Sovereign Grace Ministries

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.

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[maranatha]

http://sguncensored.wordpress.com/

I stumbled on a blog that is like Decom was a year ago for Sov. Grace Ministries.  (CJ Mahaney)

Apparently the couple who started it a few months ago didn't really have big issues with SGM, but just wanted to talk of some of the "cultural oddities" I think it was described as.  

Anyway, it's amazing at how many of the issues seem very similar to GCx.  

If you're interested, here's the link
http://sguncensored.wordpress.com/

[Linda]

Thanks for posting this link.

Wow. I'm still processing it. One post had over 450 comments.

The Co-op I direct met for a few years in a Sovereign Grace Church. Actually, it was originally a church plant of Bethlehem Baptist that had an "amicable" split and joined Sovereign Grace. One thing I noticed was the "intensity" and "dogmatic" nature of the leadership. Terry did some research and learned that their view of how leaders are chosen is very similar to GCM.

This is of interest to us since we, on occasion, visit Bethlehem Baptist Church and John Piper and Mahaney are friends. Mahaney has preached at Bethlehem. The last thing we want to do is go from the frying pan into the fire.

With SG it is all there. Courtship. (Josh Harris is an SG pastor) Obey leaders no matter what. Don't question authority. There is even a link on that blog to a sermon where CJ Mahaney says criticizing teaching is slander and current member should "preserve the trust" by defending their leaders from "slander". It is good to be the king!

Also, there is the little matter of lots of name changes. Oh, and did you know that CJ Mahaney and Larry Tomczak founded the denomination, but they no longer talk about Larry when they mention who started it.

I see also that these bloggers have contacted Ron Enroth. It's deja vu all over again! It's all there on the blog. The people with the bad experiences, the people questioning bad teaching, and the SG defenders jumping in and quoting lots and lots of scripture and telling the bloggers they are gossips and slanderers.

Very sad.

I have sort of resolved myself to the fact that there is really nothing anyone can do to help these so called "leaders" (The apostle Paul might sarcastically call them "super apostles") to see the error of their ways. Their eyes are blind. They think they are right and that it is their spiritual duty to not budge. They are not teachable. They choose leaders based on "character", but "sound doctrine" and "able to teach" are negotiable.

The thing I have concluded is that when you hear someone saying or implying that loyalty to the church and its leaders IS the same as loyalty to God, you might want to look around you and check for the exit signs!

[Linda]

By the way, here is what John Piper says about discussing "teaching" with others in an article he wrote on gossip.

I don’t mean you can’t criticize President Bush without calling him on the phone first. And I don’t mean you can’t discuss my sermon, both negatively and positively, without coming to me. Public figures put themselves on the line and understand that everyone will have an opinion about what they say. That’s okay. What I mean is when you know a brother or a sister is in the grip of some sinful attitude or behavior, take the log out of your eye, and then go to them and try to help them with humble biblical counsel.

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2006/1784_Talking_to_People_Rather_than_About_Them/

[AgathaL'Orange]

That's great, Linda!  He does seem balanced, doesn't he!  That's good.  

And that Sovereign Grace site!  What a treasure trove of good information.  It feels so GC-ish it's not even funny.  Is this going to be a common thing... us finding other GC-ish groups out there?

[Ellie]

Hi,

I am from SGU and found your board while googling.
I haven't had a whole lot of time to look around but from the little bit I did see - it's kind of almost like a parallel universe to what I have seen and heard in PDI/SGM. Very strange!

[Linda]

Hi Ellie,

We have been reading the SG blog. It's quite amazing how similar the two organizations are. Interestingly enough, my husband found an article by one of the GC leaders (Rick Whitney) who mentions some SG people--apparently some of the SG leaders know some of the GC leaders! Small world indeed!

Here's what the GC leader wrote in the intro of an article he put on his web page:

Brothers,
   The following was put together by the pastors of Covenant Life, a church out of Gaithersburg, Maryland.  
We knew some of these guys when we were there in Maryland and we appreciated their example.  I believe J. Harris, C. J. and Bob Kauflin are a couple of their current pastors.
   This church practices plurality and what these elders have put together in this doc is very sobering and challenging.
   May we all be very careful and very diligent to not drift and wind up loving this world and the things in it.  
And if we need to change some things in our lives – let’s get after it!
                  Keep pressing, Rick Whitney

[Ellie]

That is very interesting, Linda. Was the church Whitney was at in Maryland a church plant from Colorado? From what I have read so far, GC started in Colorado, right?

