Jim McCotter Sighting!

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[watchman1956]

I have a small nursery in by back yard and one day this guy comes over to buy plants.
We start sharing about the Lord and I ask him where he goes to church.
He says it is a house church in Dayton Beach.
So I asked Roland if we could come and join them for fellowship.
Sure so the next Sunday we went over there and it was at one of Jim's son's house.
I meet Jim and he and his wife live in a 5th wheel in the back yard.
It was Jim and his wife there two sons and there family's at the meeting.

The first thing Jim did was give us his resume of all the things he has done.
He never mentioned that they all failed.
He talked the whole meeting and when it was over we had a meal. The whole conversation at dinner was like getting the 3rd degree. We have been going for a few weeks now and we just can't do it anymore, as much as I would love to stay and try to help Jim see some of the things that are wrong, but he just won't listen to anyone else. I have read some of the post on here and I am sad to say that he is just the same as he was back in the church.
He is VERY authoritarian with much PRIDE.
He does not like any other interpretation of scripture other than his own.
He condemns other organizations preaching the gospel as unbiblical.
And the funny thing is he is trying to start an organization at Embry Riddle College.

I have really fallen in love with his grand kids. They are just super. I like to spend my time with them, we usually play games after we eat. This is what breaks my heart about leaving, but I can't sit through another meeting with Jim. I would just have to call him out on all his hypocrisy (and my personality won't take it easy on him) but it would be in front of his family and I just can't do that.

I am sorry Jim won't live as he preaches and reach out to the brothers and sisters that have been hurt. This isn't the first church I have been hurt in and probably not the last. But we have comfort in knowing that he who really loves us, Jesus, will never hurt us. May the peace, love, and comfort Of the Lord be with us each and every day until the end. Amen

[Janet Easson Martin]

Welcome Watchman1956! Glad you were able to research McCotter here. Assuming you didn’t have any prior knowledge or experience with him or Church groups that he has started. So glad you are discerning. McCotter has fooled many a man. Very sad to hear he still has not demonstrated any shame or remorse for the damage he has inflicted upon thousands of his “followers.”

“…savage wolves will come in among you and
 will not spare the flock. Even from your own number
men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw
away disciples after them.”  (Acts 20:29,30)

Sounds like churches near Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (there in Daytona) should receive a heads up if McCotter attempts to start a “church-like organization” on that campus. Perhaps they can read his history of spiritual abuse here and alert the student organizations’ director. It is a private university so it might be easier to deny him access to their facilities. Very scary in many ways for potential victims there.

[Huldah]

Welcome to the forum, Watchman1956. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

I'm glad you recognized the problems with McCotter's theology and decided to leave. No doubt there have been many, many other people over the years who've tried to reason with him, only to meet the same obstinate refusal. By leaving now, you're probably sparing yourself a world of hurt.

Not long ago, McCotter had a YouTube/Facebook channel he was trying hard to promote. One of his followers even came here and tried repeatedly to hound us into participating (as if McCotter hadn't had nearly two decades to put in an appearance on this forum, if he had really wanted to defend his actions). Then, in early 2022, McCotter announced on Facebook that he was preparing a "new and exciting" venue for his message, and promptly went silent. So I've been wondering off and on why he dropped his efforts so abruptly. He had very few followers online, so maybe he decided it wasn't worth the effort. Maybe he just couldn't compete against a new generation of preachers (both genuine and fake) who were younger, hipper, and much social-media-savvier than he.

[watchman1956]

I went out to dinner with Jim and confronted him about what I was seeing in him and all the information on the internet.
He denied any wrong doing what so ever and said he knew of nothing he had ever done wrong.
Then he told me I was sinning by reading what people were saying about him.
He called it slander and gossip. I told him it's not slander if it's true.

I don't know if this nut can be cracked but I have a couple of questions.
Is there anyone in the area that can contact me and would you consider the testimony of the people on here as a biblical witness to what he has done?
 1 Timothy 5:19
Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses.
Matthew 18:16
But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that "by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established."

Thanks

[Janet Easson Martin]

Watchman1956-

First, I personally do not think it is appropriate or safe for his victims to give their contact info to you.

