Worst experience? The first day I stepped into a church.

Falling asleep and having my dad pinch the crap out of my INNER THIGH...grabbed the skin and actually pinched and TURNED the skin. And I didn't dare make a peep.

Putting money in the collection plate before I saw the light

As a child, nine years old. We had just moved from "Up State" New York to Glendale , Arizona.
She was Baptist and had no idea at the time there were divisions of the Baptist faith. We arrived at the local "Southern" Baptist church , dressed in our Sunday church clothes. This was at a time when women "dressed up" to attend social functions and the like.
Not long into the sermon I recall my mother became uspet , as the minister was directing his sermon about "Harlots" and the "painted whores" that paraded themselves in public and embarrassed their children in the process..l She took us both arm in arm and left , not coming back for years. In retrospect it dawned on me that the religion was so uptight and predjudiced about appearances and control over their "flock" That started me thinking about religion in general and how fucked up it can be.

I’ve only been to church for weddings and funerals. It’s hard to say which one is worse.

The whole experience.

Once I farted in church and had to sit in my own pew.

My experience wasn't terrible. Given that it was Assembly of God, it could have been pretty bad. Exorcism, speaking in tongues, and all that were pretty weird stuff, but I never "needed" an exorcism.

My worst was when I was teaching adult Sunday School and did a week on it being okay to have doubt. Assembly of God interprets the interaction with Thomas very passive-aggressive. Jesus showed the wounds to basically slap him down, they think. And when David doubted, that was a problem, too. I think they were afraid that allowing any doubt would lead to people leaving the church.

I was no longer the Sunday School teacher after that.

When I was 18 and living with my girlfriend, I wasn't officially a nonbeliever yet and felt a little guilt for missing church since moving out of mom and dad's. My girlfriend was supportive and agreed to visit with me. After a nice, uplifting sermon by a guest preacher, there was an alter call for parents with rebellious children. Without knowing i was there, my mother was the first to stand up and walk to the alter. I had attended the same church for over 10 years and everybody recognized my family. I was working, going to school, and supporting myself 100%. It was the biggest public slap in the face I've ever had.

Ahhh... It has been sooooo long and still remember. The "speech" in the middle of mass where the preach will talk and talk for an eternity without saying anything !!!!!!!!..... The reason it used to bother me is that they know they can have positive influence in the people and yet they choose to waste such great opportunity to some good with boring everyone to death instead

My worst experience happened when I was about 8 years old. There was an autistic child in my Sunday School class, and the pastor decided he needed to perform an exorcism, and he warned us kids that, we needed to diligently pray, because once the demon was loose, it might possess us! Scared the hell out of me. Fast forward, years later, he was fired from the church for cheating on his wife with the church secretary!!!

I have none. Lucky me did not married in church. I married in the same type of place I divorced.... in a court.

My first wife had a brief flirtation with Charismatic Christianity which I did not share. We compromised by attending a large Assembly of God urban megachurch where I felt like I could be somewhat anonymous and non-participative. As it happened, she never really warmed to it, either. However, one Sunday, the senior minister decided to really hector people about being more "open to god moving in their lives" = more participatory with the arm-raising, bobbing and weaving with all the other rhythm-less white folks, singing in the spirit, acting happy, etc. An usher, emboldened / inspired by that sermon, accosted us in the back row and adjured us to never again be so non-participatory as it was offensive to god.

At least that had the effect of neither of us ever going there again, and it was basically the end of my wife's interest in that sort of thing.

I suppose that since a lot of what goes on in those churches involves group hysteria, they have to periodically purge themselves of people who aren't that into it.

Arguably worse than that one experience, is the fact that an elder in that church was counseling my wife about personal issues / problems and rather than encourage her to seek standard-of-care mental health treatment, recommended an actual exorcism. In fact he was involved with the lunatic fringe of fundamentalism, and a follower of independent Baptist preacher Win Worley, who runs a "deliverance ministry" because he's convinced Christians with personal problems are demon-possessed. Worley wrote a book about this entitled Pigs in the Parlor and runs "group deliverance" sessions. Ironically, years after I deconverted, I found myself living mere blocks from his church, Hegwisch Baptist, in Highland, IN (motto: "We Deliver" ).

I watched my 15 year old sister who was getting into drugs but then had a "charismatic" experience vilified by church leaders. IDGAF about wacky religious experiences, but that was a chance to get her away from bad stuff. AS Fd up as religion is, it's usually better than drugs.

For me personally, several people I knew and liked crossed the street to avoid making eye contact after I abandoned seminary. A few of those have apologized year later and really I'm thankful now that I saw religion as being false and divisive, but damn it hurt then.

I got kicked in the nuts in the foyer by my brother once. That was a pretty terrible experience

Being ostracized for being an unwed mother.

That god was actually living there