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Author Topic: i went back the the GCM church...  (Read 17505 times)
CoyoteUGLY
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Peace is not just the absence of conflict.


« on: May 30, 2009, 04:56:05 pm »

... just for a HS Grad party though.

why was it so tough? I could sense a lot of inner struggle...  Huh

Everyone went out of their way to make us feel welcome, but inside i still felt the same hurts i felt when i left, just buried under months of dust.

What's the next step? Am i supposed to cut myself off from these folks, or follow-up on the invitations to lunch? What's appropriate?  Undecided
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« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2009, 09:27:28 am »

Well, depending on how you left there may be a period of extra attention (love bombing) when they see you, to try to get you to come back. It's probably not done on purpose, but basically they hope you will feel bad and "realize" that whatever hurts or problems caused you to leave GC were your fault and not theirs or the leaders. I personally avoid visits to my old GC church no matter how innocent the reason, it's just not worth the risk of reopening all of the old thoughts and emotions and what not. Lunch invitations can go either way, depending on why they are doing it. I've heard of lunch invitations that were just friends wanting to stay in touch, and then there's the lunch invitation which is happening because of pressure from a pastor, basically an attempt to get you to come back and/or stop being negative about GC.
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« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2009, 07:48:14 pm »

If you want lunch and think you would enjoy it, then go.

Otherwise, what hurts once will hurt again, stay away.
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CoyoteUGLY
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Peace is not just the absence of conflict.


« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2009, 08:07:33 pm »

so i guess it's normal to feel kinda confused then? And kinda fearful?

I guess I'll just treat it as part of the adventure forward.

I'm kinda emotionally overwhelmed today... along with the confusion above, my oldest son graduated HS today. I'm really proud of him.

...and tomorrow morning he heads to Chicago for SALT...


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« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2009, 06:14:35 am »

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so i guess it's normal to feel kinda confused then? And kinda fearful?

For some of us the better description would have been "apprehensive."

When my wife and I left, we did research of other churches during the week (never missed our GC meetings on Sunday, Wednesday, and Saturday).  The first week we finally attended another church after six years of service we submitted our "resignation" in person to the head elder, Sunday afternoon.  He made it very unpleasant for us.  He told us our decision was being unfaithful to the church family and our sin made him physically ill to his stomach. 

That night we got our midnight gestapo visit.  Both elders showed up with an elder trainee.  They blasted us for at least an hour on our sin of "divorcing the GC church" (as if we had actually married it).  Then they tried to tell my wife that I was the sinner in the family and how she needed to be strong and return to the church without me.  sigh...  When they began slandering me to my wife she, uncharacteristically, turned the tables on them, pointing out that their slander consisted of lies against me.  Then she started listing off their sins, those they had committed that evening and those they had committed over the past six years (abuse of authority was the big one followed by a close second was the head elder's inability to tell the truth so much of the time). 

From that day on, no one from the church would fellowship with us.  Period.  When family gatherings occurred (some of our family remained in GC and literally all of our friends), we would feel apprehensive about getting together, never knowing if we would get frozen out, rebuked, or laughed at.  Usually, just frozen out.  To this day, even though that particular GC church self-destructed, some of our family treat us like dog droppings because we left while they remained loyal to the bitter (and I do mean bitter) end. 

I suppose that everyone's story and emotions are different.  But that is ours. 

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CoyoteUGLY
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« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2009, 03:35:42 am »

...I suppose that everyone's story and emotions are different.  But that is ours. 

WOW, that's quite a story! How painful it sounds...  Cry

I recall making a few of those visits in my day... not strong-arming like that, but wondering how they could leave, and hearing their story i was just certain i that if I remained loyal things would change, that the problems, though real, would be corrected...  Undecided

On a happier note, i got some serious healing yesterday from God. Partly through our new small group in the evening (turns-out most of us who joined together weeks-back for geographic reasons, have church-hurts in common). But even more so through a personal encounter with God, a heart-felt touch on my way to work a handy-man job... His ways are above oursGrin
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« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2009, 09:09:06 am »

...He told us our decision was being unfaithful to the church family and our sin made him physically ill to his stomach. 

