Thank you Nadine for your courage to step up and reveal what was really happening and how it impacted you. There's no doubt that we all had good intentions of seeing God's word spread and changing people's lives for the better. But I think for a lack of deeper teaching , -how to do exegesis, ( rather then eisegesis) -we got stuck and weren't able to teach beyond the basics of Guard the Gospel(GTG), ( which by the way , I love as a foundation to teach about God). I was shocked to hear from one of our ICOC teachers, that only 11% of the current evangelists have studied any academic theology , beyond that of the basic GTG. How can the blind teach the blind?
In my opinion the above situation, gave rise to stunted spiritual growth, we wouldnt know if the Spirit of God was trying to tell us something, even if He came in a cloud of fire or personally hit us with a burning coal of fire to the lips.
We didn't see things or teach the truth about women even if it was there in the bible in plain sight. In my opinion, women were denigrated to body parts, not mauch different to the way women were treated in the Godless world of the Greco-Romans era.We didn't allow people to use their gifts for the church unless they were staff members, who were not always qualified to teach on certain subjects. I remeber a lovely couple coming back from their honeymoon and in a matter of days were asked to lead a marriage workshop with individuals who had been married for many years. 'Nuff said.
My eyes have been opened to all of this recently, and I can now see very clearly how God is using the gifts He gave me to help and support others. In the past I would have waited for validation from staff members, but now I know God wants to use everyone, and so has given us gifts-women and non-staff alike, to carry out His good will.
I would encourage every Christian to ask God to reveal His will for them and for their hearts to be ready, and willing to act. Don't wait around for affirmations- obviously share with people that you trust who will be honest and encouraging with you, but you don't need to conduct a referendom. If it's from God, NOTHING, and I'll say it again, NOTHING will stop it. It might be you have to wait, or He might say no ( might be something better along the journey ). But at least you will know, but you wont know if you don't try. Amen..
"I remeber a lovely couple coming back from their honeymoon and in a matter of days were asked to lead a marriage workshop with individuals who had been married for many years. "
UGH....I would have visibly walked out. I am that kind of person
They were and still are a lovely couple, so it would have been difficult for me to do that. But I hear you, another couple and I probably would have done the same as you indicated here, ha ha!
The issue is more than busyness. There needs to be more than lip service to following the example of the Bereans. Here’s a prayer I encountered this morning that seems timely: Lord, I pray for those that have been hurt and disappointed whilst seeking reconciliation with others in the Church, those whose efforts to obey your instructions have led them to burnout, depression, and exile from community. Jesus, bring healing in your name.
I was just conversing with Mekund Mishra about this very thing: the devil keeping us so busy, our relationship with God suffers! We were ‘thrown’ into leadership after only six months. I had three children at the time and conceived the fourth shortly after baptism. My former husband worked 60 hour weeks and yet we were expected at leaders meetings, planning meetings, discipling times (both with our leaders and those we led) and with four young children (think homework, activities, sports, etc.) we were overwhelmed. I did, however, appreciate the Apologetics classes I went to, but most of the members would just blindly follow without question and therefore never grow, needing to be “spoon fed” as it says.
We are all to question, explore, examine and learn on our own because each one of us will be held accountable for ourselves.
Recent converts should not be leaders - surprising but also not... Time for learning and spiritual growth is required, as well as to see how someone is once the novelty has worn off (for everyone) - someone's real ability to cope with workloads is often only apparent after a year once the wow factor has diminished. Time allows people to start to hear the Holy Spirit to see what their vocation may be.
I’ve had a lot of questions, particularly as a young Christian, that were usually shut down with scriptures used as thought-terminating cliches. Taking time to explore and wrestle with deeper questions was seen as a distraction from our “real” purpose, which was to baptize people. Questions were inconvenient and characterized as pride, rebellion, or resistance to the things being taught and encouraged.
Early on, I remember studying with someone who asked a lot of questions and taking so much time to address and talk through them that we didn’t actually get through the study material. The next day, a church leader asked me how the study went and I told her. She was upset that we didn’t get through the prescribed study. She told me it’s bad when people ask a lot of questions, because it means they are deflecting, and they aren’t really “open.” I was really surprised by that, because I always thought questions indicated depth and genuine interest. I had thought the study had gone well, because we had a great time of exploration in the Bible, but after that conversation with the church leader, I felt stupid for thinking that.
In retrospect, I think it was the church leader who lacked depth and openness (training, too!), not the person I studied with. That person did not end up being baptized in our church. Hopefully, she found a place where she was encouraged to ask questions and explore the deep mysteries of God.
