, but really was like hallucination cause you're going on day five without food and water and sleep. Right. And highly emotionally charged the entire time.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yes, lots of big worship songs, lots of big theatrics to cultivate the emotional experience. Something that I learned in seminary is that we as the worship leader set the tone or we set the temperature of the room
00:22:25
Speaker
When they were teaching us that, I was like, I'm literally just learning emotional manipulation. This is so wild. But I'm the kind of person that once I've realized that, I was like, I can't do this. This feels bad. Yeah, right. Now that I know. I know. I was like, now that I realize that kind of sucks.
Abuse and Exploitation
00:22:47
Speaker
I kind of want to touch on the grooming, the mental, emotional, and spiritual, and physical abuse, and some of the cool tactics. There's this therapist I follow on Instagram. Her name is reclaimingyourself.therapy. Yes. And she, have you seen? Oh, I love her. Yeah. I do too. She's so good. And she breaks it down so well. So I was going to use some of her verbiage to kind of explain it.
00:23:17
Speaker
A lot of the times they would create guilt or shame over your own desires versus God's desires for you, sinful nature, so it was kind of used to manipulate our thinking. There was also like a lot of isolation and exploitation and demand for control over our own personal choices. There was also hierarchical structure. The leaders have this significant high power and authority over us, so like
00:23:43
Speaker
They're the all-knowing. They know more than our parents. They know more than we could ever imagine learning. So if you question their beliefs, there was consequences. And eventually, this takes away your own ability to trust your own thoughts. I can't question anything because I don't want to not sing. I don't want to be kicked off the worship team for two weeks. And who am I? Literally. I have nothing.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, that thing about stripping you down is so real. You just become like, I only know what these people tell me and that's straight from God. So I'm not going to question it. Yeah, questioning their beliefs, there would be consequences. Thinking that their way and their beliefs were the only correct ones.
00:24:29
Speaker
was very isolating for us from the outside. So I went to a Christian private school, and even at school, I would be like, my church teaches that differently. So I'm only going to believe what my church says. Or my parents would have a contradicting thought. Or they would say, don't you think it's unhealthy to be there so much? And then I would be like, you're pulling me away from Christ. Get behind me, Satan. To my own parents, as a teenager. But they thought that was the wildest thing.
00:24:58
Speaker
Oh, my poor parents are always blown away by this whole situation. They were not part of this church. This grooming came straight from the church to the children, the teenagers and the youth, from our own families we were being pulled away from.
00:25:17
Speaker
They would use like core values to manipulate. There's like Isagesis and exegesis. Exegesis is supposed to be the study of taking things from scripture and figuring out what they really mean. Isagesis is when you extract from the Bible in your own way, interpret it your own way and it's usually incorrect.
00:25:37
Speaker
That's what their core values were. Every decision you made or everything you thought was like, I got to run this through our core values. I got to run this through our mission statement. And it also, you know, as teenagers became very competitive.
00:25:52
Speaker
There's the one person on your team that's the most Christ-like and everyone wants to be just like them. It starts to go all into the wrong reasons for things, but they code it so heavily in, this is just centered on Christ that you're like, this has to be right. I must be feeling jealous because I'm feeling God is needing me, He's putting that pressure on me to want to do better and to get closer to Him and dive in deeper.
00:26:22
Speaker
So there was just a super strict commitment, lots of like commitment. Basically you have to be there all the time and you have to be working on something for them.
00:26:33
Speaker
They from a very young age taught us that this church was the best option for your future. You can get all the training you need to be successful worship pastors for the rest of your life in this church. No college, no other ministry. Stay here and be committed and everything you want will be given to you here in this church and also your crowd in heaven will be filled with jewels and
00:26:57
Speaker
It's like a lot of exposure you're getting and opportunities. And I'm already starting to see my dream of being like a worship leader at this capacity is already starting. So I'm like, yeah, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to go anywhere else. Like this is what God asked for me. I'm going to, as a 13 year old, commit my entire life to this ministry for God. You beat the system. Yeah.
00:27:27
Speaker
until they sold it to you, right? It's like, here's how you work around the long path. Here's your shortcut to glory in all its forms. Yeah, exactly. With these commitments, how deep did those go? Were there things that really legally bound you to the church in different ways?
00:27:50
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Of course there were legally binding documents that they didn't withhold their legal end on. It started out as like volunteer forms and like an agreement or a commitment to honoring Christ if you're going to be one of our volunteers.
00:28:13
Speaker
And really what it was is like you had to live up to their standards. So that meant you were being monitored, everything you did, anything you did on the internet, especially Instagram was live in a well at this time. So anything you posted on the internet, literally anything they were writing in this document, like
00:28:32
Speaker
you had to be enforced with so it also came with the culture of like being you're in the green room and like you're around important people and so there's like a backstage culture but it also meant that like you had the authority to be the talent
00:28:49
Speaker
which is the most, calling it the talent is the most secular way I can explain it. Because if I just say like, I was a worship leader, no one knows what that means. But if you picture it that like, we were the talent, we had signed our little sheets saying that we were going to abide and serve and behave a certain way. So it was like, it was just a mixture of like, now we're some kind of respected person where we get like,
00:29:16
Speaker
the food catering and everyone's always giving us water and teaching us how to take care of our voices. And it's very glamorous, but also you're being watched all the time. And it was a big deal for them, especially with the congregation, to see us behaving in good ways and whatever.
00:29:36
Speaker
especially at meet and greet. They started having us like stand at the doors of the church after service so that we could say goodbye to everyone as they left. That's where it really started to become like they would take pictures with us and we would like sign autographs or pray for them. And so it was like, you know, like that's part of your responsibility. We're going to put you in this role, but you've got to be
00:29:57
Speaker
You've got to be on for these people and you've got to be a representation of us. And it got way more intense later on. It got to the level where if you don't do these specific things that we're asking, you're going to be the reason someone doesn't get into heaven. Oh, yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker
Like everything we're doing means that people will come back, people will be saved and people will go to heaven. If you're not at that door, literally, if you're not at that door greeting and praying for people, then they're never gonna come back and then they're gonna burn in hell and that's your fault.
00:30:30
Speaker
And then it got into wardrobe, monitoring people's social medias, as I mentioned. You have to behave a certain way. You have to represent the church. And it was just a lot of unspoken, but also spoken very clearly. If you don't do this, someone's going to go to hell and that's on you. Going into high school, it became even more intense. It always got more intense to the point where we would have to serve during the week.
00:30:59
Speaker
You know, like you agreed, this is your volunteer agreement. Like you agreed to this level of involvement. You agreed to be here and to serve God and to give your all. Like if you're not here on Thursdays after school doing my admin work, then you're not serving God and someone's not going to get into heaven and they're going to die and burn in hell for eternity. So you have to be here after school, please. Was a lot of this work volunteer or were you compensated fairly for it?
00:31:26
Speaker
Of course, volunteer. Of course, volunteer. I never saw a check until my internship after I had turned 18, which even that is a privilege because I think that only happened because of the size and the wealth of the church that they even gave me $50 a week during my internship. $50 a week? Yeah.
00:31:56
Speaker
I know I show up every day because of it. But yeah, you it would be expectations are so high for their own low commitment to your well being.