I am really wondering if there are some unknown early (and possibly longtime) connections between leadership. The similarities are almost too much to be coincidental, in my opinion.

[theresearchpersona]

Maybe they all did some common reading?

[randomous]

like, the Bible

[Ellie]

:roll:

I see we have another thing in common, Linda...

[G_Prince]

ohhhh! maybe they are in league like some secret masonic order.  :shock: That would be exciting. Somewhere in New Zealand McCotter is running the whole thing from an underground command center.

[puff of purple smoke]

That is creepy. Come to think of it, GCers do tend to mention Josh Harris' book a lot as a way to say "Hey, we're not the only ones who believe this crazy stuff!!!"

Here's a portion of that SG Uncensored blog that caught my attention:

One last thing that made me uncomfortable was a continual theme of how “Sovereign Grace is the only church for me.” I lost count of how many times I’d hear various people say that they’d “never live ANYWHERE where there wasn’t a Sovereign Grace church!” Now, again, there’s NOTHING wrong with being loyal to one’s denomination. Please don’t misunderstand me. But there were actually several people who were contemplating moving to our town just so they could be part of our church. Maybe I’m just too “mainstream” to understand how a person could want to uproot their entire lives for the primary purpose of a church. Or maybe there actually IS a level of spiritual exclusivity at SG. I really don’t know. But hearing people say that SG was the ONLY church for them had the effect of making me uncomfortable.

(And again, this could just be me with my own unique prejudices.  Because of some prior experiences that our family has had in another abusive church environment, we are VERY sensitive to anytime it seems like people value their CHURCH over valuing CHRIST and the “church invisible.”  We could be wrong about this, but we’ve come to believe that if you somehow think that you can only function in ONE type of church setting - i.e. Sovereign Grace - then you’re out of touch with the reality of what the body of Christ actually is.  A particular church or denomination might have a unique approach to Christianity, but if you place too much importance on the approach, you’re going to slip into thinking that no other Christian group quite measures up to yours…which is a prideful error.  But again, that’s just us.)

Sound familiar?

[Ellie]

That's not the only thing. Even in the history that I have been reading of GC, I will see some things and think that if I just took out the names and places, it would sound exactly alike! It's just kinda strange, like I said, almost like a parallel universe, lol!

[theresearchpersona]

like, the Bible

Of course they can have common mis-readings too. No problem with Bible Reading...but mis-reading is a problem. When there's constant scripture wresting...maybe when the common binding theme is "loyalty to your leaders" (see the letter from the Summitview pastor here: http://gcmwarning.com/media/Documents/Letters/GreggWaltersResignation.html.

That is creepy. Come to think of it, GCers do tend to mention Josh Harris' book a lot as a way to say "Hey, we're not the only ones who believe this crazy stuff!!!"

Here's a portion of that SG Uncensored blog that caught my attention:

One last thing that made me uncomfortable was a continual theme of how “Sovereign Grace is the only church for me.” I lost count of how many times I’d hear various people say that they’d “never live ANYWHERE where there wasn’t a Sovereign Grace church!” Now, again, there’s NOTHING wrong with being loyal to one’s denomination. Please don’t misunderstand me. But there were actually several people who were contemplating moving to our town just so they could be part of our church. Maybe I’m just too “mainstream” to understand how a person could want to uproot their entire lives for the primary purpose of a church. Or maybe there actually IS a level of spiritual exclusivity at SG. I really don’t know. But hearing people say that SG was the ONLY church for them had the effect of making me uncomfortable.

(And again, this could just be me with my own unique prejudices.  Because of some prior experiences that our family has had in another abusive church environment, we are VERY sensitive to anytime it seems like people value their CHURCH over valuing CHRIST and the “church invisible.”  We could be wrong about this, but we’ve come to believe that if you somehow think that you can only function in ONE type of church setting - i.e. Sovereign Grace - then you’re out of touch with the reality of what the body of Christ actually is.  A particular church or denomination might have a unique approach to Christianity, but if you place too much importance on the approach, you’re going to slip into thinking that no other Christian group quite measures up to yours…which is a prideful error.  But again, that’s just us.)

Sound familiar?

It's amazing that this almost exactly parallels statements made by GCers. : (   This shows a group loyalty rather than personal relational love for one another...I could understand "we never want to leave because of John, Jackie, Jason, (3 Js!), Steve, Kyle, Tim, Anne, being our close friends. It's a whole other thing when "GC and its mission are the thing for me!" That just shows feigned love, sectarian factionism, and self-serving unlove for Christians. Sick.

