Great Commission Ministries?

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[araignee19]

Can anyone clarify the relationship of the GCx we have all had issues with and Great Commission Ministries? I know there is certainly some shared history, but am unsure about current relationships with each other and teachings.

The reason I ask is that this Sunday at my new church we had a "Missions Weekend." All of the church's mission "partners" were there passing out information and raising awareness. I noticed that there were two representatives from Great Commission Ministries present. This made me feel sick at first, but I figure I should do some research before I let my emotions get away with me. Are the problems which are so often present in GCx churches also present in Great Commission Ministries? Would you be concerned if your church partnered with them? Should I talk to the pastor (who I have never spoken to in person) about the issues with GCx? Maybe he doesn't have any idea of their history... Maybe he knows and doesn't care... Maybe he knows and supports them anyways... Maybe I should run away from this church as fast as I can... Maybe I am severely overreacting...

It doesn't help that I saw this just one week after he gave a sermon on the importance of church (and used the term "local church" a lot), which of course I had a bit of an emotional response to as well.

Overall I really like this church, and have been going there for almost three years and have had nothing but good experiences, but we just got a new head pastor, which makes me question everything again. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

[Linda]

From the horses mouth (GCC web page):

We know that Great Commission International (GCI) was formed in 1983.

In 1989, GCI was changed to Great Commission Association of Churches, which is shortened today to GCC.

GCM was formed by GCC in 1989. I believe GCC pastor Dave Bovenmyer founded GCM.

GCM at some point around 2006 became more of a collection agency for support for GCC missionaries, church planters, etc. They also decided to collect and distribute contributions for other groups like the Acts 29 Network.

GCM was more than a collection/distribution center for missionaries in that there were a few GCM churches. Here is a list, Tom Maruiello sent me of the GCM churches as of 2008:

 
GCM Churches:
·         Ball State Revolution

·         Bowling Green, Ohio

·         H20 Orlando

·         Illini Life, U of IL

·         Illinois State Illini Life

·         New Life Church, U of M Campus Church

·         Ohio State

·         University of Maryland Church

·         The Rock, University of Missouri

·         New Life Campus Fellowship, Virginia Tech

·         Riverview Church, Lansing MI

·         Texas A&M University

·         University of Texas

·         University of North Texas

·         Kairos & Kairos West, Los Angeles

·         Heritage Church, Ohio (affiliate)

Back to GCM. The above list of GCM churches was sent to me from Tom Mauriello who is the head honcho guy of GCM. In 2012, GCM distanced themselves from these churches with a name change. Instead of being GCM churches these churches became Collegiate Church Network churches (getting rid of the pesky "Great Commission" part of the name). On the GCM web page they go great lengths to say it is "incorrect" to refer to GCM churches, but I emphasize, the list I gave you of GCM churches was sent to me directly from Tom Mauriello. So, GCM churches are now called Collegiate Church Network Churches.

So, bottom line:

GCI changed its name to GCC. GCC started GCM. GCM started some churches. GCM church leaders adopted a new name in 2012 which was Collegiate Church Network. These groups have a common history, common leaders, and a common DNA.

It looks like GCM has doubled down on their attack on this forum with some stronger words than before when we were labeled “detractors”. Here’s the link:

http://www.gcmweb.org/who/OthersSay/Questions.aspx

[Linda]

I thought as I had time, I would look up each of the churches Tom Maruiello said were GCM churches. I found an interesting twist right off the bat when I Googled "Ball State Revolution".

The GCM web site says, "Today, it is not correct to call any church a “GCM church.” As a mission agency and distinct 501(c)3, GCM is not a church network or denomination and does not have authority over any churches."

The Ball State Revolution site says, "Great Commission Ministries (GCM) is the governing organization of the Revolution.  GCM planted the Revolution in 1989 (the same year GCM itself was established).  The GCM organization works with support-based missionaries to bring the Truth of God to those who might not otherwise have an opportunity to hear it.  GCM focuses on college campus churches where many life-altering and critical choices are made by young adults.  To learn more about GCM, visit their website at www.gcmweb.org."