00:32:07
Speaker
Of course. They would have a great example. My partner, when they were a young teenage girl, they would be staying at the church until like 2 a.m. with like grown adult men. Inappropriate for so many reasons. Dangerous. Dangerous. Just like not okay. And it's, but the whole time they were like, do you want this people to see heaven or not? And it's like, well, of course I don't want to send people to hell and go home and go to bed.
00:32:35
Speaker
That would just be my fault for all eternity. I can't sleep when people are burning in hell. Literally. It's like if you didn't participate and hold up to your agreement, you weren't going to receive their approval. You weren't going to receive God's blessing either. And this is all ingrained in the formative years. The shame.
00:33:00
Speaker
that is embedded, the guilt, the manipulation. You know, I've heard, you're now my 19th guest and I've heard a lot of this, but this is on such a grand scale. It's so big. It's got so much money and fame behind it that it feels like church Hollywood. Oh, a hundred percent.
00:33:28
Speaker
If there is no difference between the actual music industry and the worship music industry, I think they operate entirely the same. But one is coded in, this is for God.
Legal Tactics and Silencing
00:33:41
Speaker
And it's also coded in like, we are, what's the word? They're not monitored by the federal government and so they can get away with a lot of shit. At least in the music industry, you can like sue people for screwing you over. But like in the church, there's literally like a list of legal things that they wronged me in, but I cannot sue them because at the end of the day, it's like nonprofit organization
00:34:10
Speaker
that you can't, you know, they just are legally protected in that way. I remember when we first talked about recording together, that you had to wait for a certain amount of time because you were under an NDA.
00:34:24
Speaker
When I worked there, we signed a confidentiality agreement just saying like anything that goes on here is sacred and behind closed doors and you don't share it with the outside world. And then of course when you're in your like fired slash leaving situation, you get the five year NDA.
00:34:42
Speaker
which my mother-in-law also had one of those. They're like, we'll only give you severance if you sign this. And those last like five years. That's how long mine was. Throw a little perspective into this for folks. In my former career life, I was the VP of Growth Development at a top 10 real estate firm on the western half of the state.
00:35:07
Speaker
I was in the inner workings of this company and I was under a two-year NDA. Five years is wild to me for a church. Any NDA is kind of wild for me for a church, but five years? That's a big deal. It's a lot of time.
00:35:24
Speaker
Yeah, it is. I don't know if this is true. This is complete assumption. But I do know that the statute of limitations in Texas is about five years. So I wonder if that's why. But that's a complete assumption. I could just be like conspiracy theorizing that. But I imagine this church has a legal team. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Absolutely. And they're ferocious. I hope to never ever deal with them.
00:35:54
Speaker
Tell me a little more about just how deep those policies went and just how, if I'm gonna be frank about it, how shameless they were and how personal they were.
00:36:06
Speaker
My internship is a great example of that. So for a brief period of time, my parents literally moved us away. Well, my brother was already 18, so he stayed, but they moved me and my sister away so that we couldn't be in it anymore. And I was like, lost my mind. The second I turned 18, I moved back and applied for their internship. So I was now there living with my brother as a roommate.
00:36:28
Speaker
And I did my internship interview and I got accepted and I was really excited because my two departments were going to be the youth ministry and then the broadcast worship ministry. So there were a couple of other people that were in the same like sections as me. So like worship ministry and then broadcast team. Those other guys right away started playing the weekend services and started leading worship and
00:36:58
Speaker
being on stage. And my first meeting with the worship pastor, he sat me down and he was like, you know, we just really want to make sure that you're prepared for this. We want to make sure you're able to give God all of yourself. And, you know, we have some concerns about your health. And then he talked me through a diet and a workout routine.
00:37:20
Speaker
And he gave me this food tracking booklet, which offered suggestions of what to eat. And of course it was like six ounces of chicken, broccoli, pickles, like. Pickles, yeah. Yeah. Mustard only for condiment. Yeah. I was asked to fill that out and turn it back into him each week so that he could know what exactly I was eating. You had to report back to him? Yes. Wow. This was more than a suggestion.
00:37:49
Speaker
Oh yeah, it was more of a like, this is your internship. Your first thing is to lose weight. Your first thing is to, is for me to police your food and what you're eating. Eventually, it's always shocking. These people are not, they're southerners in the conservative way, but they're not southerners in the like embracing loving food and all of that stuff. They're very,
00:38:14
Speaker
When I show my friends like pictures, they're always like, this looks like LA or something. And I'm like, yeah, pretty much was. Or it's very Hillsong coded. There's not a lot of difference between the two, but yeah, so it ran deep. It ran to like, I was now, every time I went to eat something, I was like, oh man, I have to tell the, my pastor that this is what I'm going to eat. Is he going to approve this? Like, is this going to be?
00:38:40
Speaker
bad like and it got to the point where like obviously I started skipping meals this is where my eating disorder stuff really started but um eventually because I would I would try to not turn that sheet in because I I felt really degraded you know I'm an 18 year old I'm not actually even that overweight but even if I was like are we not supposed to be here for serving the Lord it's gross yeah eventually about it
00:39:06
Speaker
No, absolutely not. And when I was like not turning in the booklet, he made me add him on the fitness app where you can put your, you can enter your food diary and you can track your weight. So we were like friends. The church was paying for me to have this app. And so we were friends and he was able to see my food diary every day and to track my weight.
00:39:32
Speaker
this extended into you know the suggestions of like hey like you should cut your hair we should look at some hairstyles for you or like have you thought about wearing these certain types of clothes like it got into like wardrobe and like it started with that suggesting like changing my appearance and of course i didn't tell my parents about this i didn't tell
00:39:55
Speaker
my brother. I didn't tell anyone else. I just kept this to myself because I was embarrassed and mortified, first of all, but also because I was being told this is the best way to honor God right now.
00:40:09
Speaker
And I, at this point, already like left my parents living on my own, pretending to go to college. And like, I've already sacrificed a lot to be here.
Pressure and Personal Toll
00:40:19
Speaker
So I'm not going to question. I'm not going to push back because remember, there's still the ingrained, if you question this, what kind of evilness are you letting into your heart? What kind of
00:40:31
Speaker
negativity and satanic beliefs are you like considering or like entertaining so i just didn't question it that's when they really started like with the body shaming and the body policing of not just me but also of others so they would ask any worship leader on our staff or even the volunteers if they were overweight or not quote skinny enough or didn't quote look like they were winning at life they pulled them all aside and they would say
00:41:01
Speaker
until you lose some weight, you can't sing leads, and you have to stand in the back of the stage. This happened to a handful of people, people who had been there for 10 years. My own vocal coach, she was such a phenomenal vocalist, such a talented person, so wise and smart, and she was a great leader. They did this to her as well. And she, with her self-respect, was like, well, then I'm not singing. And then they were like, okay, bye.
00:41:29
Speaker
After like 10 years there, her husband was still, he was still serving as an instrumentalist so they didn't cut him yet. That later became of course like an issue. The other thing about that specifically why I share that is because she had two sisters and the three of them were like
00:41:46
Speaker
They were like superstars, I'll say. They were really talented, really good at performing, really good at singing. The two skinny sisters got to stay, but the one overweight vocalist, she was like not singing anymore.
00:42:03
Speaker
Keep in mind, me and my brother are both serving in this church. They've asked my brother to lose weight. He lost a bunch. He jumped right into that eating disorder and he lost like 50 pounds in like three months. And so I was like, I'm not about to be the chubby sibling that gets kicked off. I'm going to keep my head down and I'm going to do the same thing because I was seeing that before my own eyes happening. At the same time, they took the worship pastor and they hired this male worship leader.
