Recently I enjoyed reconnecting a bit with some friends from when we were involved in the campus ministry of the Brooks Avenue Church of Christ in Raleigh. I’m thankful that a few people took it upon themselves to organize a reunion. I debated whether or not to go, because I didn’t really want to have to converse about (1) those days long ago, because I have as many or more bad memories than good ones, and (2) my late husband who was also part of that ministry and as I’ve written about so thoroughly in my previous blog post, our less than happy marriage wasn’t something I wanted to bring up in that setting. But I’m glad I decided to go, and the conversations I did get to have were a mixture of catching up on current circumstances and some honest sharing of my issues with the campus ministry and with my marriage when the opportunities felt right to do so. The reunion prompted me to want to reflect back over my adult life, starting with college days.
When I was 19 years old, I was a freshman at a small Baptist liberal arts college, and I had begun the quest to develop my own convictions about God and church and what it means to be a Christian. I had told my mother that when I went to college, I planned to not continue to be part of the denomination I had grown up in, because I had already concluded that I couldn’t see some of its foundational teachings for myself in the Bible. So at college, I did the only thing I knew to do on this quest, I visited different churches to try to learn what they taught and to watch for whether it came straight from the Bible or also from human traditions as the church I grew up in did. I soon discovered that it was hard to discern much by visiting churches, because one could only learn snippets of their teachings at a time.
One thing I had consciously started questioning was the concept of being born again. A high school friend had shared with me how she was learning the importance of that (which was never talked about in the church I grew up in), and I still have my journal where I tried to sort out what “born again” might mean, especially about my own life because I had believed in Jesus and had wanted to be and thought of myself as a Christian as far back as I could remember. I quit writing about it the first day with no conclusion drawn, and tried again the next day also without success, concluding only that I would have to keep visiting churches and trust that God would guide me.
I started to notice John Greenwood in January of that freshman year, and I remember the first time we locked eyes and smiled at each other. How I had missed noticing his tall, lanky 6’6” and handsome presence before then is a mystery, but once I had seen and smiled at him, I hoped that we’d have a chance to meet soon. At a midnight ice skating outing for all freshmen and transfers, which he was, I hoped he’d ask me to skate, and we again locked eyes and smiled, but he seemed to be there with a date so I just decided to have a good time and not worry about it.
Soon after that, my roommate and a friend of hers planned a Bible study get-together at the friend’s house since his parents lived in the area. She mentioned that John Greenwood, who was also a friend of her friend, would be there, and of course I was happy to hear that. Her friend picked us up from church and brought us to his parents’ house, and I will never forget walking in and seeing John arise from his chair with a big smile on his face to meet me. That was our first meeting, and we were a couple from that day on. He confessed to me later that the get-together had been planned with the purpose of giving him a chance to meet me!
We felt that God had put us together, and we fell in love quickly and talked about marriage someday from the start. I believed that we would go through struggles and challenges as we got to know each other better, but I never felt any doubts about us being meant for each other. That first summer after he completed his National Guard summer camp, he went home to Raleigh, North Carolina (college was in St. Paul, Minnesota), and I planned to fly down in August to meet his family, and we were thinking about getting married the following March so we wanted to start talking about plans for that. In his frequent letters, he mentioned that he had been studying some things in the Bible and he wanted to show them to me when I got there. He also drew a picture of what was meant to be a diamond ring with rays shining out from it, but his artistic ability was so lacking that I thought it was a foot with the rays being the toes, and I wondered why he would put that on the envelope! When I arrived, he went from the airport to the parking lot of a nearby park and officially asked me to marry him and gave me the diamond ring he had bought with funds he earned by painting his parents’ house. We had picked out the ring in Minnesota but I had no idea he would have it for me there and then. We then went to Red Lobster for dinner, the first time I had ever heard of hushpuppies, and he was ravenous now that the big event of giving me the ring was over, and I could only nibble on the hushpuppies because I had no appetite due to the excitement of getting the ring and the anxious anticipation of meeting his parents with the ring already on my finger, hoping they’d like me since the deed was done and they basically had no choice.