This one actually made me giggle a little this morning. There's a saying that goes something like, "you want something done, find a busy person to do it". I was that kind of person. But I didn't have the right kind of personality for the church for many years to place in high enough leadership, just high enough to be used. And as that hidden autistic, my brain was working even faster. So they couldn't stop me from asking questions, nor could they stop me from out-bibling them lol. I still remember the frustration of some, trying to shut me down as I patiently kept asking even more questions. I would stop eventually, determined to let God sort it out (and he usually did, as most of those leaders fell). All they could do is accuse me of being prideful, arrogant, and divisive. This did some damage along the way, but of that, I have recovered now .... and these things steered me towards the ministry I now live. Relational, love based, grace based, community based.
As a member & never really in leadership I avoided leaders like the plague. We were lucky in that our geography was what I see now as "relatively safe". We checked the boxes by doing the mandatory basic membership stuff, so we stayed off the radar. It wasn't until hkl that I started to question the concept that we had a Leaders church & a members church & i started to question things. We were pretty much unaware of the control & spiritual abuse that was going on.
The clergy laity chasm was a big issue that came up in 2003. It was a big area of repentance for me. We had a staff of several hundred in the churches we were overseeing so it was overwhelming. Unfortunately this chasm still exists. That is one of the reason I am in favor of smaller groups now.
Thank you for posting this Nadine. I was thinking a lot about this recently as well and much of what you describe, echoes my experience in the London ICoC 20+ years ago.
Ever since then I had wondered if it was a deliberate ploy to always keep us off balance and unable to fully engage with scripture or if it was just a happenstance effect, since we all seemed too busy with: recruiting ("evangelising"), follow-ups, reporting our activities to our handlers/disciplers, tithing (while trying to make ends meet), 'dating', being pressed into voluntary activities that weren't actually voluntary, trying to read large chunks of Bible while tired (only the 1st page ever really making it in), encouraging others and prayer (and all normally in that kind of order with prayer last...) all this contributing to the burnout that a works=salvation based theology invariably leads to - all the while being told that it's godly to be constantly tired...
So by the time mid-week and Sunday services comes around, many of us were really too tired to look critically at what was being preached. Just taking the path of least resistance and accept the message. Unless it was something like: 'male virginity is (somehow) weird'... (that one suck in my head, thanks Fred...)
Looking back, it's not being at the ICoC that I regret, I learned some things that were useful for that stage in my life and met my wife there. I learned that idea that reading or listening to the scriptures is a good thing. I also learned to be careful of what people try to teach you. What I do regret seeing is how many people have completely lost their faith in Christ since attending these groups, I almost did myself - being spiritually dormant/dead for too long since then. I'd like to have faith that many will eventually come back round and re-enter a relationship with God but I know that may not happen for many.
I can't help but answer 1 of your rhetorical questions: the Bible came from God through his 'hē katholikē ekklēsia' - as the for the rest I leave that to the teaching of his hē katholikē ekklēsia.
I don’t believe it was evil intent. At least I hope not. I think it was the crazy purpose of baptizing as many as possible in the shortest amount of time. The crazy goals were impossible to keep up with and live a healthy life at the same time.
Yes, there's a saying "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." - Hanlon's razor.
In faith we like to say: "treat others with a spirit of Charity".
That's not to say that evil or malice does not exist or that impure motives, such as pursuit of money isn't an issue or can't have an effect on what we're doing, but suspicion of this shouldn't be the automatic go to.
Although, looking at how often topics like "growth/numbers" & "tithing/contribution" were preached, there was an arguable case for the latter being the motivating factor for the former. Certainly was the sense for many living on the breadline in the Kip McKean groups.
Several years ago I looked at the annual calendar of events that were planned for us, with good intentions, but it was quite overwhelming.
Now in a house church we have the time to meet the needs of the poor (near us and in another country) in a very personal way (that was never covered in any conference, retreat, or workshop in my 45 yrs) read much more deeply, (especially early church writings first to third century along with the Septuagint bible that Jesus quoted) and develop much deeper relationships working through tough times and rejoicing in victories God gave us. And we are not supporting large church staff, retirement plans, and large buildings so we can sponsor several families in Central America. Yes we have some wonderful memories and still maintain many relationships. I pray God is patient and not done with us yet!