00:42:32
Speaker
One was Hispanic and one was white. And after two weeks, one of them got moved to the small campus and the other one took over as worship pastor. I'll let you guess which one. Oh, I can't even. It's a 50-50 shot. What do you mean? Oh my God.
00:42:50
Speaker
and it was so out of nowhere everyone was like shocked and no one knew why both of them were surprised by it this poor guy that was like hired as a worship leader was now the worship pastor and he was upset he actually ended up being a really good person and he is also no longer in ministry he even admitted to me once he was like I didn't ask for this like that was way I was brand new and all of a sudden my boss
00:43:14
Speaker
gets demoted and removed away. There was just a lot, me as an 18 year old witnessing all of this is like, oh my God, I can't do anything against what they're telling me right now. And the biggest one was one of the worship leaders who was a friend of mine. We'd grown up in the youth together and now she was leading worship at broadcast. She actually stood up for herself and they fired her.
00:43:40
Speaker
Oh, of course. And not only did they fire her, but they told us that she had gone on a different path away from Christ and that we needed to no longer interact with her. She was now out of her mind and she was toxic and she was going to be putting evil thoughts into our minds and no one interact with her. Don't speak with her. Like if she tries to contact you, let us know. And this was like someone I grew up with who all of a sudden
00:44:09
Speaker
because she said, hey, this is wrong and I'm not doing that. And you're not going to make me lose weight. And then they just fired her. And so that really solidified for me. Like, I'm just going to do what I say. Cause I don't want to get fired. Cause this is already at this point, the only thing I have in my entire life at 18.
00:44:29
Speaker
and I don't want to be shunned by the community, literally. Exactly. It feels to me like the driving factor behind all of this is fame and money. I'm so glad you said that because one thing, people don't often remember exactly how deep into this church that I was. My mother-in-law was the COO. She worked hand in hand with the senior pastor and his wife constantly.
00:44:57
Speaker
and she oversaw the financial side of it. I'm going to give you some numbers and some aspect and context. The way that this ministry is set up is through an organization that allows you
00:45:14
Speaker
and three other pastors to be your board members because the board is who decides how much the senior pastor gets paid. So essentially they created a way for like these three random guys to tell each other that they're allowed to pay themselves a bunch.
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah. So the senior pastor paid himself $1 million per year. Wow. And he paid his wife half a million dollars per year. And he also got bonuses. So well, yeah. So when you say they're mostly concerned about fame and making money, that's the 100% truth. Yeah.
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah. There are a lot of people out there who do a lot of things for a million dollars. My only experience with the backend of church finances is with the Presbyterian church. I intended in Asheville for awhile and I had the minister of that church on this show because she's phenomenal. The entire church got together. All the membership got together and got to see what everybody's salary was and vote on whether or not increases would happen. Wow.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah, so I am hearing you talk about a million dollars, then half a million, and this being a private board, and it being kind of tucked away, and that is so... It's so transparent when I've been to another church that does it so differently and so openly. Yeah. That's why.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, it really is. It's sad too. As a previous giver, I was giving back 10% of my $50. Of your $50, right? And then to know that they're making millions each year, it's just like, ugh, I am so sad that I didn't keep my 10%. And shaming children into doing free labor. Yeah. That's horrifying.
00:47:19
Speaker
Yes, again, with the exploitation and the manipulation, our rewards inhabit. But they get their reward right now. Right now? Yeah, because they're, again, the hierarchical. You did it. I did? That felt so wrong. Is that seriously how you say it? Hierarchical.
00:47:41
Speaker
The hierarchical thing is so real. They are allowed to do all of this and say all of this and pay themselves this much, and we cannot question it. Otherwise, we are entertaining the thoughts of Satan.
00:48:02
Speaker
Every time I hear a different part of your story, I'm just blown away. I bet your therapists are like, oh my God, Sage is coming in today. We're about to hear some real shit. Oh my goodness. So I've been in therapy for seven years now, or six years, six years now. And I've had a multitude of therapists, Christian, non-Christian, psychiatrists, behavioral health specialists. I've seen them all. And they're always
00:48:32
Speaker
So like, you know, this is something that I've not quite had to deal with yet. But here are some tools that I think might help. I've also done EMDR therapy for PTSD. I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2021. I get a lot of nightmares and lots of flashbacks of literally like being on stage or being starved or being scolded and stuff like that. So the EMDR therapy is really interesting because it makes you mimic your
00:49:00
Speaker
eye movement during sleep and then you can process through stuff while you're doing that. Literally when I do it, I don't have the nightmares that night. I do take medication for it, but I can sense the difference. Having a regular dream is so nice when I can do that. I love dreaming, so I'm glad that you get to have good experiences with that.
00:49:23
Speaker
Me too, for a long time, it was like I, there was like a solid year where I was like, I hate sleeping. I fight sleeping. I don't like to sleep because I just relive all of this stuff in my sleep at night. And it's like, no one was like sitting there beating me or had me chained in somewhere starving me. But you know, like the mental and emotional abuse has such a different impact on your mind. And so when my brain is in REM trying to heal from that stuff,
00:49:52
Speaker
It's like I'm sitting in there reliving it so vividly that when I wake up, I feel like I've just been there. I feel like I've just been at the church. I've just been on stage. I've just been in a room full of people where they're critiquing me and my performance. I've just been sitting here being told that my body is not good enough for God and that I need to keep starving and I need to be hungry.
00:50:14
Speaker
It's just so weird how it takes you back in, but I've... It is. My therapists are... Go-to stress-stream is that I'm trapped in Bible college in my very strict fundamentalist Bible college. And the only way I can get out is if I graduate. And I'm usually in a floor length skirt in dress code and I can't change and I can't... That's my go-to stress-stream.
00:50:39
Speaker
Which I hate. Yeah, it's real. It's not uncommon for people who leave mentally abusive and emotionally abusive situations like that. And I am glad you're talking about it and that my guests are talking about it and that I'm talking about it because I don't know that many people outside of these experiences would understand
00:51:05
Speaker
how it works or why it affects us or why we feel the need to speak out, but it really takes over your life. Yeah, it absolutely does. I've always thought about studying really deep into psychology just to understand why it has such a deep impact, but it's so crazy that it does.
00:51:25
Speaker
So you're kind of at the height of this, right? Like you're seeing people, you're on the team, you've signed your documents, you're hired, you're not getting paid very much, but you're hired. In turning. Yeah, in turning. How does it all start to fall apart? Yeah. So one important thing I want to touch on was it peaked a little bit higher than this. Oh, okay.
00:51:53
Speaker
During this time of the body shaming and stuff, they started introducing what was called a vocal regimen, which was telling us exactly what to eat, and then periodically, Daniel fasting. Oh, no. Yeah, tons of intense vocal training and vocal agility, strength, exercises, a strict workout regimen. I had a personal trainer from church who would meet me at the gym and work me out, and it was very deep. The Daniel fasting stuff,
00:52:22
Speaker
people would ask, when was the last time you prayed and fasted? When was the last time you took a break from your fleshly desires to prioritize Christ? And so it was conditional starving for big events and for certain things or for more opportunity. And it started to become a church-wide thing that we did. They would say, from the stage, we're going to fast for the month of January.
