How bniceb leaders help form abusive teams

[philiprosenthal]

HOW 'NICE' LEADERS HELP FORM ABUSIVE TEAMS

Some EveryNation leaders who read this site are going to think. "I'm a nice guy. When this site talks about abuse, they can't possibly be talking about me." Not necessarily true. You could be abusing people without realising it and you could be part of an abusive team.

The problem is that:
* 'Abuse' is not just overt threats, slander, humiliation etc. It includes also more subtle behaviour like misleading spiritual guidance to support an abusive leader and system.
* Sadly, in EveryNation many leaders who would probably be good guys in another ministry end up becoming part of an abusive team. The 'nice guys' smooth over the crass authoritarianism of the buillies -and falsely reassure people that everything is okay when it is not. The seemingly 'nice guys' protect the abusers. In doing so, they become guilty of their work.

The abusive teams I see in EveryNation tend to form a pattern:
* Abusive manipulative bully/idol at the top, but who rarely deals directly with those he manipulates.
* Right hand man who is smooth talking and pacifies those angry at the bully.
* Left hand man little bully who the big bully can subcontract his dirty work - like intimidating and threatening people etc. (Often will eventually become the same type of leader as the bully).
* Group of adoring soft helpers who sweetly answer to every beck and call of the abuser at the top. See serving him as serving God.
* Network of other leaders who focus on their ministries and turn a blind eye to the bad behaviour of the leader lest they fall out of favour. Always hoping for promotion and/or more resources for their project.

All of the above exert peer pressure on the dissenter to go along with the hypocrisy and abuse of the ministry.

Has anyone else spotted this pattern?

The other issue is that the abuser never thinks of himself as abusing people. He deceives himself. He thinks he is Gods representative to the group and doing Gods work. Those who get in his way are opposing God - so he must ride over them by any means possible ethical or not. The end justifies the means. He is protecting Gods work against Gods enemies. If anyone criticises him, that can't possibly be true, because of his pure and good intentions. Thus anything said against him or the ministry must be slander. Slander must be punished and rooted out. If anyone opposes his greed and lust for power, then that is evidence that he is being persecuted because of God's blessing on his life.

He must just use those who support 'God's work' as long as is convenient and then dispose of them.

Know people like this. Hopefully some will read this thread and see through their self-deception.

[bill_mack]

Philip,

Your description sums up what I witnessed at the Minneapolis Maranatha with the chief false leader Bruce Harpel. One can easily see that with all the above games and cliches you would be hard-pressed to get the gospel since all the energy is spent to maintain the above pecking order. The whole deal is dysfunctional and evil. In one sense, the top heretic infects everyone below him so as to enable him to continue the spread of heretical doctrines and subsequent abuse.

It seems that MCM/ENC has grown via the "leaven of the pharisees" to the point where several leaders are headed for prison, like Ed Buckham, etc.

Except for outside intervention, I really don't see any hope for change, but I'm willing to be surprised by God to the contrary.

[robert_unknown]

"One can easily see that with all the above games and cliches you would be hard-pressed to get the gospel since all the energy is spent to maintain the above pecking order. "

in fact in such environments we see the unchristian principle of "evolutionism" and the "survival of the fittest".

this environment encourages untruth, manipulation, exaggeration.

it doesnt reward the faithfull people who walk in truth and in humility.

the faithfull and honest are abused as workers.
the guys who bragg, manipulate and trick raise up.

one needs to be VERY tolerant with ones conscience if you want to "raise up" in leadership in such environment. to "raise up" is also an unchristian and non-bioblical idea about leadership! leadership, as Jesus encouraged it, had to do with servanthood and not with position and title.
it rather is a burden (look at Jesus, Paul, Peter...) than a reward or a karriere.

People like Brooks and Bonasso will never understand this. They measure themself with businessmen, and church is for them a big business where they can sell ideas.

the whole thing is so far away from scripture, that it is incredible!

(Message edited by robert_unknown on July 17, 2006)

[youngnmighty]

...the problem is when nice people think they are justified in 'helping' people to reach their 'destinies'...

i had a friend who was quite mature and responsible and independent spiritually, deeply devoted to christ, still is -
he was asked by some 20-21yr old in the church "would you like me to disciple you?"

the sweet little 20-21year old felt that because he was someone important in the church he could go around spotting people he felt were weak, whom he could count as one of his 'disciplees'.

the sweet little irritating 20-21yr old did not konw my friend, had no idea of his background.

so the little 20-21yr old who had never had a real conversation with this friend mistook him for someone who needed help...

needless to say, my friend was not impressed with this subtle arrogance and blatantly patronising attitude.

so yeah - sweet people can be so misguided.

