What Led Me To The Church

One of my friends, whom I've known for 18 years, invited me to a bible study. I thought just because there's a bible study going on, there won't be any funny business going on. At that time, I didn't know any better so I went along with it.

My friend was not a member of the group as of the time he invited me to the group, so I figured that I wouldn't be alone.

I can tell you that there's a lot of sales pitch going on between the members who were assigned to have us study the Bible and us. They asked us a few questions like what church do you go to, how's your relationship with God, compare the Catholic church to their church, and all the members bomb you with a lot of love. As far as the love is concerned, is it legit or is it just to keep you from walking away. At that time, my mindset is that if it has to do with God, I'm for it. I had an open mind at that time and I still have an open mind to this day. Other people just won't open their mind about things that can improve their standing in life, but with me, I investigate before I make my move. With this deal about God, my mindset at that time was I couldn't go wrong with me having a good relationship with God. Therefore I decided to go ahead and study the Bible with these people.

During our studies of the Bible, they basically teach us this thing called "First Principles". I don't know what that is and I don't know what impact it as in your relationship with God. It doesn't mean that I can't look it up. These are the principles that allow you to understand how you conduct yourself as a member of the group. They will also ask you what kind of wrongdoings you committed in the past. Keeping it a secret tells them that you're lying to God, thus they didn't have anything to lose if you kept your personal secrets from them.

Later, I learned that if you stray away from their teachings, they use that information against you.

Bible studies are usually between 2-3 hours. Usually they will try to make you come regardless of whether or not you have any commitments. Since I didn't have a car at that time, they usually pick me up. They usually have their fellowships during the day, but Bible studies are usually late in the evening. It goes from 9pm-midnight or 10pm-1am.

When the members who conducted the bible study determined that you're eligible to be baptized, they let the members within the sector know that there will be one. Unless they have commitments that are church related, they were all compelled to attend the baptisimal event and this happened to me. I figured it's a standard practice in the ICC. I had a bunch of people show up for my baptism and we did it in the beach. It was a very cold night and I was freezing. I remember this one girl tries to put her arm around me to keep me warm and the funny thing is, I just met her. When we got far enough into the seawater (while still freezing my butt off), about waist high, my friend immersed me and once that happened, I'm no longer freezing.

That's when life with the ICC started, the moment you got baptized.

Stay Tuned. Next is "Was mass manipulation used to convert you into this church? Why?