00:52:49
Speaker
or we're going to go on like a weekly fast something like it was always like right around the time of like New Year's when people would start losing weight for the New Year's resolution or something. So we were existing on that vocal regimen and then around this time we also
00:53:09
Speaker
hired a new youth pastor. Our youth was a decent size but like it wasn't quite as impactful as the adult ministry in the broadcast campus so we were also the youth broadcast because each campus had their own youth and like they followed whatever we did and like streamed our services and stuff like that so
00:53:31
Speaker
We hired a new youth pastor and that's when our youth ministry really started to blow up. So keep in mind that the people that I'm working with are getting these opportunities to be in broadcast. I'm training the girls on my team to sing on a broadcast weekend every once in a while.
00:53:50
Speaker
I would ask my pastors like hey like is there any opportunity for me to have that chance every now and then or I'd ask like is there would it be possible for me to have that opportunity every now and then and they'd always say like oh we'll have to think about it and then it would come back to like we just haven't seen like enough progress with like your physical health like you're not prioritizing Christ because you're not losing weight and so it was like
00:54:16
Speaker
Again, I would be like, okay, this is what got once for me, so I'm just going to give you one way. Meanwhile, the girls younger than me that I was training would start singing at broadcast. I've been kind of huddled away into this youth ministry. The youth ministry starts blowing up.
00:54:35
Speaker
I'm finally really excited. I'm getting some bigger opportunities there. Around this time, we started recording our own music as well, and we started doing some more videos and promos and stuff like that. Oh, I also wanted to say,
00:54:53
Speaker
So I was training. I was in the youth. I was overseeing the worship for the vocals. And my brother was actually the worship director of the youth ministry. And then he was also singing at broadcast because he had lost all his weight. So he was allowed to be seen.
00:55:10
Speaker
Yes. And it's worth noting that my brother is also, he is Mexican as well, but he has pale skin. Just letting that thought sit there for a little bit. Cause you know, I, I had lost like 30 pounds and I was like, I don't know what else they want a lot for an 18 year old, someone who's six one, like, I don't know. I was like, they want me to be a twink.
00:55:37
Speaker
They want to see my bones protruding out of my skin. So I'm training these girls, and they're younger than me, and they're getting these opportunities to serve at broadcast, one of them being my current spouse, who told me that eventually, the reason why they were doing that is because they were older. Oh, excuse me, Bert, I'm so sorry.
00:56:05
Speaker
They explained to me that part of the reason they were doing that is because mixing them into the adult setting was giving them the opportunity to interact with the older single guys. So my partner was 16. The pastor's wife would like, hey, isn't he handsome? He's single to a 27-year-old.
00:56:29
Speaker
And they would do it to her all the time. These girls were very talented and they absolutely deserved to be there. But I think the ulterior motive was to start pairing up suitors with these young girls so that they could kind of have matches and
00:56:45
Speaker
and pair up and get married and be fruitful and multiply. There is actually one of those guys who they tried to pair my spouse with. He actually ended up marrying somebody five years younger than us. And he was already like 13 years older than us. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So there was definitely ulterior motive there.
00:57:09
Speaker
There was one time where just on the subject of my not being allowed to sing at broadcast while everyone else was, they actually sent out on Planning Center, Trigger Warning Planning Center, they sent out a request to have me sing a broadcast weekend. And I was like, oh my God, I'm so excited. It's finally happening. I told my friends.
00:57:32
Speaker
at the church I like told my at the time my spouse and I were not dating but I was like I told them and I was like I'm gonna sing we're gonna sing together oh my gosh and it was like I was so excited and then I got an email that said sorry that was an accident and then they took me off after I'd already like told everyone I told my parents oh my god it was so embarrassing that's horrifying
00:57:56
Speaker
Yeah, it was so embarrassing. And I was like, I just don't understand what the big deal is. Like, I'm proving myself. I've lost 30 pounds. I'm working really hard. I'm reading my Bible every day. I'm in prayer. I'm doing the devotions that they make for us.
00:58:13
Speaker
I just couldn't understand why. So at this time where the youth ministry itself is starting to blow up in massive ways, I was like, I waited, I serve God. This is my opportunity to lead worship in this youth ministry as it's growing. I did it. This was what God had me waiting for this whole time.
00:58:35
Speaker
We grew to a point where other churches would have our worship team come and lead for them for special events and conferences and lock-ins and stuff. There was just exponential growth. It was doubling, tripling, quadrupling in size over just months, eventually to the point where we decided to have a relaunch and change the name and change our mission statement of the youth ministry.
00:59:01
Speaker
And we were moving our youth ministry from the broadcast campus youth area to our second largest campus. And we were putting it on Wednesday nights so that there were no other services happening. So that we could occupy the second largest auditorium that we had throughout all of the churches. So that was like, yeah, that was like a super big deal. We were so excited. Like it meant such, even though we already had great stuff, it made big upgrades to our equipment. We got a bigger stage, more screens, more
00:59:31
Speaker
lights to play with. It was really exciting and then at the same time like still that element of being famous and like having the exposure and like having the pressure of like you have to act and behave a certain way because there's so many people watching you and like getting in trouble just for like liking certain tweets. I got in trouble for using the word yeet on Instagram once. Like the word yeet. That's so harmless.
00:59:56
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It wasn't harmless for me, apparently. I got in big trouble and I had to delete my whole post. Wow. Yeah, I had to like sit out and think about what I did and miss rehearsal or something. So we had the launch at the new location, the new night, we changed the name. Our new mission statement, I will say, for the youth was to make Jesus famous.
01:00:18
Speaker
Because I think that's important for context as to like the vibe of what this youth ministry was becoming. And the launch night was like a massive success. It was the buzz of the city. Everyone was talking about it.
01:00:33
Speaker
and so like we and we were the faces of that and because we were the faces of that this is when they upgraded our contracts so we were now not only signing that we would behave and act certain ways but we signed actually away our likeness so that they could use our faces our work our voices for anything that they wanted to
01:00:56
Speaker
And at all times we became now, each of us individually became now a representation of the church and no longer of our own selves. This meant that anytime you're in public, you're representing the church. You need to be dressed. You need to look well. You need to take care of yourself. You need to be on. You need to talk to people, take pictures, like do the whole thing. Like, cause you know, if you don't do all this and you don't make us look good,
01:01:22
Speaker
They're going to rot in hell forever and that's going to be on you. Totally my fault. If the funniest story, it's so embarrassing to say and look back on now, but it really was like micro niche worship leader, celebrity fame.
01:01:40
Speaker
the whole like i couldn't go in public without getting recognized i couldn't ever just leave my house without having to be like fully dressed and ready to have my picture taken my picture would get taken. And some of us were still in high school like having to go to school and interact with other kids from church and like be bombarded by all day.
01:02:00
Speaker
It got to the point where the funniest story I have is I was actually peeing at a urinal and this kid taps me on the shoulder and he's like, are you that singer?
Struggles and Realizations
01:02:11
Speaker
And I was like, I was like, Oh God, I'm literally peeing. Like my business is out.
01:02:17
Speaker
Leave me alone. I was like, hey, yeah, I am. And then he was like, can we please take a picture? And I was like, can you wait like two minutes? I'm using the bathroom, but as soon as I'm done, I'll take a picture. And then he ran out of the bathroom. And then when I finished, I came out and him and like this group of 10 kids were like taking pictures and like ready for me. And I was like, I think he saw my privates. Like I was so embarrassed.