[philiprosenthal]

The EveryNation 'discipleship' practices is something which has been tried, tested, failed and abandoned by lots of ministries - after causing lots of destruction. The sooner His People churches abandon it the better.

[40days40years]

I tend to think it is the most sincere christians who lay the the foundation for the abuse to continue. They support the leaders they believe the best about them, they may even give the leaders a standing ovation. Like Paul says if they get hit in the face they deal with it and may even like it.

[cupatea]

Philip - this is about the best description you (or anyone else for that matter) has written on here regarding the goings on of EN. Too true - many of the people involved are genuinely good guys who on their own in a different ministry situation would behave like normal people. But being placed in this environment they become part of the pattern. Thank you for posting something very clear and concise.

You wrote, "He thinks he is Gods representative to the group and doing Gods work. Those who get in his way are opposing God - so he must ride over them by any means possible ethical or not. The end justifies the means. He is protecting Gods work against Gods enemies. If anyone criticises him, that can't possibly be true, because of his pure and good intentions."

This spoke volumes to me as I saw this first hand in my senior pastor and this was the catalyst for my departure from EN.

[philiprosenthal]

One of the sad things is that Rice Broocks, when Cape Town His People leaders told him about Paul Daniel's authoritarian bullying sympathised with them and said they had had the same problem with Bob Weiner. But then Rice Broocks and Luther Mancao went on to be even more authoritarian and micromanaging etc than Paul Daniel was. Somehow he could see what was wrong with someone else behaving that way, but not himself.

[miltietoast]

"He thinks he is Gods representative to the group and doing Gods work. Those who get in his way are opposing God - so he must ride over them by any means possible ethical or not. The end justifies the means.
That is the "the spirit of priestcraft"It manifests itself in all ages and every walk of life(secular and spiritual)

[philiprosenthal]

Comparison with how 'nice' people in other professions can also abuse.

Spiritual leaders who abuse power are capable of enormous damage, without realising they are doing so. To help explain how, I would draw a comparison with my own profession - that of an engineer. Engineers can also abuse people and the environment. For example, in the old days, engineers used to design roads without considering how it would affect the people or the environment they were going through. So, for example, farmers had their farms cut in half - damaging their productive capacity without being consulted. Communities would be divided without consultation. Rare plants and animal habitat could be destroyed, wetlands drained - all of this without the engineer realising he was hurting anyone. Some engineers might do some consultation, but a lot would just draw black lines on paper without even going to see what was on the ground. Then the first time they see the landowner is when they serve an expropriation notice. People who got treated like that got really angry. I have met farmers who are angry with me, being an engineer because 25 years ago some other engineer did that to them. These days, we try be kinder to people. Before the road route gets chosen, we listen to everyone. Then we show them alternatives and let them help chose the route. Maybe another farmer doesn't object so much provided he is compensated. Maybe we can move it to avoid some wetland. Maybe there is a rare frog we want to save. Maybe we put in an underpass or a bridge to help keep the communities connected. Sometimes people still lose out, but we try minimise it. The authoritarian engineer approach tends to maximise damage. Do these engineers hate the environment? No. Most of them love going on holiday to nice beautiful natural places. But when they design their road, sometimes all they can think about are their calculations - not the people and the plants. They used to just be forgotten about.

I think it's the same with an authoritarian minister. He doesn't mean to cause spiritual harm. He just doesn't listen to anyone - so he doesn't realise if he is causing spiritual harm - until it gets so bad that people raise an outcry on a place like FactNet. But by then, the leader has probably been causing spiritual destruction for a long long time - and the damage can't be so easily repaired. For example, the authoritarian leader may just move someone in or out of ministry without consultation; or take away someones budget which he had plans he can no longer implement; or someone may have given up other good opportunities to serve in ministry, but then gets messed around and promises not kept. The authoritarian abusive leader doesn't think about how all of the above might impact on someone else's person, their family or their ministry work, business or whatever. He just wants to push ahead with his own ministry - which is obviously more important to God than anyone else's. So the 'little guys' get crushed under his steamroller.

[coppertree]

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Hi Phil, Well said and reasoned , thank you. Your efforts here have been a gift to us from Him. I will come back and wrote more when I have the time to do so. I feel for those under the leader; I have been there it is a hard row to hoe, as they say down south in southern states.}

[dazzla]

This thread is deeply insightful.

The teams are abusive but how does someone being discliped recognise it, address it and act with the comfort they are doing the right thing with Gods guidance ?
The weakness the abusive teams have is, however well meaning, they are theologically unsound and this unravels upon simple gospel based questions.
Anyone reading this thread from EN who is gaining some resonance ... simply needs to ask questions of your church peers and "leaders".
Asking word based questions will, with some pain on the way, lead you to comfort.

