have I run into another discipling cult? :(

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[graceforall]

Post my GCM nightmare experience, I stopped going to church for awhile.  Then I carefully found a good little church that was relatively healthy.  It recently went under and suggested people try one of two churches.  I did - and they are both quite different from each other.  I went to one of them, and even went to a new members class.  There, the pastor said,
"without pressure there cannot be love" and a lot of things about accountability and making a commitment to submit to spiritual authority and having elders speak into our lives.  It kind of has me freaked out.   It is very very different than the church that I used to go to that went under, and makes me wonder why the pastor there would suggest this church, but he did... and I'm baffled...  I wonder if my GCM experience makes me too jumpy about any discipling or accountablity partners in a church amoung the members, but this...  the pastor even said he was all about "fierce conversations" to "supr one another into living out our gifts and dealing with sin." 

Now all I am thinking is, crud, have I run into another disicipling cult?  or am I too jumpy, and they are just a little more strong about this than some, or...  so I just RUN either way, because I really don't need something even reminding me of my GCM nightmare. 

[FeministRebel]

I'm just new here, and today is my first day. But this sounds to me almost exactly like a GCM type church. :/

[EverAStudent]

The original post presents a loaded set of questions.  Not that I object to asking questions, even loaded questions, but the asker has to be willing to hear unpleasant answers to loaded questions because that is what loaded questions do, they explode with the answering.

Every "good" church will foster discipline, discipleship, and training.  Not every church that does so is a "shepherding movement" or GCM style church.  Teachings and sermons on being active in the Christian life and being active in growth may or may not be indicators of a controlling church.

My warning bells are triggered with the sermons on accountability groups.  Scripture always warns us that our accountability for our spiritual growth is to God.  God alones judges, God alone convicts, God alone causes the increase, God alone is the one to whom we are accountable for all those things. 

James tells us (when properly taken in context) to confess our public sins to each other so we might be healed of our public sins.  This is not a basis for a complex psychology on accountability to each other for overcoming sins through small group confessions.  That type of "accountability group" leads to the shepherding movement abuses, a sect of "super saints," and ultimately in a high degree of damaging leadership or oversight control of the congregation.  When "accountability groups" (instead of small groups) are promoted, I find it time to take my leave.

[Neverbeengcm]

Post my GCM nightmare experience, I stopped going to church for awhile.  Then I carefully found a good little church that was relatively healthy.  It recently went under and suggested people try one of two churches.  I did - and they are both quite different from each other.  I went to one of them, and even went to a new members class.  There, the pastor said,
"without pressure there cannot be love" and a lot of things about accountability and making a commitment to submit to spiritual authority and having elders speak into our lives.  It kind of has me freaked out.   It is very very different than the church that I used to go to that went under, and makes me wonder why the pastor there would suggest this church, but he did... and I'm baffled...  I wonder if my GCM experience makes me too jumpy about any discipling or accountablity partners in a church amoung the members, but this...  the pastor even said he was all about "fierce conversations" to "supr one another into living out our gifts and dealing with sin." 

Now all I am thinking is, crud, have I run into another disicipling cult?  or am I too jumpy, and they are just a little more strong about this than some, or...  so I just RUN either way, because I really don't need something even reminding me of my GCM nightmare. 

For me, there are some warning flags in your bolded comments by the Pastor.  However, without fully understanding the context in which those statements were made/used, it is difficult for me to tell what was meant by the comments.

Am I reading this correctly..that a Pastor from a failed Great Commission church recommended this new church to you?

[blonde]

What pastor was it?