Reddit mentions of Broken Trust: a practical guide to identify and recover from toxic faith, toxic church, and spiritual abuse (Overcoming Series: Spiritual Abuse) (Volume 4)

God will call us to different churches for various reasons. I would pray though and ask God for wisdom as to if He wills for you to deal with the "rules" that have been added to scripture at this church or find another one.

Sometimes the legalistic rules that are added are not so obvious though at first. My husband and I recently left a church where many would think it was more free and less legalistic than yours. People came wearing basically anything they wanted. Tattoos were more common than not, as even most of the leaders had them. And as for secular music, my husband and I felt like the odd ones out because we have strong convictions about what we listen to and watch even. But there were other "rules." They wanted everyone in the church to be plugged into a small group. This was for discipleship and for the church members to grow in the faith. Sounds great right? The problem that we encountered was that for some with jobs that ended later, the start times were too early to make it on time. Plus, we had a situation where we felt led of the Spirit to go to what they called an "unsanctioned" small group as it was not following the church's plan of how it was being run (top down kind of leadership and accountability structure etc. . . ) But young people were coming, getting saved, being healed. It was amazing! So we went, but it caused us to appear as "rebels."

Then we couldn't sign up for any ministries that the church had (worship team, mentoring, or being any leadership positions, even though my husband and I have done ministry for decades) because we couldn't check the little box that said we were in one of the church's sanctioned small groups. Sigh. This is just one of the situations that felt like there were so many hoops to jump through. Even after we finally were in an "official" and approved group later on, I was kept from being on the worship team due to some unknown reason (I was told I was still rebellious and had "character issues.") I cried over this rejection. I still lament it, as I am posting about it even now, but we eventually had to leave the church because they were not at all free! I couldn't even sing the worship song called "Who you say I am" without crying in that church as the song says, "Who the Son sets free, is free indeed. I'm a child of God, Yes I am... You are for me not against me." I cried out to Jesus and told him that I didn't feel free at all in the church and the leaders were not for me. They were against me (and my husband too.) Within a couple of months, however, we were miraculously led to a different church. I am now the worship pastor, and singing more than I ever have and my husband is the new associate pastor! So God has a way of setting the captives free for sure. But Spiritual abuse can happen anywhere.

I highly recommend a book called "Broken Trust" by F. Remy Diederich (only $2.99 on Kindle- https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Trust-practical-spiritual-Overcoming/dp/1976390850/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=Broken+Trust+F.+Remy&qid=1554863256&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull )

F. Remy Diederich also recommended another free online book the other day that I have loved (not quite finished yet but it is really good and helpful for discerning what makes for a controlling and abusive type church environment. Here is the link: https://faithafterdeception.wordpress.com/2018/07/28/choose-freedom-choose-happiness-introduction/