Not A Slumber Party
Churches that are narcissistically empowered desire to have members who are always awake and alert to do the churches’ bidding. One of the churches that I became a member of loved to have weeknight revivals, sleep-ins, and other programs that were held at night. Because this was a charismatic church, the idea of not keeping track of time on the clock was based on the belief that the Holy Spirit could move freely within the midst of the church.
Unfortunately, more than the Holy Spirit moves in narcissistically empowered churches. In fact, the Holy Spirit’s movement in narcissistically empowered churches is more than likely quenched from free movement. These churches are about controlling anyone or anything that moves. If any spirit moves, it most definitely will not be holy, but that is for another blog post.
Needless to say, narcissistically empowered churches craft programs and services that are meant to control and manipulate its members. One of the many ways that these churches control their members is through sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is said to be one of the strongest factors in brainwashing. A person can often be easily brainwashed when his or her mind can be easily controlled especially when that person is low on sleep.
A lack of sleep affects individual health. The mind and body of a person cannot properly function without adequate sleep. The body will grow exhausted, the mind will become less alert, and a person will experience impaired judgment. In fact, sleep deprivation will lead a person to becoming less in control of themselves and more susceptible to the will of others. This is one of the reasons narcissistically empowered churches want their members deprived of sleep. The more exhausted their members are, the more their members are susceptible to various forms of mind control.
Priorities
One of the churches in which I was a longtime member, weekly night services were normal. Outside of the weekly-one-night-per-week bible study, other nighttime services were normally referenced as revivals. Most revivals might last a maximum of three hours, but in narcissistically empowered churches, revivals can well after midnight and into the early hours of the morning. Instead of reviving members, these types of extended services on a nightly basis tend to wear members down with fatigue.
Although I believe that I was “on fire” for God, I was also reasonable with my time. Like most members of the church, I had a full-time job. It was just not sensible for me to stay for revival services until early morning hours. It was not even sensible for me to attend every night during the week when I had job-related responsibilities. However, there was a silent expectation from church leadership that all members were expected to attend revival services each night until completion. If no one got the hint that this was expected, then a message would be preached condemning those who could not partake of the revival services.
As it turns out, leadership was able to get members involved with commitments to assist during revival since help was needed in so many areas. The leadership often used manipulative ploys such as gaslighting, stonewalling, triangulating, and coercing to get people to assist. Most commonly said to members was that one was simply “not truly dedicated to the heart of God and the things of God” if one was not about commitment to the service of God. Since no one wanted to be seen as a backslider or a person who did not love God, then most people felt inclined to participate.
I gained quite a few sneers from leadership and the pastor because I seemingly put work before these services. For this reason, I faced a lot of backlash from specific members of the congregation. Scriptures were often taken out of context and twisted to coerce me into conforming. Sometimes I did feel condemn and often ashamed, but at the same time, I hated the idea of being controlled in my personal life.
Often, I would simply be ready to fire back with scripture verses to refute members who attempted to ridicule me simply for trying to make a living. Most commonly said to me about my loyalty, “You know God loves a cheerful giver, and that doesn’t just mean your tithes and offerings, it also means your time“. My most common response, “There’s a scripture that also says that if you don’t work, you don’t eat.” I always felt obliged to stress my points even when I felt that I would have been better off remaining silent. The amount of gall that I felt the leadership had over telling others what to do in their lives never ceased to amaze me.
In fact, the pastor actually stonewalled me for a reply I made when I was ridiculed about my priorities. I did not want to be rude, but I needed the pastor to understand my point. I replied, “Unless the church plans on paying my bills, I have to work. I think God grants me enough common sense to use and to know that I need enough sleep to do the kind of work I do effectively. I believe God understands.” Not only did the pastor stonewall me, but this pastor also made remarks to others in my presence that would seemingly expose my lack of commitment. The remarks were made in such a way that I was able to hear them because I was present, but the pastor behaved as if I were invisible.
Discrepancies and Punishments
Despite all of the riff-raff, I tried to be as dedicated to the church as I could possibly be under the circumstances, but when I felt pushed and shoved through controlling and manipulative means, I would often stand my ground. Week long revivals with a full time job were mentally and physically taxing. I often survived on very little sleep during those times. Everything was always rush and go. My focus was always on the church, and I had very little life outside of that. Yet, I blindly thought I was living the good life. I had no idea that I was suffering from spiritual abuse and surrounded by a church filled with narcissistic types.
In discussion with a close friend, we often remarked on how exhausted we were and always on the go. Yet, we would notice how carefree the pastor, worship team, and leaders seemed to be no matter how long they remained at church. What is interesting is that the pastor did not have a demanding full time job outside of church. The pastor was solely employed by the church. So the pastor seemed to be less than understanding when it came to the extra tasks members took on at the church during these revivals outside of their regular working hours and personal responsibilities.