His parents were nice to me, and I was happy to be together with John again. I looked forward to getting to know more about him in his own hometown and with his family. And I looked forward to whatever he would share with me from the Bible. I was so impressed from the day we met with his sincere faith and his personal initiative to seek God which wasn’t as encouraged or instilled by his parents as had been true for me. I’m sure he must have told me early in our relationship about his spiritual history up to when we met, and the next evening we spent time with him sharing a bit more about how he had become a Christian by being baptized at the Brooks Avenue Church of Christ after studying the Bible with the minister there after being invited by his high school history teacher. He also told me about going to a small Baptist junior college in the area and having one of his professors get him to be questioning and doubting the meaning of his baptism. So that is why he had decided that he needed to study the subject for himself while he was home, and he was ready to share with me what he had come to understand after doing that.
He was nervous about how I might respond to what he wanted to show me, because he knew already from his own experience that the subject is taught differently in different churches. I had never told him about my own questioning of what it means to be born again. That night, August 13, 1974, my belief that God put us together became even more firm, as he showed me the scriptures about baptism and I realized that this was the biblical answer to the question I had already been asking, that I didn’t know how to find the answer to, and that John didn’t know I was already asking. The church I grew up going to basically overlooked the book of Acts in the rotation of scripture passages that were printed as inserts in the Sunday bulletins and that were read in the worship services. Those readings were in the categories of an Old Testament lesson, a Gospel lesson, and an Epistle lesson, and Acts is none of those, so as far as I could remember, I had never been exposed to anything about the early days of the church and the conversions that are recorded there.
I was so excited to learn that immersion in water with faith in Jesus and while calling on his name is the new birth that I asked him if I could be baptized right away. He was excited, too, of course! So he called the minister at Brooks Ave. and called several of his friends his age who were also Christians, and we all met at the church building where I was immersed into Christ for the forgiveness of my sins and so I could receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. I was so thankful to finally know that I had been born again and that there was a definite moment in time that I could point to as when I could know with no doubt that God had adopted me as his daughter.
That same summer, the Brooks Ave. church had hired a new campus minister, and a strong evangelistic push was just beginning. After I had gotten sick which delayed our return to Minnesota, we were able to attend the annual North Carolina Evangelism Seminar put on by the Brooks Ave. church, and that is where I met the new campus minister. John and I asked to meet with him, hoping to get some ideas for what we could try to do back in school in Minnesota. We came out of that meeting with some ideas we were eager to try, and we were happy to have a resource for encouragement.
We came back to Raleigh over that Christmas break, intending to plan details of a March wedding during Spring break. We met again with the campus minister and met his new wife. We came out of that meeting having been persuaded to make some drastic changes, including postponing our wedding (supposedly until the next August but it ended up being for 3-1/2 more years) and moving to Raleigh the next summer to participate in the campus ministry there. The campus ministry at Brooks had been growing and we were eager to be a part of it. Several more of John’s friends from high school had become Christians, and we knew that we could learn a lot and become more effective at sharing our faith there than we had been in Minnesota. So we made plans to move to Raleigh after the school year was over.
I tend to be a go-with-the-flow kind of temperament, and I didn’t really have any clear expectations of what life would be like after the move. I knew I wanted to be a strong Christian and I wanted to learn how to share with others what I had been thankful to learn from the Bible. I had experienced frustration and disappointment after my own baptism in trying to talk about it with my parents and friends, discovering that it wasn’t the good news to them that it had been to me because they had not already been asking questions as I had. I came to Raleigh with a strong awareness that I had a lot to learn, both about the Bible and about how to have a good influence on others.
In hindsight, I see that my openness to learning was both a good and a dangerous thing. There were many good things about being involved in the campus ministry. The extra classes studying the books of Acts and Romans were awe-inspiring because it was the first time I had been taught in such depth and with such practicality, made even more powerful by my lack of prior exposure to those books and themes. I was thrilled to find so many other young people who were also seeking God and the sense of fellowship and mutual love and concern was especially precious after feeling mostly alone and not of the same mind and heart with friends at my college in Minnesota. And the way the adults of the congregation were so involved with and giving towards the college students was precious in contrast to the division that my baptism caused within my own family. There was a real sense of family at Brooks Avenue and it made having moved so far away from my home turf much easier.
But the dangerous part about my openness and desire to be a good disciple of Jesus soon started to become apparent – to some degree then but more clearly in hindsight.
