Healing

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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[Anonymous]

My path to healing:

1. An honest search for truth, coupled with prayer.

2. Reading lots of books, visiting lots of churches, talking to lots of people.

3. One thing I was looking for was a church that practiced infant baptism, because I have a severely disabled son who was not able to be baptized or take communion because of his inability to make a deliberate decision for Christ. I knew that disabled people should be able to be full members of the church, and this wasn’t possible in a church that exclusively practiced believers’ baptism. This led me to Lutheranism or Presbyterianism. After this, I began to look at church history which led me to Eastern Orthodoxy.

4. In Eastern Orthodoxy, I found what I had been missing in GCM and in all evangelical churces and groups– historical integrity… a connection with the early church through a rich liturgy, a recorded history, and many, many saints who have gone before us. I found a church that felt more respectful in its worship. I found a church that considered unity across the world and through time to be very important.

5. I was looking for a church that presented the scriptures simply, said the creed regularly, practiced communion faithfully, and had spiritual disciplines (prayer, fasting, confession, sacraments) built right into the foundation of the church.

6. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to participate in an ancient liturgy every week instead of church having to be made up in a new way every week.

7. I was looking for a church that was the same all the time… one that didn’t become seeker sensitive or culturally relevant from week to week. I have found that Orthodox Christianity is as relevant today as it has been since the beginning.

It’s taken awhile, but I don’t feel angry or bitter any more. I first had to realize that it was okay to disagree with you pastors. It sounds funny, but once I was able to be honest with myself (and them) about that, everything got a whole lot easier.

[Anonymous]

I want to add to my previous comment:

It also is absolutely wonderful that now my son is full member of the church. He has been baptized and can take communion.

Having him was a pivotal moment in my Christian life. I realized that we are MORE than what we can offer to the church with our intellect, money, witnessing, etc. For, in a way, we are all disabled in comparison to God. We all see in part; we all need to have the faith of a child. It made me realize that the “army of God” mentality and a utilitarian “do and do more” approach wasn’t really what being human and Christian is all about.

So the biggest crisis/change/growing experience of my life: parenting a son with a feeding tube, a diaper, a pancreatectomy, severe mental disabilities, little functional speech, and autism, mild CP…

This was the catalyst that forced me to take the time to see the errors in GCM (and later evengelical Protestantism) and to look for the place where he would be fully welcomed in every way.

One teaching I often heard in GCM was “God chooses the foolish thing of the world to shame the wise,” this was often followed with how foolish the speaker was… an attempt (perhaps honest) to be humble. But the church (not just GCM) consistently denies the first act of a Christian to those with severe mental disabilities. I just really had a hard time imagining Christ turning down a parent of a disabled child for baptism. So for me that recognition was the big moment when everything came into place.

And I feel that this unexpected path to Orthodoxy was a gift God graciously gave to me. In looking for complete acceptance for my son, I have found complete acceptance for myself. And now, my son receives a gentle blessing at church and respect instead of pity.

[someone]

The hardest thing about recovery for me has been, first of all, dealing with the loss of friendship. My entire life revolved around my church friends, and in a matter of months it vanished. It was hard not to be bitter at first, and yes I still struggle with that. The best way for me not be is to not hear about what they are doing currently, but rather to them of them as a past memory. That makes it much easier for me.



As I unfortunately came to learn, my involvement/loyalty to GCM was the main reason most of those people were my friends. I had tried to fight that mentality in other people, in situations where I felt somebody was being treated like a “project,” or a discarded project, but I had no idea it’d come back on me someday and I’d find myself in those same shoes.



Anyway, the healing process. I honestly don’t know if I can ever actively participate in a small group again after my experience. I just don’t want to risk mistaking somebody’s interest in me as friendship when it might just be that I am their latest project.. I don’t want to feel that pain again. I know this probably doesn’t happen everywhere, but the risk alone has kept me from becoming too active in fellowship at other churches (I’m still working on this.) I did manage to make some friends at work, and it has been a relief to realize that the way my church friends treat people is not the universal standard. Even after I quit my job they still keep in touch. It’s hard to believe my secular friends valued my friendship more than the dozens of people who have stopped talking to me. The “spiritual family” methaphor my church drilled into my head is so far from the truth of what they practice. Now, I know many of them believe that by choosing and maintaining their friendships based upon who they feel is growing the most in the Lord will earn them the most points in heaven, but I wish they would realize that people grow at different rates, and in God’s eyes we are valuable to him either way.



Another step of healing was to find another church. I was shocked when I attended a new church and they invited the entire congregation to a meeting to discuss bringing a pastor (who had been visiting temporarily) on full time. They weren’t going to just do it? They were asking the congregation to pray about it and then discuss it with them. Amazing, I thought! For so long I felt like the holy spirit in my own life was not important because I was not a leader. At GCM I felt so repressed, and really was made to feel like my own relationship with God was of little importance when compared to “counsel.” Huge changes would occur in small groups and in church and everybody would be surprised except the leaders. Any church I attend in the future will NOT have that mentality, I have decided! I’m so glad I looked for a new church, though, because I had considered giving up. Healthy churches are out there!



