"FaithwalkaZ"

Welcome to De-Commissioned, a place for former members of the Great Commission movement (aka GCM, GCC, GCAC, GCI, the Blitz) to discuss problems they've experienced in the association's practices and theology.

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[AgathaL'Orange]

Faithwalkers is the highlight of my year!

[EverAStudent]

Faithwalkers is the highlight of my year!

Agatha, you crack me up!

wow, if all you guys hate gcm, gcac, egcc so much, why don't you move on?  I've never seen so much obsessing and focus on a place you don't attend.  You sound like you are more excited about faithwalkers then the students, you can't wait for them to post the messages so you can rip them apart.  you accuse this org of being so corrupt, but you remind me of the little gossiping group of old ladies that tear apart the church.  Is this really how you want your faith to be perceived?  If this org didn't do it for you, fine, move on.  But you continue to let it control you by obsessing over it.  They might not be right, but neither is your response.

I so badly wish that the individuals who had recruited my wife into GCI, and then left 2 years later when they recognized the abuses and harm being done, had come back and given her a warning about the abuses within.  They kept silent, per your recommendation.  Had they opened their mouths, they would have saved her, myself, and our child years of anguish and tormoil.  When I left GCI I contacted everyone whom I had helped bring in (and virtually everyone in the church) and explained the abuses we had seen and why we had left.  Two left as a result. 

"Keeping silent" is an insidious practice that only benefits the proliferation of evil.  Scripture, the author being our Lord God, tells us to expose such things to the light of truth and to rebuke and refute those in error in the hopes that some will come to their senses. 

In history abusers have benefited greatly from the "keep silent" tactic inflicted on the abused.  Extreme examples have included the German people keeping silent about the exertmination campaign against the Jews, the Darfur disaster, the 60,000 rockets a year fired on Israel from the Gaza strip, etc.  No one but the abusers benefit from a "keep silent" mentality. 

WHEN there are no more fresh reports of GC abuses, then I should imagine there will be no more GCMWarning website.

[AgathaL'Orange]

Find a body of believers where we can “Plant our flag and die.”
What do I mean? 
How do we die?  Easy!  Commit your heart to your local church and then show it, by serving your brothers and sisters until your knuckles are raw.  Serve your church until your heart is broken. 
Then serve some more.  And keep on serving – because they are family.

GoFindanewchurch:

Do you honestly not have a problem with young, impressionable people being told that first quote? 

What about this?

Ever afraid of burn-out?  Get over it! Get your eyes off yourself. Burn out is just another word for pride.

I actually do take my faith seriously.  I feel really upset for the people who could have done other things but instead got sucked into this.  I want to warn people away.  Why don't you want to warn people  if as you say "They might not be right"?

[gofindanewchurch]

Wow, Agatha cracks you up, but this isn't funny at all.  And your comparison of GCM to nazi's and Dafur is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.  Take some responsibility.  They may have told you to do some dumb things, but you blindly followed them and now you put all the blame on them.  I assume you were an adult when attending this place and capable of discerning information.   Amazingly, you and your group are just as closed minded as you accuse GCM et al of being.  So, thanks for proving my point.   There is noting to be gained by posting any more here, the dialoug is obviously closed to objective feedback.  GCM may have started the dysfunction but you seem to be carrying on quite nicely on your own. Bye

[AgathaL'Orange]

Well, when you respond to the dialog instead of making attacks... we'll dialog with YOU, silly!  You can't just say we're like gossipy old ladies and expect us to be "open minded" enough to agree with you!

[EverAStudent]

Wow, Agatha cracks you up, but this isn't funny at all.  And your comparison of GCM to nazi's and Dafur is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.  Take some responsibility.  They may have told you to do some dumb things, but you blindly followed them and now you put all the blame on them.  I assume you were an adult when attending this place and capable of discerning information.   Amazingly, you and your group are just as closed minded as you accuse GCM et al of being.  So, thanks for proving my point.   There is noting to be gained by posting any more here, the dialoug is obviously closed to objective feedback.  GCM may have started the dysfunction but you seem to be carrying on quite nicely on your own. Bye

Yes, Agatha's wit is quite comical.

Thank you for the advice to "take some responsibility."  In fact, that is exactly what I am doing here, now, by warning others.  That is exactly what I did when I left and informed everyone at the church.  And that is exactly what I did when I extracted our little family from out of GCI.  Further, I repented to the Lord God of having become involved in the first place, a truly foolish and undiscerning choice I had made.  I also am responsible for how I behaved while in GCI (and out, for that matter).

That said, I take no responsibility for the abuses inflicted on me by the national leaders and their elders.  Nor do I take any responsibility for the false doctrines that GCI, the national leaders, and the local elders tried to teach to me.  You see, that was their sin.  They must repent of that themselves.  

