Is it true that the reason staff members and elders are concerned about their livelihood

[Nancy Curra (70.17.195.98)]

I have heard it said that the reason many don't speak up on staff or the elders is because they will lose their jobs.

If they know something is going on and they trust God for their provisions, I am just hoping that they will step up as others did for the sake of the people that fill the seats.

It boggles my mind that these very people who talk about "vertical" with Christ. Christ is in us and is the Anointed One so there should never be a doubt to take a stand if you know of wrong doing.

Please for the sake of the young believers, new believers, and people who are lost coins, Please pastors take a stand. No one will mark or hurt a person who comes forward and repents.

It will be the beginning of a healing process for many. We are all in this world together and God is for us. Please I beg you let the hurting and misleading stop.

We were all friends with Christ between us or so I believed. Fear of man is a snare. Be bold Quit ye like men.

Be an example of true humility, honorable before God and man, with no fear for your own life, as Esther said If I perish I perish.

Many of us have done this and yes there is a tremendous loss of "friends" but were they really friends in Christ? No, I pray for them but I don't grieve the loss. I want only what God wants for my life.

Life is so short. Any moment we can be standing before Him. I know. I nearly died 5 times in the past year. They were peaceful experiences and I long for that day He calls me home.

But while we are here we are our brother's keeper and are accountable to be true friends with Christ between.

I plead once more with tears Pr. Marr, Pr. Robinson, Pr. Guy Duff, and Dr. Lewis. Please I know and you know I know. Please for that sake of those you say you love, for the sake of the children so we don't lose another generation as we are losing now. Please.

D L Moody had a problem with anger towards his children. I beleive it was him. Anyway I have heard stories told that he would go to his children at night and weep and ask their forgivess for what he'd done.

I bet my life those kids learned more of Christ's character through those quiet moments than in all the time they heard him preach.

It is painless to admit a wrong and so freeing to all.

It's very late and I am quite tired and can't see well. I just pray my words are spelled right and are being commmunicated by the Holy Spirit into hearts.

Have a blessed night all. He speaks to us in the night seasons, pleasantries of His great love and plan and life He has for us.

Enjoy Him, He is most enjoyable, He knows just what to say and says it ever so gently that I cannot help but change my mind and go His way.

God's bountiful blessings for you all.

The shame is not in the sin as we are sinners by nature, the shame is in the lack of faith in God's love that empowers us to repent with joy and sometimes tears and sometimes pain but then regardless afterwards He floods us with releasing joy and an ability to breath so freely without hinderance.

Watch the Passion. When you taste that depth of suffering He endured for us, nothing will keep you from running into His throne room and saying Lord forgive me.

Nothing.

[Anonymous (152.163.101.12)]

Nancy,

This is some thoughts from David Henke concerning GGWO. It explains why the leaders (and the congregation) do not act.


The one single reality that the defenders of GGWO fail to understand is that God is not going to step in and correct the church. He is not because He gave that responsibility to the Body corporately. He is not going to enable their immaturity and lack of discernment. Matthew 18 is an illustration of the Body acting to correct sin. There is no reference in the passage to taking the accused to the spiritual leaders for discipline. It is to be taken to the Body, the church, for action. The pew sitters have that responsibility and cannot pass the buck to God. It sounds so Pious, so Mystical, so Spiritual (PMS?) to say that God will step in and act in their behalf when they won't act on what is their responsibility first. If the church body were in agreement and had no mechanism for correction then it would be appropriate to ask God to act, but not otherwise. I don't see such discernment, much less conviction, among the loyalists posting.

GGWO has no mechanism in their polity for exercising Matthew 18 with the leaders. Other churches with traditional polities do have such mechanisms in place for when a leader is the wrongdoer. It is in all three of the traditional polities, the Episcopal, the Presbyterian, and Congregational. The only place I see in church history where this two way accountability is absent is in the cultic and heretical sects.

Because they are founded upon a lie they must keep controls close at hand or they will lose their control. This is clearly seen in even recent secular political history. The introduction of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in the Soviet Union undermined Party control and quickly destroyed the Party.
Our own Constitution recognizes the depravity of man and takes steps to check it. Our Founders were overwhelmingly Christian who read such thinkers as John Locke who described a government that governed well would take such realities of human nature into account. Hence we have broken the three functions of government into three branches that compete with each other so as to weaken governments power. Then we are a government of laws passed by representatives who are elected directly by the people and therefore accountable to the people. Those laws are then superior to any leaders authority and therefore, theoretically at least, the leader can face charges in court just as any other citizen.

There seems to be nothing like this wisdom at GGWO. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And, it doesn't matter if the one corrupted is a Christian. We have many examples of such corruption of otherwise orthodox spiritual leaders. Jim Jones, David "Moses" Berg, Hobart Freeman, and even some of the other discussion threads on the factnet site. Where was God for those people? Why didn't He step in and discipline those churches? Doctrinally there was no significant difference between them and GGWO. The differences were only in the area of the leaders own dysfunction. He had his own legitimate needs that he did not know how to meet in a legitimate way so he was enticed by the efficiency of power and manipulation til it destroyed them. They did not have a Body that would bring correction. If only they had.

[Anonymous (67.210.243.230)]

Of course they are concerned about that. They have no marketable skills to support a family outside of the criminal organization many of them have been involved in for decades. Their so-called "degrees" are not worth the paper they're written on.

