Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Starting at the Beginning

For those of you who want to start at the beginning and work your way through to the end here's a tip:
Click on the Archives in April and start at the post "In the Beginning". That is the start of my story and then just follow it through until the last post.

http://myjourneyfromspiritualabuse.blogspot.com/2011/04/in-beginning.html

I have to warn you though...my blog is not for everyone. Those who are religious and think it is sacrilege to speak out against injustice, just because it was my Pastors who did it, do not seem to like what I have to say. I read something recently and I have a response for those who seem to be offended by my candidness of what happened to me. It goes something like this: "we have been taught for so long against offence that we no longer get offended at injustice".

In the past, I have had to remind, even good Christian people, that pregnancy discrimination is illegal. I have had to point out that manipulation is not godly, nor is it love. I have had to point out that the employment practices that were practised by my old church were unethical, at best. If these things had happened to me while working in a secular environment, I would have had a crowd of supporters behind me. Instead, because it was my church leaders instead of the "evil, sinful, boss-man" of the secular world, I am labelled by some as a gossiper, or one who sows discord among the brethren.
Maybe I'm actually trying to unify the brethren and spare more people from the pains of spiritual abuse. Abuse is never good and it is only God who can take something awful and turn it around for good. In my experience though, things only change when we allow God to change them. Covering our eyes, like five year old children and thinking no one can see the abuse if we just imagine hard enough is pure foolishness. Whenever God makes a change in us, we have to acknowledge the existence of what God wants to remove first. It is only then that God begins the miraculous transformation as we allow Him access into our lives. It always starts with two things: acknowledging the problem, and acknowledging that we need God's help to fix it.
Spiritual Abuse is a problem in today's church and the solution starts with acknowledging that there is a problem. The good thing is God always has the solution and that only requires love and obedience.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Is Your Church Free from Cultic Tendencies?

This next list is a list I found on http://www.apologeticsindex.org under the title “Is Your Church Free from Cultic Tendencies?”
The tendency of most individuals, when confronted with a checklist that they have an objection to its overall content, is to immediately dismiss the relevancy of each point without even pausing to consider the possible validity of each statement. I am going to personally highlight some of the statements that I have personally seen in operation at various churches that I have attended. The purpose of my highlighting these is not to expose a singular church and their transgressions but to cause you, the reader, to pause and consider the possibility of this statement as a reflection of your own church. Take honest stock of your church and judge for yourself.

1. Is your pastor fully accountable to a board of elders, presbyters, etc?
(Do they live in the same city and have constant interaction with the congregation?)

2. Is loyalty to Jesus and to one's own calling placed before loyalty to pastor and church?

3. Does your pastor encourage questions and suggestions? Is he approachable?

4. Does your pastor give equal attention to all kinds of people in his congregation? (Are there clear favourites within the church, those who are wealthy, who tithe large amounts, or do large amounts of volunteer work?)

5. Does your pastor readily admit his errors?

6. Does your pastor avoid boasting or hinting at a "special anointing"? (Does he call himself a prophet, or an apostle or require the congregation to use a title when addressing him?)

7. Is your pastor truly humble? (Does he boast about not allowing sickness, or worry, or depression to get him down?) (Kenneth Hagin commonly boasted about never even having a headache)

8. Are the sermons based on clear Biblical truths, not on "original revelations" or ax-grinding? (Do other denominational groups agree and use the same teachings? Is your churches doctrines often thought of as heretical?)

9. Does your church interact with other churches?

10. Does your church staff avoid secrecy?

11. Is power shared in your church (rather than preempted by a hierarchy)? (Does your church have "The anointing flows from the head down" mentality? Are teachings that admonish the congregation to "honor their pastors and they will be blessed" frequently taught. Example John Bevere's teachings Pastoral Authority, Kenneth Copeland's book and teaching on Honor.)

12. Does your church see itself as just one organ of the Body of Christ, and not the main one? (Do your leaders refer to other churches or denominations as misinformed or lacking crucial understandings to live victoriously in Christ. Does your church have a "We are not like the church down the street" type mentality?)

13. Is your church truly friendly? (not just on the surface? Are the homeless, poor and needy welcomed in your church and do they come back and become part of the congregation? What about minorities?)