That night we got our midnight gestapo visit.  Both elders showed up with an elder trainee.  They blasted us for at least an hour on our sin of "divorcing the GC church" (as if we had actually married it).

Sounds familiar.  I heard that when I interacted with a pastor/elder after having left.  However, I was generally able to "spin" my reason for departing as "finding a far, far better fit at another (locally respected) church that involved people from my degree" and other such things - which was true, I am able to have intelligent conversations with them about interesting things.

I never did recall marrying the GCM church, though.  I guess it was more of a common law marriage, being around long enough.  Or something.
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CoyoteUGLY
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« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2009, 09:29:07 pm »

big breakthrough for me yesterday, God really ministered.

would take hours to explain, but in short - i got some real healing about those hurts i left with... pretty good feelin i hafta say.

i'm not angry w/my bro's now. Still a bit disappointed, but i can live w/that & i can even imagine sitting & chatting...
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CoyoteUGLY
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« Reply #8 on: June 03, 2009, 05:09:40 am »

...turns-out that I was bitter because in my "download" I knew the potential behind the message from God, knew the power of TRUE unity and how we could impact our WHOLE city, region, etc... but it meant moving beyond the sectarianism lines & leader/laity paradigms... they couldn't draw near to that.

Part of the prob was ME, i was not able to express such ideas as these, couldn't pull them outa my own head - which is frustrating, and my frustration grew when they made so little effort to draw-out these ideas into something practical in action...

but i can see where it was scary to them, much of what I rc'd in my download was seen through "Jewish eyes", it came to me in the context of Torah instruction & Hebrew words, etc. and I didn't know how to express it except in the terms I saw them through. They applied to day to day living, but in ways that probably seemed very new & strange when i suggested we reconsider a few ideas... and love 'em or hate 'em, GCers are not real open to new ideas.  Wink

but in actuality these weren't "new", just restorative ideas based on "old" things, on the early church, looking back to before it's marriage with the world ruined genuine koinonia, diminished our belief in miracles, etc... but God wasn't looking to re-build the old, just to learn from it - He's into NEW things, things we COULD HAVE built using what we learned from the old, and applying it in OUR generation... (gosh, i almost chuckle when i think how important that concept it to GC, but how we blew it when a real opportunity availed itself. Not that it's funny or that i'm mocking, but that even having blown the chance, GOD is able to bring salvation through some other means - as in Esther's day... it's fun to look around & see where it will come from)

the HEALING came in a download of sorts too, a realization that all that potentia i was so concerned with COULD have been - but i didn't love voraciously enough (though I'm sure i thot i went waaay beyond what was expected, it still fell short), and they didn't believe God was bigger than their box (even though, in their defense, they worked way outside some of the old GC paradigms, it was still a box)... when i confessed MY part He showed me that potentia is no big deal. He MEANS it when He says "...works ALL things together for GOOD". Even if THAT potential was blown, missed, fractured, dismissed... it doesn't change the POWER He has for good.

He will work a way where things are even BETTER!

Sure, the players might change. There WILL be more sacrifice involved, more suffering, a greater cost... but who doesn't WANT that for the sake of the King's GLORY!???!?!!

So, i'm pumped. I'm even hoping the friends that said "we should do lunch" will actually follow-up. Not cuz i want to show them this revelation, cuz that may well be passed, but cuz I want to enjoy the love we've had, no strings. Let God DO what He wants, & may He help ME be faithful to love - beyond that, even having blown such a big chance, the King is honored in His own glory, and our love here, with GCers or any other we have opportunity to love and labor with, manifests His glory here, now.

Ahev v'shalom! (Love & peace/unity)
-Kelly
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hopeFULLone
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« Reply #9 on: June 03, 2009, 06:19:34 am »