The campus ministry was very structured, with the campus minister’s word being pretty much final. Relationships were assigned and designated as “prayer partners,” with one person being considered to be the “older” Christian (though the length of time each had been a Christian may have been minimal) and expected to advise and “disciple” the “younger” one. “Discipling” was a verb that was coined eventually (I think a few years later in Charlotte was the first time I remember hearing it) to denote the process of the older prayer partners “making disciples” (Matthew 28:19) of the younger ones, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). The practical definition of that verb was whatever the campus minister said it was, and included rules about dating (including relationships that were and weren’t allowed), what church events were mandatory, who should be paired as prayer partners, who was or wasn’t ready to be baptized, and many other things. There was an expectation of submission to the advice and rules from those higher up in the hierarchy of relationships, and there was criticism and judgment of dissenters.
The program was easy to impose on people like me and many others who wanted to be “good disciples.” Those who questioned or disagreed with leaders became object lessons of pride and stubbornness, and I already had a temperament that was afraid to ask anything of others or to stand up against a powerful personality, so I went along with whatever I was told. The first time I came even close to pushing back against the advice of leaders was when John was hired to do campus ministry at the Friendly Avenue church in Greensboro after we had known each other for four years, and he wanted us to finally get married and move there together and had to say no to the advice of the campus minister that he go ahead and start the work and we’d get married later. I was thankful that John had the courage to say no, and yet I took the minister’s advice as a judgment that even after all the time I had been involved at Brooks Avenue, I must still not be perfect enough to deserve to get married.
That feeling of desperately wanting to be judged by others as worthy of respect and good enough to be qualified to lead others had been and continued to be a niggling red flag of caution about the way the campus ministry program was designed and implemented. It took 17 years to finally become convinced enough and courageous enough to take a stand against the authoritarian leadership. We had bought a printing business and left ministry work after a few years of doing campus ministry in Greensboro, then moved to Charlotte when the man who had been campus minister when we were in college was leading a new congregation that had been formed there. We had many bad and some good experiences there as the congregation became part of the newly-formed and tightly controlled International Church of Christ, then after four years there, we moved back to Greensboro when it became clear that we needed to get hands-on again in our printing business.
After about a year and a half of driving from Greensboro to Chapel Hill to the Triangle congregation of the ICoC, several women “above” me in the hierarchy at Triangle Church inserted themselves in a relationship I had with a woman I was studying the Bible with. They insisted that I pressure the woman to start coming to Triangle, and I refused because she wasn’t ready to make that commitment in her circumstances. I believed that her decision had to be made from her own understanding of Scripture and not from external pressure. The most glaring experience of what felt like evil, human control that crossed the line into being cultish was when two of those women from church showed up at a study session and began to involve her in a “breaking session” to rebuke me for unsubmissiveness and pride. After that, I could no longer suppress my fear that the ICoC had become unbiblical.
I needed to pull away and take time to re-examine my personal convictions, to be sure I was still following the example of the Bereans in Acts 17:11 by examining Scriptures to see if what I was being taught was true and to be sure I was doing whatever I did from my own understanding of Scripture and how it applies to my life. My husband agreed with the need to pull away at least long enough to restudy our own convictions and we left at the same time. Once I was removed from it, it quickly became obvious that I could never go back because the points of departure from Scripture became easy to see when there wasn’t the constant pressure, judging, and impugning.
After proactively sorting through my questions and much Bible study, I wrote an open letter to the women I was closest to at Triangle and Charlotte explaining my perspective. That resulted in being “marked” and both congregations were ordered to shun John and me. So we lost all of our friends at once. Only two women responded to my letter, one before the “marking” and one had the courage to want to get together, in the hopes that she could persuade me to come back, I’m sure. (That letter is appended to the end of this post.)