[Anonymous (207.156.7.90)]

Good point 152. One thing we fail to notice often is that most of the New Testament is made up of letters written to churches with serious problems in the hope that they would correct their errors of doctrine and practice. The apostles didn't leave it up to God to correct them.

[lee (65.96.56.161)]

I wonder if the staunch followers realize that they will also be held accountable for their own inaction. I wonder if they are even close to understanding their responsibility in all this. I guess they think they can just go baa baa baaing along! Shows they haven't any understanding at all.

WAKE UP! What happened to your passionate love for God? The word. The Holy Spirit?????? You stopped loving the body of Christ???? Come on, wake up and get yourselves out of your complacency and passivity.....here's a fine opportunity to really show your love for your pastor/pastors, fellow believers....WAKE UP!

[Anonymous (172.148.99.118)]

Delaware is actually following in the same footsteps as Stevens. They are losing members faster than the new ones are coming in.
Of course the blame is placed on gossip, negativity and persecution, never examining their hearts, just the blame game. They are seeking to build an empire. Power lust has them totally blinded.

Pray for those who left and are leaving. "Damage Control" and fear tactics have escalated drastically the past few weeks.

[lee (65.96.56.161)]

Is there no leader anywhere within this organization that will stand up? Those that told me that TBS/GGWO was like living in a bubble world were right. The damage control is old and worn out stuff that just doesn't work anymore.

I feel a pleading in my heart towards those that are dragging their feet or trying hard to ignore the obvious.

[Jeannie (64.12.117.11)]

I wrote this post six months ago and I was asking the same question then. It astounds me how NOTHING has changed. Just more people leaving, more families divided and more wounds inflicted on the brethren. It has now spread to the branch ministries. One thing is obvious though.. damage control is NOT working, FACTNet has not gone away.


Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 07:30 pm
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But the body will never know the truth when the leadership protects it with a lie. During this current crisis the leadership has refused to stand in the light. Our church needs a great healing but those that know this truth are caught up in a web of deceit. It is the leaders alone that have the power to bring change but with that change they fear they have much to loose. It is a tightly woven web, years in the making. They believe any means justifies the end. Whether it be lies, cover-ups, pay-offs... it is all justified. They believe themselves to be too important in God's kingdom to take the chance and do right, speak right.. they think God's kingdom will fall because of the price they would possibly pay could stop their work. And it is a great work but in a counterfeit system. They are blinded and can not see that God wants to take the great work AND a "rightly related to Him" church government and do a greater work. God cares about the work but He also cares about the one lost sheep. This leadership have lost alot of sheep along the way of the great work. Some are so wounded they have not continued on. Can you imagine how God views this? Would He not stop everything for one of His wounded? How about hundreds? Our leaders are the ones who hold the power in their hands to bring change. They do not care if 10 or 50 of us demanded change. We have no power in our system of church government. I think if one or two leaders stood up and told the truth, trusted God for the consequences and for their "great work" then the whole structure of lies and deceit would fall away and our church could heal. We could seek forgiveness and healing.. restoration and then the "great work" would not claim so many victims along the way. I don't understand why men I considered great men for almost three decades can not take such an easy step of faith. Can anyone explain that?

[Anonymous (68.33.70.187)]

Thanks Jeannie. If I didn't see it all for myself I would never have believed that these men who I have esteemed so highly over the years would just "roll over and play dead." We loved Pastor. We would have been the first in line to forgive, forget and move on. It has come to the light now, that in GGWO, the MAN is esteemed above the WORD of GOD. You dare not question anything he does or says. AHHHHH, but now, I have seen the other side of the mountain! I'm free, glory hallelujah, I am free! If they want him, they can have him.

[Jeannie (64.12.117.12)]

It is cognitive dissonance theory.

This principle was present the first day I set foot on the TBS campus. This principle kept me in the ministry for so long and thankfully it was this principle that led me out.

My dilemma when I met the ministry was there an obvious esteeming of the Word of God (which was my heart's cry.) I also saw behavior that really bothered me and I could not reconcile within. God wanted to use my mind and allowed me to see behaviors as warning signals that something just wasn't right. But mind controlling groups work diligently on newcomers to explain away the discrepancies. Eventually the behaviors took a backseat in my thinking. I had to reconcile and justify the behaviors contrary to God's nature to remain sane in the ministry. I realize now that a thinking person (and someone who desires no hypocrisy in their heart) uses a lot of energy to remain sane in GGWO.

For all of us, the process of leaving (which starts long before one actually leaves) is enough light and understanding is shed and once again you cannot reconcile what you see against what they are telling you to see.

For me, I could no longer participate without being a hypocrite. Being a member of GGWO did not reconcile with my inner walk with God. I had to leave. The principle of cognitive dissonance was used by God to lead me out and back to Him.

[lee (65.96.56.161)]

Jeannie,

Do you recall anything of the leaving process while you were on the missionfield? Did you think because you were so far away that you were unaffected by the discrepencies?

I know God will deal with us in a very personal way but I think there may be a commonality to His methods of bringing us into the light.

I wonder if those that are far enough away, even in the states, you could be so wrapped up in your own ministry that homebase, to you, is not that big a deal.......I think there are great consequences that will have to be paid by those dependant on financial support from groups here. I believe the ones on the missionfield, unless they seek out information themselves, will not be made aware of what is happening at homebase.