Community Chapel and Bible Training Center Seattle Wa

[calv (calv)]

I think its time to introduce Community Chapel and Bible training center to Fact net.While there is a good site on the web for former members to re "connect", I see a need for a differnt kind of fourm. Fact net does not take sides on any issue, it allows us to talk about our experiance in a cult. There are those who do not belive ccbtc is/was a cult. My reason for posting here is the fact that it gives survivors of Community Chapel more exposure to others who have had similar experiances.

(Message edited by calv on September 02, 2005)

[steve26 (steve26)]

Man, have I ever been waiting for this! As you know, calv, I've posted extensively on the existing Chapel board and have grown frustrated with the old Chapel group-think over there, almost as if they want to recreate the Chapel. I am looking forward to a better atmosphere over here.

More later...

[calv (calv)]

Welcome steve!!!!

I dont belive its a recreation, it still IS the chapel !
Seventeen years since the implosion and its still a part of who I am. When I left I didn't look back, it hurt too much, and I was so ashamed. I came in there hurting, and thought I had found the answer to what life had dealt me. Deliverance! what a concept... its not really me thats bad, its demons. Just pray hard enough... preto chango. Then the Unfolding Revelation of God...
I was so privilaged to have been lead by the Lord to this
"wonderful greenhouse" a place to learn and be trained
for the call God had placed in my life.
Ya it was good. Lots of good people there. Bible collage, getting in the word verse by verse, it expanded
on what I had been taught my whole life. It was alive.
I had never seen worship the way we worshiped, with all our hearts. The love there was genuine...for the most part, It was a heck of a lot better than where I had been.
Kinda like I steped out of my old life, into a whole new one. How little I really knew!
Looking back I see how God has used that experiance, and others. Its been a long hard road for me. I m not a victum ... Im a surviver.
I dont blame Don Barnett, I dont think he is much differnt than me. The man had a heart for God, but he also had a bent and twisted nature. Its that very nature that in the end was manifest in the so called Move of God we called "Connections". I think God just pulled back the veil and exposed everyone of us for who we are. I think the truth is very hard, it takes a lot of grace to be able to look at it for what it is. I think many choose to hide behind the old comfortable ways that we learned at CC.

[onesimus_jones (onesimus_jones)]

Thanks Calv for starting this. Steve told me about it.

You are right.... it still IS the chapel !

[calv (calv)]

one and steve

I gotta give you the official http://www.factnet.org/discus/clipart/FactLogoSmall.gifWELCOME

[calv (calv)]

onesimus

Do you have a story?

[steve26 (steve26)]

Thanks, calv. That's a cool welcome.

[steve26 (steve26)]

By the way, it's not like I myself have a Chapel story or anything. I've only created a whole Web site on it: http://home.comcast.net/~sr_born/Chapel/

The part of the site that's my story is called "My Journey" and it's at http://home.comcast.net/~sr_born/Chapel/journey.htm

[calv (calv)]

Fact net Rocks!
Ive gotten a lot out of it... Its just good to see what others have gone thru and how they deal. Really helps me put stuff in perspetive. People can post what they want, but you get a lot of mixed feed back. It does lead to some good disscusions and opens a lot of doors some would rather keep closed. The moderator here has no bias...
just behave as a civil person, its ok to get p.o. just no threats or over the top language thats meant to offend etc.... People can speak freely here w/o being ban for having an opinion that must be "controlled".
trolls that try to control get ban etc.... Im sure theres rules and guidelines some where.
It probably wouldn't hurt to send in a donation if you feel its doing some good!

[calv (calv)]

titus

The language all fits! But we were special... not like anyone else. The revaltions were all firsthand ... or at least thats what we thought! Everyone else was carefully studied ... then we were taught what was wrong and how cc was .... right....
who knows!!!!?!?