Further, if any of national leaders or elders saw these abuses for themselves but stayed silent (like you want us to do) and if these national leaders did not publish warnings to the 160 congregations countering the false doctrines and abuses they witnessed, then they are as responsible, guilty, and culpable as the othes for their mute approval.  Remaining a national leader (while recognizing the widespread doctrinal failures and abuses of the other leaders) and saying nothing, or worse, encouraging unity around the national association, is lending hearty approval to those who have practiced the evil.  They are just as guilty as if they had done the poor teaching and imposed the abuses themselves.

Keep silent?  That is unbiblical.  Take responsibility?  You bet!

[Linda]

I love it when people stop in for a passing ad hominem shot and then decide they need to move on.

Thanks a million, Gofindanewchurch you've really helped.

I am a parent. I am here to warn other parents about the abuses of GC. I have "moved on" when it comes to finding another church, thank you.

I WASN'T ABUSED. I DID NOT LEAVE BECAUSE I WAS HURT. I LEFT BECAUSE I REALIZED THERE WAS SOME UNSOUND TEACHING HAPPENING THAT WAS IN THE DNA AND THERE WAS NO HOPE OF CHANGING-CORRECTING IT. (AND THAT "NO HOPE" PART CAME FROM MARK DARLING HIMSELF--HE SAID, "PLEASE GO, AND DON'T STAY AND TRY TO CHANGE THINGS).

In 2005, my minor child was asked to commit to GC for the rest of her life. Out of about 300 kids at an HSLT in Ft. Collins, she was one of 3 who refused to stand up to make that commitment (along with 9 other commitments that were okay--if you believe leaders should be asking students to make vows in the first place) because she knew it was wrong. Now, maybe you are not a parent, but when you are a Christian parent and you send your student to a retreat, you do not expect your child to make a vow to attend a specific local church for the rest of his/her life. You also don't expect to be putting your child in a position where doing the right thing in front of her Christian peers and leaders means that she has to look like the "unspiritual" one by sitting down while everyone else looks like they are committing themselves to God for the rest of their lives. This is wrong. When my daughter told us about this and said, "Don't worry dad, I didn't stand up," my husband wept over the difficult position our wonderful daughter had been placed in and at the same time was enraged over this abuse of power and betrayal of our parental authority. We made an appointment to speak with Mark Darling. Our local pastor refused to listen to that talk because "he knew Mark's heart".

Parents are in authority over their minor children and they decide which church their child will attend.

I wonder how many other parents know what is being taught to their students at these conferences. I assume, like us, they haven't a clue about the teachings or the history.

This is not a battle against elders, pastors, or churches. This is a battle of ideas and doctrine (which Paul exhorts us to "watch" or guard). To me it is about the Lordship of Christ. Is Christ the mediator between me and God? I say yes. The GC way seems to be Christ-Pastor-Churchmember.

The title "pastor" or "elder" does not qualify a person to tell others who to marry, where to go to church, what job to take, etc. This is called "lording it over" and is talked about in I Peter 5.

Another thing that is pretty significant is how did the title come to be placed upon the person. In the case of GC, a man named Jim McCotter decided that he was an apostle. He basically recognized himself. Then, he appointed elders, and those elders appointed elders and here we are today with elders directly tracable to a self-proclaimed apostle who mysteriously left in the 80's, but not after getting the group on several cult watch lists.

Oh, yeah, I forgot, Gofindanewchurch doesn't want to hear that part and can't gain anymore by posting here...sigh...

[boboso]

Our experiences with GC happened in 2007 and yes, it was just as heavy-handed, abusive, and un-biblical as it was back in the 70s an 80s as THE SAME PEOPLE are still involved. Why is this surprising?

What is really shocking is just how much has not changed since then. The most powerful arguments I see on gcxweb are the taped conversations -- how can anyone refute this? MTZ may have an opinion or two, but how can you deny word-for-word documentation?

Same arguments, same bad teaching, same stones on necks, same "leaders".

[Linda]

But notice this part that Paul adds. And refute those that oppose it. That's a lot harder. It's one thing to know the truths of the Christian faith. It's a whole nother thing to read a teacher who has very cunningly twisted Scripture. And, try to explain to other Christians why this is not Biblical.  That's harder. That's refuting people who oppose sound doctrine. As I've said before, you can state the truth of Scripture in a small paragraph, but it requires pages to refute error. It is so much work.

Oh, man, do I agree with this. Pages and pages, hours, days, months, years, to refute error! Excellent point.

[EverAStudent]

Oh, man, do I agree with this. Pages and pages, hours, days, months, years, to refute error! Excellent point.

Yes, I so very much agree.  Especially since bad doctrine has endless variants that can be generated making it look like something new.  It is my opinion that Jim McCotter was excellent at generating volumes of improper twists to old doctrines, and at times, inventing new ones.  It is hard to keep up with the infinite varieties of falsehoods that can be invented so that they can be silenced.

