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Author Topic: How have your beliefs changed since you left GC?  (Read 9932 times)
FeministRebel
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« on: September 28, 2014, 10:03:20 am »

Just curious about the life path everyone's taken after leaving GC, and the changes in each of our spiritual journeys. The person who, for example, helped 'lead me to Christ' when I was in college -- she is now a Catholic, after having married a Catholic man and being dissatisfied with GC. Some friends are now Presbyterian, some joined the rival non-denominational church in Ames, and still, some others became agnostic or atheist.

How would you describe your beliefs have changed, or the church you currently assist (if any)?
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steelgirl
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« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2014, 12:07:24 pm »

I have attended Vineyard Churches, a presbyterian church and a pentecostal/charismatic church.   Rght now I attend a Baptist Church.   I still love Jesus.   I am very leery of leadership these days.   I do not regret going on the service trip I went on while I was there.

I go to a  Baptist Church, however I am more open to the gifts of the Spirit,  because of my time in Vineyard and other charismatic churches.   I am glad I left my GCM Church when I did.   If I would have stay, my growth and walk would have stagnated.   Looking back,  the leadership might have been controlling.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2014, 12:54:07 pm by steelgirl » Logged
Linda
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« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2014, 07:29:58 am »

What a great question, FeministRebel!

We have chosen churches that place a high value on the Word of God (unlike GC who says they put a high value on the Word of God, but in practice value the Words of Men above the Word of God). We attended 4 different Baptist churches. They were all fairly large and we felt oddly safe in all of them because of the size. We could worship God corporately, yet didn't have to repeatedly tell our story. I think we really needed that anonymity when we first left ECC. Looking back, it was a fairly traumatic departure.

We currently attend a conservative Anglican church. We love the way they value the word of God and read a lot of Scripture during the service. We love the emphasis on prayer and how they pray aloud every week for everything from guidance for our President Barack and peace for the conflicts of the world to healing for members of the congregation and their families/friends who may be ill, to strength and guidance for all. We love how the focus is The Cross of Christ and the service ends with communion and worship songs. The sermon comes before announcements. Everything builds to a focus on The Cross.

I now find myself keenly aware of what is said from up front in a service. It doesn't take long to discover whether or not a church is interested in themselves ("our church", "our movement") or whether or not they lift up the name of God.

My GC church has gone to a lot of work to discredit other churches. They used to send out flyers that said things like "This is not your mother's church" and they have a web site called "Religion is a Lie" where three people talk about how bad their churches were. (Methodist, Lutheran, and Catholic, I believe) Of course, the great irony is that the Anglican church that we attend is way more solid than our GC church and places much more emphasis on Scripture and prayer during the service.
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Ned_Flanders
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« Reply #3 on: September 29, 2014, 09:41:33 am »

Just curious about the life path everyone's taken after leaving GC, and the changes in each of our spiritual journeys. The person who, for example, helped 'lead me to Christ' when I was in college -- she is now a Catholic, after having married a Catholic man and being dissatisfied with GC. Some friends are now Presbyterian, some joined the rival non-denominational church in Ames, and still, some others became agnostic or atheist.

How would you describe your beliefs have changed, or the church you currently assist (if any)?

I think the biggest change for me has come from growing in self-confidence and maturity.  I think having a low self-esteem was the biggest contributor to why I stayed with GCx as long as I did (8 years).  In other words, I can look back now and see some red flags and things I should never have put up with... but at the time, I just wanted to fit in and be accepted by people. 

I still believe in Jesus and I praise God that I benefit now from a Church where I can be myself.  The biggest mistake GCx made, in my opinion, was trying to fit people's lives to look like what they thought was right rather than accepting people where they are.  I'm glad today I'm part of something so much better. 
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steelgirl
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« Reply #4 on: September 29, 2014, 11:12:30 am »

Ned, I was involved for almost 5 yrs.  I did not have the best self-esteem either.   I don't know why I allowed myself to put up with what I did either.  I should have seen that something was not right about having to be asked to go to a life group.   Some other things I should not have put up with the way I did.  I am rather leery of church leadership. I can't negate the fact that God allowed me a ministy opportunity.   It was good, but this caused conflict especially after the opportunity.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2014, 12:09:01 pm by steelgirl » Logged
Ned_Flanders
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« Reply #5 on: September 29, 2014, 12:13:34 pm »

