Hey, look! I'm not alone here!

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.

You may read and post, but some features are restricted to registered members. Please consider registering to gain full access! Registration is free and only takes a few moments to complete.

[2xA Ron]

I guess that pretty much sums up my reaction to this site and a lot of what I've learned about the GC over the past 6 months.

I'm Aaron and I'm not going to be shy about who I am because one of the things leaving my GC church and college ministry has taught me is not to care what men think of me and not to fear them, but God.  Here, you can even check out my blog on Blogger if you really feel so inclined (http://to-end-of-world2xa-ron.blogspot.com/).

So, story-wise, I was reared in by Christian parents (my father currently pastors an Independent Baptist church, whose entire congregation could fit comfortably in a small bedroom).  I accepted Christ when I was very young, but college was a pretty critical time for me.  I completed the process of making my faith my own rather than simply something I had learned from my parents by critically questioning the things I had believed to determine whether they were true and Biblical or not and either accepting or rejecting them.  During college I really became conscious of having a personal love relationship with Christ and began to listen and respond to the Spirit's voice in my life.

I joined the Navigators (a para-church organization, non GC) early on, but had a roommate who attended a GC church named Summitview and their college ministry, the Rock.  They seemed like an amazing group of people who loved Jesus (and I would say I stand by that initial observation), so I started joining them for activities and small-group meetings whenever they didn't interfere with my Navs time commitments (or, obviously, my homework).

As I became involved in the church I noticed some weird things going on.  While I was initially attracted to their different perspective on dating--which seemed promising to a never-dated guy afraid of facing rejection--I soon saw it being used legalistically.  A young woman whose struggle with legalism in her small group had her on the verge of a nervous breakdown was told she couldn't talk with me and my roommate--who were her friends and (at the time) the only people willing to listen to her (she had tried talking it out with the leaders of her team and their leaders and got the run-around).  My roommate (who was a closer friend of hers than I) listened and the result was predictable: she broke down and blew up in her leader's face, thereafter to be told she had to move to another small group.  Even there she had no rest: she started dating a Christian guy from another church and was persecuted for this decision until she left the Rock entirely and joined the Navs.

Later, I became friends with a non-Christian girl who was very guarded about her religious views.  When I finally earned her trust enough as a friend for her to open up about them I was excited to share the gospel of Christ with her--but was told I couldn't 'cause she was a girl and that wasn't "guarding my/her heart."  Apparently even the great commission for which the movement is named is no match for its rules, in the minds of some of its members.  The member in question later repented, but the damage was done.  The woman from the GC authorized to share the gospel with this girl didn't really know her at all and as a result couldn't get past her shell.  We eventually lost touch with her.

Things really came to a head when I felt that God was leading me to start a relationship with a girl in my small-group.  This was verified to me by repetition and specificity of the message from the Spirit, as well as by several signs and an entire meeting and conversation whose topic and timing (which were not planned by me and were beyond my control) were prophesied to me several weeks in advance.  In addition, the girl also felt led by God to be in a relationship with me, though she hadn't developed feelings for me (as it turned out, both of us had been dreaming for a while of a relationship that just grew gradually and naturally from a friendship).  However, the leaders in the Rock opposed the relationship entirely since it proceeded against their dating practices.  They thought that our friendship itself should be broken off in order to protect our hearts.  While both this girl and I felt led to fight this influence and remain friends, she eventually caved after being told by her leaders that what she'd heard from the Spirit couldn't be the genuine will of God since it went against her current feelings for me as just a friend.  Under their orders, she terminated our friendship and cut all contact.  After a few months, I felt led by God to reopen dialogue with her and she (feeling similarly led) responded.  We worked out a lot of our differences and restored our friendship, only to have it cut off again by a misunderstanding.  Under the direction of her leaders she refused to renew friendship or contact with me, even after the miscommunication was cleared up.  Small group meetings became games of "the silent treatment" sanctified by church doctrine and enforced by conspiring leaders.  I met with a number of church leaders during this time, including two of the pastors.  One seemed sympathetic but took no action.  The other met with me to tell me that I shouldn't be trusting what the Spirit was telling me personally but should instead listen first and foremost to the advice and opinions of those around me.  The argument was that since these people also had the Spirit, their consensus was a surer barometer of God's will than what He'd miraculously revealed to two different people in their hearts--even if that consensus was made up entirely of their own personal preferences and judgments, which were not from God.  So, in effect, God can be out-voted.  I admit in my immaturity I did not recognize this statement for what it was and was tempted to accept it.  But at this point I had become too much dependent on the guidance of God and His love in my life to be able to settle for having it second-hand.  Shortly thereafter, I was kicked off the small-group after four years of attendance.  When asked what he would do different next time, the leader responded that he would take a more authoritarian approach and boot future offenders from the small group immediately.  He also outlined how he intended to crack down on a number of "offenses" in the small group, including banning a pen-and-paper RPG several of the men on the small-group played together during their free time for fun.  I later heard from the Spirit in prayer that He would remove that leader because of his intention to further his abuse of power.  That semester an unexpected financial complication arose which prevented that leader (a senior at the college) from registering for classes altogether and eventually forced him to resign his position as leader and return to his hometown, where there was no GC church.