That was in 1992, 25 years ago now. In 2003, a letter was written by a man high up in the global hierarchy to others in leadership that expressed many of the same concerns and criticisms that I and so many others that had left the group had, but we were judged “prideful” and “unsubmissive” when we tried to honestly express them. His letter was intended to be kept private among the leaders, but I thank God that someone had the courage to leak it to the internet, and the cultic ways of the organization were exposed. All of a sudden the truth about the errors and abuses were public and there was a lot of fallout, which was needed. Most of the leaders stayed in their jobs and tried to make changes, but I was so glad to already be away from it because I don’t believe anyone can have genuine repentance when they are forced into it. How could they be acting from genuine personal convictions in their authoritarian ways and then turn on a dime and have the opposite convictions and actions? Either one perspective or the other had to be people-pleasing, and I wouldn’t have been able to trust their leadership going forward.
My family’s spiritual path after leaving the ICoC has been full of zigs and zags. We took a few months to sort through what we believed and what we thought was the best path forward. When we decided to go back to the Friendly Avenue church, my perspective was humbler and more understanding of others than when we had been there before, a good thing.
When our business became more challenging than fun, and our accountant suggested that we could sell it and do something else, we did just that and moved to the D.C. suburbs in Maryland and returned to ministry for 19 months. That was a challenging experience which I won’t go into, but it was nice to do lots of field trips into D.C. for our homeschooling while we were there.
Then we decided we needed to move back to N.C. and move in with John’s mom to take care of her, since his dad had died right before we moved to Maryland and she needed more family involvement. In the middle of the move, we discovered that the neighbor she had been relying on for help was actually a con artist who was taking advantage of her, so we knew we were doing the right thing even though he had her convinced she should trust him and not us. Though we moved out the next year, we stayed in the area and I’ve been here for over 20 years now! After a few years in Raleigh, Mom Greenwood moved back to Henderson and eventually when her dementia made it obvious she couldn’t live alone, she moved in with us and remained with me for 6 months after John died until she became ill and went to the hospital and then a nursing home until she died the next year.
After renting houses for 20 years, the one we were in went into foreclosure and we had to move, and we were at last able to buy one with a VA loan that John’s National Guard service qualified us for. All the girls had left home, and I’m thankful for how well suited it was for our needs then and continues to work well for me alone, though the yard that is over an acre was John’s delight and now my necessary evil chore. We lived in it for a year and a week before John’s sudden death. Renting served us well throughout 6 moves in those 20 years, but I never felt truly at home until we moved into this house. I find it ironic to be settled into Henderson and Vance County as a homeowner now, looking back on half my adult life here. I didn’t like being here in Vance County and fought the temptation to resent my lack of choice in the matter, and yet after the first 14 years, when we were deciding to buy this house, I felt like I had invested all those years into becoming someone that no longer would arouse the comment, “You’re not from around here, are you?” This county is very provincial; few choose to move here except for some who buy houses on Kerr Lake. So the perspective I have chosen is to hope that God put me here for some reason that will someday become clear to me.
As I look back on my life, I would summarize it by concluding that I have yet to experience the vision of “church” that I believe is not only biblical but is intended to be God’s gift to man. I’ve experienced extremes that have been off-track biblically. One extreme was the International Church of Christ (previously called the Boston Movement, the Discipling Movement, and/or the Multiplying Ministry Movement) that I’ve already mentioned, which became an authoritarian cult that robbed freedom in Christ from members and destroyed the ability to live from a New Covenant perspective of acting from the motivation of grace received. The other extreme has been what some call the “mainline” Church of Christ, where instead of the attempt to control the members, there is the opposite laissez-faire mentality of hoping that the public preaching and teaching of biblical principles will result in the hearers choosing to put them into practice, but with no real expectation of or proactive organized means of facilitating practical application. Neither extreme has the balance of personal freedom and responsibility and yet involvement in one another’s lives that I see in the Bible.
As I sorted through where I could see that the ICoC had departed from the Bible, my quest was to seek what I think of as “God’s better way.” If the ICoC goes too far and the mainline church doesn’t go far enough in involvement in others’ lives, what is the balance? I started writing in what works for me as the best way to know what I think, and the result was the series of 7 booklets which I call “The Precious Promises Series.” I see promises from God in the Bible that he intends for me and all of his children to experience. I’ve had a few glimpses of what that could be like in both ICoC and mainline churches, but have concluded that the only way to fully implement the biblical promises would be to start a congregation from scratch with all potential members studying and agreeing on what the biblical balance should be.
