lmao (lmao)
12-17-2005, 04:59 PM
copied from: http://s10.invisionfree.com/DiscussGGWO/index.php?showtopic=115
where it was posted 12/09/05
posted here for Lana
Dear GGWO,
Since GGWO and its leader Tom Schaller have felt it is necessary to ignore the request of IAGM to stop sowing discord in the former GGWO churches worldwide by not telling the truth to the sheep in those churches in order to get them to come back into the GGWO fold through false pretenses, I am writing to you today to respond to the statements being told by GGWO about those who like me decided to leave GGWO. I have chosen to wait for a response believing that maybe GGWO would let those who chose to leave make their choices without a carnal war.
Unfortunately GGWO has chosen to lie and distort the facts in hopes of influencing those in GGWO who might have a question about the events of the past several years. They do not want the truth to be known. John Love, who I have loved and been a dear friend to for almost 25 years joined into this way of covering sin, by being one of the vocal spokesmen for Tom Schaller and Schaller’s attempts to win over the majority of people in GGWO to appointing him as the next pastor of GGWO. When I forwarded an email from Tom Powell in March of this year to several people who in turn forwarded it to others, John Love was elected to rebuke me and say that he had lost all respect for me and that I had caused GGWO irreparable damage worldwide. What was the content of that email that I forwarded that in John Love’s opinion caused GGWO irreparable damage? Tom Powell simply in a very positive light explained in this email his support for the election process of the elders in their choosing Rodger Stenger for the new pastor of GGWO and why he felt out of all the possibilities, Rodger Stenger was the wisest choice. Since there was an agreement and charge given by the 66 leaders at Sandy Cove in February that the elders were to get on with the business of electing a new elder to replace Pastor Stevens, Powell was in order to speak on behalf of the 66 leaders because he was the leader of Sandy Cove meeting. It is interesting to note that those 66 leaders at the Sandy Cove meeting, all knew there were problems with Pastor Stevens’ leadership and they all knew and agreed by signing the Sandy Cove agreement that something had to be done to honor Pastor Stevens, and in honoring him and his addressing his well known health problems, to also get the elders, appointed by Pastor Stevens to help him in his leadership problems in October 2003, to put someone in leadership to help him lead this church in the day by day needs. When Rodger Stenger was chosen, John Love did not like that choice and for sure we know Steve Scibelli and Tom Schaller did not like it. It is interesting that that according to the timeline that Tom Schaller displayed on the GGWO website (and then when there was a lot of heat over its posting, he had it removed) there is recorded a conversation between Barbara and Pastor Stevens, that Pastor Stevens had okayed the process of the elders voting on a new pastor in the church by the elders. Previously both Schaller and Scibelli had pushed very hard for a decision to be made in Baltimore and Europe for a new pastor. Of course their believed the elders were going to vote for Schaller. When the vote was not in favor of Schaller, all hell broke loose.
Schaller along with Scibelli began their political campaign to get Schaller appointed by the church in an illegal vote to become pastor. Rodger Stenger resigned even though the vote of confirmation by the church revealed that he had received 56% of the vote to 44% disagreeing with the vote. Pastor Stevens came in Easter morning after the vote for Rodger Stenger and met with the elders in his office. A crowd of people was there of whom the majority were not in favor of accepting the replacement of Pastor Stevens. These people had been told that Pastor Stevens was not going to be their pastor anymore and that his chosen son “Tom Schaller” was kicked out by the elders. Pastor Stevens was continuing to live in denial and of course continued to claim his ability to rule and lead when he was unable. His obvious absence due to his claimed sickness and poor attendance did not seem to strike a need with this group of people who came to this meeting to basically taunt the elders with “How dare you?!!!” Pastor Stevens proceeded to mock the elders by saying a quote he heard from Jack Hyles, “You didn’t hire me and your not going to fire me.” He did this while looking at the elders with a mocking look of “I am in charge and I overrule any of the decisions you make if I don’t agree.” I submitted my resignation 3 weeks later. Since then, Easter, I have not received a response to my calls. No thank you note for 38 years of service to him. No return of any initiation by me from him. I believe it is a terrible evil plot by Tom Schaller along with Pastor Stevens to control and manipulate the lives of the faithful leaders and people who have sacrificed their time and money to promote what they believed at one time was one of the most effective ministries in the U.S.