[steve26 (steve26)]

Titus - Yes, you nailed it. The pastor, Don Barnett, was very influenced by the Latter Rain movement. If I remember correctly, he said that the small Bible college he attended (but never graduated from) in Boise, Idaho, was founded as a direct result of the Latter Rain "revivals." His wife Barbara also attended there and that's where they met. We heard a lot of teaching about "the bride of Christ."

I have not heard of this Jane Lead before, though. The links you supply look interesting. Thanks for posting them. I plan on reading them carefully.

I agree that Latter Rain teaching is heretical. Further, our church was "Oneness," our pastor's modified version of UPC Oneness, that is. He called it the "Unfolding Revelation of God." Most of the members of CCBTC called it UROG (pronounced "you're rog") for short. The pastor denied Christ's pre-existence, said the Logos in John 1 was only an impersonal "plan of God." He did teach at the time that Jesus was both man and God, but said it was due to Jesus the man having God dwell fully in him.

(Nowadays at his present church, called the Church of Agape, he has gone on to teach that Jesus is not God. A number of ex-members also now believe this as well. This is one reason we believe it so important to document the Chapel's influence here.)

[steve26 (steve26)]

Just read your second posting. We heard many of those same names. The "manchild," in particular, was another big teaching at the Chapel.

As to your second question, it really did not last so long - only from 1967 to 1988, and in the last three years it was losing members by the score due to its "connections" doctrine. But perhaps the answer to why it lasted even that long is that most of the pastor's sins were kept hidden. And also people wanted something exciting. They were willing to put aside doctrine for something that moved them emotionally, and as a result they got caught in heresy.

[steve26 (steve26)]

Titus,

You write,<blockquote><font color="0000ff">I'm trying to get everyone to see the common connections between all of these [Latter Rain infuenced] groups.</font></blockquote>That, in my opinion, is a very worthy objective. As you've noted, Pentecostal Latter Rain teaching really has become a pervasive influence - it's everywhere. It is clearly an aberration and not sound Biblical teaching, yet it is so hard to get people in these movements to see that because they are so sold out to their own emotions, their own interpretation of the Bible, their own "spiritual" experiences, and their own extra-Biblical "revelations." (What I've appreciated so much about Lutheran doctrine by contrast is that it's absolutely dominated by the objective gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ.)

There is no Web site for the Church of Agape. It is a very small group that meets in a rented hall in Renton, Washington, and is very insular and secretive. For awhile they even posted a sign on their door stating "Private Meeting - No Visitors Allowed."

Community Chapel's continuing influence is mainly is through other former members (i.e. not those in COA) who promulgate its form of Oneness doctrine - now morphed into "Jesus is not God" (JING) doctrine - to other unwary Christians. They regard Trinitarians as ignorant of real Biblical teaching on the subject and believe that they (Trinitarians) really think of Jesus as merely a man like JING believers do but have just been fogged by Trinitarian dogma into falsely believing the unbelievable -- that Jesus was a distinct person of God before his incarnation. Through the teaching of Jesus as a man, "our elder brother," who had God dwelling in him, they think they are doing a unique work of bringing people into a close, intimate relationship with God that cannot be had through Trinitarian teaching. They think that their teaching opens up the way for one to be "in the bride" in a way that you can't really be if you are "bound" in Trinitarianism.

The Chapel rejected Branham's form of Oneness teaching (UPC Oneness - "Jesus is the Father and the Holy Spirit as well as the Son") as being impossible. But the Chapel's teaching on the nature of God was itself inconsistent. Sometimes its teachers spoke as if Jesus himself were both man and God and sometimes they spoke as if Jesus was a man who had God dwelling in him. Adherents were bound to see this inconsistency sooner or later, and then abandon the teaching of Christ's deity, since they were already conditioned against the true, Trinitarian teaching of the two natures in one person.

Regarding another of your remarks, it's extremely interesting to me that you see the connection between Latter Rain Pentecostalism and its ultimate source in Lutheran pietism. Not many people are aware of that. The quest for a subjective, personal piety is at root a doubting of God's objective ministry of the gospel. It results in just about all the doctrinal errors we see today - on the Roman side of things as well as on the Pentecostal side.