Some likely would assume that I’m looking for a perfect church, but actually I believe that God’s wisdom in his Word has designed his body, his family, his “ekklesia,” to function well even though it is made up of imperfect people. “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises” (2 Peter 1:3-5a).
So for now I continue to drive to Brooks Avenue Church of Christ on Sunday mornings for worship, I treasure a few relationships with old friends there, I chat with others as opportunities arise, and I continue to hope and pray that someday God will provide opportunities for me in Vance County to find and enjoy fellowship with other seekers of God who are open to taking a look at the vision I see. I also remain open to whatever tweaks or revisions God may present to me by whatever means. I plan to do a few revisions of the booklets, to finish the last, unfinished one, and pursue e-book versions and audiobook versions and then publicize them more proactively and see if they can be used by God.
And that brings me to the present, to my daily life which consists of my job at an insurance agency where I enjoy a good balance of clerical tasks and customer service, with customer interaction being the best part of the job. My job has helped me to feel connected to this area as I hope that someday I may be able to have a spiritual gift to offer to the many customers that have taken the time to talk a bit. I hope to be able to invite them to “Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me. For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I spoke. If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer. Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me” (Psalm 66:16-20). I would love to once again host a small group Bible study that provides a great way to get into deeper spiritual conversations by being able to have that to invite people to.
Someday I hope to find a man who shares my vision and who wants to be my partner in ministry, who will commit to the marriage principles in the Bible that will ensure a romantic and happy life together, and who wants to have a grand time together in every part of the rest of our lives: physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in extended family relationships. Until such a man crosses my path, if that ever happens, I remain content living alone with my 2 dogs and 2 cats, trying to not get behind on home and yard maintenance, hoping my 27-year-old rust bucket car will last a bit longer, and enjoying my children and grandchildren.
I have said little here about John, and that is because I have previously written out my thoroughly pondered conclusions about our relationship. I am thankful that it has ended, and that I have been granted the freedom and opportunity to spend time coming to terms with the problems we had and recovering from my dysfunctional way of interacting with him. I’m thankful for the Grief Recovery Method which helped me bring the relationship to completion, and I’m thankful for MarriageBuilders.com and Marriage Builders Radio which have helped me develop a positive view of marriage so that if I’m ever given the opportunity to marry again, it will be with confidence that we could and would sustain happiness and romance – to “Fall in Love, Stay in Love” – for the rest of our lives together.
Appendix – Open Letter on Authority (Reprinted from “What Does the Boston Movement Teach?”)
July 2. 1992
I’m writing this as an open letter to all who I have considered to be my dearest friends and sisters in Christ. Over the past 4 months, and even before that as I’ve been openly questioning and restudying my foundational convictions, I’ve had conversations with many of you. I’ve had no direct contact with others, though you’ve probably at least heard from others of our decision to not follow the teachings of the leaders of the Multiplying Ministry Movement [which became the International Churches of Christ or ICoC]. I feel clear enough now in my convictions of truth and also in being able to identify my feelings, to be able to and to see the need to communicate with as many friends as possible. I’d really love to be able to have good, in-person talks with each of you, but I realized early on after an unaffordable phone bill that I’ll have to find other ways! So in writing, I hope to help you know and understand where I’m at and why. I’m eager to talk more with anyone who wants to, but I felt I had to start somewhere. From talking to some, I’ve seen that you need to hear directly from me instead of through rumor and opinions of others.
First, I need to express what the past 1-1/2 years has been like emotionally. It’s often been lonely and frustrating and confusing and discouraging! I’ve learned so much in turning to God over and over again in desperation and near-hopelessness. The pain has come from such unexpected sources (people and circumstances) that I’ve been forced to pull back and re-examine all of my assumptions about who or what I was entrusting my heart, soul, mind and strength to. When some circumstance or relationship causes suffering and confusion and discouragement, rather than joy and peace and encouragement, I’ve learned to not resent the suffering but to be prompted to ask what is causing it – is my sin or ignorance of God’s will the cause, or someone else’s? So I’ve done lots of soul-searching and studying to re-examine what is right to be able to know who is right, if anyone.
