The Town Hall Meeting

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[Linda]

I thought I'd start a thread for discussion about the Town Hall Meeting tonight and since it hasn't happened yet and Godtrumpsall loves to speculate, we could start with some speculation.

Here is my take of what will happen (I hope I'm totally wrong in my speculations, btw) in no particular order.

1. People will probably not leave the meeting with much new information.

2. People will be warned to stay away from social media and this forum.

3. There will be sympathy for the victims, but it will be presented as a "misunderstanding" on their part.

4. Questions will have to be submitted in writing beforehand. (Unlike a real Town Hall Meeting where people get to talk about what is on their mind.)

5. The attorney will be presented as an independent 3rd party investigator. GRACE will be presented as biased.

6. Out on a limb on this one, but I think there is a chance that MD could be reinstated as preaching pastor. Since it doesn't appear as if this investigation will end soon, they will say that it's not fair that unsubstantiated accusations are keeping him from his ministry, but he won't be doing any counseling. Again, this one is a long shot.

7. Someone should make a BINGO card for the meeting and put these words on it. Slander,  conspiracy theory, bitterness, two sides to every story, anonymous criticism, slander, fruit, social media, mean spirited, detractors, misunderstanding...

8. The "independent" attorney will be present and offering "independent" legal advice to the men leading the meeting about what can and cannot be said...in an independent 3rd party sort of way, of course...

So those are my hunches. Anyone else want to speculate?

Hopefully, after the meeting, people who went will fill us in on what actually happened.

It's really too bad that in the interest of transparency neither John or Suzanne were invited. A sign that the wagons are being circled and John and Suzanne and the other victims/survivors are outside that circle.

[Linda]

This just in. The meeting was cancelled. Anyone know why?

[AgathaL'Orange]

What on earth?

[GodisFaithful]

From Scout's FB she does not know the reason told to congregants. She says that Evergreen now knows of two of Mark's victims, Scout from social media and the other from a victim impact statement that one of the victims turned in to the the attorney representing the Evergreen Board of Trustees.

Please pray for Scout as she must be under a lot of pressure.

Maybe she will expound more here.

[Rebel in a Good Way]

My understanding is that there are 3 victims who ECC has heard from.  One being Scout, the other being Victim C, and a third who turned in a victim impact statement to ECC's attorney.

[Badger]

Linda,
We love your satirical Town Hall meeting post!  I'm pretty sure you have a winning Bingo card.   Now if only they had a meeting to go with the card...

[IWishToRemainAnonymous]

The notice of cancellation of the meeting.

"As you may know, we have a Town Hall scheduled for tonight (Tuesday, March 6th). We're writing to let you know that our plans have changed and the Town Hall will not be occurring.

Our intent in setting up this time was simply to provide a platform to better care for and shepherd our church through this time of allegations. However, through further thinking and praying, we have concluded that this town hall meeting is not the best platform to accomplish our goal. Our goal was to minister spiritually to our own people. We believe we mislabeled and miscommunicated the intent of the meeting. Calling it a "town hall" meeting implies an exchange of questions and answers. However, there is very little we can add to explain the allegations and investigation other than our latest communication. You can see that communication here.

Comments from social media lead us to conclude that non-Evergreeners may come expecting answers we cannot give and turn this meeting into something different from what we intended. Our goal with this meeting was to set our trust and hope solely in Jesus Christ during this time and not on the circumstances surrounding us.

However, we do want to be open, hopeful and faith-filled as possible. We are proposing three other communication vehicles:
If you have personal concerns and questions, please approach any pastor after weekend services, by phone or e-mail. However, our ability to answer questions about the investigation will be limited. Please direct those questions to Lynn Newman at lnewman@evergreenchurch.com

There will be pastors available for prayer and comments after each service for the next two weekends in Room 200. Please consider inviting a pastor to your small group. We love you and our church. And we want to provide the care and leadership that is needed. Please join us as we pray for truth to be known and for God to be honored and glorified. We also ask that you pray for God to give us wisdom, as we navigate through this complex and difficult time.