Here is the link as of this morning. It will probably be gone/changed later. I have a screen shot.

http://revoweb.net/wp11/resources/great-commission-ministries-gcm/


Oh what a tangled web we weave...

[Linda]

New Life Christian Fellowship. Virginia Tech. From their web page today. First entry in the history section. No mention in the history of Collegiate Church Network (although they are listed on the Collegiate Church Network web page as a CCN church). The history does mention Ecclesia which looks like it was started by GCM churches. Anyone know about Ecclesia? If GCM was started in 1989, then Virginia Tech must have been one of the early GCM college church plants. Here is the entry and the link:

1989: Our founding pastor, JR Woodward, arrives at Virginia Tech as part of Great Commission Ministries (GCM) campus movement.

http://nlcf.net/about-u/history/

[Linda]

Continuing through the list of GCM churches given to me by GCM! Looking up the history.

Fellowship Church, Texas A & M

This one is long and no longer on the web page. (Thank you Way Back Machine). What becomes clear is that GCM planted churches. These churches still exist under the same name, those names were given to me by the director of GCM, Tom Mauriello, the only thing that has changed is that GCM seems to be denying that it had churches and the churches are now part of a group called Collegiate Church Network.

Who can keep it all straight? Fellowship church was a GCI church plant at some time it morphed to a GCM church and now it is Collegiate Church Network. Honestly, who can keep up?

Here is what Fellowship Church stated on its web site under history on May 26, 2009:

How and why did Fellowship Church get started?

A church planting team from Houston came to College Station in 1977. They began with a month-long evangelistic outreach with help from friends in other cities. Many of the team members rented homes in the Northgate area where they had daily fellowship along with weekly meetings for worship, prayer and Bible study.

Pastor Herschel Martindale commissioned the team a few years after he had made radical changes in his own life and ministry. He had been a Plymouth Brethren pastor and well known Bible conference speaker, but was challenged at a meeting with Campus Crusade founder Bill Bright to consider if the church as he knew it might actually fulfill the Great Commission in his generation.

Herschel established close relationships with zealous young Christian leaders in Colorado and parts of the Midwest who also had backgrounds with Plymouth Bretheren, Campus Crusade, Navigators and Operation Mobilization. He worked with them in evangelistic and church planting campaigns in the mid 1970s.

Herschel and those with him saw the strategic importance of reaching students at major universities in Texas to carry out the Great Commission in this state. After the team came to College Station, others were sent to Austin and Lubbock.

Ron Tewson, a young man with significant leadership experience in the Continental Singers Christian music evangelism ministry joined Herschel in Houston. He was ordained as a pastor and led the 1977 team that established Fellowship Church. God used Ron to reach hundreds of Aggies with the Gospel and to establish some of the core values we hold today.

He left Fellowship Church in 1987 to help with the organizing work of Great Commission International, which became the Great Commission Association of Churches in 1989. Today Ron is pastor of Horizon Community Church in Orlando, Florida.

How has God used Fellowship Church since it was established?

Since its beginning, Fellowship Church has emphasized winning people to Jesus rather than recruiting members from other churches. This is called conversion growth as opposed to transfer growth, and remains one of our priorities.

Every church has a philosophy of ministry that guides what it does to reach and serve people. Fellowship Church's main philosophy of ministry centers on homegroups, which are similar to what many other churches today call cell groups. A result is that Fellowship Church never has had a lot of other ongoing programs or specialized ministries.

Reaching university students and discipling them for lifelong service to Christ wherever they go was the major factor in establishing FCC, and it has always been a high priority. We see the 44,000 students as our primary mission field.

As the church and some longtime members have matured, God has led Fellowship Church into increased outreach in the community, so that we have about an equal number of student homegroups and non-student community homegroups.