It's scary to think of these kinds of things. When knowing those around if you brought this up they'd start teaching "you've got to show you really love someone" rather than "you really need to examine yourselves if your love is truly unfeigned or not", well...what to do? I'm always shocked when hearing "I never would have hung out with those people if it weren't for this group or those programs or..." and it's a statement heard frequently when you hear GCers talking about old small groups and such. To me that shows a lot of "fake": and I wouldn't want simply to say "you're fake", but rather "examine yourselves" [& scriptures].

To give a clearer example, GC "Churches" start by luring "seekers" through worldly "friendliness" (enmity with God). Take this example from 9marks about an atheist giving reviews of Churches:

Third [as a weakness], and most importantly, the book is of limited value for Christians because ultimately Mehta only likes the things about Christianity that are not unique to Christianity.

That is to say, he likes the things like social justice initiatives, sermons with a "secular message" embedded with them (133), and churches that help you "have a better day, and maybe even a better life…[because] all people are looking for a better life, whether they believe in God or not" (128). He is perplexed by the fact that churches don’t invite atheists and gay rights activists in to their services to have an open dialogue.

In short, what he doesn’t like are things that are particularly Christian: he finds Christian ethics to be uncharitable (93-94); Christian singing to be tiresome (he suggests a separate event if churches want to sing for a long time; 150- 151); and the insinuation that he is "lost" to be offensive (148).

Yet this is how much of GC was built: appealing to this; and it whole portions are exactly this. And I see this in GC: people "in love" because of the "Cause", the "save the world", the "feed the hungry"; but the rapidity at which they'll headlong run to show the world how "fun", "cool", etc. their lives are, and be disorderly and disobedient and love the things of this world...and not so much obey God (personally, secretly and openly), is increasingly making me, well...squirm.  I keep trying to convince myself it must all be a misunderstanding...but asking counsel of other Christian they go "what"?!!! It's okay to feed the hungry: lovely actually. It's fine to want to do something for good, being zealous for good works...but what if it's not for God's worship but for "having our own purpose", or just social involvement?

Sorry guys if these seem ever-repetitive, it just helps work-out the thoughts and let them be reviewed. I'm really struggling...quite squeezed.

[randomous]

Well, just so you know, that little "GCM Missionary and DARN proud' was put there by someone else, not me.  How quaint.  I guess it just goes to prove once again the overall immaturity of the administrators, that they would add a tag to my posting name without permission.  

As far as what trp said, I don't know what definition of love you're using, but if you don't choose to love someone at some point then you'll never know what love is.  That's what people are talking about in GC when they say they wouldn't have got to know people in their small group if it wasn't for the small group itself.  It's great when you can sit in your comfort zone and only love people that are easy to love, but that's not really what the church is all about.    It sounds to me like, ironically, your definition of love is a very worldly one.  

It seems like the concept of being relevant is a big issue for you.  I think we can agree, for the most part, that GC doesn't compromise the gospel. I've never seen or heard of anyone in GC telling anyone a different gospel other than salvation by believing in Christ, least of all for the sake of relevancy.  Nor have I ever heard them trying to be relevant and telling someone to sin, or that it's okay to do something the Bible says is wrong.  

So what are we really talking about?  GC generally chooses music syles that relate to people and some try to do sunday messages that meet people where they're at, depending on the purpose of their Sunday service and the target audience.  When you see Paul and Stephen in the NT, they generally start where people are at (or the little truth they already believe(, and use a process of reasoning and connection to take people to the whole truth.  

What is your real issue in this context?  Are you opposed to rock music in services/  Do you not like messages that are desinged for weak Christians or non-Christians?  It seems there is something more specific and deeper here, as you haven't given any examples as you rave about this supposed worldliness.  

Another thought, not just for trp, - as you might imagine, hearing people leaving churches bc they're not getting fed on sunday is a real pet peeve of mine.  If you're growing, you ought to be able to feed yourslef.  It's really sad to see a a 15 or 20 year old crying "mommy, feed me, put the food straight in my mouth".  Sorry if that's harsh, but that's what the Bible talks about.  If you're demanding to get fed on a sunday morning and that's the main reason you're part of a church, then something is probably deeply wrong with your relationship with God.