01:02:43
Speaker
I would be too. But an invasion of personal space. Yes. You had like a am I George Clooney moment in the bathroom? Like, we're church. Like, that's so wild. So wild. But it's part of the glamorous setup that they have. It's part of the like, we can't help. We're making Jesus famous. Of course we're getting famous, but like we can't help that. We're doing this for God.
01:03:12
Speaker
like the mindset was just and of course the end goal is fame and money as always so this is bringing in lots of
01:03:21
Speaker
lots of cash, lots of exposure. Like I said, we're doing events for other churches and we're going around and like all of that stuff. So we've decided to wear likeness. We're getting recognized in public a lot, lots of pictures and autographs. My partner and I actually, or my spouse and I actually at two different times have been followed home by people. And someone actually followed me home and helped me at gunpoint.
01:03:48
Speaker
That's a whole other story. But yeah, just just for context, the level of exposure was, you know, I should have been more protected than that. And and we should have been more protected than that. My partner was still in high school, like having grown men come to the school.
01:04:09
Speaker
And then like having grown men get in our faces with their own little video cameras. And some people would tell me gross stuff. They would tell me like, I have this picture of you in my room and I do this with it. And I'm like, oh, this is sick. We should have been more protected than that. Absolutely.
01:04:27
Speaker
that's what uh that's what the intensity got us to and then of course i was like well i signed my life away so i just got to deal with it and like be thankful because not everyone gets this opportunity this is a privilege from christ and i need to accept that and be grateful i won't yeah
01:04:49
Speaker
We were up to at least $75 per set at that point. So that was nice. Per set. Not per hour. Okay. No. A million dollar salary. I was thinking the rates would be a little higher. You would think. But see, I'm not the one sacrificing the most, so I get 75 bucks. Ridiculous.
01:05:14
Speaker
So of course this all brought on like our own personal re-brands and like wardrobe upgrades. I like finally they hadn't cut my hair off and I finally had one of those like shaved on the sides but kind of floppy on top hairstyles that were super popular back then. I can see it. Yeah. Also like just within the church we started doing like glam and we started doing photo shoots and
01:05:40
Speaker
music recording still and they would always be like following us around filming it was it felt like reality TV at some points because it was like we'd get into spaces and we'd be like are there cameras here right now can we be relaxed for a second or no no there's cameras so we got to be you know what I mean like
01:05:56
Speaker
It was the whole whole shebang. And I think a lot of people don't understand that about mega churches that it's like just as intense as the regular industry. But you're not expecting it. And you think that the people will be better than that. But they aren't. And so that's where there's a lot of disappointment. And like, I can't believe this is happening in a church. I can't believe this is happening to me in the house of God. But it's unfortunate reality of mega churchdom.
01:06:25
Speaker
And after they build all this up and they do all these re-brands, I assume they're trying to get to Hillsong status. Oh yeah. That's the goal. At this point in time, we were having interactions with them. I was DMing the main worship leaders of Hillsong, Young and Free, and we talked to each other and followed.
01:06:47
Speaker
they had an event, they continued to have events at that church actually. So the growth and the involvement was like, we're doing it, like we're on Hillsong's radar, like they know us now. But that didn't happen, right? What do you mean? The church didn't get, they didn't continue growing exponentially like that.
01:07:08
Speaker
Oh no, they have not. From what I've heard, it has changed drastically for lots of reasons. They did end up closing down like a bunch of the campuses. I think because it's also the town is not very large. So people still talk, people still message me, people reach out to me or they'll get messages to me through other people, which is so annoying. You think someone's safe and then you realize they're a messenger and then you have to block them and it's like, this is too bad.
01:07:36
Speaker
But I've heard that there's a huge mismanagement of funds and that they've struggled a lot lately, but that the senior pastors are still making what they're making. So I've seen it from this perspective. I try not to pay any attention to it, but it's definitely not that high of impact anymore. Sounds like karma for what happened to you to me. Well, I always say I hope this town falls into the ocean.
01:08:06
Speaker
That was such an evil thing to say. I'm so sorry. Well, I'm thinking of something worse. I was thinking of the RDB clip where she's just like, burning hell. That's all I can think about. I'll let her say it. I gotta be, I'm growing. You can be nice. I don't have to be nice. I don't know these people. Yeah. So what happened with you then?
01:08:31
Speaker
Basically, like, because I was being so exposed in the youth, they finally let me sing at broadcast. But I was only allowed to do the last service of the day on Sunday nights because it was the lowest in attendance.
01:08:51
Speaker
But to me, this is amazing. At this point, I'm 19 maybe. And I'm like, this is what I've been waiting for. I'm so excited. And of course, everyone else on the team was annoyed because they didn't hate it. But it's the last service of the day. There's no energy. They're all tired. And I was excited to be there.
01:09:12
Speaker
What they basically ended up doing is the main worship pastor, he would now take those services off and I would just take his parts. So the welcomes and the prayers.
01:09:24
Speaker
one upbeat song and then one slow song so I was like this is really amazing like I'm so happy for this opportunity even though it was like just that one service I was thrilled and I was happy excited and it's it's sad to look back because it's like very obviously everyone around me knew that it was like
01:09:43
Speaker
Throwing me a bone because now we didn't have youth on Sunday. So I was just at church and people were always asking like, why aren't you singing? You know, I'd be like, oh, I don't know. I'm just serving God in this area today. It started to like become an issue. So.
01:09:58
Speaker
And I was still like losing weight. Also, I had, you know, cut my hair off and had the whole new wardrobe. So I think that all kind of played a part into letting me do those Sunday night services. But it was also like the whole auditorium, maybe like 200 people's. It was super empty. Like it was, it was like a throwaway service for, for everyone. But for me, it was like my most special part of the day. I'll be a breadcrumb when it felt like reinforced in here, huh?
01:10:29
Speaker
Oh yeah, and by that time I was like, I've been waiting for like years for this and I'm so excited to just have the opportunity to serve God in this area.
01:10:42
Speaker
that all lasted for eight months or so. And then something really drastic happened in the youth ministry where a bunch of women and teenage girls came forward that our youth pastor was being sexually inappropriate with them, which was very unfortunate for them. Every time I think of it, I feel so awful. Like some of these girls I knew and they
01:11:07
Speaker
had been, our youth pastor was like 27, talking to 16 year old girls and sexting and he had a wife and a child. It was just so sad and terrible and also so gross to know that my likeness was tied directly into this pedophile all this time and I had no idea. So,
01:11:31
Speaker
As you can imagine, the big fun youth service was really tainted by that along with my likeness and my job of singing. There were just so many elements to this downfall of it and all of this coming out. I'm very glad it did. I would trade all of that in the first place to never have any of those girls have to go what they went through.
01:11:59
Speaker
Now that it had, there was nothing we could do. And the night, so we found out like over the weekend, youth services were on Wednesday. So we had our Wednesday service. These had been so big, there was like a thousand in attendance most of the time or something. And we had our youth service the next Thursday. On like Thursday, someone came forward. My mother-in-law, who was one of the now heads of this church,
01:12:28
Speaker
had to sit down with lawyers and with him and his wife and show him the statements. And then we started getting the full story of just how in depth he had gotten into involvement with other women and teenage girls. And it was just devastating. So they had, that Thursday night,
01:12:55
Speaker
My partner, my spouse at the time, girlfriend called me hysterical and said like, I need you to come over right now. And I was like, Oh, what is going on? Like I had no, I thought like their parents were going to say that we had to break up or something.