When I first started seeing and experiencing all this, I thought I was alone.  You don't ever hear about any of these problems in a GC church or small-group.  It's like they don't exist.  If you have an issue with something, you're supposed to bring it up privately with the leaders and even if they don't do diddly-squat about it you're supposed to keep a lid on it and not talk about it with anyone.  The excuse is that, in this way the GC can resolve things privately and internally while not tarnishing their reputation and--by extension--jeopardizing their mission for Christ.  The reality of it, though, is that keeping things quiet by and large just encourages the abuses to continue, covered over by pasted-on smiles.  As I went along, I began to research others, friends who had been in conflict with the Rock and this church before.  I found that everyone I'd talked to had struggled with overbearing authority and/or legalism at some point in the Rock, but no one was talking about it, so it was allowed to go on and find new victims.  One person, who'd become involved in the leadership of the Rock, even outright lied and denied ever having had such a struggle, even though he'd confessed having it to me not a year before and everyone who knew him and his newly-wed wife knew they'd gone through a period of intense struggle when their leaders in the church had tried to make them feel guilty for liking each other.  After being kicked from my small group, I left the GC and later found the Statement of Early Church Errors (which is somewhere hereabouts...ah! Here: http://gcxweb.org/Misc/WeaknessesPaper.aspx), in which GC leaders admit that the things I and my friends suffered from in 2009-2012 have been known problems to the leaders of the movement for 21 years!!!  And then I found this site: so many people with the same stories!  I'm truly not alone.  I think I'm even one of the lucky ones, all things considered.

And of course, when I made a post on my blog that pointed the Statement of Early Church Errors and suggest that maybe someone should pay attention to that old statement and do something about the ongoing problems it lists, one of my devout GC friends told me that although she sympathized, I should really keep quiet and let the leaders handle this because I was going to tarnish the GC's good name otherwise and sabotage their work for Christ.  Hello?  These problems are what's sabotaging their work, and their leaders have been let alone to work them out for almost as long as I've been alive!  Later, in talking with a local Navs leader, I found that these problems have already effectively shot down the GC's good name.  I had only to mention the name of the movement to him and he immediately knew the sort of problems I'd faced with them in college.  He said he even used to run a ministry were a large percentage of the couples were in "GC-recovery".  So I guess I have this to say to any GC members who think I should be keeping my mouth shut: Tell me honestly, what do you think is worse?  That I'm willing to be open and honest about the GC's weaknesses, problems, and abuses (at the risk of defaming their name interfering with their work and--*gasp* not working through the proper channels), or that these weaknesses, problems, and abuses have already tarnished the name of the GC movement, interfered with their work of carrying out the commission for which they were named, and have been known about all along by the proper channels and authorities of the movement?  If you still think I'm the bad guy here for telling the truth and shining a little light on the skeletons in the GC's closets, then maybe you should re-read John 3:19-21.  I'm not saying you're wicked or the GC is wicked, but if all these things of the GC were of God and they were doing what is true to their utmost by His power, I don't think they'd mind a little light, do you?