[steelgirl]

As far as what trp said, I don't know what definition of love you're using, but if you don't choose to love someone at some point then you'll never know what love is.  That's what people are talking about in GC when they say they wouldn't have got to know people in their small group if it wasn't for the small group itself.  It's great when you can sit in your comfort zone and only love people that are easy to love, but that's not really what the church is all about.    It sounds to me like, ironically, your definition of love is a very worldly one.  

I agree there

It seems like the concept of being relevant is a big issue for you.  I think we can agree, for the most part, that GC doesn't compromise the gospel. I've never seen or heard of anyone in GC telling anyone a different gospel other than salvation by believing in Christ, least of all for the sake of relevancy.  Nor have I ever heard them trying to be relevant and telling someone to sin, or that it's okay to do something the Bible says is wrong.  

So what are we really talking about?  GC generally chooses music syles that relate to people and some try to do sunday messages that meet people where they're at, depending on the purpose of their Sunday service and the target audience.  When you see Paul and Stephen in the NT, they generally start where people are at (or the little truth they already believe(, and use a process of reasoning and connection to take people to the whole truth.  

 

Another thought, not just for trp, - as you might imagine, hearing people leaving churches bc they're not getting fed on sunday is a real pet peeve of mine.  If you're growing, you ought to be able to feed yourslef.  It's really sad to see a a 15 or 20 year old crying "mommy, feed me, put the food straight in my mouth".  Sorry if that's harsh, but that's what the Bible talks about.  If you're demanding to get fed on a sunday morning and that's the main reason you're part of a church, then something is probably deeply wrong with your relationship with God.

I TOTALLY DISAGREE THERE.  Sometimes people are at a different point in their Christian walk.  I know I might step on toes however after checking out the church I now attend and then going back to the GCM church a few yrs ago it got so  I felt like I was not being fed by the GCM church I went to.    I have talked to some other friends in my present church who have changed churches in their 30 yrs of marriage because of where they are in their Christian walk.  I don't think they ever attended a GCM church btw.

[lone gone]

I mean no dis-respect to anyone who posts here but  I also have an opinion.  Anyone who confuses a public teaching exercise with a Christian worship service is going to wind up in this dilemma of feeding vs. seeking.

I will not sugar-coat this.

This is my short rendition of history:
The Church, the Bride, the Body of Christ, did not utilize the worship service as a means of outreach until the Reformation when certain people rejected anything that resembled the Roman or Eastern Orthodox service and freely substituted their own ideas. Since people were SO uneducated about their religion, teaching style sermons were introduced to catechize the people. Normally this catechism took place outside the worship time. Add to this the fact that these new leaders had to reach out to anyone who wandered in without any clue and bring them up to speed.

In this way education and outreach became a substitute for worship.

Now we here in this country are de-emphasizing plain old education and boring outreach and substituting entertainment.

A praise band may seem like it lifts you up until you find out that it is boring and the next church over has a rockin' little combo that suits you better. Or the other Preacher has away with words that suits your temperament better and you "learn more".

Fed?  How about being fed with the body and blood of Christ?  Yes.... Holy Communion. What was once known as "divine Service" ( How God serves and feeds His people)  has now become "worship service"... (what we do for God).

 Yes, many will say that is an perversion of Scripture, even if it is believed by the vast majority of the world's Christians....but not by the North American Church, whom the rest of the Church sadly believes as being shallow,egotistical, and wealthy but poor in spirit.

I do not like a church service that substitutes Exuberance for Reverence,Bliss for Peace, Excitement for Encouragement, and an adrenalin rush for quietness in the presence of the Almighty.

I am sorry if this came across as harsh, but after 52 years, half of that time being after GC, I feel that I know what I am talking about.

[steelgirl]

I like sermons that give you something to think about.

[MidnightRider]

Another thought, not just for trp, - as you might imagine, hearing people leaving churches bc they're not getting fed on sunday is a real pet peeve of mine.  If you're growing, you ought to be able to feed yourslef.  It's really sad to see a a 15 or 20 year old crying "mommy, feed me, put the food straight in my mouth".  Sorry if that's harsh, but that's what the Bible talks about.  If you're demanding to get fed on a sunday morning and that's the main reason you're part of a church, then something is probably deeply wrong with your relationship with God.

During my time in the GCx, anyone who tried to feed himself ran a serious risk of being labelled factious or prideful or unsubmissive or whatever.

[steelgirl]

When were you in GC?