An exciting part of Fellowship’s growth in recent years has been International student outreach. We thank God for putting us at a place where there are thousands of international students and their families, with so many open to the love of Christ.

How did the three Fellowship Church outreach ministries develop or change?


The primary outreach of Fellowship Church for the first ten years was to A&M students. The church met on Sundays in campus buildings.

AMCF was known for many bold evangelistic efforts on campus such as passing out gospel tracts in the form of football rosters before home games, many days of outdoor preaching each semester, door-to-door evangelism in dorms and apartments, and a giant watermelon feast on the main drill field.

In those times people of all ages, students and nonstudents, were together in the large homegroups which were often led by deacons. About 1988 a shift was made to distinguish student from community homegroups. Later, the concept of smaller homegroups with student homegroup leaders coached by a pastor or deacon was adopted. This shift was a key one in the way Fellowship Church expanded its focus on leadership development, especially among students.

The community homegroups and Fellowship Church outreach to nonstudents were affected in 1989 when a large group of members moved to the Dallas area to be involved in planting churches in Plano, Arlington, and especially in Richardson. Fellowship Church pastor Lee Jarrell went with the group to Richardson. Soon after, many of the older Fellowship Church members with children transferred to other local churches which had well developed children’s ministries.

There were just a few families and single non-students in Fellowship Church at that time, but God used them to provide essential leadership, continuity and financial support for the church. With encouragement from Pastor Ray Muenich, however, over the next ten years the community homegroups continued to grow so that the non-student membership of Fellowship Church is usually about equal to the student membership.

The community outreach ministry has had many significant evangelistic projects. They worked for months in 1997 to share the gospel and a free copy of the Jesus movie with every home in a section of western Bryan. Each year thousands of gospel tracts have been hand delivered along with invitations to Fellowship Church Easter and Christmas celebrations. Some years the church had a "float" in the annual Christmas parade and members walked along the crowd handing out tracts with a theme matching the float theme. From 1999 to 2001 they undertook a coordinated tv ad campaign and tract distribution called What If It’s True?

Sometime in the mid 1980s AMCF and Fellowship Church began holding a welcome picnic for international students just before the beginning of the fall semester. The turnout was usually about 100 people. Some international students became part of the student homegroups.

Following the 1995 picnic with a turnout of 180 people, two Fellowship Church members began a Bible study for the internationals at Hensel Park, then at the MSC. It was the beginning of a ministry that God would grow dramatically. One GCM staff member changed from working with American students to entirely with internationals.

The international welcome picnic grew by about 100 people each year to an attendance over 500 in August of 2000. The Friday Bible study at the MSC now averages 20 Asian students and is being organized and promoted by international students. Many Asian students have become Christians, with at least 20 who have finished their TAMU studies and moved on to serve God elsewhere.

AMCF also reaches out to international students with an English conversation class each Monday night. This began about 1998 and has grown to average about 20 per week.

The outreach to internationals took another step in August 2000 as a team of Fellowship Church workers joined Pastor Rodger Lewis and his wife Cheri in a new outreach to students from Latin America. Their Friday night "Lugar de buenos amigos" programs have been attended by more than 60 Latin American students. At least six have prayed to receive Christ, and some have begun the Fellowship Church equipping classes.

[Linda]

One more.

New Life, Michigan.
The history is no longer available on their web page.
I found it on Wayback Machine.

When GCM puts things like this on their web page to discredit people who are pointing out their false teaching, I Google and it doesn't take long to see a pattern. :

"There is an anonymous group online that identify their concerns with GCM or a “GCM Church”, but their concerns are not in fact with GCM as a mission organization and have not been directed to us. They misunderstand GCM today when they label any church as a “GCM church” (see above)."

There were GCM churches. Those churches still exist. The director of GCM sent me a list of them. I have that list as well as other e-mails from the director. Our issues are NOT personal. Our issues are with the teaching and practice of GCx.