Anyway, that's my story and my rant.  Glad to be here.  I hope I can be of help to some folks who've had it worse than I did.

[EverAStudent]

Welcome to the forum.

Speaking the truth, even to those you left behind in GC, is not generally wrong, but there is always a personal price to pay.  Before you speak you should count up that cost and assure yourself you are willing to pay it.  I continue to pay mine.

[Linda]

And of course, when I made a post on my blog that pointed the Statement of Early Church Errors and suggest that maybe someone should pay attention to that old statement and do something about the ongoing problems it lists, one of my devout GC friends told me that although she sympathized, I should really keep quiet and let the leaders handle this because I was going to tarnish the GC's good name otherwise and sabotage their work for Christ.  Hello?  These problems are what's sabotaging their work, and their leaders have been let alone to work them out for almost as long as I've been alive!  Later, in talking with a local Navs leader, I found that these problems have already effectively shot down the GC's good name.  I had only to mention the name of the movement to him and he immediately knew the sort of problems I'd faced with them in college.  He said he even used to run a ministry were a large percentage of the couples were in "GC-recovery".  So I guess I have this to say to any GC members who think I should be keeping my mouth shut: Tell me honestly, what do you think is worse?  That I'm willing to be open and honest about the GC's weaknesses, problems, and abuses (at the risk of defaming their name interfering with their work and--*gasp* not working through the proper channels), or that these weaknesses, problems, and abuses have already tarnished the name of the GC movement, interfered with their work of carrying out the commission for which they were named, and have been known about all along by the proper channels and authorities of the movement?

Welcome 2xA Ron. And, amen to this part. More later.

[Janet Easson Martin]

Hi 2xA Ron,

Soooo glad you wrote on here.  GCx's behavior remaining a secret is what keeps them going on.  They have given themselves the bad rap, not you.  What you wrote above is EXACTLY what they deny.  I believe God is using this site as a sort of courtroom where people can testify to the spiritually abusive practices of it, so that others can be successfully warned.  Your post does make a difference.  People have testified to very unbiblical measures taken by the leaders of GCx and those under them they so wrongfully and strongly influence to do their "bidding".  God, I believe, put this site on the founder's heart to expose and warn through much testimony of specific instances and actual evidence of the spiritual, emotional, and in some cases, mental abuse it still causes today, not just in the past.  God hears the cry of the broken hearted and he is at work to bring their abuse to an end in his perfect timing.  He does NOT ignore it.  I believe he will bring it to a PERMANENT end so that it will raise it's ugly head no more.  

It is so refreshing to hear you speak of listening to God's Spirit he put in you when you put your faith in Christ.  That you were not bullied into quenching Him.  Praise God.  He has worked through your testimony and your life.  I pray your honesty will free many hearts!  Our God is about freedom in and through His Holy Spirit to live wildly and abundantly with godly risk!!!

Praise Our God for You and His MIGHTY SPIRIT,

Janet Easson Martin

[Ned_Flanders]

Welcome Aaron and thanks so much for sharing your story.  I see a lot of similarities between your story and my own.  I was involved in GCx from 1986 to 1994 and in two GCx Churches, one from 1986 to 1990 (in my home state) and the other from 1990 to 1994 (where I went to college, in another state and in a different part of the country).

Like you, I had never dated before I joined GCx and I came there hopeful that I would finally meet a girl to date.  Dating to me meant spending time with a girl one-on-one going out to eat or to a movie or bowling or a ballgame or something.  I just wanted to spend time getting to know someone.  I found out real quick that was an entirely foreign idea to those people.  When I tell people today- I mean, specifically other Christians I meet- that I used to go to a Church where people didn't believe in dating, they always say, "Then how did they get married?"  

My experience with the Weakness Paper (the Statement of Early Church Errors) is that I found out about it in 1991 from friends when I came back to my home state from college.  They asked me if I'd heard about it and I hadn't.  I've never read it cover to cover but I was glad to hear they realized many mistakes had been made in how they deal with people.  I believe the Church in my home state did a good job in repenting of those errors.  But my college Church did not.  What shocked me is that it was not until I found this website and joined this forum earlier this year that I realized the Weakness Paper was a NATIONAL paper for every GCx Church.  For years, I thought it was written specifically by and for my home Church.  But I don't recall a word about it ever being said about it by the leadership at the college Church.  Publicizing this statement should have been priority #1 and I think there are very specific things they should have done in the process of repentance:

1. Have a national meeting held at all of the Churches at the same time.  The Church should have picked a date when a simultaneous meeting could have been held everywhere a GCx Church exists.  I saw them put similar efforts into other things and they could have done it for this.  