Speaking from experience, I left the GC over 7 years ago. It took me many moons of disconnect before I could reconnect with those brethren. They are not bad people, in contrast they are some of the most supportive to my ministry.
My biggest warning is that you think that they are the only church organization that is like that. Every church has politics. EVERY CHURCH! And if I created the perfect church, it would also.
Each person has their own political leanings, so finding a church is like shopping for the one that I have the most common with politically. Of course, I am not talking about democrat vs. republican vs. (enter your third party here). I am talking about the politics in our church. Whenever we have a hierarchy, we will have corrupt politics. When one Lords over others, when one thinks they have the authority to tell others how to live and walk, when one puts them selves as a leader to gain followers, we return to the problem again and again.
So if every church has it, where do we go? We go to God. We start following the one who paid for us. We follow Jesus, and in that following, we find ourselves moved from encounter to encounter. We fool ourselves (James 1) when we pretend that the church is the only place that real ministry happens. All because we think it is the only place who will recognize the work we do. God isn't interested in what the "church" does, as much as he is concerned about what the people do personally. We can't just go to church and pretend we are living up to God's Word because someone is doing great ministry from the church.
So in conclusion, Brother, don't go to another church and let yourself think, "this is is so much better than GC". Comparing your current church with GC just makes you start to play the same political games you left. Go and have joy, have peace, cultivate relationships, expand your influence, but most off all (and the greatest of these) love others more than they deserve.
There is a Buddhist (gasp) saying that Christians should learn to meditate on(it is also a biblical principle so there) that says "Consider your greatest enemy your greatest teacher"
Or James the brother of Jesus says "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."

Hope (finally) full Man

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« Reply #10 on: June 03, 2009, 09:26:57 am »

Quote from: hopeFULLone
So in conclusion, Brother, don't go to another church and let yourself think, "this is is so much better than GC". Comparing your current church with GC just makes you start to play the same political games you left.

Wow!!  That sentiment is not my experience in the least!! 

Since I left I have found many churches that are MUCH better than GC churches!  Not just a little better, but MUCH better. 

It is not even a little true that all churche are basically the same with the same problems.  All churches are different, some more different than others.  No church is perfect, 'cause they all are populated and run by sinners redeemed by Christ.  But some churches are populated and run by men who are far more compassionate, spiritually sensitive, and biblically trained than GC churches. 

If it were true that no church is really better than another, why leave GC at all?

Get away from GC, find out the truth, and celebrate the sweet freedom of worship in a church that understands how to edify all the saints and how to grow the gifts of all who attend.  If you find your present church is no better than your ex-GC church, you simply settled into the wrong church...keep looking!
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CoyoteUGLY
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« Reply #11 on: June 03, 2009, 09:12:06 pm »

Amen, i do find politics everywhere there are peo trying to lord-over one another... in fact that was one of the points i tried to make with them, that "the church" (not limited to GC) has come to run itself based on the alleged "Jethro principle"... where did that come from?

It must be the product of "philosophy of men", a re-pkg of business principles maybe?

It's certainly not the idea Moses & the peo of Israel took-away from Jethro's advice, in fact it's UPsideDOWN of what he apparently taught. But 2k yrs of culturalization has us convinced that the various degrees of hierarchy are exactly what Jethro intended - even though it flies in the face of what Messiah taught? Makes no sense to me...

in prophetic terms, i see it as a pattern... it's like the tower of Babel. Everyone had one mind to accomplish their reach toward heaven (so to speak), and I suppose some of them got higher than others, but Nimrod held the top place... (a type of A-C)... so how is that any different than the hierarchy in "church"? instead of bricks of clay, hardened under the sun, we have MEN of clay, hardened b y the various degrees of theological deception & confusion - a TOWER OF MEN is what we make, each church in it's own degree.

That's NOT the way people in Jesus' day saw Jethro's advice, yet we justify reading our cultural perspectives into it.

I'd hoped the church would be EXCITED to find-out there was another way to understnad Jethro, and got frustrated when I found that those around me were not interested, still have not met anyone who is, have given-up trying & left that to the King - meanwhile...

i'm involved in a place where hierarchy is minimal & ministry is happening at the hands of ordinary saints (and oddly it's Baptist, i had no idea they could operate this way, but i guess they have more liberty than i realized) i'm learning to let Him show me where/how to minister, cuz i agree, church is NOT the only place ministry happens and it's exciting to break free of that idea.

freedom, it's sweeet. I'm currently working as a handy-man in my free-time & finding more open doors than ever i'd seen through the old system...  Cool
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CoyoteUGLY
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« Reply #12 on: June 04, 2009, 03:57:20 am »