Here is a link to the history of New Life. Sigh.


https://web.archive.org/web/20131104011445/http://www.newlifea2.org/about-us/history/

[Linda]

History of Riverview Church in East Lansing, MI.
GCC church then a GCM church now a CCN church.

http://rivchurch.com/about/our-history

The Rock, University of Missouri
Web site said (till they changed it):
"The Rock is a part of Great Commission Ministries."

http://web.archive.org/web/20040403172049/http://www.columbiarock.com/info/

araignee19, in thinking about your question, I suppose two representatives from GCM could have been there if your church was part of one of the groups GCM does the money collecting for (i.e. Acts 29). Does your church offer a history on the "about" page? You might want to watch for words like "Collegiate Church Network". GCM churches come have the same DNA as GCC churches and to my knowledge none of them have ever distanced themselves or corrected the false teaching of the past. The churches I listed used to be GCM churches. I believe they are now Collegiate Church Network churches. I am not aware of any changes other than the name.

Another way to get info that GCx tries to hide is to use WayBackMachine. Lots of info there that they have now edited on newer versions of the web page.

[Linda]

I had a bit of time today and must say I am astonished at the audacity of GCM when they deny church involvement.

Another link.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030822222048/http://www.gcmweb.org/churches/default.asp?article=123

“This is not your parents’ church,” warns a brochure for The Rock, one of the cutting-edge campus churches that GCM is planting in the U.S. and Europe. –Faith Hopler

Sigh.

[araignee19]

araignee19, in thinking about your question, I suppose two representatives from GCM could have been there if your church was part of one of the groups GCM does the money collecting for (i.e. Acts 29). Does your church offer a history on the "about" page? You might want to watch for words like "Collegiate Church Network". GCM churches come have the same DNA as GCC churches and to my knowledge none of them have ever distanced themselves or corrected the false teaching of the past. The churches I listed used to be GCM churches. I believe they are now Collegiate Church Network churches. I am not aware of any changes other than the name.

Another way to get info that GCx tries to hide is to use WayBackMachine. Lots of info there that they have now edited on newer versions of the web page.

It is not one of the churches on that list. I have certainly looked at their history, about page, affiliations, etc. I was very leery of churches when I joined, did a lot of research before even attending once, and found nothing to indicate any problems. The church is older than GCx, and just a standard baptist church. This is the first thing which has ever caused me serious concern.

[Linda]

Ah, good to know. Since GCM is now in the business of managing the collection and distribution of "missionary" support for churches and organizations, it could be that your church uses them for that service. Maybe just asking your pastors why they had a presence at your "Missions Weekend" would answer that question.

One other thing you could do is put the church web site in way back machine and look for any info on the history from 10 years ago to see if there is a mention of Great Commission in past years.

One thing I struggle with is the deception. I have a hard time realizing that people can tell the truth about some things, but the deception can be in the form of information withheld.

[Janet Easson Martin]

Thank you for posting the group/church organization names, Linda.  People at my church have requested a list, especially for their college students.  Just wondering if there is a separate heading we could put your list under for quick reference for those who want to be informed, and warned.

Deception is a necessary characteristic of False Teachers.  It also seems to be a necessary tool for self-glorification.  What Jesus says about that is ASTOUNDING!


'Jesus replied, "If I glorify myself, my glory means N O T H I N G ."  

[Linda]

The truth is I still find myself shocked and sickened by the deception. It makes no sense because we have discussed the GCC and GCM thing at length. We also had a thread on the GCM/CCN rebranding. I've known a lot of this stuff for a long time, but I still can't get my mind around the idea that people intentionally try to discredit people posting here and at the same time leave out important pieces of history/information to create a less than accurate picture of GCx history.

I am reminded of a paragraph in "The Last Battle" where Jill came to understand a deception. It says:

"And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies' plan. By mixing a little truth with it, they had made the lie far stronger."

Tonight I read the letter that GCM put on their site when GCM churches morphed into Collegiate Church Network Churches.

Here is the link.

http://www.gcmweb.org/who/Partners/collegiate.aspx

This part was especially troubling and deceptive.