14. Does your church emphasize ministry to people rather than church programs? (Are they community or inwardly minded?)

15. Are especially needy people cared for lovingly in your church?

16. Are church members encouraged and loved even when they leave? ********

17. Are relationships with former members encouraged or allowed? ********

18. Do the pastor and congregation avoid attacking and using as object lessons, former members or those who disagree? ********

19. Are families encouraged to stay together and spend time together? (Is spending time as a family more important than being at the church every time the doors open?)

20. Does your family worship Sunday service include children, at least for part of the service?

21. Are you encouraged in your own calling?

22. Are pleas for money rare and unemotional? (Is guilt used during the tithe and offering speech such as "I never come into God's house without an offering to bring Him"?)

23. Are your children happy to attend church?

24. Are you happy to bring unsaved friends to your church? (Are people, such as homosexuals, conveniently preached at when they visit your church?)

25. Is there a diversity of classes, races, dress styles, ages, and occupations in your church?

26. Are people encouraged to hear from God for themselves?

27. Is there a single behavior standard for all people in the church? (Is everyone expected to be happy and blessed and have it all together? "To blessed to be stressed")

28. Are all types of people considered welcome at your church? (Are troublesome teens, minorities or those with behavioural issues loved and welcomed in your church?)

29. Is the joy of the Lord present in your church?

30. Are you free from fear in your church? (Do you feel free from the condemnation of others if you admit a failing in your life?)

31. Do you think more about God and Jesus than you do about your pastor and church? (Are you more concerned with what your Pastors would think than what God thinks?)

32. Does your pastor include himself in any calls for repentance and forgiveness? ********************************************************************************************

33. Are you clear that the pastors and elders never exaggerate or lie to make themselves look good?
34. Is your group encouraging of each other and free from gossip and rumoring?

35. Is there a humility of doctrine that points to the grace of God and His mercy for sinners? (Do you feel the need to be perfect or perform in your church?)

36. Are you encouraged to serve in ministries or missions outside the local body? (Are you strongly encouraged to volunteer in the church or made to feel guilty if you do not serve in church?)

Epilogue

Since leaving the church, it has come to my attention that many people, past friends and acquaintances of mine, were strongly encouraged not to have contact with me. Meetings were held where people were asked to divulge information about private conversations and essentially people were asked to gossip about all their dealings with me. People were also told various lies about me and there have been a few people, who have since left, who have informed me of these types of meetings that they were subjected to where I was lied about and they were asked to even speculate about my intentions.

The MO hasn’t changed. I was brought into numerous meetings, some more formal than others, while I was attending and employed on staff at my old church where I was asked to divulge personal information about people who had left the church, or even those who were still in attendance at the church but there was a problem with their behavior or attitudes. I was there for five years and the MO never changed, nor did I see any repentance for this type of required informant behavior.
If you are not aware, this type of behavior is indicative of every cult known to man. This is not a healthy type of behavior to have in God’s church.

I am going to list some lies that I have personally heard preached or insinuated, not just in the church where I was employed at, but other abusive churches as well. This list is taken from the book “Toxic Faith” written by Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton.
Toxic Beliefs:
1.When tragedy strikes, true believers should have a real peace about it.
2.God’s love and favor depend on my behavior and obedience.
3.If I have real faith, God will heal me or someone I am praying for.
4.All ministers are men and women of God and can be trusted.
5.Material blessings are a sign of spiritual strength.
6.The more money I give to God, the more money he will give to me.
7.“Faith without works is dead” I can work my way into heaven. I show my faith by the many volunteer hours that I serve.
8.Problems in my life result from some particular sin.
9.I must not stop meeting other’s needs. (or volunteering in the church)
10.I must always submit to authority and my Pastors are God’s authority and I am to honor and obey them always.