01:13:14
Speaker
Before all this, oh yeah, we had started dating over this last summer. When the relaunch happened, we started dating. And fun fact, I got specific permission from the youth pastor, my worship pastor, and my spouse's mom to date because I was turning 19 and they were 17 and weren't turning 18 for another three months.
01:13:37
Speaker
Oh, wow. So three months. Yeah, I was very concerned about our three months of illegal activity. Meanwhile, the youth pastor is doing what he's doing. So and also I wanted to throw in another tidbit.
01:13:56
Speaker
When this pastor started working at our church, in order to serve at camp and to serve in the youth, he sat everyone down individually and asked them if they had ever struggled or had homosexual thoughts. And if you had, you were not allowed to serve anymore. Meanwhile, he was literally a pedophile. Literally. But yeah, so I got to my, at the time, girlfriend's house and my mother-in-law was there crying. She sat me down and told me all what happened.
01:14:27
Speaker
You know, we had like the moment of like, oh no, like everything that we just achieved is ruined because of this disgusting person and what they've done to our students. These students that we knew before we knew him, it was a disaster. However, we had to wait until the next Wednesday service to announce it to the youth at youth service. We were told by the staff, by the senior pastor himself, you do not cry.
01:14:56
Speaker
You go out there and you act like nothing has changed and nothing is wrong. You have a job to do. I don't want to see you crying. I want to see you singing, dancing, smiling and having a good time. You are not showing any negative emotion about this. And that's what we did. It was such a horrible night.
01:15:16
Speaker
Like, because we led the worship knowing that these kids were about to hear this, and then they had us come back on after and do another fast song to close out the service. So we went out there and pretended to be all happy after he had just told this room of 800 kids that their pastor was a pedophile. Wow. So that was an intense night and a bad experience. What a horrible way to handle, that's bad leadership. Well, I mean, understatement.
01:15:46
Speaker
a little cherry on top of all of the bad leadership. Yes. You've explained so far. It was really sad because all of the, remember I said like this is when, this was the fruits of my labor of waiting was this youth ministry and all of its success. They literally swept it all into the rug so fast, including me. So now like the numbers were dropping, they stopped investing, they stopped
01:16:12
Speaker
doing promo or talking about it. It was on the news because of what had happened. It was really bad publicity, which meant bad publicity for us personally as well. Our Instagram comments were pedophiles, your sickos, and all this stuff. It was just so bad. Everyone on my team gets shifted into the broadcast worship team.
01:16:37
Speaker
I no longer am doing anything. And they're all singing at broadcast. They still let me do that Sunday night every now and then. But at that point, my mother-in-law, she was like, let's find you a position on staff. So we were on TBN, our services. So we had one of those call centers for prayer.
01:17:00
Speaker
And so I joined the staff doing that. And then I would, yeah, I would sing the Sunday night service. And then I would sing like the youth service, but it was always just like, like week by week, hundreds of less kids until it was like a hundred or 200 max. And then I was just hanging around broadcast, doing nothing. And they decided that it would be a good move for me to
01:17:27
Speaker
take on a worship director role at one of their smallest locations a little further away because it was a problem campus and they thought I would be the one to fix it. So deeply dedicated. And of course I was so willing. I was like, they trust me to take on a campus. But, um,
01:17:51
Speaker
you know, the reality of it was is like, now you're hanging around here, we need to get you out of here. So I moved to that campus and became the worship director. And then one day we received an email from my mother-in-law to the whole staff that said she felt that her services here were no longer required and that she was holding us back. And so I'm sitting here reading this email
01:18:19
Speaker
And I'm like, what the hell is going on? I like went to her office and looked in and all her stuff was gone. So she sets me down later and she's like, I have to tell you because we're at this point, we're family. And she says, the pastor wanted me to start letting go of all
01:18:48
Speaker
plus size and people of color. And he asked me to start coming up with any reason as to why, to give them bad yearly reviews, to just figure out ways to let them go if they're older or balding or of color or overweight. And she said that I was not going to do that and then they fired her instead.
01:19:19
Speaker
Here I am, I've been brainwashed for so many years, I'm told not to question their authority, but now my future mother-in-law has been fired. And she's telling me this insane thing about it's because they want white people only. And I already like internally know that they want skinny people only, but I'm like still in such denial because that's just how my brain has been conditioned.
01:19:46
Speaker
I'm like 19, almost 20 years old at this point. I've been here for like seven or eight years. And I'm taught that any outsider is lying and making it up. And every person that's ever left or been fired for any reason gets shunned. And so now there's this major conflict between me and my girlfriend and my extended family.
01:20:10
Speaker
And it was like so damaging and I always will regret not immediately just leaving then and there. But I also can look back and understand why it took me time to see the truth because of just how much brainwashing I had been put under. So that happened and then the one worship pastor that was always advocating for me
01:20:35
Speaker
The guy I mentioned earlier, he was actually a really good guy, no longer in ministry. He got fired.
01:20:42
Speaker
and then they told us they told us it was because he was off his meds and he actually didn't take meds so don't know where they got that from but a funny tidbit about that is like the week before he was let go we had a first Wednesday service and that afternoon he texted me and he's like are you in the building and I was like yeah and he's like do you want to sing tonight
01:21:07
Speaker
at the first Wednesday service. And I got to sing the first Wednesday service and I had leads and everything. I got to stand on like the main platform. And I was like, we sing together, him and my good friends like at broadcasts for the first time in so long. And it was like really special for me because I was like,
01:21:26
Speaker
Wow, I got an opportunity. Now that I'm looking back, I think it was kind of a big FU to the pastor on his way out the door. I love that. So that's an assumption, but I like that assumption. I like it too. I like it too.
01:21:44
Speaker
God, there's so many little tidbits I wanna cover. This was also around the time of the 2016 election. I was finally old enough to vote. I was told you can only vote for one person and you know who that is. And then they asked me, did you vote? Yeah, so that was one of those instances of them preaching from the stage that we are all supposed to vote for Trump. And if you don't, you are a questionable human being.
01:22:10
Speaker
So yeah, my mother-in-law is fired. My pastor is fired. I'm like, I'm gonna stick this out and be the difference. I'm gonna help change this ministry from the inside out. Oh, we've all been there. Yeah.
01:22:28
Speaker
This is like the last year of my involvement at this church. The new worship pastor sits me down and again is like, we need to talk about your weight. We need to talk about your look. We are going to set aside $500 a month for you to have wardrobe. We're going to pay for you to get your haircut at this specific salon. The salon that I was already getting my haircut at, by the way.