"In 1989, with the help of Campus Crusade for Christ, they helped found a missions agency called Great Commission Ministries to support local church plants: teaching missionaries how to raise ministry funds in partnership with generous Christians, and caring for their missionary employment and donor needs. In 1992, we joined the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, and have consistently met their high standards."

Campus Crusade for Christ did not start Great Commission Ministries.

Great Commission Churches started Great Commission Ministries.

Here is the link where GCC says they started GCM.

http://www.gccweb.org/about/faq/##27

Nowhere in the letter is GCC mentioned, even though by their own admission, they started GCM. Instead, they throw in Campus Crusade for Christ and say Campus Crusade helped found GCM. Now, I suppose, if pressed, they would come up with some leaders in Cru who gave some advice when GCC started GCM, but parents reading that letter would easily get the impression that GCM was an offshoot of Cru.

In addition, a key bit of "Google-able" information is left off. Namely, the fact that GCC started GCM.

Here, the deception came in the form of not mentioning GCC and using the good name of Campus Crusade to add credibility to a group that has a past history of being on cult watch lists and at one point issued a 13 page statement of error.

[Huldah]

There's been deceit from the beginning. I haven't forgotten that we went proselytizing in the dorms & nearby apartments (circa 1978) under the guise of "conducting surveys." When I expressed reservations to one of the deacons about it, he basically insisted that it was a non-issue.

[EverAStudent]

Huldah, you are correct.  There has been sinful deception in GC's core approach to campus ministry from the very beginning...which is ironic given that they wanted to convert the campus' students from sinners to saints like themselves! 

This type of deception was well documented in one of our forum threads called "Pretense: The Church as Student Organization  http://forum.gcmwarning.com/general-discussion/pretense-the-church-as-student-organization/

[margaret]

One of the girls in the campus ministry recently was discussing tactics for meeting people.  "When I ask for their phone number, I enter it in my cell immediately and call them.  I say, 'let me call you right quick to make sure I got it right,' and that way they can't give me a fake number." wink, wink.

gross.

[araignee19]

Thanks for the info. This still leaves me unsure what I should do... *sigh*

[Janet Easson Martin]

araignee19,

I believe it is an OPPORTUNITY for you.  Although it may be uncomfortable and somewhat awkward I think it is a God-given opportunity to approach the leadership of your new church with your gut concern.  It's a chance for you to trust your gut reaction, which is probably the HOLY SPIRIT, and to take a step of faith-action and SPEAK, in private to the leaders of your new church first.  Trust God to go before you and prepare the way and to be heard by them and move in their Spirit, not their human understanding.  False teaching is not something that is easily recognizable to the mere human mind, but it is to the Spirit-mind, the mind of Christ.

The spiritual reliability of GCM, GCI, GCC, and now Collegiate Church Network is not in line with scripture first and foremost because they NEVER publicly denounced the PRIMARY "DISCIPLER", Jim McCotter, as a FALSE TEACHER, a pseudo-apostle, an evil PRETENDER who deceived and wounded untold thousands of sheep.  You could show them this website with its nearly 1000 members and over 10,000 posts mostly in confused, wandering, and wounded response to his and his disciples' teachings.  That's the bad fruit false teachers produce.

Not to mention, because of their uncourageous and mute response to this outcry, this Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Jim (James/JDM) McCotter has begun his evil charade all over again in the "Greenwood Fellowship" in Englewood, Colorado to abuse God's sheep.  

Be Strong in the LORD and his powerful Spirit.


Praying for You to Shine His Stunning Light in Deep Darkness,
Janet Easson Martin

[crp87]

This at the least shows a lack of responsibility, and at the worst apathy and disregard on the part of the leadership of that church. They are responsible for their relationships. GCx and any affiliate group needs to apologize and clearly make a statement of their wrong doings before they slink away from their past. And with sites like this existing, ignorance is not a believable excuse. At the very least I would bring these concerns before the church.