I’ve been surprised as I study to see how often God’s ways are different from how I and so many I know have assumed. What was most alarming and convicting to me was to realize how we had drifted away from using the word itself in relationships in the church. I experienced last fall a conflict with several sisters over how I was handling a study with a friend of mine. God used that to open my eyes to the pattern of assuming, impugning, judging, slandering and advising, all with no turning to scripture, that had crept in and become accepted as right. When relationships are structured in a hierarchy rather than being viewed as peers who are free and responsible and accountable only to God, the oppression of those under the power and control of others is almost a given. That’s why Jesus emphasized the peer dynamic so much (John 15:13-15, Matthew 23:8-12, Mark 10:35-45, Luke 22:24-27), with the emphasis not on position and authority, but on servanthood and example. He knew the temptation his apostles would feel to exert power and control, and to forget what it’s all about (Luke 10:17-20).
The bottom line issue in all I’ve experienced and studied is leadership. The Bible is very clear about what godly leadership is like, following Jesus’ example of the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep, and who doesn’t want a single one to be lost (John 10:1-18, Matthew 18:12-14). He earns trust by his service and example (John 13:1-17, 14:1 – at the end of 3 years with them), not by authority of position, which he gave up in coming to earth (Philippians 2:6-8). Jesus seeks followers by choice and not obligation. That’s the whole point of the New Covenant – response of faith rather than responsibility of law. Jesus’ “sheep” are drawn, not demanded of; courted, not controlled or coerced; encouraged, not expected of; led by example rather than by exhortation.
The principles of truth that lovers of God live by are not legal commands. The mindset of a follower of Jesus, transformed by his grace and unconditional love, reads statements of God’s will not as “you must” but “you will” (John 14:23). For example, in Acts 2:42-47, in seeing the devotion of the first saints to the apostles’ teaching, prayer, breaking of bread and fellowship, they are not told to be devoted, they are “Spirit-naturally” prompted by their appreciation for those things. Those qualities can’t be achieved by expectation or striving or programs. So if someone says they love God but aren’t devoted to these things, then the solution isn’t to command them, as that removes the freedom of choice and the motivation of grace, and backfires. A spiritually-minded person sees God’s principles as promises of what she can be and do, not as burdens to be borne. Wrong leadership can prevent the very results they seek by not following God’s ways, and that’s what we believe has happened In the MMM churches. This mindset can only be sought and “caught” by masses when they see examples of the fruit of faith in others – when they are able to “consider the outcome of leaders’ lives and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7).
We believe that leadership in the MMM churches is unbiblical in several areas: what positions of leadership are designated, how people are chosen to fill those positions, and how responsibilities are assigned and carried out. If leadership is unbiblical, then the body of Christ can’t function as God intended, and Jesus can’t truly be the head of the church group. Jesus puts responsibility on each of us to watch out for being led away from truth, and to examine the fruit of anyone claiming to be speaking God’s will (Matthew 7:15-23). The Bereans were commended for their healthy sense of being responsible for what they believed, checking the scriptures for accuracy before accepting Paul’s teaching (Acts 17:11). The Bible is full of warnings about the inevitable drift from truth whenever the scriptures aren’t maintained as the sole standard (e.g., 2 Timothy 4:2-4, Galatians 1:6-9). We are not to implicitly trust any human being to tell us God’s will, as the danger of drifting into “hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” is always very real (Colossians 2:8), with Satan and his servants ultimately behind any attempts to deceive and mislead sincere people (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). We believe this is exactly what has happened, and that the very foundations that are being built upon are of man and not of God (1 Corinthians 3:10-17).
We’ve been on both sides of the hierarchy, and we’re grateful for the past 1-1/2 years of experiencing the receiving end of the effect of leadership as practiced and taught. It opened our eyes and convicted us of how unlike Jesus we had been at times. The golden rule hit home – we had been treating others wrongly in the same way we had been treated wrongly, but had rationalized and justified it, not facing the nagging discomfort we felt about the system. It took this time since moving back to Greensboro and being at the bottom of the hierarchy to be able to feel the need and the freedom to re-examine whether the system is God’s way or man’s. We were not so entrenched in the church structure that we’d be tempted to go along for the sake of an unbiblical sense of unity. We seek true unity, not conformity and compromise.
