So I'm writing this review for you, fellow Cornell student, that is looking for a welcoming and safe community to join while you're studying.
Please, do everything you can to not make it be this one. You deserve better and I'm so sorry that this is what they're offering you.
The woman that runs the pregnancy Center (and the nursery), her name is juliana, she took me into her wing and kind of supposedly mentored me. Kept on saying how much they were helping me through my surviving an abusive marriage, got me into the worship team, I was a little church celebrity for the first year. I started dating my boyfriend, who moved in with me because I am a woman in my mid thirties not a college student. I brought my boyfriend into the congregation multiple times so it's not that people didn't know we were together or that we were living together it was not something I ever hid from anybody. The pastor's wife even went so far as to organize my child's baptism and everything you know.
Everything took a downturn when the musical director said he was leaving and I thought of taking over. I asked and expressed interest about this around march, and did not exit the congregation until mid-august(I would have been completely fine if when I asked about the director position they had said that since I was having sex outside of marriage it wasn't appropriate. The problem is that they left me on the worship team singing and thinking I was on the running for 6 months until they decided to tell me that). From March until august, Juliana found out I was living with my boyfriend which was apparently a terrible sin even though it was never said so openly. They did not tell me they had a problem with it until point blank about 4 months into their muting my vocals during worship service, to the appalling scandalousness of most of the people watching the YouTube videos from outside the church.
When I confronted them about it not only did they say that the director position was out of my reach, they never admitted to muting the vocals, and I was basically shunned from all of this because I had sex with somebody despite being a domestic abuse Survivor; again, sure, who I sleep with should not matter for the singing, but even if it did, why lead me and everyone else on for months before deciding to leave me out for no reason?
Apparently my sex life decides who I am worth as a person. As a college student, I'm not sure that's the kind of messaging you want around you. I knew I didn't need it.
Or the other time, when one of the Cornell students that was a member of the congregation committed suicide, the pastor was so incredibly underwhelming in the support that he provided the congregation. I was furious that I walked out of service at his lack of support. His son is in jail for child porn so I guess his lack of parenting skills just translate to the congregation as well. If you don't believe me I invite you to actually stream the service and laugh about it yourself. Girls name is Daniella lee you can just look it up on YouTube. I've seen people on suicide prevention hotline training for beginners have a better response to the nearest suicide than this terrible excuse of a pastor did.
It's not just that I'm salty about what they did to me personally. I was nearly 40 years old when they did this ridiculous ostratization of me, I could not imagine the trauma it would make if they tried this on someone half my age. They are predators and they are not your friends. Run, as f****** fast as you can. read more