In Christ,
Your Pastors"

[IWishToRemainAnonymous]

http://evergreenchurch.com/update/

[Rebel in a Good Way]

Circling the wagons. 

Although I kind of like how they seemed to worry that non-Evergreeners (us vs. them, of course) would be rabblerousers.  I was just hoping someone would record it.

[GodisFaithful]

Irony and satire lost on some people.

I wish we could have run with what was said in the Town Hall Meeting, but Evergreen decided that it really was not a Town Hall Meeting and they decided they could not get away with calling it a Town Hall Meeting since some people know what a Town Hall Meeting is supposed to be like and somehow the word might have gotten out that it really was not a Town Hall Meeting and then they would have looked very foolish.

[Linda]

Our intent in setting up this time was simply to provide a platform to better care for and shepherd our church through this time of allegations. However, through further thinking and praying, we have concluded that this town hall meeting is not the best platform to accomplish our goal. Our goal was to minister spiritually to our own people.

This is astonishing to me.

I wonder if it has occurred to ECC that Suzanne (and others) were, at one time members of "our church", some of their "own people" who are alleging some pretty serious abuse at the hands of an ECC shepherd. They were lambs that left the church and scattered and are claiming the reason they fled is abuse at the hands of a shepherd. THIS IS A BIG DEAL!

Shouldn't the first priority be to have some concern for the wounded "lamb(s)"?

Shouldn't a main priority be to seek the truth about the allegations?

[Linda]

Do you care to prove it by telling us who you are?

[GodisFaithful]

Whoever it is is trying so hard to trump us all!!

I'm laughing, because whoever it is does not get the irony of her/his postings being EXACTLY the prideful, arrogant, throwing Scripture AT us kind of stuff that makes us so glad we are outa' there.

I think she is a fundraiser for Scout.  It's working.

[Linda]

Speaking of fundraising for Scout...

https://www.gofundme.com/helping-victims-of-mark-d039s-abuse

[Rebel in a Good Way]

GTA, have other locations held meetings in regards to the Scout situation, or how many other investigations have happened?

[Linda]

GTA,

Did you catch the wink?

I am totally behind anonymity on this forum and support your right to be anonymous.  In addition, I support your right to post on a forum created for former members to discuss problems with GC even though you are a current member whose posts often are critical of the posts of former members.

You don’t need to prove a thing to anyone, but it might help your cause if you supported your theories with facts so we knew what you were talking about. Some here are unaware of the Facebook page. Perhaps you did not realize that.

[Differentstrokes]

What is the facebook page? is it for this group? I wondered if there were any out there, but i never found anything. Are you referring to Suzannes FB?

[Linda]

Great work GTA in spreading the word about Scout’s Facebook page.

Here is the link.

https://www.facebook.com/100023543956292

[UserNumber123]

Evergreen Lakeville had our Leader's meeting yesterday. For the last 30 or so minutes we had a town hall style time where we got to talk about the situation with Suzanne's accusation of sexual abuse towards Mark.

Nobody attacked Suzanne and nobody defended Mark. Our initial prayer was that after this whole thing is over, everyone could end up loving God even more. We spent the final 10 minutes praying for Suzanne, Mark, the Board of Trustees, the investigator, and everyone else involved.

I've been a part of the church for 9 years cannot speak to anything that happened before I was a member. But what I can say is that we are not, as a few on this forum say, a pack of mindless sheep who never question leadership and worship our elders. We do not isolate ourselves from the outside world or from other wonderful churches in our community. We are not circling our wagons. We want the truth to come out as much as you guys, whether it condemns Mark or absolves him, and we want everyone to come out the other end of this situation loving God more.

[Huldah]

Our initial prayer was that after this whole thing is over, everyone could end up loving God even more.

This is something I trust we can all agree on. Thank you for sharing about the meeting.