Hi there,
This is long. I know that offends people. I write a lot because it helps me too, and I find that addressing things in depth sometimes provides enough material for others to dig through and find some salt and material from someone with like experience that can help them too. So F.R., I hope you'll be okay with a bit of writing.
I was a member of a GCAC church from 1995-2003. I was merely a freshman in college, when it all began.
I think these folks were able to make many inroads in my life because a few things were happening at the time:
- My mother was pressuring me to find a church (despite my general unhappiness with that);
A lot also just wanted to find a Christian group.
- I had a lot of spiritual questions, and immaturity, at the time... questions that were never really answered in my childhood. I went to a repressive religious academy, and well, let's say I really tuned out most of the experience;
Most on here suffered for their immaturity and naivete. Sorry. : (
- I relocated from out of state, and really didn't have any friends and family in the area. I felt very insecure, and had recently also had a bad experience, with a roommate, which left me scared and vulnerable.
A lot here were also sucked-in for lack of connections.
When you grow up, constantly hearing a message of "you're going to hell," it's a sort of comfort to hear a gospel message of salvation. So, these "nice" people come into your life... and you think you're set.
Yep. Just so you know, traditional Christians have long been calling modern evangelicalism as not only "not evangelical" but "false Christianity". What you describe happens because a large band is taught that they need to be hyper "loving" (it's not loving at all) to get them "poor sinners" (who probably neither consider themselves poor, nor sinners, in any biblical sense even after these folks get done with them) "saved" (from hell that is, rather than the sin that makes them worthy of God's wrath in hellish torment).
"They really look out for you" "and help you with your needs", "at first," "and invite you to Bible studies (some of which were open to a lot of debate, or so they led you to believe.)"
I can also testify to this. Remember my previous statement though, once you're saved "that's all that matters" and the "love" can go elsewhere. Of course you should compare that with the statements about genuine Christians' quality is that they love one another...
The debates were really just... sessions in which they try to convince you of just how wrong you are, and how wrong your beliefs and views of life, and the world are.
Just so you know, that is largely what the word requires a pastor to do: it is supposed to purify a people and equip them, not just to "get men saved", but in godliness. That said, a bunch of youth given a make-believe "leadership" position absent the Scriptures (and church history insofar as faithful rather than abusive churches goes) themselves are not only unlikely to be able to fulfill such a role, but it is highly probable they will instead increase error, childishness, ungodliness...
Right away, you learn that there are 'elites' or cliques... that some people are seen as truly 'devoted' or 'true leaders,' and games of favoritism ensue.
All insular highly-abusive self-deluding ruling parties build hierarchies like this, and then justify it because they find it effective, and especially in the case of churches because they think just because of the numbers are good--you know, drawing from worldly business philosophy and all--that God is blessing them with good fruits: it's essentially been this way since Church-Growth philosophy was founded, though many organizations before built similar models of "success". Right now there is even a popular set of terms for these cliques and this self-centeredness by supposed servants, btw: "peripher", "atenders", "members", "core", drawn out of the pages of "Purpoes Driven Church" (which got it elsewhere, though probably reformulated and retermed things), which has been a very compatible fit to the monstrosity that fit before: thankfully it is a pitiful little monstrosity that's insignificant in world history or even the Church at large, but it seems big enough to those harmed, does it?
I spent... most of my time trying to figure out ways to impress these people into convincing them I was mature enough as a person to even be allowed to do simple acts of service, like posting fliers and table tents in dining rooms!
I spent mine confused and crying because if I begged for holiness I was accused of being a legalist; if I begged for discernment and that potential error be examined, I was told "we don't do that"; I begged for some leadership to warn a sister about a family-church (of hers) whose pastor was a wolf, explained things and showed documentation, and actually elicited the response from them that "you are right, Dey's a wolf", and then they never did anything. The thing about "loving" that I mention above is that it has nothing to do with making emotions feel better, or always being nice, or just "letting go along" when something is very wrong: I mean it in the biblical sense of long-suffering, praying for someone's good, pleading with them: understand it, as a man, pleading for the obedience to God (as opposed to men who wrest his word) and that they be holy, discern, learn "the true knowledge of God" (search the margins of the NASB and you'll find where translations leave this literal rendition out because it "reads awkward"), and even taking heat as a "legalist" or "contrarian" or "unteachable little snot who won't stop causing me and my ideas an' vision for MY church problems!!!" (as some came to be known, almost in those terms, among certain men, though they nearly always used more biblishal-sounding words). It may even mean losing someone you love, totally, whose last words to you are used to stab at you and alienate you both, even when you were actually separated (and they've just learned this) because you got deadly ill. (I did, in fact, go completely crazy at that point--despite it being several years later, and I think I may have had something like an aneurism: something like a very sharp pain, and found myself scribbling rather than able to write.)