The Confrontation

Chris and I went and cleaned out my office the next day just as we said we would. When we got there at about four o’clock, the Pastor and Associate Pastor were waiting for us and we sat down for a meeting with the two of them. During the meeting I did confront the Pastor about the rumors that he had been spreading that I was mentally unstable and crazy and he admitted to my husband and I that he had indeed been saying those things. I also confronted him about his illegal treatment of me regarding being fired if I were to have gotten pregnant and his response to that confrontation, in his exact words were, “yeah, so? So what?”
After that point there was not much to say. He handed me my last check which only amounted to just over one week’s pay. I confronted him again when I saw the amount on the check about my promised vacation pay, and his response was that my vacation pay was not transferable from year to year. I then asked him where that was in the employee handbook. This is when I really got cheeky…because after that question about the handbook, I then responded, “oh, that’s right…there isn’t an employee handbook.” By that time, I was extremely angry, but I kept myself in check and I was determined not to fly off the handle because honestly, there’s just wasn’t any point in trying to bring correction to someone who doesn’t think they are ever wrong.
There is such a vast difference between making an illegal traffic violation and practicing illegal discrimination. His arrogant and cavalier attitude about being confronted with illegal employment practices and discrimination showed me that I’d be wasting my breath to try and confront him any further.
The meeting, of course, couldn’t have ended without some type of manipulation. The Pastor tried to confront me about the gossip that I had supposedly been spreading throughout the church. He lied and said that all of my friends and teammates had been calling him throughout the day to tell him about all the awful things that I had told them. This of course wasn’t true, but I later found out through a friend who was still willing to talk to me after I left that all of my acquaintances and friends had been called, taken out for breakfast or lunch, and questioned by the Pastors about what they knew about me. They had of course come up empty in their investigations and were trying to bluff their way into making me confess to who knows what.
During the meeting the Pastor also seemed extremely upset and obsessed with the fact that I had my husband come with me to both my resignation meeting and to this final meeting. During the meeting he kept bringing up that I needed my husband at my side for protection and that I was obviously scared of him. He kept referring to my husband, not by his name, but by “your muscle.” At least four different people told me after I had left that my husband’s presence had greatly troubled him and the Pastor was convinced that I was fearful of him. I brought my husband not as protection but as a deterrent for more manipulation. Plus, I wasn’t the only one leaving the church for ethical reasons; we both were.
By the end of the meeting, we all just sat there and stared blankly at one another. All of us were unsure of what to say. What was there to say? Finally, it was the Pastor who broke the silence with his comment that he wished us all the best, but just like in family, relationships can go very wrong. He ended the meeting with this, “you are dead to me and you are asked not to come back to this church.”
At that point Chris and I got up, walked out of his office and into my own. I grabbed what little personal belongings were left and we walked out. We never went back.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

My Last Day

I stood at the bottom of the stage and addressed the congregation without a microphone. I had checked my mic just before I had descended the stage only to find that my mic had already been muted. I wasn’t sure whether that was by the direction of the Pastor or if the sound tech was just being expedient about shutting things down. So from the base of the stage I addressed the people.
I never mentioned why I was leaving but I sincerely thanked them for the honor of allowing me to lead them in worship over the past three years. I blessed the church and I blessed the people with an admonition to go on in Christ and be fruitful and multiply.
Tears were running down my face as I spoke. So many of those people had become very dear to my heart and I knew I would miss them terribly. I was just as shocked as they were and I felt terrible that I couldn’t somehow soften the blow of my leaving or somehow save them from the abuses I knew many of them would endure if they stayed. I also knew that shortly, many of them would come to hate me as they were pumped full of the lies that I knew were to come.
The Pastor visibly relaxed as I stopped speaking and the Associate Pastor finally resumed his movement and picked up his Bible off of his chair. If I could have read their minds their thoughts may have been, “disaster averted, our secrets are still safe.”
I walked back to the door and joined the Pastor. I stood by the door as people filed past me either to leave or to hug my neck before going to the back to enjoy the cake. I kept reassuring the many people who expressed their concern that they were shocked by the suddenness of my departure that I would be there Wednesday to say goodbye. Many people expressed that they wanted to get me a gift and to give me a proper send off. Member after member asked me why I was leaving and I explained to each one that we were looking to move to Georgia. My Pastor stood there by my side as I spoke these assurances, never once informing me that, that day was my last day. He had purposely deceived me and the people of the church. He was setting me up to look like a liar.
By the time I reached the back most people had left and there were less than 20 people in the fellowship hall. By the time I got a chance to grab a piece of my good-bye cake the numbers had dwindled down to only those helping with the clean up. As I was taking my first bite of cake, that’s when the pastor informed me that this had been my last day and there was no need for me to attend church on Wednesday. He would have the praise team lead the worship.
I nearly choked on my cake as he then asked me to come in the next day and clean out my office. He informed me that they would be painting my office Tuesday in preparation for his wife to occupy the space.
I informed him that I wouldn’t be able to come and clean out my office until after Chris got out of work. There was no way I was going to go into the Lion’s den alone. The Pastors words and actions of that day were clear and showed his intent at further manipulation and deceit. I wasn’t going to play into his hands.
I finished my cake and made my way into my office and anyone that passed me could see I was hot with anger. I grabbed my stuff while Chris went and got the children and we left.