BUT, we don't have to see it through the metaphor of towers, Melody Green says it well here...
http://lastdaysministries.com/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000008599

in short, i think you BOTH are saying the same thing, BE salty. right?
In some cases that may mean get away from Nicolaitanism, and sometimes it may mean embracing the best less-than-perfect model God is drawing you to...

a friend sent me the link. If i'd have looked at it two weeks ago when he first sent it i'd have ignored it for sure, but God in His timing... waited to show me it, waited till i was ready to hear it - till i would look at it believing there was more than i ALREADY KNEW about salt, i was thirsty...

love & peace!
-Kelly
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« Reply #13 on: June 04, 2009, 09:16:32 pm »

When we left GC it was to a church which was more abusive, and far more political than the one we left.  Some are worse than GC!  Many, many, are better.  Politics are everywhere, but in some places it's held in check by humble attitudes and wise leadership while in others it runs rampant and spoils everything.

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CoyoteUGLY
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« Reply #14 on: June 04, 2009, 09:25:22 pm »

amen Saved!
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« Reply #15 on: June 06, 2009, 05:10:41 am »

BUT, we don't have to see it through the metaphor of towers, Melody Green says it well here...
http://lastdaysministries.com/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000008599

in short, i think you BOTH are saying the same thing, BE salty. right?
In some cases that may mean get away from Nicolaitanism, and sometimes it may mean embracing the best less-than-perfect model God is drawing you to...

a friend sent me the link. If i'd have looked at it two weeks ago when he first sent it i'd have ignored it for sure, but God in His timing... waited to show me it, waited till i was ready to hear it - till i would look at it believing there was more than i ALREADY KNEW about salt, i was thirsty...

love & peace!
-Kelly

I would not doubt God's timing.  I would be  mindful that Last Days is  a shepherding group with a history of abuse.   A cursory internet search would give you what you need.  A lot of in college were taken in by Keith Green.  But  when news about how Keith Green ran the compound with an iron fist. I still cringe when I hear  "there is a redeemer".
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CoyoteUGLY
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« Reply #16 on: June 10, 2009, 04:24:22 am »

I would not doubt God's timing.  I would be  mindful that Last Days is  a shepherding group with a history of abuse.   A cursory internet search would give you what you need.  A lot of in college were taken in by Keith Green.  But  when news about how Keith Green ran the compound with an iron fist. I still cringe when I hear  "there is a redeemer".

That seems to fit the general idea I'm seeing here, that ministRIES are flawed, usually because of ministERS. Be it a church, a small group, a ministry like Last Days, whatever... and yet I need to believe that ministRY happens, that the Holy Spirit works with individuals as He sees fit, according to their faith.

I guess I'd been so long the advocate of conservative political cause, so quick to sound an alarm over abusive political systems in the world, that it didn't occur to me that POLITICS is everywhere that people are. That we bring it in with us to whatever we do, and that liberal & conservative are only our labels for describing the various degrees by which that politics effects what we do.

Makes the words of Jesus almost glow in my heart... Mt 11:11 "Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force."

Maybe even that violence has it's place, that abusiveness rears it's ugly head in the kingdom of God & we fight against it - but only to the degree that we recognize it. But until it is purged from ourselves, in it's varying degrees, we don't really see it... purging, violence, it almost wreaks of battle, smoke, fire, the smell of blood & battle.

(that's the 1st time i've quoted an NASB ref anywhere since I left GC, and I didn't cringe to do so.)
« Last Edit: June 10, 2009, 04:28:54 am by CoyoteUGLY » Logged

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« Reply #17 on: June 10, 2009, 05:50:27 am »

Quote from: coyote
(that's the 1st time i've quoted an NASB ref anywhere since I left GC, and I didn't cringe to do so.)

Use of the NASB was one of those things that GC did that could be classified as a positive thing.  I too have stayed with it and don't regret it.  Many times I have been amused as a pastor (long after my GC days) is reading from another version, then stops and says, "Actually, this does not mean x but it really means y" and in my NASB it already says y.
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CoyoteUGLY
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« Reply #18 on: June 30, 2009, 03:09:11 am »

yeah, it's pretty good (the NASB).
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