Reading the church error statement made me feel like a burden had been lifted from me, as did talking to ex-members who had managed to move on with their lives post-GCM. I even found out that other churches in the area have dealt a lot with individuals hurt by the church I attended. It feels so good when you finally realize what happened to you was NOT God’s fault, and that the church you attended was not a healthy church. Also, realizing others have experienced the same thing is also very relieving. For so long I thought my problems with my GCM church were my own fault, and the more I believed this the more I began to disregard my own ability to hear the holy spirit, and began to replace this voice with the ideas of men. So I guess the most important step for me was to realize I didn’t walk away from God, I walked away from an abusive church.

[bertrandbaggersly]

I’ve noticed that I’m extremely wary about taking on any church-related responsibilities at my new church. I don’t want to teach, nor do I want to be involved in leadership of any kind whatsoever. In GCM I jumped in with both feet, and to my shame, I believe a lot of the reason I did so was because of my ego. “You mean you’ve only known me for 3 weeks, and you can already tell what great leadership potential I have! Sure, sign me up!!!”

Like “someone”, I found that I quickly shifted from friend to acquaintance once I left my GC church. I don’t believe it was anything malicious, but it does mean my friendships were truly all about shared church activities. I must admit, I was surprised this happened, but perhaps it’s all for the best. I have not made much of an effort to build friendships at my current church.

I am not putting any pressure on myself to witness, pray, or read the Bible daily. Many times the most honest prayer I can say is the Lord’s Prayer or a simple “Lord, have mercy.” So, that’s what I do. God does not need my spiritual to-do list, he wants and loves me.

So, I guess my approach to healing has been:
1) Go to a completely different kind of church.
2) Avoid getting too involved with church.
3) Put no pressure on myself to adopt spiritual disciplines stressed by GCM.

Sounds pretty dysfunctional to be honest, but there it is.

[Anonymous]

Contributors above,

Reading this Healing Forum is calming. Thank you for putting into words a possible path for a fresh escapee. Your tones show light at the end of this darkened tunnel I feel I am journeying through.

Thank you dearly.

[G_Prince]

When I was in GCM I truly believed that, this was Christianity as God wanted. Since leaving, I’ve found it hard to distinguish between the voice of GCM and the voice of God. For years inside of GCM, I had many questions about doctrine, and theology and I never felt comfortable with the answers I was receiving. However, GCM presented itself so strongly as the truth that I believe that God had to be this way. I left for other reasons (social pressure etc.) however, my understanding of God did not change and my questions persisted. I saw God as a tyrant who was sending billions of people to hell and it was up to us alone to save them from his justice. I felt incapable of fulfilling such a calling, and realized that even if I saved thousands of people, it was only a tiny drop in the bucket. Ultimately, I discovered that the God GCM presented, and the God I believed in, was someone I hated.

Even after attending a new church for a year, I couldn’t get these basic dogmatic notions out of my head. Last fall I decided that God didn’t exist, or if he did I wanted to have no part of him. In a strange way it was like breathing new life. The old God was dead, and with it GCM’s power over my beliefs.

It’s astounding that I had to go so far as to declare disbelief in God to finally get the monkey off my back. But it worked. Since then I’ve slowly returned like an infant to basic belief in God and Christianity. I’ve begun to learn a new and completely different version of God who I’ve found to be so much more loving and accepting of myself and all of humanity.

[Anonymous]

1) We’ve enjoyed visiting churches where the Bible is preached (and you actually get to bring one with you to follow along with!), which has been so refreshing and educational. We’ve tentatively settled on one where the pastor speaks with boldness, knowledge AND humility.

2). We try not to focus on the unfair/condescending treatment we received during our departure. The temptation is to paint ourselves as victims and sort of wallow in that self-pity. While, in a sense, we WERE victims, there’s no benefit in dwelling on that anymore (we dwelt on it for awhile already ), so we’re trying to focus on moving forward, and we think of our friends in GCM with kindness. Not everyone treated us poorly, and some of the ones who did have even tried to make amends.

3) We listen to sermons online…have Bible studies and pray with friends…occasionally we’ll even skip church on Sunday, if life is extra chaotic that week! The ironic thing is that my faith has been stronger than ever over the past several months since we left our last church.

So I guess my advice is - stay in the Bible, maintain fellowship with other believers, don’t stop seeking good, solid teaching. Take what you’ve learned, keep growing, keep moving forward, and enjoy your newfound freedom!

[MamaD]

We left our GCM church 14 months ago.

It was difficult to go from extremely involved to not attending at all in less than a month. The hardest part for us was removing our children (the 3 still at home) from their friends at church and checking out unfamiliar churches. It was also hard because our son and our daughter and her husband continued attending for a few months after we left. This was the first time ever that our family was attending different churches so that was a sad thing.