[AgathaL'Orange]

This is why I so appreciate learning from people who have put in the time to study in seminary so that they can teach people like me who have questions. 

It takes a lot of humility and effort to go to seminary.  I think GC has a lot of pride in their idea that seminary is not necessary.  And yes, sadly this idea is still taught.

[lone gone]

I do have a very serious question... how is going to seminary a guarantee that error is avoided? Yes un-educated people can fall into error but so can seminary trained people.

Baptist seminaries differ from Lutheran Seminaries, Roman Catholic seminaries differ from Methodist Seminaries. ALL of them would likely accuse the other of teaching error.





 

[AgathaL'Orange]

I don't think there is ever a guarantee that people will have error free belief.  I don't think anyone here has error free belief.  Actually, for that matter... I don't think ANYONE in the entire world has error free belief.

To me, it's bad theology to say you have the perfect belief system when you don't have any clue whatsoever what other Christians around the world, over time, or in other denominations believe. I would much rather have a teacher who I can say, "Why do we do *baptism, communion, marriage, etc* the way we do?" and they can say, "Well, here's what they've done over time, here's where this doctrine was clarified, etc." 

All I ever wanted was for my pastors in GC to be able to explain things to me.  I studied things and had questions.  I sincerely wanted to do the right thing and believe the right thing.  And they had no answers beyond... "This is what is right.  Those who don't believe this are not saved."  Well, WHY?  How do you know???  I wanted to follow them, but they gave me nothing to follow other than chores.  And that was great for awhile, but eventually I really needed to have a depth of knowledge and faith that they weren't willing to offer. 

If doctrine isn't important to them... I would rather they say, "We don't know.  That is non-essential," rather than "Believe this or go to hell.  We have no desire to find out why." 

I will say it again and again.  You have to have a FRAMEWORK of interpretation.  Sorry.  You do!  You can't just take the Bible into a corner and find out what you believe from there.  You have to match up what you come up with against scripture and against other interpretations. 

Every movement has their own Holy Tradition.  Whether that Holy Tradition has John Calvin, ancient Fathers, Jim McCotter, or John MacArthur in it depends on what church you go to.  But there is a Tradition. 

The GCx "Holy Tradition" is submission to authorities who TELL you what to believe, what to do, etc.  And THOSE authorities do it because of other GCx authorities.  Sorry, but I'm not basing my belief system on that. 

Anyway, controversial topic isn't it?

[EverAStudent]

Serious question indeed!

If only there were a magic formula for keeping people from falling into error, or from purposely choosing error just so they can acheive their own ends.  I do not know of one.

My elders went to a very credible fundamentalist evangelical seminary.  That did not keep them from immediately jumping all over Jim McCotter and his followers and adopting everything they dished out.  My "senior" elder even wrote a wretched paper about how the sheep of the congregation are stupid and need a shepherd to lead them in their daily lives, and submitted that for his master's thesis!  His primary premis was that whatever the apostles did presupposed this is what they also taught.  Ughhhhh...  Peter divided himself from the new Jewish converts, Paul and Barnabas had an angry separation over strategy, most of the apostles had wives, while Paul did not, Paul shaved his head and had Timothy get circucised, ... well you get the idea.  What they WROTE is what they taught, and what is written is what is inspired;  their practices were not inspired.

Seminary is NO guarantee.  That said, Agatha, I agree with you.  The more a person has studied the subject of HOW TO STUDY the Bible, the better off they will be.  But there is nothing that prevents a man from pursuing his own gain and thus inventing the imitation doctrines that GCI had invented.

[AgathaL'Orange]

My "senior" elder even wrote a wretched paper about how the sheep of the congregation are stupid and need a shepherd to lead them in their daily lives, and submitted that for his master's thesis!  His primary premis was that whatever the apostles did presupposed this is what they also taught. 

How sad. Break them down and rebuild GC style. 

[Linda]

This reminded me of something that one of the leaders (of the variety who is "more equal" than the others) said at a meeting of leaders. We were small group leaders at the time, so would try to hit the monthly meetings.

This was about a year before we left and I believe there was a mass exodus from one of the ECC locations, so they were feeling "persecuted". This leader looked at the gathered volunteer church members and informed us, "Be careful, the sheep will kill you."

It was like the "sheep" were the enemy. I thought the shepherd was to care for the sheep, and to serve the sheep, and to protect the sheep, and to find the lost sheep, and to feed the sheep.

As it turns out, the sheep are there to serve the shepherd. Who knew!

I'm really glad that the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep and leads them by still waters.