My Last Two Weeks - Or was it One?

After I turned in my resignation things just spiraled out of control. I was again told not to say anything to anyone in the church about my resignation. I was told that it was not my place to do so and to inform anyone would be dishonorable to him. So, I kept my resignation to myself, thinking of course, that he would let everyone know on Wednesday anyway. What was two days?
Our regular Tuesday night worship team practice came and the Pastor told the group and warned them not to discuss my leaving outside the team until the rest of the church had been told. Immediately, after the announcement two team members rushed to his side to request a conference with him. All I could see was glee on their faces and it turned my stomach. I could see that by leaving it meant greater favor and perks for those individuals who could in some way fill the vacant slot I was leaving behind. The scramble for my place of favor had begun.
After these individuals had their short meeting, I met one of them in the hallway as they were leaving his office. This person, whom I had once called a friend, couldn’t even look me in the eyes as she rushed past suddenly embarrassed that I had seen her. I knew enough about the inner workings in the church that whatever had been said behind the closed office doors hadn’t been good. I was certain that the parade of turncoats had just begun and it certainly wouldn’t stop with just one or two of my friends. It wasn’t long before the parade included every friend I had ever had while at that church, with the exception of the Youth Pastor and his wife.
Later that night, I received a shock when I saw my closest friend get called into the office. It was after that meeting that I began to see that even she was being “pulled to the dark side”.
I make a joke about it now, but the effects of manipulation are very real. The utter dependency that some people in the church have on their pastors is amazing. Abusive Pastors will knowingly manipulate people’s weaknesses and needs in order to extort from their subjects exactly what they want. In the case of my friend, turning against the Pastors meant that she would be cut off from her lifeline of financial support as she was going through a very tough time financially when all this happened to me. In retrospect, I almost don’t blame her for turning on me the way she did. To go against the Pastors would have meant that she would have lost everything, her family, financial support, her love of music, and even her identity of who she had become over the last 6 years. Losing all of that is a steep price to pay to stand with the truth rather than against injustice. Not everyone is strong enough to stand alone.
Wednesday came and went with no announcement and I was still being required to keep my resignation a secret. Friday came and I had a funeral to play for, but discovered that I had been locked out of all my church music sites so I had to write out all my music my ear and by hand. Also a large box mysteriously appeared in my office. When I asked the associate Pastor about the box he lied and said he didn’t know.
He’s a terrible liar and his face turns the color of a beet when he lies. It’s so obvious.
Sunday arrived and I managed to get through the service despite my butterflies that seemed to be churning butter within my stomach. Surely, today he would make the announcement.
It wasn’t until the very end of the service, after my closing song, as people were beginning to get up and leave that he finally made the announcement. He then invited everyone to join us for cake in the back. His whole announcement took less than two minutes and it was obvious to all that his blessings were utterly devoid of any sincerity.
As he walked to the back of the Sanctuary I walked off the stage and started to speak to the people. From the back of the room, I could see the death threats emanating from my Pastors face and the Associate Pastor paused, as if frozen, bending down to pick up his bible of his chair. Neither one moved as I spoke but I could see the tense muscles of the Associate Pastor like he was ready at any moment to tackle me and take me out if I dared to say anything derogatory. He needn’t have worried. I would have never had hurt my congregation in such a way. The Pastors may not have regarded me as a Pastor to that congregation but I knew God regarded me as a Pastor of that congregation. Woman or not, that congregation had been entrusted into my care by God. Every week, I opened the door as their faithful servant and ushered them into the presence of God.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

My Resignation Letter

Monday, October 19, 2009


Dear Pastor _______-,

It is with a saddened heart that I turn in my resignation effective Nov. 1st 2009.
Back in August, I had mentioned that my season here at ________ was coming to a close. Recently the Lord has confirmed for me the end of this season. So I must go as the Lord has directed me.

It was by God’s direction that I came here to ________ and it’s by God’s direction that I go. I’ll always be extremely grateful of the opportunities, love, direction, comfort and support that I received from both of you and from the church. The blessings have been wonderful and the journey has been amazing. The both of you gave me opportunity where I wouldn’t have had one. I’m so grateful that you saw in me something of worth even when I doubted my own worth and the call that God has placed in me. I know that my days here at________ were ordained of the Lord.