We didn’t really feel like going anywhere, but our plan was to visit several churches (we had 4 in mind) and go to each for a month or so. We settled on two very large (so we could be unnoticed), established churches with a history and no founding apostles! We weren’t interested in involvement at this point, we were trying to reclaim our time.

I think Bertrand’s three points sum up our feelings.

In an attempt to finalize the experience, about 10 months after we left my husband blogged our reasons. We were feeling quite at peace and ready to move on. Then, two months after his blog post was posted (and was buried by his newer posts), out of the blue, he received an e-mail from a pastor telling him to remove his negative comments about the church and GCM.

Suddenly, a year after we left, we were back in the battle. Within a two week period and over a year after we left, three GCM pastors wrote us letters of rebuke! That is weird and totally inappropriate.

One (non GCM) pastor who was counseling us about this saw all the letters and mentioned that this was a definite sign of a high control group and went as far as to say that one of the letters was similar to letters he had seen written by Watchtower elders trying to get members to come back to the JWs after they left. Rebukes like that (telling people they are being divisive) are designed to heap guilt upon people in the hopes that they will come running back and beg forgiveness.

Not only did these letters get us emotionally and spiritually back in the game (and shunned by two pastors families), but it was an additional indication that this group doesn’t know the boundaries when it comes to authority.

I think people need to be able to discuss their experiences in a forum that does not open them up to receiving letters from GCM leaders. I am grateful for my “friends” Agatha, Genevieve, Bertrand, and Gene (whoever you are!) for setting this up. It’s too late for us, but I do recommend the anonymous route. It’s safer.

[Genevieve]

Okay, one more post! My healing. I’ve been going to a new church for about two years. I have a goal of going to church twice a month. Even though the church had a college group, I didn’t go at all last year. I’ve started to go to a few of the meetings since school started (they’re almost purely social or theological discussions–not confessional or accountability groups).

I don’t try to read my Bible and instead get daily Bible verses emailed to me through a program our church offers (don’t read them every day). I pray occassionally on my own but don’t try to ask Jesus what he thinks about every single detail of my life.

Mostly, I’m trying to figure out how to be a Christian. Every once in awhile, I get scared that I’m a horrible Christian and a terrible failure/disappointment. But I don’t know what to do about it.

I’m trying to pray, journal, read Christian books, and go to church because I love Jesus and want to know him better–not because I feel guilty if I don’t. I’m trying to live my life motivated by love rather than fear, but perhaps I’m just lazy.

[Dipping my toes in....]

This topic has been pretty quiet for awhile, but I remembered something recently that really helped in my journey towards healing…..



MUSIC!!!



There’s just something about hearing a song and having it touch you, right where you are - but also nudge you along a bit towards a better place. There have been several songs that really touched my heart along this journey. One (Ok, I’m assuming most of you won’t like this artist, but I’d still give it a listen!!!) really big one for me was “The Voice Within” sung by Xtina. Just imagine God singing this song to you……

[DevastatedTC]

I didn't want to start a new thread but thought I would post some of my path to healing. I had a bit of a guilt relapse last week. There was an article in the Des Moines paper that was talking about Mission to the City (M2C), which is a program done by my old church. Some of my Facebook friends from there were posting a lot of stuff about it as well and I guess it triggered a lot of emotional reaction to my old life there, so I thought I would share.

The article was fairly positive and I must admit that there are a lot of noble things that Christians do during that week to try to share the gospel with people in Des Moines who don't know Jesus. Bottom line is I'm not against this kind of stuff. What bothered me, however, were some posts of people who seemed to be boasting about how they were tired and sacrificing because they were working on Memorial Day or taking vacation days from work to hand out tracts. It reminded me of how I often was asked to give up a lot of my free time and how tired I always was and the guilt I used to feel if I ever skipped an event or meeting.

Anyhow, I wanted to share a link to a resource that I went through if anyone else has ever struggled with this kind of stuff. It is called "Wounded by Shame, Healed by Grace," by VanVonderan. I have the workbook which is free online at http://www.pjteaches.com/shame/StudyGuideWoundedByShameHealedbyGrace.pdf

If you check out the PDF, look at the information on pages 7, 46-47, 57-58, 69 and 77. The information really turned around the lies and turned me towards grace. Thought I would share it because it really helped me to heal. Have a great weekend. I'm going to relax a bit and enjoy it. Grace!

[margaret]

Trying to start healing too.  G_Prince, are you still around?  your comment about having a hard time distinguishing between the voice of GCM and the voice of God really resonates with me.  I call it "the little voice on my shoulder" telling me what I should and shouldn't do; should and shouldn't believe; how I should or shouldn't interpret a passage of scripture; and the guilt----OH THE GUILT--for not doing enough for God.
This site has been a step in the healing direction for me.  I really appreciate you all sharing your stories.