It has been 7 months for me since I left GGWO.
After waiting on God to deal with the discord, now is the time to at least clarify the truth about GGWO. May God help those in GGWO who have chosen to hurt and sow discord among the brethren.
I have no raps, no pulpit, no Grace Hour to tell my story as they do and have. So I will use whatever I must now to correct the lies and stories told about good people by Tom Schaller, Steve Scibelli and most of all Carl Stevens.
I wish to also give an account of the reason why so many elders and people who have left have been so silent. The silence was due to the fact that we did not want to stoop to the level of dealing with the lying and fighting GGWO has done in order to defend our decisions. We believe truth will prevail. But definition from trusted former leaders is important to people who know me and others who have represented Christ properly in their lives. God has also indicated that it is necessary to answer our accusers so that innocent people who just plain don’t know what has happened will now know and be able to discern the spiritual warfare and be on guard.
I resigned my job after 35 years with GG. I sold my home (because the loss of my job would not allow me to be able to pay the mortgage) and left for Florida to let Carl Stevens and his men run GG.
The affiliates have spoken very concisely over the past 8 months. IAGM has been very kind and slow to stoop to the level of hateful bask stabbing and cruel lying. They have tried to separate themselves from GGWO because they no longer want to be linked to an organization that chooses to blindly show allegiance to one man who will not graciously and in wisdom let humble men help him lead. His heritage which was bright at one time is now tainted with unconfessed sin and deceitful cover-up.
IAGM has honestly tried to walk in the light and objectively address the real world of Christianity. But definition from leaders in Baltimore has been limited to Tom Schaller, Steve Scibelli and John Love and that has been based primarily on lies to preserve their reputation at all costs.
So this is my story. It is how I saw it and how I see it.
You may ask why I and others have not spoken out sooner and more clearly if there were such great trouble and secret things covered from GG? No one wanted to expose the real problems and everyone wanted to help cover the situation and get help – not hurt - Carl Stevens.
In a very cruel and hateful way the present leadership of GG used the secret problems to their advantage to discredit anyone who would try to address Carl Stevens about any of the problems and label them as disloyal, mean and conspiratorial.
Another issue is that we did not want people to be hurt. I was very concerned, as so many of the other leaders that have left, that the people would not understand and that it would potentially destroy their faith. So I quietly left after Sandy Cove II and waited on God for direction. I was not given any access to the pulpit or rap sessions and consistently Schaller and Scibelli sowed discord and evil about those who interfered with their hostile takeover.
I have not been active on the internet with emails. I have been careful to only answer those who asked.
The present leadership because of Carl Stevens’ denial that he has any problem refuses to address and define clearly what the problem is. Instead they go along with Carl Stevens’ denial and live in the lie so that they are seen as the loyalists before the church in Baltimore and any where else that they can keep people in the dark about the truth.
The disaffiliation of many of the churches happened after the last Sandy Cove because they saw the GGWO leadership as using the situation to not address the real problems but instead to continue to promote the GGWO leadership’s agenda.
I know what has happened over the past three years as one who was in on all the major new elder board meetings after 10/03. I was an eyewitness and heard all the dialogue of these meetings. I was at Sandy Cove I, the Chicago meeting and Sandy Cove II. I along with the other elders discussed among many issues the health of Carl Stevens; the confusion over the dismissal of Ed Lutz from his rightful leadership in MBCS; and who would fill Carl Stevens’ shoes someday. I witnessed the wicked overturning of the vote for Rodger Stenger.
Since I personally witnessed all these meetings, I will tell what I heard and saw in the next three emails.
Because of the chaos and confusion in 2004-2005, I was rushed to the hospital 2 times for what I thought was a heart attack due to stress.
Thank God for Pastor Powell and the pastors who attempted to bring sanity to the situation concerning GGWO and Carl Stevens at the Sandy Cove meeting held the first of February 2005. 66 men who attended signed an agreement to seek a unified conclusion to correcting the leadership problems of GG. It was a ray of hope for all involved. Unfortunately it was later to be mocked, discredited and marginalized by Tom Schaller and others who thought it over and decided that the corrections would not promote Tom Schaller to be the next pastor of GGWO if implemented.