Learning there was difficult... as people always kept saying "God led me to this, and God led me to that," but ... the things I felt God was leading me to think were unfair, or not right... I'd bring them up, and I'd be considered a trouble maker. Someone who just wanted to hurt other people.
In biblical terms "God lead me to..." is called "deluding their own selves", and it sounds like you suffered a case yourself. Learn it and live it, and a lot that's "religious" will fall into proper perspective and proportion: that is, at least, once it is compared to the word as handled by someone competent rather than mis-taught by false apostles, a few heretics, and their spiritual heirs.
For years... I saw new recruits come in, and immediately put into positions of leadership,
It just goes to show how much they actually give about the souls under their "care", and I saw this too: they don't, it's their "vision", "mission", and "what 'God' is doing" ("with us"), that is, the numbers baby!
with myself excluded again and again...
Sounds like this was a good thing, for various reasons: not the least that, (a) if not qualified--and being in GC* without realizing the problem is among the indicators of that, you'll just harm souls under you and lead them in harm without leading them through (and out) of it; a second is that the woman is not permitted to have any authority over the man,
9In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; 10But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 11Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. 15Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
And this is no misapplied or mis-read verse: it's something like Paul countering the feminist movement of the day: he even throws-in the childbearing part as a(n edifying) insult just for good measure to offend those due and instruct those due. As far as a leadership model for the DTs goes, they get it from Willow Creek: Willow Creek originally made no bones about their DTs being one that puts women over men (and as far as I know, still don't), whereas GC* just misleads the women by saying "you're not really leading men, even though you do lead from time to time, the men do; if you lead, you're really doing it under your co-leader/quasi-husband's authority"; nor did Willow Creek fail to acknowledge that this was, in fact, departure from biblical practice. What I REALLY found interesting, however, is that among the manuals in use among some DT leaders in Fort Collins were the Willow Creek materials on this very subject and stating these very things: that is, in fact, where I learned a lot of it. I lived in an adjoining room to one DT leader and could read through some of these things at-will for quite a while (without him really minding). GC* just rationalized it away. You may or may not be in rebellion against God himself on these matters (none the helped to repentance by GC* or otherwise), but at the least you can have consolation in knowing that they're in hypocrisy and rebellions themselves (though I'm hoping your moniker is just due mockery for what they may have called or implied about you, and I also hope yo udon't actually take joy in this about that organization: it's no good for your soul).
even as I faithfully tried hard to get closer and closer in my spiritual growth, and walk with God. There was NEVER a way to truly please these people.
If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.--Galatians 1:10
Note this does not mean "never ever work to please people", e.g. Paul himself says husbands and wives seek to please one another, slaves their masters (and commands the slaves to do so, to work as though unto the Lord Himself), and so on. But if you exist to please people, to save people, to "love" people, to "center around/love bomb/make-a-loving-amoeba-like-God-showing-creature-of-Christian-people-to-show-love" people-pleasing then it's plain: you're deluded if you think you are a servant of Christ rather than of the world; we can say further therefore that you love the world and therefore are at enmity with God. GC* is good for this at the least that, those who bomb-out, perhaps have been taught by God using this organizatoin as a means to disabuse them of love for "people" in the modern evangellyfish (<--apparently now the title of a book) sense, and of trying to please them: hopefully the means repentance and true faith.
p.s. the secret was to kiss butt, start speaking like leadership, or just be very charismatic and popular with the leadership and with unbelievers. I found I was able to accede or seccede at will depending on these things, but being so troubled so long from so early, kept being pulled-back and away, and very early started being a "problem" even as I myself had to start vomiting-out the awfulness that is mcuh of modern "Christianity" (before I even realized it, I think).