(Message edited by steve26 on September 03, 2005)

[steve26 (steve26)]

To all - I've started a new thread named '"Spiritual Unions" or "Connections".' It's for discussing or learning about the Chapel's 'connection' doctrine and practice.

[steve26 (steve26)]

<font color="0000ff">Did your leader ever say what gave hime the idea?</font>

The dancing wasn't originally his idea - it started two years before connections themselves started, which weren't his idea either. Dancing started among a group of "intercessors" (a class of mainly women "prayer warriors") at a Christian school teachers retreat. (The Chapel had a fairly large Christian school; the Chapel itself at its height in the mid-80's had around 3000 members.) From the intercessors it quickly spread to the Christian school teachers at the retreat and then eventually to the whole church.

Connections actually started between a young man in a satellite church of the Chapel in Kansas and the wife of the pastor of that church. (The Chapel had about a dozen satellite churches around the country and even one in Switzerland for awhile. They were all fairly small.)

<font color="0000ff">In Richard Riss' book or one of the websites they mentioned an Idaho bible college-do you know the name, or who ran it?</font>

The Bible college that Don attended in Boise was called Northern Bible Seminary, I think. I don't think it exists anymore. On the other Chapel board somebody once said there is another Bible college in Boise now, but it isn't the same one and has no connection with it. Beyond the fact that Don said it was founded during the Latter Rain revival, I have no idea who founded or ran the Bible college Don attended. Details about his training and education were always a little vague. In any case, he got most of his teaching from his father, who was also a Pentecostal pastor, and from his own interpretation of the Bible and his own personal "revelations."

[calv (calv)]

bump

[david_munson (david_munson)]

<font color="000000"><font face="arial,helvetica"></font>
Hi Calv,
I just thought I would do a drive by posting.
God's blessings upon you brother,
Dave

</font>}

[calv (calv)]

Thanks!!! DAVE

[cooper (cooper)]

Greetings! It is interesting to hear all of your stories. I, too, am a survivor of the rise and fall of CCBTC. Although I was just a youth during my attendance, I feel that the experience yielded a wealth of information and made me wise beyond my years. I am constantly thinking about the experience and trying to reframe my past to fit today. I believe that whatever age we were, wherever we came from, and wherever we ended up afterwards, it is of the utmost importance that we remember that if we allow the enemy to rob us of our faith, he has accomplished just what he set out to do. Take care and keep telling your stories so that others will be empowered to tell theirs, thus unraveling the mysteries of cult-like establishments. God Bless, C

[fallingup (fallingup)]

Welcome Cooper!
Thanks for your comment. You're right, the whole goal of the enemy is to rob us of our faith. I'm glad you've found encouragement in our stories. Care to share yours? (Of course you shouldn't feel pressured)

[steve (steve)]

<font face="Georgia">Yes - welcome, Cooper. I appreciate it that you write this:<blockquote><font color="0000ff">I believe that whatever age we were, wherever we came from, and wherever we ended up afterwards, it is of the utmost importance that we remember that if we allow the enemy to rob us of our faith, he has accomplished just what he set out to do. Take care and keep telling your stories so that others will be empowered to tell theirs, thus unraveling the mysteries of cult-like establishments.</font></blockquote>One of the reasons I like this FACTNet board as a home for Community Chapel information is that what you express is also the basic philosophy behind the establishment of FACTNet. One of the creators of this Web site has posted these steps to recovery from psychological injuries (http://www.factnet.org/How_I_healed_the_psychological_injuries_from_my_ab use_in_a_cult.htm) (condensed by me):<blockquote><font color="0000ff">Step 1: Learn what happened to you by reading the accounts of other similar victims.

Step 1a: If you are a victim of cult abuse, thoroughly learn about the psychological dynamics of how mind control works. This way you will be able to see more certainly and clearly how you were systematically deceived and victimized by a technology in the hands of the unscrupulous cult leaders or their middle management manipulated manipulators.