01:22:47
Speaker
Um, I was, I was like in tears and I was like, I don't want that. Like, please don't. And then they were like, okay, well you're not singing Sunday nights anymore. So I stopped doing the Sunday nights and was just at my campus and doing the youth. And then the,
01:23:03
Speaker
worship pastor referred me to something called the serotonin weight loss program, which is a program for rapid weight loss. And in my desperation and in my brainwashing, I was like, fine, I'll try it. And they put me on serotonin supplements, caffeine supplements, phenamine for appetite suppressant, diuretic to not hold water weight, metformin for weight loss and a daily vitamin. And then there was a very restrictive eating meal plan
01:23:32
Speaker
zero carbs, no dairy, or some dairy. You could eat a cheese stick a day, you could eat one egg for breakfast, and you could eat pickles because they were zero calories, sugar-free jello, and then you would eat six ounces of chicken and some broccoli. And that was all you ate. And because I was taking those appetites to presents,
01:23:55
Speaker
Um, I like just stopped eating. I was like taking that multivitamin and I just was like not eating anymore. And that's when I developed anorexia. I was literally like fainting. I had no energy and I was super exhausted and it was like, the goal was to get me back into broadcast. I was going to do it one way or another.
01:24:16
Speaker
And now I'm in an altered state of mind because I'm taking serotonin supplements. So I'm like feeling really good all of a sudden. And I'm like having serotonin syndrome most days. And so when it gets to the point where they're having me stand up and talk about my weight and how much I've lost in the staff meetings, I'm not questioning it. I'm announcing to the staff, this is how much weight I lost this week. And I'm on the track to to come be here again.
01:24:46
Speaker
I didn't think anything of it because I couldn't think anymore. And then if I would lose enough weight, they would let me do a Sunday night. And then they would say, if you lose 10 more pounds, we might be able to have you back. And so it got really weird, really intense, and just way too much. So I was doing that the whole last year that I was there.
01:25:13
Speaker
operating on serotonin syndrome, trying to like function, but like slowly dying. After I left this church and I saw a real doctor and I came off the meds, I had like withdrawal and I was malnourished. I was depressed because my body stopped making serotonin for itself. And like, I still struggle with that mental side of making serotonin to this day.
01:25:39
Speaker
But the thing that finally got me out was they hired this youth pastor to replace the pedophile and he was really different from all the others. He was like not young, not like ideal looking for them.
01:25:56
Speaker
And I don't know, we thought it was interesting. He kind of hyper-fixated on one of our singers. She was like 18, white, female, really talented individual. She's great and she deserves all of her opportunities, but he really was like, make sure she's in the middle of everything. And I always got a weird vibe and she would even tell me like, why does he always want me in the middle of everything? And I would be like, girl, I don't know.
01:26:22
Speaker
Except your opportunity, I guess. So as I mentioned before, camps are a massive thing for us. So I've gotten to this point where I'm able to plan the summer camp. It's like the one thing I can count on being a part of. And so the summer camp is all planned already. And he starts asking me, like, who do you have singing for camp?
01:26:45
Speaker
And I would give him my list. My team was diverse because that's just how I've always been. And then he would pick out the members of color and he would say, let's replace them. And then at one point he was like, in fact, let's just have the whole broadcast team do camp instead. I don't really want to do any of the youth worship team. And I was devastated. But I had put so much work into it. I'd been working on it for months. And we finally got to the day of our first rehearsal.
01:27:15
Speaker
And I came in the office and he sat me down and said, this isn't an easy decision to make, but I'm going to have you not sing at camp. And the reason why is because you look sloppy on stage. Um, he also said he's going to go ahead and phase me out of the youth ministry because I need to focus on my campus, which was like, Oh,
01:27:36
Speaker
like I can't even explain that was like the last thing I was holding on to and like that was our area and then he came in and took it over and then he just like flat out said all of the terrible things that have been said to me this entire time. I had an out of body experience. I like stormed out of the building. People saw
01:27:58
Speaker
It was so embarrassing. I was humiliated. I had this breakdown in front of my mom because my parents had moved back to this town. So I went and I was living with them and I went home and I had this full breakdown in front of my mom where I like finally told her what all was going on. It was really sad. And then like, I just, I just like accepted it. I was like, I can't.
01:28:21
Speaker
be a part of this as much as I wanna be like, I gave my whole life to this. I'm now 20 years old and I have nothing, I have no college stuff, like I have no prospects, I have no desire other than just to make it at this church. Of course, following that, I had tons of HR meetings and then they decided to dissolve my position just out of nowhere. And then I was filling in for this woman on maternity leave
01:28:49
Speaker
And for her desk, she was located in the finance office and you needed special access to the office. And when I was like working in and out of there, there was this day and this is something that no one believes because I don't have proof. But that youth pastor, the campus pastor and the woman over finance were in there having a conversation and I was about to walk in.
01:29:14
Speaker
And they didn't know that I was standing behind the door. And they were discussing the interns. I heard him say, he was talking about this one guy and he said, I wouldn't hire him because of his big ugly nose. And I'm definitely not hiring any more Mexicans onto this staff. And then, yeah, and then he suggested this other girl and he was like, what about her? She's really cute.
01:29:38
Speaker
And that's when I, it just like hit me all like the clarity. Like I was like my third eye sprung open and flew out of my brain. Yes.
01:29:51
Speaker
I opened the planning center and I just, just out of curiosity, looked at our broadcast worship team that week.
Leaving the Church
01:29:58
Speaker
Every single person was white and skinny. Of course. Of course. That's clearly what they value. Yeah. I was like, this whole thing has gotten so far from what it used to be and what it's supposed to be.
01:30:11
Speaker
At that point, I'm leaving. I'm not staying here. This had been like nine or 10 months since my mother-in-law had been fired. And I was like, there's no future for me here. As devastatingly sad as it is that this was my home and this was my church and this is where I grew up and these are my people, I'm now gonna have to make the decision to protect and prioritize myself
01:30:38
Speaker
and get excommunicated as a result of putting me first. And that's what happened. I left and I lost everyone immediately. I will always be so shocked at how quickly it really happened from the other side. This is something I've done to people in the past, unfortunately, because of my involvement there. But I lost everyone right away.
01:31:05
Speaker
And I will never be able to explain how isolating and terribly sad that feeling is.
01:31:12
Speaker
I know so many of us on this podcast know it, but I can't explain what it's like to lose your entire hometown, to not be welcome there anymore, to lose every friend you grew
New Paths and Past Challenges
01:31:24
Speaker
up with. There's nothing from my past in my childhood that I'm allowed to access or participate in or even remember without it breaking my heart because of how harshly I was excommunicated after I chose to leave. It really is everything.
01:31:40
Speaker
Yeah, so it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but of course I'm so glad I did it because it led to the life I have now. Even after I finally left this organization, I told myself I was going to go to seminary and learn how to really do ministry.
01:32:01
Speaker
And I went to school through Gateway Church, and then I also led worship at Life Church at that time, which is funny because Life Church is who this church aspired to be. And so I went from them to Life Church. And I had okay experiences there, but I also didn't get very involved because I just didn't want to do that again. Yeah, pretty traumatic experience. Yeah.
01:32:25
Speaker
And then when I was finishing up my worship leadership and music degree, I got a job as an interim pastor at a church here where I live. And I kid you not, after a couple of months, this man sits me down and says, can we talk about your weight? No, no. Yup. All over again. And what's crazy is I'm so easily manipulated. I went with it for a few months and I started losing weight again.
01:32:55
Speaker
And then I was like, what on earth am I doing? That was when I realized that most mega churches are the same and they will always operate that way.
Happiness and Freedom
01:33:06
Speaker
And I don't want anything to do with ministry ever again. So my partner and I left, he never looked back and we've never been happier.