GCAC basically lead me to not follow into a master's degree, because there was all this pressure that pursing a career was not "godly" enough, and that if you were truly wanting to serve, you'd go into ministry, either on campus, or abroad... but they never gave me room enough to pursue that, either, so I was always in this kind of limbo about my career/future path.
Yep. Though sometimes some were actually good about (apparently getting the apology memo) encouraging those they were uninterested in to keep-on with their educations. I was so confused and troubled myself that I kept getting depressed and sick, going a little crazy, searching scriptures (like a good little Christian), then bringing-it-up only to get worrisomely despressed at the spiritless response and sick again...
It was also a very lonely time... because as a single woman, we were not allowed to spend ANY time with men, alone, in any way... even if it wasn't a date... Even if it was just riding in a car, together, to a retreat (like LT.) You start poorly grading yourself when no one ever approaches you for "courtship." "I must be a bad woman, ungodly woman, rejected by God, etc."
I'm so sorry. I not only saw this, but have to add for your sake, that it could be worse: you could have been chosen for leadership, convinced not get into some courtship because the leadership needed your talents to help them further build their kingdom, get used until you were 28 or 29 years-old and therefore no longer so useful, and then let-go to go-off and do something else at some other church! Just don't ask me for more details (I already mentioned going nuts).
I remember I lived with this one family... for a year. I was supposed to help teach their kids a second language, as well as baby sit. Well, it was more of a CONSTANT baby sit job, instead of teaching them anything. The family, was the family of one of the pastors. This particular pastor never truly took to me, and always had apprehensions about me, and my character. I always suspected he spoke badly behind my back, to others, to keep me from growing... and being asked to serve in any respect, just because people who'd ask me to do things, would suddenly change their minds, and then say no. During that time, one of the guys from the church -- I knew he liked me. He had tried to spend some kind of time with me, and he'd sit by me at church. But this pastor had some conversation with him, and after that... he never approached me, ever again.
I'm so sorry. And I know about being discouraged btw--I hate to be able to confirm that. The version I had was a "you're an idiot for thinking you have a shot" and later "you should focus on being godly" (which was not much of a choice once they got the formerly-smarter girl to start talking like the other robots). The first verse I quoted, offensive as it may be, alludes the deceivableness of women, which though "unacceptable" if stated today in polite company, also happnes to be an open secret of communist literature, modern political maneuvering, and always has been at the center of advertising. Some of my female family also speaks of this sort of thing rather openly, in that they have used that principle for marketing and sales, and they can sell their average target their own kidneys. : (
The pastor would regularly say hateful things to me, during the dinner hour... such as "you love to hear yourself talk," if I tried to interject my opinion of anything, during dinner talk... or one day, he prayed for me that "I wouldn't grow into a bitter old maid."
And may you not. Also, may his ears sprout long hairs that strangle his wickedness. : D
Living with them was very painful for me, because I got to see how much his wife was put down as a woman, and disrespected... For example, she'd be very sick with the flu, and still expected to cook, etc. Even despite obvious suffering on her part. There were many such situations... in which things were done "because it was her duty," with no real grace given her. She'd also, take out some of her emotional frustrations on me, regularly.
: (
I hate to say these things, because even to this day... I feel like talking about it is what they would term "being a tool of the devil." In fact, they would never refer to the bad history of GCI, but instead offer warnings to members... of not "falling away, because many great leaders in the past have fallen away." Also, they would NEVER mention Jim McCotter as founding the movement, but always reference Herschel Martindale, instead.