Step 2: Get therapy from a specialist in the area of abuse that you have suffered. Keep getting enough therapy until you are far more functional and the cult created irrational thought loops and induced phobias are no longer controlling the way you think about or see the world. (Therapy will go far faster and easier if you really don't skimp on step 1 above.)

Step 3: Get real angry and sue your abuser...

Step 4: If you were in a religious cult and the religious abuse and spiritual betrayal has taken you away form your spiritual journey and spiritual quest it is absolutely critical to re-begin your spiritual journey and your inner more meaningful life again. Deep spiritual betrayal is among the hardest of the betrayals to overcome, but when you do you will heal faster and deeper than on any other step of the process.

Step 5: Educate others on the cult and their abuses. I co-founded FACTNet to do just that. Now there are many ways to help you do this on and off the Internet.</font></blockquote>I especially like Step 4 in the above list: "realize that cult membership has taken you away from your spiritual journey, and that it is absolutely critical to re-begin it." If we don't know where we got off the right path [i]and then get back on it as soon as possible after figuring that out, we are letting the enemy of our souls be just as successful as if he had kept us in the aberrant group for good.

(Edited to correct the embedded link and - for fun - to change the font of the posting.)</font>

(Message edited by steve on November 05, 2005)

[calv (calv)]

Welcome Cooper

Good to see others keep dropping in. Looks like there really still is intrest in the past. While I agree we dont allow the enemy rob us of our walk I do belive there are those who were so badly wounded.... they may not be able to walk!?!? Im careful not to judge those who "struggle" for lack of a better word.
Chapel was a pretty messy train wreak and theres still a lot more to see, its not a simple case... none of us will ever be the same. Some dont heal the same as others, some may not realize the extent of thier injury...yet! Others are in denial and hide in the old deceptions, that seem "normal" or comfortable to them.
I still have a lot to learn from the whole experiance.

[movinon (movinon)]

I agree, Calv, that healing is a completely individual process. What wounds one person to the point of despair may not seem like a deathblow to another person. What stresses one person beyond their abilities to cope may not do so to another to the same degree. I know that my experiences at CC and even more importantly, post-CC, have changed me forever. It isn't always up to us how those things affect us initially, but it is up to us to allow ourselves to see the realities of what we were lost within.

When you stop and think about the one point that Steve mentions in his post above about how "cult membership has taken us away from our spiritual journey, and they we must re-begin it"....this is a profound step toward finding and accepting the truth about the ways in which we were mislead and misguided.

I'm with you, Calv, I still have a lot to learn from my experiences, and those times of learning seem to cycle through my life on a fairly irregular basis. :-)

mo

[cooper (cooper)]

I wanted to thank everyone for their warm welcomes and to apologize that I was not able to respond before now. I just spent several minutes replying to all of you and briefly telling my story, only to have my computer crash. I lost it all http://www.factnet.org/discus/clipart/sad.gif - must mean that I needed a re-write... When I have a minute I will share my story. I hope that all of you are doing well.

[theophilus (theophilus)]

I attended CCBTC for 4 years. I left the Church and withdrew from College back in 1979 ~ December. I never was part of what came latter, and thankfully so. Through many dangers toils and snares I have already come, twas grace that brough me safe thus far and grace will lead me Home... Amen.

[steveb (steveb)]

Welcome, Theophilus! Thanks for dropping in and leaving us a note. It sounds like you got out of the Chapel at a good time. What led to your leaving? How have you done since then?

[calv (calv)]

Theo... hope you drop back in again!!!

[theophilus (theophilus)]

Steveb... I came to the conclusion that there was something not right with pastor Barnett. At that time I believed he was lying to the Church about sexually abusing young women in his Church. I later came to know for sure that this was his problem. There was that and his teaching that sexualized the concept of loving God. As far as how I am doing... the path of the Just is as the dawning, that grows brighter till perfect day...