Sovereign Grace Ministries

[Excult Member]

I recently left this curch (they are a nation wide organization of churches started by Larry Tomczak and CJ Mahaney in 1982) Tomczak left when the shift moved to Reformed theology, and SGM now refers to themselves as "reformed charismatic"

in a nut shell, they condone and encourage extreme Shepherding practices in their local churches. The spiritual abuse is just recently (in the last 6 months) hit the internet. Just wondering if anyone else has had some negative experience with Sovereign Grace. I personally found them to be a cult, after being in the church for almost 4 years.

Basically, they create a legalistic foundation by emphasizing the doctrine of indwelling sin over that of the washing and renewing of the Holy SPirit. LEadership is touted and given ALL authoirty over the local church, with apostolic teams over local pastors. No group bible studies, only trained pastors are allowed to teach the word. Leadership slowly robs you of your ability to make any decision apart from the "counsel" and input of leadership. Frequent practices include "speaking truth into one another's lives" (as opposed to the HS leading into all truth) and absolute submission without question to authority since pastors are the shepherds of your soul.

All books read by members must be sovereign grace approved. The list goes on...sound familiar to anyone?

[truth_child]

i have never heard of them but have heard of different churcch who teach every thing must go through the pastor and he or a bunch of elders will decide what should or not be done. if aperson needs to talk to some one and GOD has led them to do so then they should do it if the know it is GOD telling them to do so and should not wait for some body else to give them permission i would get out of that kind of church too

[Krismum7]

My husband and I attended a Sovereign Grace church for less than a year. During that time, although we made a lot of "instant friends" and really enjoyed the fellowship there, we kept sensing that something was not quite right. I particularly was bothered by what struck me as a strong thread of control woven throughout many of their practices, such as parent-controlled courtship, the way they taught submission, and their views on women.

The "recommended reading list" mentioned above was another such element of control. While there's obviously nothing wrong with a church organization's leadership giving suggestions about good books, the way it actually played out was not nearly so casual. The books that the leaders would recommend would be sold at the church book table and heavily promoted from the pulpit. If CJ Mahaney or his wife Carolyn wrote it, it was talked up even more enthusiastically. Women lined up after the meeting to buy Carolyn Mahaney's latest book (she'd written it with her three daughters, and it was some light and frothy thing about shopping and other girly topics) when it was given the heavy sell.

Although it was never overtly stated, the implication with the reading list was that members ought to read the books on the list first, and not waste their time on materials that did not receive leadership's endorsement. It's a very fine line with that, I realize, and again, I am not saying that the reading list was wrong. But it seemed to me like a tool for leadership to control the thought life of its people.

I found the people's complete reverence and admiration for the Mahaney family flatly odd, too. Once again, this is not something that is downright "wrong" in any way that you can pinpoint, and I know that all church organizations have their pet heroes. But seriously, anything Mahaney says goes. He recently wrote this horribly arrogant piece on "his" blog (he has a paid ghost writer) all about Bill Belichick and how he (Mahaney) stayed up past his bedtime after the Super Bowl just so he could see if Belichick ever explained his unsportsmanlike behavior. Mahaney then proceeded to castigate Belichick and hold him up as an example of what not to do.

It was totally inappropriate for a Christian leader to do such a thing to another individual who may or may not even be a believer (and therefore may not even be trying to follow standards for Christian behavior). Yet NOBODY from Sovereign Grace churches spoke out a word of correction for Mahaney. Instead, on various pro-SG sites, people glowingly responded to Mahaney's wisdom on the subject.

This is just one example of SGM people's blind allegiance to anything that CJ Mahaney says or does.

My husband and I eventually decided that SGM was not the church for us, and we left. I'd attempted to research the movement for months prior to this decision, but I could never find any information out there that described the things I'd been seeing. It was very frustrating to me, because half the time I felt like I must have been imagining things. After we left, though, I decided that I definitely was NOT imagining things. So I put up a website that explained what we'd experienced - which was nothing bad or wrong, just stuff that seemed slightly "off" in comparison to the other more mainstream Reformed/Evangelical churches we'd attended during the rest of our lives - and figured that now there'd be at least one other perspective on SGM on the internet.

Imagine my surprise when the site began getting thousands of hits every day. Lots of people posted their own stories of abuse at the hands of SGM leadership. I was blown away by all of this. Quite honestly, I'd had absolutely no idea anything like that had happened - I still say that starting the website was like kicking a rock and suddenly realizing that I'd uncovered a nest of snakes.

I'm not sure what the rules are here about posting links, but you can visit the website by doing a search for "SGM Survivors" or "SGuncensored." Or even just my username, Krismum7, and "SGM." There is a lot more info available on both the blog site and the message board.

[Geocacher301]

Joshua Harris who wrote the book "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" is now the Sr. Pastor at this group's flagship church, Covenant Life Church. He replaced C.J. Mahaney who left to devote full time to the Sovereign Grace "denomination" which CLC is a part of.

The group almost since their beginning has taught against singles dating and emphasized singles doing things in groups rather than in a dating context. They have pushed this on people of all ages (not just teenagers). They are now pushing what they call "courtship" which is even stricter for singles.

Despite that most of their singles practice these things they refuse to acknowledge that they are a "courtship church."

Similarly though a large percentage of their church home schools their children and their is strong pressure to do this, they refuse label themselves as a home schooling church.

[SGM Refuge]

Two years after leaving our Sovereign Grace Church, we have started our own blog to chronicle our story.

sgmrefuge.com (http://sgmrefuge.com) is a place of healing and restoration for those who endured the Sovereign Grace Ministries brand of "leadership".

We were leaders for 10 years within our local Sovereign Grace Church, and present a unique perspective.

Visit sgmrefuge.com (http://sgmrefuge.com)