Respected as he may be, Herschel's a heretic. He architected the documents mis-using Greek to excuse their vicious mis-teachings; he openly taught us in New Orleans that someone can utterly fall-away into gross immorality for the rest of their life and that we can know "they're still saved, they once accepted Jesus"...he seemed just like an old overweight-and-wheezy windbag with a smatter of Greek (and told me personally that he doesn't actually give it that much attention, as much vaunted as his Greek abilities are among GC*-ites since they are themselves not encouraged to study it much at all, and perhaps this is a good thing given they have had all this time to form better conclusions with you-should-suppose an increased maturity, neither of which has come, and which suggests they would do as much violence to Greek as does Herschel). I hate to bring it up, but Dallas (DTS), Herschel's apparent alma matter, is celebrated among evangelicals...but all eminent (on merits rather than just the world celebrating them, e.g. Harvard started grade inflation but it's the standard for merely being old and worldly) Greek programs essentially turn every Dallas applicant down, period. End-of-story. No negotiations or protest necessary. I think it was Daniel Wallace (DTS faculty) that once posted a rant online about how "unfair" this was, yet when one reads the fruits of his (and his grad slaves) Greek "scholarship" (i.e. in the NET Bible) one realizes why those other programs seem to have decided that anyone from Dallas is potentially poisoned fruit.
One day, some time after moving out from the pastor's home... Attending a Sunday church service, I just felt like everything was a big, fat, lie. A BIG fat lie. So I left...
That's funny because one day I was in a Sunday service, the first time in months, and the pastor told some big fat lies (among them about GC* being NAE, and it wasn't at that time; that "fatherhood" in a certain verse referred to the same kind of "fatherhood" as that of father's day--totally wrending the verse for a father's day message...though these two may have spread across two separate Sundays, the last two I attended, now that I think about it). After that--and the fact that the second to last had several false gospels presented as "drama", and counting to myself how many I'd seen that year after seeing the drama, and realizing nobody else seem to notice or, if one even brought-up a few of these points, to care (which you would think, being good saved, Jesus-loving/serving Christians and all, this would matter more than all else given the gospel points at that supposed love: Jesus), I left. I supposed if real friends they would come (though they hadn't before, being busy "serving God", don't know why I thought otherwise), but nobody did. Good pastors later just pointed-out how foolish this was.
and decided to never come back.
I may have if I hadn't gotten so sick, so hard, so suddenly that I was mentally disabled and physically crippled: also anesthetized by the treatment; a few folks even saw me like this every few days and barely said anything; I think I died inside for a while.
It was very hard, and difficult.
yep. But thank God He pulled my rebellious butt out from among those rebels and put me into sorrows, on a sick bed to make me well, and still continues to be patient with me.
I am known by a LOT of people still in the church, even ... by one of the big founders. So I am very, very hesitant to say very much more.
Details appreciated. : ) I'm HOPING within a few years to be stable and self-sufficient enough (had other difficulties, had to care for some family) to start supporting and helping the sheep who get trampled near-to-death by this group very personally, and connecting them with faithful shepherds and flocks who won't abuse or abandon them in the name of being too busy with helping the all-powerful and almighty God whose hand needs nothing or as though His will or desires depend on us for anything to get men saved, and who won't teach or imply such heretical theology. Indeed it does say in the word that God has chosen to use co-workers (because it is foolish to the wise) to save the lost, but it is still him doing the saving, and if that's the excuse to nullify his words and commands, warnings, mandates to discernment, to marry if you burn, to reconcile to those you have wronged before making an offering before the alter (I wonder how many of their promises to God, acts of supposed obedience, worship, programs and ministries, and even marriages among GC* members current and former, are explicitly cursed by God because of their neglect of this, given that Jesus said that He will require the very last farthing for failure to do so, when the "brother" wronged hands them over to the Judge: my hope is that more exaction will be in the form of God disciplining and leading to repentance, rather than "blessing" false believers to lull them into sleep, and keep them under wrath to reserve them for judgment, which the word actually warns that He does do), but such is not excuse to forsake brethren, beat them up like the robbers or pass-by the beating's victim like that too-busied Levitical priest only for the Samaritan (who were presumably heretical, because they actually were a giant heretical sect that tried to copy the Jewish religion but then changed what inconvenienced them, i.e. like the requirement of the temple location) who shows He has more religion and knowledge of God by His real inconveniencing of everything important to Him, massive cost to Himself and his opportunity (by large payment to the inkeeper, and even His making sure to return not only to pay extra to the inkeep, but I would hazard to guess this ensures the inkeep will do all He can and more--possibly to rack-up more charges--to ensure the care of the one who was beaten-up and left for dead).