Thank you Nadine for your courage to step up and reveal what was really happening and how it impacted you. There's no doubt that we all had good intentions of seeing God's word spread and changing people's lives for the better. But I think for a lack of deeper teaching , -how to do exegesis, ( rather then eisegesis) -we got stuck and weren't able to teach beyond the basics of Guard the Gospel(GTG), ( which by the way , I love as a foundation to teach about God). I was shocked to hear from one of our ICOC teachers, that only 11% of the current evangelists have studied any academic theology , beyond that of the basic GTG. How can the blind teach the blind?
In my opinion the above situation, gave rise to stunted spiritual growth, we wouldnt know if the Spirit of God was trying to tell us something, even if He came in a cloud of fire or personally hit us with a burning coal of fire to the lips.
We didn't see things or teach the truth about women even if it was there in the bible in plain sight. In my opinion, women were denigrated to body parts, not mauch different to the way women were treated in the Godless world of the Greco-Romans era.We didn't allow people to use their gifts for the church unless they were staff members, who were not always qualified to teach on certain subjects. I remeber a lovely couple coming back from their honeymoon and in a matter of days were asked to lead a marriage workshop with individuals who had been married for many years. 'Nuff said.
My eyes have been opened to all of this recently, and I can now see very clearly how God is using the gifts He gave me to help and support others. In the past I would have waited for validation from staff members, but now I know God wants to use everyone, and so has given us gifts-women and non-staff alike, to carry out His good will.
I would encourage every Christian to ask God to reveal His will for them and for their hearts to be ready, and willing to act. Don't wait around for affirmations- obviously share with people that you trust who will be honest and encouraging with you, but you don't need to conduct a referendom. If it's from God, NOTHING, and I'll say it again, NOTHING will stop it. It might be you have to wait, or He might say no ( might be something better along the journey ). But at least you will know, but you wont know if you don't try. Amen..
Well said.
"I remeber a lovely couple coming back from their honeymoon and in a matter of days were asked to lead a marriage workshop with individuals who had been married for many years. "
UGH....I would have visibly walked out. I am that kind of person
They were and still are a lovely couple, so it would have been difficult for me to do that. But I hear you, another couple and I probably would have done the same as you indicated here, ha ha!
True, it would be hard to hurt the feelings of good people.
The issue is more than busyness. There needs to be more than lip service to following the example of the Bereans. Here’s a prayer I encountered this morning that seems timely: Lord, I pray for those that have been hurt and disappointed whilst seeking reconciliation with others in the Church, those whose efforts to obey your instructions have led them to burnout, depression, and exile from community. Jesus, bring healing in your name.
I was just conversing with Mekund Mishra about this very thing: the devil keeping us so busy, our relationship with God suffers! We were ‘thrown’ into leadership after only six months. I had three children at the time and conceived the fourth shortly after baptism. My former husband worked 60 hour weeks and yet we were expected at leaders meetings, planning meetings, discipling times (both with our leaders and those we led) and with four young children (think homework, activities, sports, etc.) we were overwhelmed. I did, however, appreciate the Apologetics classes I went to, but most of the members would just blindly follow without question and therefore never grow, needing to be “spoon fed” as it says.
We are all to question, explore, examine and learn on our own because each one of us will be held accountable for ourselves.
Yes it was nuts! Sadly this still happening in some places.
Recent converts should not be leaders - surprising but also not... Time for learning and spiritual growth is required, as well as to see how someone is once the novelty has worn off (for everyone) - someone's real ability to cope with workloads is often only apparent after a year once the wow factor has diminished. Time allows people to start to hear the Holy Spirit to see what their vocation may be.
You raise some good points but the issue here is the pace of the schedules and expectations. Older leaders do not fare any better.
I’ve had a lot of questions, particularly as a young Christian, that were usually shut down with scriptures used as thought-terminating cliches. Taking time to explore and wrestle with deeper questions was seen as a distraction from our “real” purpose, which was to baptize people. Questions were inconvenient and characterized as pride, rebellion, or resistance to the things being taught and encouraged.
Early on, I remember studying with someone who asked a lot of questions and taking so much time to address and talk through them that we didn’t actually get through the study material. The next day, a church leader asked me how the study went and I told her. She was upset that we didn’t get through the prescribed study. She told me it’s bad when people ask a lot of questions, because it means they are deflecting, and they aren’t really “open.” I was really surprised by that, because I always thought questions indicated depth and genuine interest. I had thought the study had gone well, because we had a great time of exploration in the Bible, but after that conversation with the church leader, I felt stupid for thinking that.