That is why this is so difficult. Through many weeks of prayer and Godly counsel, I firmly believe that God is directing me to step out in faith and travel down a new path. The Lord has spoken to me very specifically of things that He has called me to do in the upcoming months. This decision has been the most difficult one I’ve had to make up to this point in ministry. The difficulty comes not in saying yes to the Lord, but in saying goodbye to the both of you and to my church family.

I’m confident that if God is leading me on to something new and wonderful then the same is true for all of you. God will not take from one at the expense of another. I firmly believe that God has a wonderful Praise and Worship leader just waiting in the wings that will take _________ into its next season. I pray blessings on the both of you and upon the church. I love you all and pray for God to exceedingly bless you abundantly.

I would love to continue to lead the people in worship over the next two weeks if you would allow me that honor. I leave with no regrets or ill-feelings, only with blessing in my heart. I do ask that the church allow me to have my un-paid vacation pay as I never had the opportunity to take vacation time while I was here. It would be greatly appreciated.

I really believe that your best days are yet ahead and I will continue to keep in touch.

Sincerely and gratefully,
Malinda Shepard

October 2009 - Coming to the end

As the craziness was unfolding I had three people inside the church, besides my husband, who I confided in, the Youth Pastor and his wife, and one of my team members. With them I would discuss the issues as they arose and ask for advice and guidance. Outside of the church, I had my parents and eventually a professional counselor who gave free counseling to Pastors. If I hadn’t have had these people in my life at that time, lifting me up in prayer and keeping my confidence I would have gone crazy like the Pastors were saying I already was.

The situation was getting so out of control that my own Pastor informed a disgruntled praise team member that he was planning on firing me and had this person as a mole on my praise team to report back information to him. This person eventually felt bad and informed me of my Pastors plan.
The craziness had to end. There were secret meetings going on with plots being hatched behind closed doors. The Pastors wife kept coming to talk to me to persuade me that all this would stop if we just would say we weren’t going to have another baby and we’d stop looking for jobs out of state. She tried numerous times to convince me that I would be back in their good graces if I would just give in to God’s plan for my life. Over and over she told me that it was not God’s will for me to have another child or to leave that church. Every time she would talk to me it was with the stipulation that I not disclose to her husband that she had discussed this with me. She was trying desperately, however misguided, to try and make everything right.

I really felt sorry for her because she really had no idea how twisted everything had become. I knew of the plots against me and I wasn’t willing to roll over and sign over control of my life to my Pastors. The choice of whether or not Chris and I had a baby was ours, not theirs. I couldn’t see any other way but to take my last paycheck and run. There was no way to salvage the relationships that I had built over the last five years no matter how desperately I wanted to keep a hold of them. Soon the tidal wave of my ministry at that church would come crashing to the shore and demolish everything in its path. I almost felt powerless to stop it.

By October, I had been discussing with my confidants the likelihood that I would take my last paycheck, mail my resignation letter the Saturday before my cruise, and then cruise my way into oblivious bliss at the aftermath in my wake, never looking back. I was thinking of tucking tail and running. I knew this was wrong, but I had lost all faith in the decency of my Pastors to the right thing and pay me for the 5 weeks of vacation time that I was owed. The cruise that I was going on was the first actual vacation that my Pastors were going to allow me to go on in the three years that I had been employed there. Every other attempt at a day off had been denied. If I had wanted vacation time, it was required of me to take a vacation between Wednesday after church and Saturday evening, but only if I was going to be fresh and reenergized for service on Sunday. (It was customary for the Pastor to preach to the congregation against “playing too hard on Saturday” because being tired on Sunday meant that you weren’t giving your best to God on Sunday.)Thankfully, my confidants convinced me despite my fears and ever increasing anxiety that no matter how I was being treated that what I was considering was wrong.

By mid October, I had had enough and God finally pulled the trigger and the gun went off, signaling to me that it was time to go. God used a wonderful counsellor, who freely gave of her time to Pastors, as the sounding shot that spurred me into action. Her advice was clear. The church and the vast majority of its members were toxic and cult-like and it was time to cut my losses, turn in my resignation, trust God to sort out my vacation pay, leave, and never look back. She advised me to cut all ties to that church and those who wanted to continue their friendship with me would, but that I should leave the choice to them.

On October 19th, I turned in my resignation.

The Gossip Aftermath - I am not Crazy!

