But We All Chose

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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[Greg]

It’s been a long time since I posted something on this forum.  I admit I have been lurking a lot and reading the fine comments and ideas different people post. Most have been encouraging and a few have not.  That’s OK.  Communicating is what counts.

One thing I have noticed is that there are two areas that have not been discussed yet.  We choose!  And GOD!  What do I mean?  I was involved in ISU Bible Study/ GCI since October 1975 up through the mid 90’s.  I was a poor college student at the time in Ames, IA.    Through a series of miracles I was introduced to ISU Bible Study and the Christians there.  It was an awesome time during those years!  But think… was I forced to join the church?  Did someone have a gun at my head saying you shall…?  No of course not!  I chose to be part of this church/organization.  I was and have never been a slave.  No one who posts or reads this forum is and has been a slave!  We all chose!  Did we not see God do many miracles?  Were we not having fun and learning to walk/live by faith?  But we’re not perfect.  It’s part of life.  We were all naive and gullible and stupid at the time including Jim, Dennis, Hershel, Brent, Mark, and hundreds of others.  But as a society and country we were just coming off of being a socialist country (WWII and Vietnam) and we were all looking and hungry. And God saw…

This brings up my other point.  GOD!  Did not God lead each one of us at that time to be part of this church?  Do we still think that life happens by chance?  It doesn’t!  God knew exactly what He was doing at that time and brought each one of us together.  We needed to get out of the boat and walk with God.  We chose!  Did we not see other people saved and come to know Jesus?  Did we not get the truth out through newspapers and tracts and music and…?  Of course!  God was working in all of our lives despite our stupidity and choices.

But we still chose!  Am I a member now?  No. I saw things happening I did not agree with scripturally and moved on.  Do I still practice the awesome things I learned from GCI?  Yes!  I still spend time with God in His Word every day. I still play guitar and sing all the scripture songs we learned (still an easy way to memorize his Word).  We have had church in our home and break bread when we want.  I am a light where ever I am at and still see God do miracles and answer my prayers.  It is not someone else’s fault for where I am at in life right now.  I chose even though I didn’t have to.

[GodisFaithful]

Not all.

Not the children who grew up in GC churches, and for some of them it was pretty traumatic and confusing. 

And try to remember that not all came through the experience unscathed as you did.

There are some pretty horrible stories from the good/bad old days of families torn apart and split up.  I know of one family that to this day is trying to work through some very confusing and damaging stuff having to do with overly controlling pastors and faulty teaching that had negative life altering implications. 

It's not all rose colored if you care to listen. I am glad we got our kids out when we did, when we were told to leave.

[Huldah]

Greg, it sounds like you had an overall positive experience during your time in a GC church. Not everyone remembers it as a fun place where we were getting the truth out. Some of us remember being encouraged to evangelize through dishonest or manipulative means, such as pretending we were just taking a survey. It's true that we had a choice about joining the church in the first place, but when you're recruited under false pretenses, it isn't a fully informed choice.

Speaking just for myself, yes, I chose to join Solid Rock without investigating it as fully as I should have (although I'm not sure where I could have turned for more information in those days before the Internet and before cult awareness ministries). It's true that I  ignored some red flags. But saying that God led me there poses a prickly theological problem. Can I write off all of my bad decisions as God's leading? Does God specifically lead us to do stupid things so that we can learn from the experience? I don't believe He does. I don't believe that that's what Scripture teaches. I don't believe that, Scripturally, bad teaching should get a pass, even if no one was compelled at gunpoint to listen to it.

[Linda]

Yes. I agree that as an adult I chose to attend my GCx church. I don't know of any adult on this forum who would say they were "forced" to attend.

That said, when making my "choice" to attend my local GCx church, I believe there was some deception involved. There were things that the leadership knew, but kept from the members and potential members. I post here to inform interested people about the things that my GCx church neglected to tell me so that I might make an informed decision.

Some of those things are:
1. Teaching obedience to elders/shepherding.
2. Teaching commitment for life.
3. Misrepresenting the history of my particular GCx church.
4. The fact that my church was a church plant done by a man who sometime around 1970 claimed apostleship, appointed the elders in my church, and sent them to Minneapolis to take over a church that already existed.
5. Not mentioning the Statement of Error or getting us a copy when we learned about it and asked for one.

Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.

When information is kept from someone who is making a decision, there is deception.

People have a right to know what GCx believes. If they want to join anyway, that is not my concern, but I do feel an obligation to pass on what I learned the hard way.

Did not God lead each one of us at that time to be part of this church?  Do we still think that life happens by chance?

Are you saying that everything we do is because God led us to do it?

I am typing these words in the comment box on an Internet forum, God could have stopped me, but he didn't so he must want me to say this.

I am going into the casino to play Black Jack, obviously God wants me there.

I am heading to the local strip club. Life doesn't happen by chance, therefore, God led me here.

Clearly you don't believe that. I hope.

Of course Romans 8:28 applies to all our bad decisions and circumstances, but God is not responsible for our bad decisions. We are. Can God turn them around for good. Of course.

[UffDa]

I chose, but I was also deceived. Had I been given the opportunity to read the Statement of error letter when I first attended, I would have never become a member of the church. I was also deceived by the lack of importance of seminary trained leaders. Seminary training is very important among many other qualifications for pastors and should not be excluded.
I chose, but then was eventually lead by pastors using verses out of context.
I chose, but then saw pastors start relying on materials for messages that weren’t the Bible.

[Differentstrokes]

I was birthed into it. I didn't get to choose, I didn't get to choose basically anything for myself until I was an adult and when I did, I chose to leave lol

[Greg]

Not all.

Not the children who grew up in GC churches, and for some of them it was pretty traumatic and confusing. 

