I never did make it out to the Redding campus, but living in the Portland metro area, there were plenty of people who had been there. Other folks I fellowshipped with would talk about their experiences going there like it was a mecca of sorts. Honestly, it was overall a pleasant experience. My husband and I felt really at home with the people of that stream. We both grew up in Word of Faith circles, so we felt pretty comfortable theologically in that camp. In the end, we did a lot of research and had to decide to go with our conscience and choose what we felt was scripturally sound over the feelings of comfort and the community we enjoyed... (It's interesting that Jesse mentions his looking into Mormonism and seeing its similarities to the Charismatic experience, and that being a turning point for further questioning. In my case, it was a video that explained the Law of Attraction, something I instinctively knew was not biblical, but that sounded a lot like teachings passed around in my circles, that was the doorway to my own criticism and eventual decision to leave.)

A year later, we don't regret leaving in the least. And, it's true that hindsight is 20/20. We talk about our experiences and the things we were learning then, and now we can so easily see the dangerous errors. It's amazing what opening yourself up to other perspectives and doing your own study will do for your way of seeing things. There is definitely a Charismatic echo chamber, and I'm thankful that the Lord showed us the door out.