Immediately, after the meeting the Pastor and Associate pastors got on the phone and started a search for my replacement. Within twenty minutes I had gone from much loved co-worker to replaceable. It was like I wasn’t even valued or appreciated. The Pastor’s wife was the only one, out of the three, that expressed her desire that I stay and I would be sorely missed if I left. It was like a giant switch had been flipped and I suddenly found myself outside the circle of trust but the Leadership tried to feed me the illusion that I was still within the circle.
Within days the trickle of gossip started making its way back to me. I had been forbidden to tell anyone about the possibility of me moving and I had been informed that all leadership decisions were stripped away from me since I was leaving. Whenever I made a comment about “my team”, I was quickly informed that they were not “my team” anymore and I was only leading worship. From the moment of my informal resignation I was no longer a church leader, although no one outside of head Pastors and I were allowed to know.

Soon the gossip mill really started churning out some juicy tidbits about me. I heard things like that I had never been pregnant in the first place; that I had flipped out and gone unstable when I thought I was pregnant and then found out I was not. I also heard that my miscarriage had caused some sort of post partum which caused me to unhinge mentally. Every tidbit of gossip was entwined around my possible pregnancy and some mental instability. The most interesting thing about the gossip was I hadn’t shared my pregnancy or miscarriage with anyone in the church yet almost everyone in the core group of the church knew. It wasn’t until the rumors started floating back to me that I finally shared my miscarriage with my praise team, and during that time I begged them not to discuss it outside of the praise team because of the personal, sensitive nature of my tragedy. When I shared my loss with my team, they were there for me and lifted me up in prayer.

I wasn’t long after the gossip started getting back to me that the insinuations of my “mental instability” began from the pulpit. By the end of August things were unraveling at an ever quickening pace and by the first week in September I had become the latest target for the Pastors “teaching” examples. He spent half a sermon one Sunday preaching about my PMS and how he knew when my cycle was going to start every month by how I treated people and my children.

I was mortified! It took all my power not to burst out in tears and run out of the sanctuary crying. Here I was sitting in the front row as a Pastor in that church and my Senior Pastor was preaching about how unstable I was during the time before my menstrual cycle. He went on and on about how I would burst into tears at the most harmless of statements and how tedious it was to deal with my emotional instability. All I could do was sit there and endure it. I remember pretending to be extremely absorbed in my bible, searching for some obscure passage, like I wasn’t even aware that I was being discussed openly in front of over a hundred people. By the end of the service, I was a wreck.

I managed to play the closing song and I quickly made my way off the stage and made a beeline for my office so I could finally let the tears fall like they had been threatening to do for the past hour. A few people made their way to me as I descended the stage to express their sympathies and I heard a few people say they didn’t think those statements were true of me at all. They all let me rush past as I stammered something about needing to take care of something in my office. They could see the tears welling up in my eyes and so the few that had huddled around me let me retreat to the sanctuary of my office.

When I got there I locked the door, allowed myself to cry just for a minute. I then quickly fixed my make-up, applied my fake ‘everything is alright’ smile and made my way out of my office to collect my children and make my way of escape. Go figure, Chris had chosen that Sunday to stay at home so I had to endure all of this alone. As I left the building that day, I remember feeling a stirring in my heart that I only had to make it till November 1st. If I could make it till then, November 2nd, I could turn in my resignation, leave them all high and dry, and sail away on my planned cruise and have a week where no one could contact me, a week of peace. I could leave the church and never look back.

The Possible Move and My Required Informal Resignation

When I told Chris about the meeting he blew up. He was so angry and I found myself making excuses for my pastor’s behavior and begging Chris not to call him up or say something on Sunday. At that moment, Chris was wise enough to see that I needed his support and he shut his mouth. He saw that the hold my Pastors had over me was beginning to crumble and he was glad because that meant he would finally have his wife back.

We managed to get through my birthday dinner with the Pastors, although it was strained. We also managed to get through the next Sunday too. But the whole time the Lord was speaking to my heart, telling me it was time to move on. Chris was just waiting for me to say “let’s go” and we’d pack our bags and say goodbye to our little church of five years. Chris had known for some time that our church, and my relationship with my Pastors, was toxic and if something didn’t change soon it would have eventually destroyed our marriage. Chris had seen it where I had not and he had wisely kept silent, knowing I would never see the truth until I was ready and God showed me.