Until next email, thank you for your time and help.
where it was posted 12/09/05
posted here for Lana
Dear GGWO,
Since GGWO and its leader Tom Schaller have felt it is necessary to ignore the request of IAGM to stop sowing discord in the former GGWO churches worldwide by not telling the truth to the sheep in those churches in order to get them to come back into the GGWO fold through false pretenses, I am writing to you today to respond to the statements being told by GGWO about those who like me decided to leave GGWO. I have chosen to wait for a response believing that maybe GGWO would let those who chose to leave make their choices without a carnal war.
Unfortunately GGWO has chosen to lie and distort the facts in hopes of influencing those in GGWO who might have a question about the events of the past several years. They do not want the truth to be known. John Love, who I have loved and been a dear friend to for almost 25 years joined into this way of covering sin, by being one of the vocal spokesmen for Tom Schaller and Schaller’s attempts to win over the majority of people in GGWO to appointing him as the next pastor of GGWO. When I forwarded an email from Tom Powell in March of this year to several people who in turn forwarded it to others, John Love was elected to rebuke me and say that he had lost all respect for me and that I had caused GGWO irreparable damage worldwide. What was the content of that email that I forwarded that in John Love’s opinion caused GGWO irreparable damage? Tom Powell simply in a very positive light explained in this email his support for the election process of the elders in their choosing Rodger Stenger for the new pastor of GGWO and why he felt out of all the possibilities, Rodger Stenger was the wisest choice. Since there was an agreement and charge given by the 66 leaders at Sandy Cove in February that the elders were to get on with the business of electing a new elder to replace Pastor Stevens, Powell was in order to speak on behalf of the 66 leaders because he was the leader of Sandy Cove meeting. It is interesting to note that those 66 leaders at the Sandy Cove meeting, all knew there were problems with Pastor Stevens’ leadership and they all knew and agreed by signing the Sandy Cove agreement that something had to be done to honor Pastor Stevens, and in honoring him and his addressing his well known health problems, to also get the elders, appointed by Pastor Stevens to help him in his leadership problems in October 2003, to put someone in leadership to help him lead this church in the day by day needs. When Rodger Stenger was chosen, John Love did not like that choice and for sure we know Steve Scibelli and Tom Schaller did not like it. It is interesting that that according to the timeline that Tom Schaller displayed on the GGWO website (and then when there was a lot of heat over its posting, he had it removed) there is recorded a conversation between Barbara and Pastor Stevens, that Pastor Stevens had okayed the process of the elders voting on a new pastor in the church by the elders. Previously both Schaller and Scibelli had pushed very hard for a decision to be made in Baltimore and Europe for a new pastor. Of course their believed the elders were going to vote for Schaller. When the vote was not in favor of Schaller, all hell broke loose.
Schaller along with Scibelli began their political campaign to get Schaller appointed by the church in an illegal vote to become pastor. Rodger Stenger resigned even though the vote of confirmation by the church revealed that he had received 56% of the vote to 44% disagreeing with the vote. Pastor Stevens came in Easter morning after the vote for Rodger Stenger and met with the elders in his office. A crowd of people was there of whom the majority were not in favor of accepting the replacement of Pastor Stevens. These people had been told that Pastor Stevens was not going to be their pastor anymore and that his chosen son “Tom Schaller” was kicked out by the elders. Pastor Stevens was continuing to live in denial and of course continued to claim his ability to rule and lead when he was unable. His obvious absence due to his claimed sickness and poor attendance did not seem to strike a need with this group of people who came to this meeting to basically taunt the elders with “How dare you?!!!” Pastor Stevens proceeded to mock the elders by saying a quote he heard from Jack Hyles, “You didn’t hire me and your not going to fire me.” He did this while looking at the elders with a mocking look of “I am in charge and I overrule any of the decisions you make if I don’t agree.” I submitted my resignation 3 weeks later. Since then, Easter, I have not received a response to my calls. No thank you note for 38 years of service to him. No return of any initiation by me from him. I believe it is a terrible evil plot by Tom Schaller along with Pastor Stevens to control and manipulate the lives of the faithful leaders and people who have sacrificed their time and money to promote what they believed at one time was one of the most effective ministries in the U.S.