01:33:15
Speaker
The life that we have now is so special and so fun and so happy. Even though there are, of course, things in life that will always be a challenge, but there's never been this much freedom to be happy and to love ourselves and express ourselves through gender and our sexual identities.
01:33:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's just been like, it's been the most freeing thing and I will always be so, so, so glad that I finally left. I've seen this occupy people's lives into their 30s and then they get to a point where they have to start completely over because they realized that they married for church or that they planned for church and they never got any other training in any other area of life or never got a college degree or
01:34:06
Speaker
whatever like it's just it like set them back forever and so I'm so so grateful that right after I turned 21 I was out of there and then I left ministry when I was like 24. I love that your relationship survived that because I get to see y'all online and pictures of you together and hear about it and
01:34:29
Speaker
You're such a beautiful couple in so many ways. And I'm glad that you have each other because you know what happened. You don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to try to make anyone understand or believe you have these past experiences and you're getting to grow a future. And I just think that's really special.
01:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, it is. We were side by side through this entire experience. My partner has their own entire story of different things that are just as traumatic, if not more, that they went through. We both came out of this diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, depression, all of the above. And no kidding. That's a good experience. Yeah. And so I don't think they'll ever want to share, but they have their own entire story that's different from mine, but still
01:35:19
Speaker
coincided with all of these different things that I discussed today.
Questioning and Critical Thinking
01:35:24
Speaker
I'm so glad that you are gone. I'm glad to hear that that church has dropped numbers. I'm glad that so many other people that you love and respected left and found other ways to live because that ain't living. No, it is not. Even if you wanted to stay in church,
01:35:49
Speaker
a lot of better churches than that. I think anytime something has power over you,
01:35:59
Speaker
They want to teach you, they want to guide you, or they're putting themselves between you and God as some sort of authority in your spiritual life. I think that is the institution or the thing that needs to be questioned the most. And it has to be the most transparent about what they're doing, why they're doing it, who's getting paid, why they're getting paid that, and beyond the money, just why they're doing anything the way they're doing it.
01:36:24
Speaker
This blanket statement of it's for Christ, it's not enough. No.
01:36:31
Speaker
There's gotta be some explanation of that and making kids do your free level, free labor is not excusable for any reason. Certainly not making the pastor a million dollars a year. Ridiculous. It's like sweatshop Jesus. I just can't. Jesus sweatshop. Yes and amen. And so I'm just so proud of you because I just so much
01:37:00
Speaker
mind control, so much manipulation and getting out of even a small amount of that is hard, but getting out of that much of it's a lot harder. And I just am so excited that you have a team of people, specialists, therapists, your family. A team.
01:37:18
Speaker
I have a team too, it's not just you. It's the only way to stay alive. It is and I'm just glad that you have that. Me too. And I really appreciate you sharing all of this with us today because it's vulnerable and it's hard and you've expressed before like I feel so stupid and things like that and I have felt the same way and you're not, they are. And
01:37:46
Speaker
I'm just so excited for your future and to see what five years looks like, what 10 years looks like. You're just a ray of sunshine, talented as hell. Thank you. And fuck them because you deserve to be center stage.
01:38:02
Speaker
That's where you belong. And I know that. I think what's interesting is my goal wasn't even center stage. I just wanted to serve. I just wanted to be a part of what God was doing in that ministry. And like I said, I took my faith very seriously. But unfortunately, it wasn't what I hoped it would be.
01:38:31
Speaker
That's kind of how I ended up here where I am now, just in like this, you know, not spiritual, not Christian, not really anything anymore, just kind of like happy. And I've not met a single pedophile since I've left church. I'm so glad. And I'm not.
01:38:51
Speaker
Yeah, I've not had to like deprive myself of anything. I've been allowed to eat. I've been allowed to make my own choices. And surprisingly, it actually has all turned out really well. Who knew that I was capable of thinking for myself? Wild. Yeah. Who would have thought? I love that. I love that. And I love that you're happy.
01:39:14
Speaker
and it is where I think you grow it. And I'm just excited. I'm excited for your life and what your life is going to be now that you have that hangover.
Recovery and Joy
01:39:24
Speaker
Same. I wanted to just quickly read this little sliver that I got from Google. Cults use techniques like sleep deprivation, alternate states of consciousness, and repetition and thought stopping to overwhelm someone's cognitive resources and critical thinking skills.
01:39:42
Speaker
They destabilize your view of reality. And when your mind is under threat, you keep returning to the safety and love of your leader. And I feel like that perfectly sums up my entire experience in that ministry. It's not your future. No, I'm free.
01:40:02
Speaker
That's right. Oh, well, Sage, we have come to the part in the show, my hate love time, because it means that we're at the end, but I love these questions and I'm excited to hear your answers. So the first question is, what is something you see clearly now that you didn't see before when you were the most immersed in your church?
01:40:24
Speaker
I see clearly now that it is perfectly appropriate and okay to ask questions and question what you're doing, question what you're being told, question what is being fed to you. What's crazy is the entire time I was having these thoughts, I was acknowledging in my own mind alone,
01:40:49
Speaker
This is wrong. This shouldn't be happening. This is inappropriate. This is not serving God. If you allow yourself, no matter how hard it is and how much they tell you that you're not allowed to think outside of what they believe, if you can just give yourself that much time to question it, it'll make such a huge difference. And I think about all of the times that I could have
01:41:15
Speaker
allowed myself to question things. And it would have turned out differently. But I know it's just so hard to see it in that time. But I can see that clearly now. Everything that I go into and get involved in, I am not afraid to ask questions. And I'm not afraid to say, what are your stances on these things? How do you handle this type of situation? What is your belief and value? And I never go into anything without just asking the questions.
01:41:46
Speaker
I love it. That's great. I'm also very questioning, but sometimes I keep those questions to myself and just formulate my own opinions. I'm like, this isn't worth asking out loud. I'm out. I'm like, sometimes I ask too much. Sorry. Actually, no, I'm not. That's right. Don't be sorry. Better to know and to get to make informed decisions about your life. Bend to beat.
01:42:14
Speaker
The last question is, what have been some of your greatest moments of joy in rebuilding your life post-faithfulness?
01:42:23
Speaker
I think the greatest moments of joy for me are seeing my spouse heal and recover and find their freedom and express themselves how they really want to and they are clearly the most special thing in the world to me but their healing and their recovery is so good to witness and it's my favorite thing to see us both grow and
01:42:50
Speaker
literally just heal and find new value out of life. I think that's probably my favorite part is just the life we're able to now create for ourselves. That's beautiful. And I bet it would say the same thing about you. I think so. Sage, this has been a joy. So much fun and so insightful, but also just healing to hear. Thank you for sharing.
01:43:18
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for giving us this platform and thank you for giving us the opportunity to be heard because we've all been so silenced that it's great to have the space to share and just to help others. And I hope that people in my situation, like still in it can hear these episodes and like acknowledge it and create a safe way to get out and stuff like that. So thank you.
01:43:47
Speaker
I hope the same thing.
Podcast's Purpose and Conclusion
01:44:15
Speaker
Now I See is independently funded by me. If you'd like to help support the show, you can donate directly or purchase a merch item on the website. Music for this episode was made by Alana Sabatini, a former faithful and talented musician. And finally, this podcast is made possible by the incredible team at Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs and creatives providing technical skill with tender support.