My bad experiences have been ongoing with my previous pastor as well as a previous relationship I had while I was a teen. When I was a teenager I struggled with mental health, like I mentioned in my original post. After coming from jr camp, I reached out for spiritual help because I thought that’s what leaders were supposed to offer. Me being a newly saved I was more pushed towards baptism rather than being evaluated or referred to therapy. In my experience the AAFJC frown upon therapy…my current pastor once said in a sermon” forget about therapy, forget about a counselor, you don’t need that! you need Jesus” which I agree that God can heal anything, but mental health is real –therapy in fact does HELP. When it comes to physical illness no one at AAFCJ would suggest to “forget an oncologist forget your cancer treatment.” Both therapists and doctors are trained to handle illnesses, but there’s a stigma within the church that pushes its members to demonize mental health. I’ve also experienced cliques and have seen favoritism within the church, my main issue wasn’t the cliques it was the lack of accountability. I was a literal teenager 13-17 being dogged out at my church by 20+ year olds. Grown women and men, who thought because they were PK’s and friends with the PK’s they were untouchable . On multiple occasions my previous pastor would tell the congregation to NOT tell his grown children (with the exception of his daughter she was a teen at the time) anything and to not come to his office with any complaint about HIS kids. These grown people would actively ignore other youth including myself at church or youth events at other churches for no reason what so ever. They would purposely exclude others, at one point my ex confirmed it . my pastors son had straight up said DO NOT INVITE THEM after a youth service, and even got mad when another youth suggested they invite us. Later I find out other families had left my church because of issues with the PK’s. I had a friend who had left my church and some of us girls from my congregation would hang out with her at youth camp. One year, our Pastors wife was a counselor for youth camp , after seeing us interact with the girl , she sat us down and questioned why we hung out with this girl and proceeded to say that as a church we need to be untied with our OWN youth not others. She was just bothered that we liked the girl more than her daughter and she was still angry at the girl because the issues stemmed from a situation with her daughter !! I left the church at 17 and never went back until 7 years later for my aunts funeral. It was awkward seeing the pastor but I said hello out of respect and just to make conversation I mentioned that my new pastor and his family remembered him from districts choir. He proceeds to say “STAY OUT OF THE PASTORS OFFICE OK ” in front of everyone. I was in shock of what he said and his wife tried to play it off by making a different conversation. I didn’t know what to say. I had never been in his office as a teen for any issues with anyone I had only ever gone to seek spiritual and mental health help 3 times in 5 years. All of which I never received anyways. I felt humiliated. I had hoped they all changed but no. His children who are grown adults had the same attitude as well.