2. Make amends to former members.  I know of many stories, that I've read here or in other places, of people that were hurt and abused for years before the Weakness Paper was issued.  I think efforts should have been made to contact them and let them know the Church had realized it made mistakes.  Maybe this was done on some level.  

3. Have follow-up "How Are We Doing?" meetings.  A year later, and then five years or whatever later, open forum meetings should have been held to ask members if the Church was making improvements in its errors.  

And with all of this, have the Church evaluated by an outside source to determine if real change was occurring.  

But I don't believe any of this really ever happened.  The simple reason it didn't is because some of the leaders never felt like they did anything wrong.

I agree with you- I can't tell you how disturbing it is to hear about people all these years later being hurt by that Church.  Getting out, however you did it, is the best thing you could have done.  And don't go back; those people need far more help than you could ever provide.  

[Linda]

Good points, Ned. Reading them reminded me of the deceptive nature of the error/apology statement.

It ends with:
If anyone has questions or concerns about this statement, or about any of the issues addressed in it, please contact a pastor at your local Great Commission church or write to: Dave Bovenmyer.

Not only did we never hear of this statement until we started Googling, (It never was available online until after this forum was started and they put it up on their web page. I assume that was because they didn't want people coming to this site to read it. ), we did find something online that mentioned it. We asked one of our founding pastors and he deceived us by saying he vaguely remembered a statement of clarification. He offered to find us a copy and never did. We got our copy from Larry Pile.

Furthermore, you can find notes to a Rick Whitney talk where he suggests that maybe this paper was too strong and that it was an honor to be considered a cult back then. So, they sort of back down from the apology.

Clearly, what is missing in this "apology", was public confession, correction of error, and accountability.

Obviously, this was not so much an "apology" as it was a PR move to make them look humble and get them off of cult watch lists.

[wastedyearsthere]

I visited Willowcreek church a few weeks ago.  The verses had to do with getting counsel in proverbs.  What the pastor Bill Hybels shared that I thought was insightful and Opposite of GCC teachings were

"Weigh it but you don't have to obey it"

What he shared was that close to 40 years ago he believed that God was sharing with him to start a church in South Barrington.  He sought counsel and all the counsel from wise people were negative.

He went ahead in 1975 and started the church that  today has 24,000 attenders and is the 3 rd largest church ministering to tens of thousands of people.

What Pastor Hybels stressed was obedience is to God not to people.  We won't give an account to the people we got counsel from but ultimately to God.  We still should get counsel but our obedience is to God not according to man's counsel.

I remember having to do whatever GCC leaders counseled.  Otherwise being labelled as stubborn and rebellious.

This was an inspiring and excellent message.  Once again totally against the authoritarian GCC beliefs.

[2xA Ron]

Wow!  God bless Pastor Hybels! 

Yeah, in retrospect it's strange that I would even for a minute think that Pat Sokal [sp]--the pastor who told me council trumped divine guidance--could be right.  I mean, where is there anything like that in the Bible?  When Paul heard the Macedonian call, he didn't put it up to a vote or wait until all his friends and the folks back in Jerusalem thought it would be a good idea.  When Agabus was was told what would happen to Paul, he didn't ask anyone whether it would be a good idea to let Paul know about it...and when he did prophesy to Paul, even the Apostle couldn't wave it off.  I'm glad Hybels followed God instead of the ideas of others!  We follow whom we fear, and if we fear other people more than we fear God then that's basically idolatry.

[2xA Ron]

I did send a letter with an enclosed copy of the statement to my old church pastors.  One of the pastors had been willing to respond to a complaint letter I'd sent him while I was still a member (of course, he never actually did anything, but he managed to sound sympathetic and get me off his case).  But now that I'm gone, this letter simply went to the "round file," I believe.  Ah, well.  The postage was worth confirming that they know what's going wrong in their church and just don't care. 