And try to remember that not all came through the experience unscathed as you did.

There are some pretty horrible stories from the good/bad old days of families torn apart and split up.  I know of one family that to this day is trying to work through some very confusing and damaging stuff having to do with overly controlling pastors and faulty teaching that had negative life altering implications. 

It's not all rose colored if you care to listen. I am glad we got our kids out when we did, when we were told to leave.

Very interesting responses.  I presented what I did because there are two different ways to look at life.  my cup is half empty or my cup is half full.  I never said I came through my own GCI experiences unscathed.  I just chose to look at life from a different perspective.  Yes I also went through some very, very painful experiences with traitors and and false teachings in the church severely hurting my family and myself.   It also took me many years to get over the pain caused by the people I trusted and who I thought were my friends.  I guess you could say I chose to move on and take the good things I learned and reject the bad.

[Linda]

I guess you could say I chose to move on and take the good things I learned and reject the bad.

As, most likely, did most of us posting here.

Perhaps the difference is that, in addition, those posting here felt a duty to warn our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ about "the bad" and we had knowledge and experience that helped us do that. We don't seek out people to warn (although, maybe we should), we simply participate in an online discussion where people who are questioning things can turn to for "the other side" – the side they don't hear at their local GCC affiliate.

[Boggs]

Greg, you bring an interesting perspective to the conversation. I have a very different perspective - I started attending a GC church my freshman year of high school and left 12 years later at 25 years old. I wish my parents had understood much sooner what they were bringing their family into.

When my wife and I left we were very careful to not talk about our experience because we were trying to avoid being labeled gossips and slanderers. We had close relationships we were trying to salvage which eroded anyhow (until recently, now that many of our old friends are leaving GC as well). I speak up now because the things that drove us out of the church in 2011 were still happening in 2016, and perhaps my voice can help someone avoid the pain I experienced.

My best experience in my GC church was meeting my wife.

[Huldah]

Greg, I hope my first post didn't sound like I was trying to discredit your viewpoint or shut you down.

As for leaving the negative and keeping the positive, I do believe that most of us have done that. A forum like this, which serves as both a place of healing and a repository of information, will by its very nature spend more time discussing the problems of the church than the good qualities. Because we can talk openly about the problems, others who've been hurt have a place where they can discover, "Hey, it's not just me! Here are other people who've been through the exact same thing. What a relief to finally know that I wasn't imagining it, I'm not crazy, and I'm not just some washed-up spiritual failure who's been blinded by Satan."

[GodisFaithful]

We all got sucked into a church with warped theology and doctrine is my viewpoint.

We did not know how to process it when we were asked/told to leave. It was just a painful thing that we had to leave behind us. Until coming to this forum, I honestly did not know how to put words or thoughts to our experience. We just knew that something was terribly wrong with being asked to leave after 20/18 years, just because we had concerns.

I am really thankful now that we did not have enough value in their eyes(for perhaps reasons they did not tell us) that they would try to hang on to us. I look at that as a very positive thing, although at the time it was confusing and hard.

I also helps to be over 20 years out.  

[Rebel in a Good Way]

Greg, I appreciate you being positive.  I might disagree with you about God leading vs. God allowing, but that's too long of a discussion for here

I guess I could say that I chose to join a GCx church.  However, I was 21 and not raised in a practicing Christian home--how was I to recognize a health church from an unhealthy one?  As a recently saved young person, where would I have had the confidence to understand the priesthood of believers, the activity of the Holy Spirit in my life, and appropriate boundaries with church leadership?  This was one of the first groups I looked to in my process of intentional spiritual formation so I was a blank slate for them to write doctrines on.  And write them they did. 

What drew me in was relationships (and a boy), and those connections are a powerful motivator.   So I thought this was a place where people would invest in my life, where I could enjoy people and also serve and contribute in my own way (well, not my own way because my participation was limited based on my gender).  The longer I stayed, I realized there was more to it and began to try to follow the "rules" to my own spiritual detriment. 

A concept in high control groups is "informed consent."  It means the group is up front with expectations, beliefs, practices, processes, etc. from the very beginning so you can decide to join or not.  There should be no surprises and any changes will be made in transparency.  An unhealthy group will get you in and reveal the information little by little, after the new person has "buy-in" of time, emotion, and finances. So I don't know how we can choose things if we don't really know what we are choosing (those of us who began our time as adults).

At any rate, I don't think God's plan is for unhealthy churches to exist to be allowed to abuse hundreds of his sheep.  But since they do exist and some of us ended up in them, I do trust him for the outcome.   As awful as some of my church experience has been, I think God has redeemed that pain in my life and has done much to make my faith whole and holistic.  I can't help but think there must have been an easier way, but I can say I am grateful for my path.

[GodisFaithful]

Rebel, I appreciate how you explained your experience.

God allowing it, even though it is an unhealthy church in my opinion, is a good way to look at it.

I met my husband there and am forever grateful for that aspect.

I was a young college student, a baby Christian, looking for something deeper than just Sunday morning church.

I have also been able to be a comfort (I think, I hope) to others who have gone through a similar experience.

I know that you have been a blessing to others because you have researched cult systems extensively, if I remember right.

So there are some silver linings. God uses our negative experiences, too. He comforts us and we can turn around and, by His grace, comfort others.

[Rebel in a Good Way]

GodisFaithful, like you and Boggs, I also met my spouse at a GCC church! 

From what I have seen, you are a comfort and a blessing to others, and yes, what he pours in to us we can pour in to others.  Understanding spiritual abuse has allowed me to understand injustice and abuse in many arenas and has allowed me to understand the gospel on an even deeper level.  It's much more than an individual personal exchange, in a beautiful way.

[wynter]

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