Ned, I was involved for almost 5 yrs.  I did not have the best self-esteem either.   I don't know why I allowed myself to put up with what I did either.  I should have seen that something was not right about having to be asked to go to a life group.   Some other things I should not have put up with the way I did.  I am rather leery of church leadership. I can't negate the fact that God allowed me a ministy opportunity.   It was good, but this caused conflict especially after the opportunity.

steelgirl, thanks for the response.  Again, I think self-esteem is the key. 
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WoodBern82
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« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2020, 07:29:24 am »

I think the change happened mostly toward the end of our experience while still in GC.  The one that sticks out the most is this:
Bigger doesn't mean better nor healthy.  Just because a church grows and seems to be a "happening" place doesn't mean its healthy.  I remember a christmas leaders party event at Evergreen in Bloomington and it had a few of the key leaders and pastors and someone got up and rattled off a bunch of numbers.  Attendance was higher.  More giving.  It was after the Rock had started but before the launch of Urban Refuge.  I remember having the feeling that I was attending a business luncheon and I now look at more than just what are the numbers.... they don't tell the whole picture.  Cults can grow in numbers.  If leadership cannot be corrected that is a red flag for me.... always has been.  Growth has a much broader definition for me today than my time with GC. 
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Linda
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« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2020, 11:33:21 am »

Interesting thoughts, Woodbern82.

The idea that you felt like you were attending a business luncheon reminded me of something my husband wrote in 2006. That blog post was part of the reason this site exists. This forum started out originally as a blog called "Decommissioned" and was transferred to the gcmwarning site a couple years later. The founders of the Decomm blog found my husband's post through a Google search and realized that people who left or critiqued GCC churches were being silenced. My husband was asked A YEAR AFTER WE LEFT to remove his post. He was intimidated briefly, removed the post, and that is where the idea of anonymous posting came about. People couldn't be privately intimidated and truth could be told if it was done anonymously.

In the post he said:

"There were some early red flags, isolated incidents and vague impressions. I remember being at the first couple of all-church gatherings, at the State Theatre maybe(?) in the mid-90s. I remember thinking “What is this?” The music was about the Gospel, the talks were sort of, but there wasn't much prayer, and the mood felt to me more like a multi-level sales conference, an Amway convention."

Anyway, thanks for your comments. We left shortly after the Urban Refuge started so we must have overlapped a few years.
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Janet Easson Martin
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« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2020, 06:15:23 pm »

Yes, yes, yes!  You two are hitting on something so eerily familiar in the whole “GCx” atmosphere.  It did feel (like a multi-level sales conference) that way for me at the bi-weekly Teachings, and at the regional and national conferences.  You needed to show up with those you were adding to the pyramid scheme.  You had to always be seeking converts to the group to increase your value.  You were pressured to snatch “buyers” and train “future salesmen” to expand the size of the “corporation”.  It was ALL about the empire, not really Jesus living in you. There seemed to be a constant pep rally to hyper-motivate the followers, especially by McCotter.  There was an unsettling urgency to everything.  Usually unpaid volunteers did the dirty work staying up all hours of the night to work on brochures, or print papers, or sell subscriptions which often had to be done in an insane amount of time.  

That’s how most of us were treated, and learned to treat others - like competitive solicitors under other peddlers, not the unconditional friends Jesus commands.  Perform, perform, perform.  

The worldly attitudes of “dog-eat-dog” competition and jealousy ran disgustingly HIGH there.  I knew of number of silent heated competitions.  There had to have been many more I wasn’t aware of.

I can tell you this is not the general atmosphere of healthy churches.

Anyhow, thank you so much for hitting the nail on the head about the strangely unsettling “hyper sales” atmosphere in GCx groups.


« Last Edit: September 19, 2020, 08:34:15 pm by Janet Easson Martin » Logged

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JesusFacePalm
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« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2020, 08:33:59 am »

In order to decide for myself, I had to go full athiest for a time and just wipe the white board and I started using the phrase "I'm not sure"
Of course when you decide to do that, you are labeled "struggling with his faith" and everyone is in line to be the one to get you back into being the faithful follower they assume you must be.  

After a couple years of opening up to hearing other ways of looking at existence, a new spiritual path opened up, but it had to start with loving myself first.   That's what sparked everything.   Coming from an idea of I have a right to be as I am.   And not only that, loving who that is and believing I am already perfect at my core.   We are who we say we are and we live up to it.   So, If you adopt an idea of needing saved for existing, you will find something that fits that frame of looking at life.