[Huldah]

 I know of many stories, that I've read here or in other places, of people that were hurt and abused for years before the Weakness Paper was issued.  I think efforts should have been made to contact them and let them know the Church had realized it made mistakes.  Maybe this was done on some level.  

I'm guessing it never was done on any level.

A year or two ago, I reconnected via Facebook with an old friend from Solid Rock days. She still lives in Columbus. She left Solid Rock in the early 80's and never went back. She was hurt pretty badly by the elders & deacons, in multiple ways on various occasions, but she has since forgiven them and put it behind her. She doesn't care to revisit the past or keep up with what GCx is doing in the present, which, naturally, is her right.

However, she knows that I'm on this forum and that I never had any personal resolution with the leadership after I left. At a social event recently, she ran into a national leader (he was a deacon when I knew him) who had been closely involved in the events that led to my leaving Solid Rock. She mentioned to him (not at my request) that we had talked on Facebook and that I still had concerns. He said he was open to being contacted by me.

He knows I was hurt, but he did not take the initiative to contact me himself. He definitely remembers me; I'm easily found on Facebook by my rather unique maiden name (it's not like he has to sift through 1,564 Mary Jane Smiths to track me down), and still, he didn't reach out. I can only assume that this is standard policy for dealing with former members.

Of course, that raises the question of why I haven't contacted him instead. He more or less invited me to do so. The answer is simple. I don't think it would change anything. All evidence suggests that the leadership will always circle the wagons and blame the victims. Only if he takes the initiative to contact me could I believe that there's been a real change for the better.

If anyone has ever known an elder to take the initiative to reconcile and apologize individually, I'd love to hear about it.

[Linda]

Yeah, in retrospect it's strange that I would even for a minute think that Pat Sokal [sp]--the pastor who told me council trumped divine guidance--could be right.  I mean, where is there anything like that in the Bible?

Just saw this comment. This is one of the biggest lies they believe.

This is definitely not protestant theology and I think some in the NAE would be very surprised if they bothered to learn what GC believed, practiced, and taught. But, then, on many levels I have no respect for the NAE.

Matthew 23 clearly tells us to make no man our Master. GC teaches the opposite.

[2xA Ron]

If anyone has ever known an elder to take the initiative to reconcile and apologize individually, I'd love to hear about it.

I've never heard of a current member of leadership coming forward and apologizing on their own, at least not to a former member.

I'm trying to remember...I think my Team-Leader apologized to me once or twice while I was a member, generally after someone higher up in the food chain had corrected him on some detail, but since we had an ongoing dialogue/argument going and were also roommates, its hard to tell whether he apologized of his own initiative or if I did something to prompt it first.  He never apologized of any significant wrongdoing without my confronting him on the issue.  For instance, at one point he shared something I'd told him in confidence, deliberately damaging a relationship with one of my friends, and I had to find out about it myself and confront him about it before he admitted wrong and apologized privately (I don't think he ever had to publicly lose face, nor did he ever take effort to restore the relationship).  Of course, he thought our friendship was wrong anyway since it crossed the sacred gender line, so go figure.

That being said, my experience and the stories of others lead me to believe that leaders will readily apologize if confronted about something, generally with a few face-saving excuses thrown in.  For instance, I confronted John Hopler about his heavy-handed treatment of GCx critics in his 2010 Explanation of Criticisms and he immediately apologized, excused himself by relating how frustrated he had been to see the GCx broad-brushed by people who apparently weren't seeking out any kind of resolution through his office (which had been set up for that purpose).  But while he said the Explanation had been taken off the official website and that he'd "write it differently today" he never bothered to actually correct it or offer any kind of public apology for the public slander.  Similarly, when I confronted my pastor about all the gender legalism going on in the Rock under his nose, he apologized, excused himself with a more eloquent version of "mistakes happen," and then did nothing.