In retrospect, I think it was the church leader who lacked depth and openness (training, too!), not the person I studied with. That person did not end up being baptized in our church. Hopefully, she found a place where she was encouraged to ask questions and explore the deep mysteries of God.
I can relate to the church leader. There was a lot of pressure to meet baptism goals!
This one actually made me giggle a little this morning. There's a saying that goes something like, "you want something done, find a busy person to do it". I was that kind of person. But I didn't have the right kind of personality for the church for many years to place in high enough leadership, just high enough to be used. And as that hidden autistic, my brain was working even faster. So they couldn't stop me from asking questions, nor could they stop me from out-bibling them lol. I still remember the frustration of some, trying to shut me down as I patiently kept asking even more questions. I would stop eventually, determined to let God sort it out (and he usually did, as most of those leaders fell). All they could do is accuse me of being prideful, arrogant, and divisive. This did some damage along the way, but of that, I have recovered now .... and these things steered me towards the ministry I now live. Relational, love based, grace based, community based.
As a member & never really in leadership I avoided leaders like the plague. We were lucky in that our geography was what I see now as "relatively safe". We checked the boxes by doing the mandatory basic membership stuff, so we stayed off the radar. It wasn't until hkl that I started to question the concept that we had a Leaders church & a members church & i started to question things. We were pretty much unaware of the control & spiritual abuse that was going on.
The clergy laity chasm was a big issue that came up in 2003. It was a big area of repentance for me. We had a staff of several hundred in the churches we were overseeing so it was overwhelming. Unfortunately this chasm still exists. That is one of the reason I am in favor of smaller groups now.
Thank you for posting this Nadine. I was thinking a lot about this recently as well and much of what you describe, echoes my experience in the London ICoC 20+ years ago.
Ever since then I had wondered if it was a deliberate ploy to always keep us off balance and unable to fully engage with scripture or if it was just a happenstance effect, since we all seemed too busy with: recruiting ("evangelising"), follow-ups, reporting our activities to our handlers/disciplers, tithing (while trying to make ends meet), 'dating', being pressed into voluntary activities that weren't actually voluntary, trying to read large chunks of Bible while tired (only the 1st page ever really making it in), encouraging others and prayer (and all normally in that kind of order with prayer last...) all this contributing to the burnout that a works=salvation based theology invariably leads to - all the while being told that it's godly to be constantly tired...
So by the time mid-week and Sunday services comes around, many of us were really too tired to look critically at what was being preached. Just taking the path of least resistance and accept the message. Unless it was something like: 'male virginity is (somehow) weird'... (that one suck in my head, thanks Fred...)
Looking back, it's not being at the ICoC that I regret, I learned some things that were useful for that stage in my life and met my wife there. I learned that idea that reading or listening to the scriptures is a good thing. I also learned to be careful of what people try to teach you. What I do regret seeing is how many people have completely lost their faith in Christ since attending these groups, I almost did myself - being spiritually dormant/dead for too long since then. I'd like to have faith that many will eventually come back round and re-enter a relationship with God but I know that may not happen for many.
I can't help but answer 1 of your rhetorical questions: the Bible came from God through his 'hē katholikē ekklēsia' - as the for the rest I leave that to the teaching of his hē katholikē ekklēsia.
I don’t believe it was evil intent. At least I hope not. I think it was the crazy purpose of baptizing as many as possible in the shortest amount of time. The crazy goals were impossible to keep up with and live a healthy life at the same time.
Yes, there's a saying "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." - Hanlon's razor.
In faith we like to say: "treat others with a spirit of Charity".
That's not to say that evil or malice does not exist or that impure motives, such as pursuit of money isn't an issue or can't have an effect on what we're doing, but suspicion of this shouldn't be the automatic go to.
Although, looking at how often topics like "growth/numbers" & "tithing/contribution" were preached, there was an arguable case for the latter being the motivating factor for the former. Certainly was the sense for many living on the breadline in the Kip McKean groups.
Very well written with good questions.
Several years ago I looked at the annual calendar of events that were planned for us, with good intentions, but it was quite overwhelming.
Now in a house church we have the time to meet the needs of the poor (near us and in another country) in a very personal way (that was never covered in any conference, retreat, or workshop in my 45 yrs) read much more deeply, (especially early church writings first to third century along with the Septuagint bible that Jesus quoted) and develop much deeper relationships working through tough times and rejoicing in victories God gave us. And we are not supporting large church staff, retirement plans, and large buildings so we can sponsor several families in Central America. Yes we have some wonderful memories and still maintain many relationships. I pray God is patient and not done with us yet!
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