I guess i mostly lined up with Taoism or early gnostic beliefs.  I still find there are nuggets of truth in Christianity, but more along the lines that Jesus knew who he was at his core and lived from that awareness and was a way shower.   I believe we are the same, but again, we are who we say we are and that will be our experience.    

I look at life as a school and I'm here to learn.   Life happens in the current moment.   I throw off fear and limiting beliefs and find my truth from within as the circumstances of life keep bringing me to moments of reknowing myself and choosing what is true outside of either this worlds history or my own history.  
« Last Edit: September 25, 2020, 08:35:38 am by JesusFacePalm » Logged
Del
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« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2020, 05:32:37 am »

...wow...
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Del
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« Reply #11 on: October 05, 2020, 01:11:12 pm »

Individuals change their minds on religious matters for many reasons. That can happen when those matters merely reside in the mind as beliefs. Consider gravity, for instance. If gravity was only a belief, and I chose not to believe it, then it wouldn’t be dangerous to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. But gravity isn’t just a belief, it is a law. We would think someone unstable who would to do such a thing. Whereas the fall might be an exhilarating experience, the landing would most certainly be a disappointing event. Such is the case with this life, as well as the next. Both are governed by laws, quite apart from belief.

Like the foolish person who chooses to not believe the law of gravity, we can choose not to believe the laws of life, death and the world to come. And like that foolish person, while the chosen belief may be exhilarating, the outcome will most certainly be a disappointment.

Therefore, setting aside mere belief regarding life, death and the world to come, with what laws are we to be concerned? Some of us were lead to believe that the "old laws" concerning such things were no longer important. We were told that we have been set free from such laws, and that we only need to "believe". To anyone who subscribes to this foolishness, yet considers the Bible the best source of Authority in such natters, I would ask: To what law is the writer referring in the Psalm below? We all know the words of the first three verses. We have all sung them. A follow-up question would be: What are the benefits and consequences of abiding by or abrogating that law? In the GCI church, and in any of the other churches we attended over the course of half a century, we never sang those last three verses. Curious, don’t you think?

Psalm 1
1How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.

4 The wicked are not so,
But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish.
(NASB)
« Last Edit: October 06, 2020, 04:23:49 am by Del » Logged
PietWowo
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« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2022, 11:56:14 pm »

Individuals change their minds on religious matters for many reasons. That can happen when those matters merely reside in the mind as beliefs. Consider gravity, for instance. If gravity was only a belief, and I chose not to believe it, then it wouldn’t be dangerous to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. But gravity isn’t just a belief, it is a law. We would think someone unstable who would to do such a thing. Whereas the fall might be an exhilarating experience, the landing would most certainly be a disappointing event. Such is the case with this life, as well as the next. Both are governed by laws, quite apart from belief.

Like the foolish person who chooses to not believe the law of gravity, we can choose not to believe the laws of life, death and the world to come. And like that foolish person, while the chosen belief may be exhilarating, the outcome will most certainly be a disappointment.

Therefore, setting aside mere belief regarding life, death and the world to come, with what laws are we to be concerned? Some of us were lead to believe that the "old laws" concerning such things were no longer important. We were told that we have been set free from such laws, and that we only need to "believe". To anyone who subscribes to this foolishness, yet considers the Bible the best source of Authority in such natters, I would ask: To what law is the writer referring in the Psalm below? We all know the words of the first three verses. We have all sung them. A follow-up question would be: What are the benefits and consequences of abiding by or abrogating that law? In the GCI church, and in any of the other churches we attended over the course of half a century, we never sang those last three verses. Curious, don’t you think?

Psalm 1
1How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.

4 The wicked are not so,
But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish.
(NASB)


That was actually a Scripture Song... A blessed man is one, who delights in God's Law... The Torah...
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LeftTheChurchEntirely
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« Reply #13 on: May 31, 2022, 07:05:17 pm »

I’ve walked away from a literal bible interpretation. I’ve left behind tge traditional doctrine. I’ve walked away from tge history of tge church as I learned it in favor of academics.

I’ve discovered Ehrman and Spong… and realized there is another way to live as a Christian… without church, doctrine, or pastor… but with a heart full of love and hope.
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