The foundational premise of Kip McKean’s approach to the Bible is the point of departure into unbiblicaI teachings and practices. He believes that we should “Be silent where the Bible speaks, and speak where the Bible is silent.” In other words, he believes that the Bible grants freedom to follow individual opinion where the Bible doesn’t clearly state what to do. That is true on an individual level, but not on a leadership level. The word is clear about the fact that there IS truth that is the foundation for unity (Ephesians 4:3-6, I Corinthians 1:10). That truth is to be upheld, taught, and contended for, and needs to be handled correctly (2 Timothy 2:15, 24-26, Jude 3). Specific applications of principles, however, are left up to the individual to determine and choose. No authority or responsibility is given, by command or example or necessary inference, to leaders (or any disciple) to impose his opinions on any other disciple. In fact, to put any pressure, either overt or subtle, on someone which influences them to not act from faith, is condemned (Romans 14 and 15, especially 14:23 along with Matthew 18:6-7). Even, Paul, who did have authority because he was an apostle (2 Corinthians 10:8, Matthew 16:19, Philemon 8), never used it to demand submission. He was exemplary in following Jesus’ example of teaching, explaining, suggesting, and showing, aimed at persuading and not pressuring.
About authority, I need to express what I believe has been the root of most of the abuses and misleading done by those at the top of the hierarchy structure of the MMM churches: Hebrews 13:17 is the only proof-text used, by those designated as leaders, to claim authority and to call for submission. In Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, the standard reference book for understanding the Greek meanings of New Testament words, there is not a page for the word “authority” because it’s not even in the original Greek! Taking into account the meanings for “obey” and “submit,” the emphasis the verse conveys is to have a persuadable, teachable, ready to do what’s right attitude. But the unspoken assumption that is inferred from the rest of scripture is that the leaders will teach and persuade, using scriptures and wisdom from God, rather than expect submission because of their position (1 Peter 5:2-3, 2 Timothy 2:24-26, James 3:1-2, 13-18). The only authority leaders have is the knowledge and wisdom that they possess and which is shown to be of God by the fruit of their lives (Hebrews.13:7, l Corinthians 16:15-16). They need to be very careful not to “go beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6) to add traditions of man. I believe that is exactly what has happened, and that disciples have been intimidated into submission by accusations of pride and rebelliousness and lack of faith that God is in control if they ever disagree with the expectations or traditions or teachings of leaders.
I’ve been on both sides of leadership (being in and out of it, giving it and receiving it) in MMM churches. I see now how I was wrong when I conformed to the system and expectations of others or when I imposed my opinions on others. I don’t feel I ever completely gave into the program, but there were times I acted without personal conviction, or when my convictions were wrong. I’m sure I hurt some of you, because I know how I’ve felt hurt by others. Please tell me – I want to know. Please forgive me, I’m very sorry, and take responsibility for whatever I’ve done, whether from my own ignorance or from the influence of others. That’s been the hardest part for me – to realize I can’t abdicate responsibility or blame-shift.
I’ve studied through most of my assumptions which I held to in the MMM system. I’ve been shocked at how many questions have led me to clear biblical convictions which don’t agree with what I accepted as truth in years of being spoon-fed advice and assignments. The whole foundation of the New Covenant is the promise of an intimate, powerful, freely chosen relationship with God through being born again, and then following the lead of the Spirit (Romans 8). Everything must flow from a heart that daily chooses to follow Jesus, not out of obligation to a one-time commitment, but rather out of love and gratitude and trust prompting me to want to follow. I see the MMM system of hierarchy and assigned discipling relationships and seeking results having just the opposite effect of what is intended. God’s goals and results must be brought about His way, which is the paradox that causes so many to stumble: Seek God, and the results will come from him as a natural fruit; if we seek results rather than the giver of results, God can’t give them as he longs to. Fruit, by definition, is a natural outgrowth of a well-nourished plant, and will never happen in God’s kingdom by seeking it or working for it; it’s a contradiction in terms to strive for fruit!