Second, a number of people on here using their real names including those in “Marching to Zion” by Larry Pile is more than sufficient to call him out. In addition to this site, you will also find reports of him on CEI and in “Churches That Abuse.” He obviously uses the Internet and surely has read about his grievous sins and many a reproach against him over much of the span of his life. He is not a man of his word, and severely lacks integrity so what he claims has too often been dishonest and quite unreliable. He has VERY often denied any wrongdoing. There seems no point in personally approaching him after all this time. The best thing we can do is what the Apostle Paul did about false teachers in his time - Name Them and WARN OTHERS to stay far away from them!

Lastly, here are the links to the very reliable resources mentioned above:


Marching to Zion:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190517082808/http://gcxweb.org/Books/MarchingToZion/

Cult Education Institute:
https://culteducation.com/component/itpgooglesearch/search.html?gsquery=McCotter

Churches That Abuse
http://www.reveal.org/development/Churches_that_Abuse.pdf

[Huldah]

Is there anyone in the area that can contact me...

This forum doesn't get a lot of traffic these days, so it may be some time before someone in your area sees your post. It might be a good idea to check back periodically to see if there are any replies or if you have any PMs.

That said, some members here are cautious about revealing their identities. From time to time, unstable people show up and make threats against various forum members. At least one person who joined pretended at first to be sympathetic, and then later revealed himself as a supporter of a GC pastor. So if we seem overly cautious, it's nothing personal. It's just a normal defensive reaction, reinforced by the negative experiences we've already had.

... would you consider the testimony of the people on here as a biblical witness to what he has done?

Personally, yes, I would. I can't vouch for any particular story on this forum or elsewhere, but the preponderance of evidence is very much against him. Check out the resources Janet listed, or the various comments on the Decommissioned blog (the predecessor of this forum), https://decommissioned.wordpress.com/about/. Numerous people, both believers and non-believers, claim that Jim has damaged them spiritually and/or defrauded them financially. He seems to have left a huge trail of misery in his wake.

In terms of "telling it to the church," McCotter has never been under church discipline, because (to my knowledge) he's never attended a church that he himself wasn't in charge of. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.) The man who enforced submission and church discipline on so many others has never submitted himself to a church.

Furthermore, it seems that he has remained unrepentant for decades. If you're trying to reach him, then you probably have a good and merciful heart, but not everyone can be reached. It's not my place to tell you how to proceed, but I hope you won't allow yourself to be drawn into a situation that distracts you from better things. But I do understand if you feel like you have to try.

[Huldah]

One other thought.

Then he told me I was sinning by reading what people were saying about him.

That right there is the act of an abuser.

Cults thrive by cutting their members off from other sources of support and information. A cult must control what you read about them.

The Bible specifically warns us to beware of wolves masquerading as shepherds. We have a Biblical obligation to figure out who's the real shepherd and who's an imposter. That means it's not a sin to research McCotter; if you're thinking about following him, it would be a sin not to research him.

I joined a McCotterite church way back in the days before the Internet.  That decision still has consequences in my life to this very day. That's why it's so important that information about McCotter is so readily available, so that people can make a truly informed choice whether he's worthy of their support or not.

[Janet Easson Martin]

Huldah’s response to McCotter’s twisted and corrupt accusation is very KEY to his practiced deception toward his victims. Tragically, many GCx leaders seemed to have followed McCotter’s abusive deception in these corrupt accusations of innocent believers, even to recent times. Evidence can be found on this very site.



He [McCotter] denied any wrong doing what so ever and said he knew of nothing he had ever done wrong.

Then he told me I was sinning by reading what people were saying about him.

He called it slander and gossip. I told him it's not slander if it's true.

-Watchman1956



That right there is the act of an abuser.

Cults thrive by cutting their members off from other sources of support and information. A cult must control what you read about them.

-Huldah

[Huldah]

Exactly. Not to beat a dead horse, but when you ask someone about a large number of credible allegations made by many people over many decades, and the immediate response is to turn the tables and put you on the defensive, how is that not a major red flag?