[askingquestionsaboutGCI]

Just checked a few minutes ago and found they're online now.  I haven't had a chance to listen to any of them, but thought some of you might be interested in listening and commenting.

http://www.gccweb.org/conferences/faithwalkers/index.html

[askingquestionsaboutGCI]

Anybody have a chance to listen to some of this over the weekend?  I was away for a few days and haven't had the time yet -- I was kind of hoping I'd come home to some comments on the recordings!

[Linda]

I  have listened (or skimmed) a few. The talk on commitment to the local church for life was of particular interest to me since, for us, it was that talk given to our minor daughter, that broke the camel's back.

After listening to it, I'm rather speechless--don't know where to begin. On the positive side, apparently they wised up a little (who says this forum isn't doing any good) and now offer a disclaimer during the talk telling minors that they are still under their parent's authority and should not make this commitment. (Of course, no one should make that commitment no matter what age they are.)

Normally, I would offer more praise and be more encouraged by that comment. However, I would still like to remind the world that (last time I checked) that talk, the one asking high school students to commit to GC for life, is available online. And, in July 2005, over 300 high school students took that pledge with their parents unaware that they did.

In our meeting with Mark Darling over this, interestingly enough, we were handed a beautifully worded letter on ECC stationery. Terry, Spencer (the other pastor at the meeting) and I each have a copy. I must say, I was touched (or would the better word be almost deceived?)

In the letter, which was addressed to "To Whom it May Concern" if I remember correctly, Mark mentioned that there might have been some confusion about some things he said at the HSLT. He wanted to clarify that parents decide where there children should go to church, that he didn't mean to imply that you should only go to a GC church, etc.

My discerning husband, read the letter and then said these words, "This is good. How are you going to get it to all the students who were at the conference and their parents?" The reply was, "We're not, but you are free to give it to whomever you want."  My heart sank. This was classic GC. Back down on the talk privately, but leave it up online for all to hear.

They had access to the names and addresses of every attendee, we didn't. If you sincerely think you misspoke and care about the truth, you make that correction as public as possible to the group to which you spoke. You don't leave the talk up online.

Here's what my daughter heard while two states away at a conference my husband and I paid a few hundred dollars to send her to:

Commitment Number Nine. Make the commitment to devote yourself to your local church for the rest of your life. This is going to be controversial, I will explain it. Devote yourself to your local church for the rest of your life. You need other Christians, you need the body of Jesus Christ. There are a lot of Christians today that frankly are not committed, but they like to say they are. To the universal. I'm committed to the universal body of Christ, Mark. I visit this church over here for a while, and then I date this church over here for a while, and then I date this church over here for a while and then I show up at these 22 Christian concerts over here. And it's this wonderful life. Let me tell you something, that is not the kind of commitment I'm talking about, nor do I believe it is the kind of commitment the New Testament is talking about. But it's linking yourself arm in arm in the local church with men and women of like mind and doing something great together, together.

    I made a determination as a young man to not leave my church in Ames until and only when I was sent. I was sent. Now, there is, of course, maybe a unique exception within "our movement" and it's a beautiful thing it's why some of us moved to different cities, big metropolitan areas. One, you may need a job and you can still stay linked with Great Commission Churches because you can find one in that city. Secondly, you may be leaving your local church to go to college to join another Great Commission Church that's like minded and I think that will equally accomplish the same thing. I'm here for life. You're not getting rid of me. I'm here.

    [...]

    I'm here. I'm with these Christians. I'm with Great Commission. That's where I'll stay. That's where they'll bury me and that's where I'm going to make my stand...because this is where God supernaturally led me.

[EverAStudent]

When we were first subjected to this talk in 1984, at our local church-only weekend retreat, having become cognizant of their ever more bold stand on unsound doctrine, I asked the elders these questions:

- What will you do (having made this promise before God--a promise which the Word says you must keep--to stay with GCI forever) if Jim McCotter begins teaching heresy?
- What will you do if the other national leaders fall into gross sins of doctrine?
- Why would you bind yourself to an organization for life when men and organizations are sinners and can fail each other and God?
- What if God wills for you to minister outside GCI, but you have cut yourself off from His will with your promise?

Of course, the answers were what you would have expected:
- Jim would never teach heresy
- God would not let the leadership fall into sin
- even if these men fail me, I will never fail them
- God would NEVER will that I work outside of GCI

About one year later:  the senior elder had left GCI over a job assignment given by Jim McCotter which he did not like.  The junior elder was fired for not displaying more loyalty to GCI polity in the face of the dispute with the senior elder.  All but one couple in the church left GCI (GCI brought in almost 40 people and a team of elders from another church to "save" this one).  The senior elder went to work on Christian political causes unassociated with GCI.  The junior elder joined an international missionary organization, also unassociated with GCI.  All but that one family (who is still there) also broke their promises of committment for life when they left GCI.  sigh...  Great idea, indeed, promising to commit for life.

"Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.' "But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, (Matthew 5:33-34)

But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment. (James 5:12)