So getting an apology out of GCx leadership seems to be easy, so long as they can use it as a way to save face and make themselves look and feel like great people.  Thus, they only apologize in private when directly confronted, and in a way that minimizes their responsibility for their sin (and the grossness of the sin itself).  They never publicly acknowledge it though or do anything about it since their main objective is simply to preserve the pristine facade of the tarnished movement.

[Linda]

For instance, I confronted John Hopler about his heavy-handed treatment of GCx critics in his 2010 Explanation of Criticisms and he immediately apologized, excused himself by relating how frustrated he had been to see the GCx broad-brushed by people who apparently weren't seeking out any kind of resolution through his office (which had been set up for that purpose).  But while he said the Explanation had been taken off the official website and that he'd "write it differently today" he never bothered to actually correct it or offer any kind of public apology for the public slander.

It is interesting to hear that he is "frustrated" by seeing GCx broad-brushed by people who apparently weren't seeking out any kind of resolution through his office.

Several thoughts come to mind (which I have posted before, but are buried someplace so I will mention for newcomers).

1. We are talking about false teaching. Specifically, commitment to the GC for life and obedience to elders in all matters. It's error. You NEVER reconcile with error. You ask those teaching it to stop and correct it and when they don't, you expose it.

2. We met with at least 5 pastors over a period of 2 years (over 40 hours total) to try to "understand" the bad teaching. Two of the men, BK and MD, sit on the national board of GCC. We kept getting vague answers and were even told we were "hit by friendly fire". We finally found bits of info through Google searches. It's where we first heard the name Jim McCotter. (At that point, this site didn't exist.) We asked about the Statement of Error and BK was the one who thought there was a paper that was more "a statement of clarification". He offered to find us one, never did, Larry Pile sent us one. It makes me suspicious of "Project Care" because apparently two pastors on the board of GCC never heard of it. It's like they recently invented it.

3. We had never heard of John Hopler. Had no idea who the fellow was. We had been told our church was independent. We didn't know there was a hierarchy. We do now, but I'll bet the average GC church attender doesn't know.

4. When we left, we were asked to stick to a two sentence BK approved statement about why we left "and say nothing more". (Seriously, when a group asks you to stick to talking points about why you left, you know you have made the right decision.) We didn't agree, but we also didn't say anything for nearly a year. My husband blogged our reasons because people had come up to us hinting that they had been given odd/untrue reasons for our departure and he wanted to set the record straight publicly.

5. Do you think it has ever occurred to JH that he and other GC pastors have kind of broad brushed posters here when they suggest that we are hostile to the Gospel, or rebellious (remember Korah, the go-to "obey your elders or else" story), or working for Satan? It probably never occurs to them that God might be using this motley crew to try to help them see and correct their error and that in the meantime, we are warning others to beware because we don't want them deceived or hurt any more.

6. Let me add this. I do not hate these people. We used to be good friends with many of them. Some have, in writing, dissociated from (shunned) us. Others, remain acquaintances (friendly at social events and connect through Facebook, Christmas cards, etc.). I care about them and believe they are deceived and because of that, deceiving others. I won't give up on them.

[Huldah]

We are talking about false teaching. Specifically, commitment to the GC for life and obedience to elders in all matters. It's error. You NEVER reconcile with error. You ask those teaching it to stop and correct it and when they don't, you expose it.

Linda, thank you for getting to the heart of the matter. It's easy to get distracted by all the personal hurts and harms, but those hurts are simply the natural result of bad doctrine.

Occasionally one meets sincere Christians who insist doctrine doesn't matter. All that matters is the love of Christ. This is a falsehood because doctrine has consequences. These consequences are not always trivial. We cannot claim to love Christ while rejecting or distorting His Word.

If the leadership would repent of its bad doctrine, reconciliation would mostly take care of itself. (Repent = to change one's mind about, turn away from, eschew, abandon. It doesn't mean to smooth things over with critics so you can carry on business as usual.)

After I made my earlier post to this thread, I found the account of Bill Taylor's reconciliation. It blew me away when I got to the part that talks about honoring the men who unjustly excommunicated him. There's much that others on this forum have already said about "A Story of Reconciliation," such as the lack of repentance or the self-congratulatory tone, but it could all be summarized with the single word, bizarre. I wouldn't even know how to reconcile with that kind of crazy.