Do the people on this forum hate GCM?

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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[maranatha]

A thought I had when I first stumbled on this site, but have found the people here "want to simply discuss  problems they've experienced with the association's practices and theology.

[Linda]

How about rephrasing that?

What do people here posting think about a system that elevates men and thereby diminishes the work of the Holy Spirit, a system that puts a wedge between Christian parents and their children, a system that has excommunicated untold dozens perhaps hundreds of people without following the procedures set forth in Matthew 18, a system that shuns people, a system that believes they are a "special" movement of God, a system that asks for a lifetime commitment, but doesn't communicate from the start just what the "movement" entails, a system that shares private information with others who are not part of the problem or solution?

I don't think a system like that is of God.

I do believe there are many sincere leaders and others in the movement who love God, and their families, and believe what they have is a special movement of God.

Many, remember, came to know the Lord while in college and all they know of church and leadership and living a Christian life has come from the leaders of this movement.

So, to answer your question, I hate anything that is not of God.

[Jason Stauffacher]

Here's a word for Linda and for those who THINK we hate on GCM on this forum, I found a Dx for the people at ECC and GCx on Wiki:

Folie à deux (literally, "a madness shared by two") is a rare psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis (particularly a paranoid or delusional belief) is transmitted from one individual to another. The same syndrome shared by more than two people may be called folie à trois, folie à quatre, folie à famille or even folie à plusieurs (madness of many). Recent psychiatric classifications refer to the syndrome as shared psychotic disorder (DSM-IV) (297.3) and induced delusional disorder (folie à deux) (F.24) in the ICD-10, although the research literature largely uses the original name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux

Linda is correct.  It is not hate, it is a waking-up like in the Matrix movie,  when Neo says when first coming back to the "real" world to go see the Oracle via the car ride.... "I ate noodles there once, they were good noodles."  Neo woke up.  Linda has too.  She has seen the reality and for some posters and readers of this forum that are NOT pro-GCMWarning, they see us as hate-mongers, but in reality, we are stating what happened to us, AND not just citing the party line, that line being the pro-GCM party-line.  She does not like the noodles anymore, not at all. She spit them out.   (Sorry for the geeky metaphor here.  I am a Matrix geek.)

I am proud of Linda for leaving and standing up to these pastors.  It was dead wrong what they did to send the letter to her kids.  It was sinful.  Very sinful, but the ECC pastors cannot and will not think in those terms.  They just know she and her husband are bad former-members, and needed to get her kids, as her kids are well-connected to the pastoral families at ECC, and may it be that grid-of-connection might GET them back to the fold of God, oh, I mean the fold of GCx, rather.  But not so, as her kids are smart.

Proud of that Linda!!!  She decided to fight back.  It was only reactionary to what her former-pastors did her writing, and not by her initial move.  She does not hate, nor anyone of us.  It's the folie à plusieurs IN the GCx Matrix.

Happy New Year All!!

-Jason

P.S.  Try some different noodles this new year--you might actually find that the ones you eat are pretty bad.  Linda did.  She's glad she did.  Maybe a GCx pastor will see what Linda experienced as a wrongful.  Put down the chop sticks and reflect.

[boboso]

Short answer: Generally, I don't think anyone here hates anyone else in GCx. However, I think we all have a healthy disgust for the false teaching, the unfounded "leadership" structure, and the disasters that it has caused.

As for myself, I think those in "leadership" are generally confused and egotistical. To make the assumption that you (or anyone else) has more spiritual maturity (no matter what age or experience someone else has) than everyone else is just completely arrogant and ridiculous.

There were people in "leadership" who just barely finished college trying to counsel married folk several years older than they. It made no sense at all. When I asked about this, I would get the standard "we're the leadership. you need to submit." Yeah, that's reasonable and biblical (hyper sarcasm).

I don't hate the people that we left by any means. I'm actually more sad we lost the relationship(s) and I hope they're willing to look up and escape the judgment coming for putting stones around necks.

[AgathaL'Orange]

I would like to reiterate what one poster said about the "disgust" factor.


It's sort of like how I might feel about some horrible country that is evil to everyone.  People might meet an individual citizen of that country and like them, but put all the citizens together and look at what they become.

It's the same idea with GCx.  You put all these hyper-ideal or newly saved people together and pattern them into the mold, and what you get is a little "yucky."  

I don't hate the people, but I do hate what the entire group does to people (I just recently heard of another person who left who has lost all faith in God and organized religion based on the incredible guilt they felt while in GC.  They felt that they could never "meet the mark" and that there was no way God could exist if that's the way he made people feel!