[miltietoast]

welcome dazzla
Asking word based questions will, with some pain on the way, lead you to comfort--in a normal world maybe but in EN/Maranatha world will lead to demons being cast out ,charges of rebellion,and if you are female the dreaded JEEZBEL.

[dazzla]

miltie...
agreed.... the issues you note are what I perhaps simplisticaly describe as "pain along the way". The end being comfort.
My hope is that current EN members/employees will not only read these posts but get some guidance about doing something about it.

[miltietoast]

Authority-- where does it come from,how do you know someone has it? I attended a church here in Cookeville that formed from a church split.Several couples got together, eventually they all signed a note on church property.They were under stress because of the note. The property is now worth at least 5 times what they paid for it. It was sold to them at a more than reasonable price by a church because it would stay a church.They bought two more parcels with I assume tithe money(told church body after purchase) and the combined total value is substantial.That is side issue. The "founders" became elders.The wives run the church thru or over their men. By what authority do they operate "their" church/club?

[philiprosenthal]

Even in the best of churches, people are going to get hurt. Good ministers often just don't realise the impact of their enormous spiritual and managerial power. Even good ministers get offended if you draw it to their attention.

The difference between a healthy and a hyper-authoritarian environment, however, is that a genuine minister will listen to another Christian who has been hurt by his actions and give it some serious consideration (even if he is hurt or offended by the allegation), rather than just threatening to throw him out the church unless he shuts up. Also, good genuine churches will have structures and forums where issues of wider concern can be discussed and resolved according to some fair procedure. In a cultish hyper-authoritarian church (as with many in EveryNation), they don't. People who are burned and complain are just burned more and told to leave.

It is really hard to deal with spiritual abuse on a case by case basis, because it can work both ways. Sometimes, church members abuse their pastors. Sometimes pastors abuse church members. FactNet can easily also become a forum for unfair abuse being thrown at good innocent leaders. We must seek to try avoid/minimise that. You can't determine the exact truth without a lot of time consuming investigation. It is simply unworkable to do that for every allegation that might arise.

What we can do however, is to encourage the churches to set up forums and fair procedures to resolve issues - preferably at the lowest level possible. That is why I am encouraging a restructuring of the churches of EveryNation and the denomination as a whole to allow - to make space for such safe discussion. See comments:
http://everynation.proboards102.com/index.cgi?board=abusive

Many leaders in EveryNation have challenged me saying "Who are you? - You are not the ruling apostle - what right do you have to reform EveryNation?". Sadly, these guys misunderstand what I mean by reform. I don't want either myself or Steve Murrell or anyone else to impose a top-down 'reform' restructuring that forces everyone into a new mould whether they like it or not. Neither do I want to force everyone to accept my views and teaching. That is exactly the type of authoritarianism I am opposing. I am just saying - lets open up forums for discussion - which may be different in each church and work together towards models of governance in which abuse and scandal is harder to happen. Lets discuss our teachings and think about them. Lets keep what is good and throw the junk out. FactNet is for now the forum where this is happening, but I would prefer for the discussion to open up in other forums also - in every church and region - as happened at them Palm Springs meeting. Together we can all help sort out the mess.

I have received a letter from an Old-Time senior EveryNation leader that his church has set up a committee to explore governance reform. I would encourage all pastors to follow his example.

So pastor reading this, please don't wait for an instruction from Steve Murrell or Nashville to reform the governance of your church. Just go ahead and reform your church where you have authority. For example open up a quarterly meeting for open discussion - or if your church is big then divide it up into areas. Just mingle with your congregation after church over tea and listen to what they have to say. Then deal with whatever concerns people have long before they even think of posting them on FactNet.

[philiprosenthal]

I know a lot of His People leaders fairly closely. What I have discovered is that almost all of them from the most senior to the junior have themselves been at some time or other been treated very badly. Nevertheless, they see this as a necessary cost of serving Jesus and thus they just grin and bear it and expect everyone else to do the same. In some senses, this is a valid and necessary approach. If you stay for any length of time in Christian leadership anywhere, you will suffer abuse.

Nevertheless, in EveryNation, this abuse is extreme both in terms of its frequency and in terms of its severity. It is a systematically abusive organisation. Furthermore, the abusive culture is used habitually to hide scandalous sins - which would be impossible in an organisation which was not hyper-authoritarian.

This hyper-authoritarian and abusive culture, in the case of His People was invented in order to cover up his scandalous sins. It has been copied by other His People churches, although they don't realise where the system comes from or why we do the things the way we do. It doesn't come from the Bible. It comes from an adulterer and his compromised 'yes-men' who helped him cover up his sins. It is time now to discard and throw away this rotten and abusive system of governance.

[tamara_may]

Hear! Hear! Well said.