It has been 7 months for me since I left GGWO.
After waiting on God to deal with the discord, now is the time to at least clarify the truth about GGWO. May God help those in GGWO who have chosen to hurt and sow discord among the brethren.
I have no raps, no pulpit, no Grace Hour to tell my story as they do and have. So I will use whatever I must now to correct the lies and stories told about good people by Tom Schaller, Steve Scibelli and most of all Carl Stevens.
I wish to also give an account of the reason why so many elders and people who have left have been so silent. The silence was due to the fact that we did not want to stoop to the level of dealing with the lying and fighting GGWO has done in order to defend our decisions. We believe truth will prevail. But definition from trusted former leaders is important to people who know me and others who have represented Christ properly in their lives. God has also indicated that it is necessary to answer our accusers so that innocent people who just plain don’t know what has happened will now know and be able to discern the spiritual warfare and be on guard.
I resigned my job after 35 years with GG. I sold my home (because the loss of my job would not allow me to be able to pay the mortgage) and left for Florida to let Carl Stevens and his men run GG.
The affiliates have spoken very concisely over the past 8 months. IAGM has been very kind and slow to stoop to the level of hateful bask stabbing and cruel lying. They have tried to separate themselves from GGWO because they no longer want to be linked to an organization that chooses to blindly show allegiance to one man who will not graciously and in wisdom let humble men help him lead. His heritage which was bright at one time is now tainted with unconfessed sin and deceitful cover-up.
IAGM has honestly tried to walk in the light and objectively address the real world of Christianity. But definition from leaders in Baltimore has been limited to Tom Schaller, Steve Scibelli and John Love and that has been based primarily on lies to preserve their reputation at all costs.
So this is my story. It is how I saw it and how I see it.
You may ask why I and others have not spoken out sooner and more clearly if there were such great trouble and secret things covered from GG? No one wanted to expose the real problems and everyone wanted to help cover the situation and get help – not hurt - Carl Stevens.
In a very cruel and hateful way the present leadership of GG used the secret problems to their advantage to discredit anyone who would try to address Carl Stevens about any of the problems and label them as disloyal, mean and conspiratorial.
Another issue is that we did not want people to be hurt. I was very concerned, as so many of the other leaders that have left, that the people would not understand and that it would potentially destroy their faith. So I quietly left after Sandy Cove II and waited on God for direction. I was not given any access to the pulpit or rap sessions and consistently Schaller and Scibelli sowed discord and evil about those who interfered with their hostile takeover.
I have not been active on the internet with emails. I have been careful to only answer those who asked.
The present leadership because of Carl Stevens’ denial that he has any problem refuses to address and define clearly what the problem is. Instead they go along with Carl Stevens’ denial and live in the lie so that they are seen as the loyalists before the church in Baltimore and any where else that they can keep people in the dark about the truth.
The disaffiliation of many of the churches happened after the last Sandy Cove because they saw the GGWO leadership as using the situation to not address the real problems but instead to continue to promote the GGWO leadership’s agenda.
I know what has happened over the past three years as one who was in on all the major new elder board meetings after 10/03. I was an eyewitness and heard all the dialogue of these meetings. I was at Sandy Cove I, the Chicago meeting and Sandy Cove II. I along with the other elders discussed among many issues the health of Carl Stevens; the confusion over the dismissal of Ed Lutz from his rightful leadership in MBCS; and who would fill Carl Stevens’ shoes someday. I witnessed the wicked overturning of the vote for Rodger Stenger.
Since I personally witnessed all these meetings, I will tell what I heard and saw in the next three emails.
Because of the chaos and confusion in 2004-2005, I was rushed to the hospital 2 times for what I thought was a heart attack due to stress.
Thank God for Pastor Powell and the pastors who attempted to bring sanity to the situation concerning GGWO and Carl Stevens at the Sandy Cove meeting held the first of February 2005. 66 men who attended signed an agreement to seek a unified conclusion to correcting the leadership problems of GG. It was a ray of hope for all involved. Unfortunately it was later to be mocked, discredited and marginalized by Tom Schaller and others who thought it over and decided that the corrections would not promote Tom Schaller to be the next pastor of GGWO if implemented.
Until next email, thank you for your time and help.