ABC

Like many raised in Pentecostal churches, Tom Tilley grew up with faith as the cornerstone of his identity. So when he decided to quit, he knew he was ...

"I felt really bound by the expectations of the people around me," he says. "I liked the spiritual side of it," she says. The demand was too much for Bennett, who was tired of being told how to live her life. "I came alive … I made so many amazing connections and friends," she says. However, as a teen, she began to chafe under the group's strict rules. The flipside is a high turnover within congregations. Pentecostalism offers a dynamic and energetic form of worship. At home in Australia, Tilley felt trapped. Another was "being alone and not having any direction," he says. Not knowing where that would go … was kind of scary." Tilley belonged to Revival Centres, a fundamentalist Pentecostal church established in Melbourne in the 1950s, and his father was pastor of the Mudgee branch. The only shadow during this sunny time was the pressure to speak in tongues — a sign of the Holy Spirit that was a prerequisite for baptism in his church and securing a spot in heaven.