I mean, when I left, he'd call my apartment day and night trying to get a hold of me. I never answered... and the one e-mail I sent about the matter, got a simple reply of "I'll pray for direction on that," and I never heard from him again. Ever.
: ) Effeminate men and all. He "pussied" out as a man, good riddance.
Nowadays, people see me... and they fake like they don't know me as they walk on by. Very few people members of that church still talk to me, and many ex members... are hesitant to talk to me because they are afraid I am still there -- or afraid to talk of the experience, and don't trust anything.
Yep. Had this happen to me too: maybe it was because I looked so sad (I was) and tired "of sin" (I was tired because my body was trying to kill me; I didn't even realize yet that I would soon be unable to ask for help even if I wanted to).
I have a LOT to say -- too much to say in here, in one post... But suffice it to say, I view this as a cult. Not a taco. I lost a lot of my life to these people... a lot of my dreams, and a lot of my money.
I don't mind the money, spent on people I loved (and love), though not reciprocated; I don't mind the dreams, which are vanity anyways, or life, which has to be lost, so long as God takes the mess and makes it into something for His glory, the loss for Christ's sake; I don't mind the opportunties, love, heart, and else being stolent, crushed, and torn. I don't care about the taco or cult--though it is a cult; I just want those I love to know God and Christ, not as Bill Bright and other personages of evangsmellicalism re-imaged, but as presented in the Scriptures, as The Majesty, The Almighty, The Holy, The Eternal, The Truth, The Word, The Glory. I hope for them that rather than "I'm still learning about Jesus", that all the ways they met (and sometimes admitted openly in our DT meetings) the criteria given in the likes of John's epistle for false believers yet would be unfazed by this and say "Oh golly, don't I need to work on my faith: I'm so glad that I really do have Jesus!" (so much for John's loving warning and saying "here is a test for you to see if you have Him!"), that it would faze them, and they would start examining...for real. I would hope for repentance, real repentance, meaning to God, to men and all others they have harmed by leading and leading into GC* and into the fads of evangsmelldom and to false faith with other gospels, and in place of the fake (often) song-induced hysterical-ecstatic replacement for biblical joy, have the sorrow that worketh repentance not to be repented of, and sobriety mandated for every meeting of the congregation and preachment of the word purely, and for judgment, and to test matters by the word, intelligently and with all its complexity, rather than emotively with pithy and simple statements drawn from shallow experience and the experience of shallow men, and from "getting burned" by other heretics to which some just reacted and responded by moving into a different group of heretics.
I was even put in a situation of some mild physical violence, once, because I forgot to do some dishes before an older "female elder" came home before work.
: ( Glad you're out. Just don't let this group (or one's like it: see "Sovereign Grace Ministries" for an example of a group that was similar and tried to hack some orthodox doctrine on top, sort-of, only to perhaps become more insidious because it had something to hide from other orthodox groups' criticisms and point-at to say "see, we've changed"; maybe they did in parts, and even bad preaching can be used by God if'n He causes from its parts someone to understand Him correctly and disregard the bad parts, so SGM was likely used for some substantial good of some too, yet those who just dared look could see the abuses and remaining old guard that had declared the likes of Mahaney as apostles--and never precisely and articulately renounced these errors rather than quietly stop talking about them, all the while still treating such men that way; and neuroses, and up-the-ladder problem-resolutions-of-"concerns" rather-than-take-it-before-the-local-church organizational schemes...) take you back in. If you go to Church at all, my challenge is that you neither do so under impressions of what you like, according to you own desires, but compare the word, very thoughtfully and re-examining everything in-context vs. what you have been taught, with the words and actions of those churches and their preachers, so that you find a place that holds itself to its own standards, and you are thus provided a common platform and standing in any and every matter of controversy, and thus fairness, consideration, and the sanction, protection, comfort, guidance, and wisdom of God and His Spirit Himself. If'n you send me a location perhaps, just maybe, I might know of such a place: that doesn't mean their preachers won't convict or get under your skin, but it might that the women would kindly ask their husbands to beat abusive husbands into the consideracy and loving affections commanded of them toward their wives in Christ Jesus (before calling the authorities to arrest and re-educate those men as to the errors of their ways). : )
