My worst experience of church was also my first and last.

So freshman year of high school I sat next to a nice polite kid named Todd in science class. Todd and I got to talking and he told me about this totally cool group that he was part of. They met every Wednesday after school to play basketball and instruments and generally hung out. It sounded fun to me so I said ok Todd I'm in. I was vaguely aware that it was a youth group and there would be some jesus type stuff going down, which turned me off but Todd assured me that the group just sorta takes advantage of the basketball courts that the church has and nobody really takes that gospel stuff too seriously.

So my pops drops me off at this baptist church one afternoon and shortly after he drove away, I started to realize that this was a mistake. As Todd promised, kids were playing Bball but it was notably aggressive. There was some outright bullying taking place, big guys being very mean and very physical with the littler guys. Now being a little guy myself, I started to feel some strong anxiety but, having come up in a rather rough area, I wasn't too worried. I was preparing to have to stand up for myself because I had no friends there, it was a total foreign social circle and Todd was nowhere to be seen but no one messed with me, in fact no one even spoke to me. I was a total outsider and made to feel very unwelcome.

Then the preacher guy called us all inside and delivered his sermon which I totally did not see coming because I thought the whole thing was just a matter of hanging out. He assured us that we are sinners and yada yada. I very much wanted to leave but had no way to get home so I stayed and then the preacher asked if there were any new kids. I reluctantly raised my hand and Todd excitedly jumped up from his front row seat and informed everyone that he brought me along. The preacher said very good you get 2,000 points. You see they were scored for doing good christian behaviors and the highest scoring activity was bring a new person to the group. Todd did not speak to me that day nor at all after. All pretenses of friendship ended when he was awarded his points.

Now as high school progressed and I got to know many of these people in this youth group, I learned to dislike all of them. They behaved arrogantly, as if they were better than everyone else and they misbehaved a lot. They knew that they were in the clear being god's chosen kids so they could get away with anything and they made learning more difficult for the rest of us because they were taught to be hostile to non church education.

So of course, that was the end of my participation in churchy stuff.