My hope is that those I know best and love dearly will know me well enough to have confidence in my motives of simply seeking God and his kingdom and his righteousness. The past few months have been hard on me in terms of what it has shown me about my relationships. So far, only one friend in the church has expressed an interest m what I think and why I’ve made the decision to leave the Multiplying Ministry Movement. She asked questions and wanted to understand. One other friend sought time together, coming into it with assumptions, but at least being open to listening. I appreciated that. I don’t know why others haven’t sought to find out personally from me, even if it’s from the assumption that I’ve fallen away from God and out of an effort to rescue me. I feel impugned and written off and forgotten about, and like a long-forgotten entry on a discipling tree. I feel that now that I’m not assigned to anyone to be their responsibility, the inability of the system to produce the result of deep, from the heart love (2 Peter 1:22) is exposed. Let me reassure you if you’ve wanted to do something but haven’t known what to do: Anything is better than nothing. I’m not sitting around waiting and being critical – I understand and have fallen into the same mentality before, too, letting people I knew just leave without showing my concern or trying to understand. We’ve assumed that when someone leaves, they have a hardened, sinful, deceived heart. But there has to be another explanation for 50% of the members of the MMM churches leaving—if it’s of God, Jesus said the fruit would last (John 15:16). I’m just sad that very few of what I felt were heart-to-heart friends have seemed to care about my decision or what led to it or what it’s been like having to act from convictions that I can’t compromise but which cost me something to stick by. It seems that the pattern of relationships in the church experience we’ve shared has more often hindered rather than helped the ideal of lifelong friendships.
In saying I can’t in clear conscience follow the leadership teachings and practices of the MMM churches, I’m not making any judgments about individuals’ relationships with God. I’ve gone from discouragement to disillusionment to despair, and then God gave me the courage and hope and vision for someday seeing his sheep being led by good shepherds once more (Jeremiah 23), so I’m not giving up. My prayer is that most of those who’ve felt they had to leave also will not give up but will keep seeking God’s will for his body as they remain in his kingdom (Luke 17:20-21). We aren’t drawing any “lines of fellowship” and want our relationships to continue, as we all seek together to be “worshipers in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). We’re not sure yet what the future may bring about in finding others who we can worship in unity with. But we’re confident God will continue to work and provide, as he has in amazing ways these past four months. We’ve come to really appreciate God’s ways of leading, teaching, disciplining, encouraging and blessing when we put him in his true place of #1 relationship.
Our family is getting right as the next priority, not as a means to an end of converting others, but as a God-given responsibility and source of deep love and security and encouragement. John and I are better friends than ever, without the temptation on my part to turn to sisters more than him, and his part to let sisters “make her holy” (Ephesians 5:26) instead of him being responsible for me.
We’re now ready to add the next-in-line priority of relationships with fellow saints (Galatians 6:10), and believe we’re ready and able to use what God has given^us to teach, encourage, and truly love from the heart and with wisdom. We also have confidence that God will cause our lives to bear fruit in drawing friends in the world to him as we love, serve, and teach as he gives us opportunity (Colossians 4:5-6, Ephesians 5:15-16). There are several true friendships God has given us here that we know will be fruitful when they’re ready, not by our pressuring them. They’ll stay friends whether they ever become disciples or not, but we pray for them to be open to God drawing them to him through us.
My hope and prayer is that all of us will be like the Bereans in everything we believe and do. I had gotten away from that. I wasn’t “ready to make a defense” (1 Peter 3:15, RSV) for my convictions, because many of them weren’t really mine. I didn’t feel free to question, because whenever I disagreed, I was accused of being prideful, unsubmissive, and untrusting. I’ve been told not to think so much, and to go to my discipler to fix my problems and get advice about everything, with independent decisions being impugned as a sign of a bad heart. Some of that may have changed in practice, but until the foundational philosophy about how the body functions changes to follow the pattern of the Bible, abuses will continue to happen.
I’m sure you have some reactions and questions. I haven’t gone into many specific teachings that I believe are unbiblical, because it would take a book. In writing, mainly I’m trying to reach out for fellowship and understanding, to seek unity based on the word. If any of you are having some of the same questions and concerns, or if you have any knowledge you think I need to consider, or anything you’d like to talk about to continue our relationship, then please let me know! You will always be in my heart and I’ll treasure any opportunities we have to talk.
One last thought: I hope you have actually read the scripture references given. That will be a good way to tell whether you have the noble character of the Bereans, open-minded and eager to learn and change if needed, but responding to the message and not any assumptions about the messenger!
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Precious Promises 