My friend and I discussed how it seemed that the pastor and those in leadership lacked empathy for the members and what we all went through. Interestingly, many in leadership also did not have full time jobs, and if they did, they frequently had assistance, could show up late for services, or even miss services while using God as a way of excusing themselves and escaping accountability. They were not to be questioned for what could be perceived as falling short. They had somehow been appointed as “gardeners of our souls”. I just saw this as another way to control and manipulate members.
For the most part, members feared complaining to anyone who could not keep their confidences because any information always had a way of getting back to the pastor or leadership team. The expectations for all members seemed to be blind obedience, unquestioning submission, and a joyful and positive attitude. Anything less than these traits would yield members to being punished, and punishment might consist of being shunned, excluded, isolated, humiliated, stonewalled, triangulated, or exposed for any commission of sin.
Falling asleep during one of these revival services might render one incapacitated by public humiliation. I have seen countless members put on the spot for nodding, yawning, and falling asleep during service. If we were tired, we were not supposed to show it. According to the pastor, God was in the house and moving by His Spirit. There was no way we could be tired [even if we were tired]. We were to behave as locomotive machines – not humans who had lives outside of the church.
The Effects of Sleep Deprivation
Despite my fatigue, I never missed a service until I was forced to do so. One morning when I arrived to work to finish up a project (during my vacation time), I had not even walked inside of my area when I reached to grab the door handle and immediately felt a sweltering wave of achiness move throughout my body. It was like a mixture of heat, aches, and bodily sickness all rolled into one that suddenly came upon me as if out of nowhere. In an instant, I knew I had the flu.
Instead of proceeding to work on the project, I turned away from the area, walked out of the building back to my car, and drove home. I was forced to put myself on bedrest for close to two weeks. I was so sick that there was no possible way that I could go anywhere … let alone work or church. My body needed rest. My body needed sleep. The long revival nights had caught up with me. I spent those two weeks recuperating instead of completely enjoying an actual vacation getaway.
While sick, I was forced to face some startling realizations. The pastor and church leaders reacted as if sleep were for the weak, but sleep deprivation is what was essentially created weakness. Lack of sleep had increased my likelihood of running myself ragged and rendering myself incapable of doing what was actually required of me. I already struggled with depression and anxiety, and a lack of sleep only exasperated these issues. Surely God did not desire my attendance at church to the point of my own demise. Something had to give, and I realized that it should not be me. However, coming to the realization and fighting against the actual facts of the matter in a narcissistically empowered church was not easy.
Time
It was often hard to distinguish the passage of time inside the church. The church sanctuary did not have windows or a clock. So unless one had his or her own time tracking device, there was no way of knowing the time. One simply either guessed the time or suffered through with the hopes that service would be fascinating enough to take one’s mind off of time. In fact, the pastor often preached against time tracking devices and reasoned with members that time was simply a construct. Although the element of time being a construct may be true, this is not the natural way in which most people get through their days. In a narcissistically empowered church, one has to effectively learn to gauge the time particularly when time is being controlled by someone else.
As much as I wanted to experience God moving upon my life in the church atmosphere, I still had to stay cognizant of my outside responsibilities. So I kept my cell phone on silent [since the use of one in the church was frowned upon] or watch in my purse. It was never safe to follow the guide of an agenda since the pastor was known for not following one. I think not following an agenda was a way to keep members off-kilter with time. The only time an agenda of service was used was during regular Sunday service for the purpose of keeping visitors abreast of the routine and schedule.
Since we [the members] were creatures of habit, an agenda would have helped to regulate time for us to keep us on track. That is how we often knew when it was nearing lunch time during a regular Sunday service. There was an agenda followed like clockwork. However, revivals were different. The pastor could claim that the Spirit of God was moving and was not to be disrupted in flow. However, looking back upon that time in my life, I saw the use of God’s Spirit moving as the way to control the members and hold them in church for as long as possible to obtain gratification and narcissistic supply. After all, God’s Spirit is always quenched from operating in narcissistic churches [if God’s Spirit decides to even show up at all].
A Learning Curve
In the end, I learned a lot regarding church leadership efforts to maintain control of their congregation. One of those ways is through sleep deprivation. I do not know that these churches purposefully set out to create a sleep deprived group of people, but their constant push for late night services along with their constant message of members’ loyalty to the cause of the church does create issues in the area of members’ sleep.
Once leadership is able to control people who lack enough sleep, the leadership is able to gain access to whatever they feel they could freely manipulate away from members such as time, money, and continued loyalty. In essence, I do not believe that any cause for God should be the equivalent of losing sleep to the point of deprivation. To experience this, is to experience a form of spiritual abuse.
My Voice Unchained 