During that time there had been rumors at Chris’ work that layoffs were a possibility. Higher management had not been doing their jobs and had not secured any work for my husband’s department to do for months. They sat there every day doing nothing.
Doing nothing is very hard for a man and so the lust to do something else started creeping into my husband’s bones. That lust was contagious too. Soon, with the help of the Holy Spirit, I began to see that leaving was what God wanted me to do. But in my own strength, I reasoned that “moving” was the right thing to do.

At the time, I didn’t know how very bad things were going to become but I knew, based on previous experience, that no one left our little church on good terms. If a person left the church, they were excommunicated from the church and they were bashed and gossiped about. It didn’t matter if the individual was family or not. I had personally witnessed where the Pastors own family members were given the silent treatment, threatened, expelled from the church, and humiliated with gossip. I was not going to let that happen to me. The only way anyone ever left on good terms, without the humiliating treatment, was if they moved, preferably out of state. Chris and I knew both knew this and so, to spare me the humiliation of the gossip mill, moving somewhere else became our quest. Anywhere was better than here.

Chris soon found a job in Montana that he thought he was qualified for, in the same pay range as what he was currently making, so he applied. We strategized about what we would do with the house and we started making plans. If it wasn’t Montana it was going to be somewhere else. The somewhere else where we were hoping to go was Georgia, close to our good friends who had moved there not too long before.

Since we were making all these plans and moving seemed inevitable, I decided that the right thing to do was to inform my Pastors of the possibility of us leaving. I never would have expected their reactions.

It was a Wednesday after one of our staff meetings that I decided to broach the subject of us moving. I explained how Chris had been doing nothing at work for months and that the job security just wasn’t there, so he had applied for a job in Montana. My Pastor’s response was to immediately announce that he would start looking for my replacement right away and as soon as he found someone else I would be fired.

I was completely shocked. Why would I be fired? I tried to ask him these questions as I again sat there dumbfounded with tears streaming down my face. His response was the same one as just three weeks before.

“It is unfair of you to hold me and the church hostage. What if Chris get’s this job? You could be gone in two weeks and I would be left scrambling to find a replacement?”

My response was, “What if he doesn’t get this job and we end up staying here in Panama City?”

“Well, it sounds to me that you guys have already been making plans and I cannot leave this church to the off chance that you are staying. You still haven’t gotten back to me about whether or not you and Chris are going to have another baby. With the possibility of a baby and you guys moving, my hands are tied. You have left me no choice but to immediately start looking for your replacement and as soon as I find one you will be relieved of your duty. Every person in this church is replaceable. As the pastor, I’m replaceable. The associate Pastor is replaceable, and you are replaceable. This is God’s church and it will go on without you or me. No matter how good you are and have been for this church, you are replaceable.”

“But why not wait until we even know if this is a real possibility or not? Even if Chris does get this job why not wait until then, because Chris and I already discussed leaving me and the kids behind for a time so he could find us a place to live. We did that once before when we moved down here to Florida.”

“Husbands and wives always want to be together and let’s face reality…Are you really gonna want Chris up there in Montana, alone, without you, so he can end up cheating on you? This is just how it’s gotta be. As soon as find a replacement for you, you’ll be out of a job.”

That was not how I thought that conversation was going to go at all! I had expected some rational thinking but instead I got a touch of hysterics and a lot of anger. At that point, I wished I had kept my mouth shut and kept our plans to ourselves, but little did I know that it was all in God’s hands. God’s prompting me to alert my Pastors to the possibility of us moving, and their reactions, was exactly what I needed to tear away the last scale from my eyes so that I could see the truth. After that day, it was like I was seeing the truth for the first time. Every time I turned a corner it was like God was directing my gaze to the piles of garbage and dung, the junk, the religion, the traditions and selfishness of man that God never intended to be associated with His church. Every time I looked around and God showed me another portion of truth, He was confirming in my heart that it was time to leave. I had my running shoes tied tight, and all I was waiting for was God’s commanding shout that would start me running.

“GO!”

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The Beginning of the End - Part 3

I got up that Tuesday, July 28th, with a heaviness in my heart that just wouldn’t seem to lift. I rolled over, pulling the covers over my head knowing that I would eventually have to get up and make my way to the church like every other Tuesday before this particularly dismal one. It wasn’t a dismal Tuesday because of the condition of the weather; it was a dismal Tuesday because of the condition of my heart. I knew that today I would have to face people. The people I didn’t want to face were my Pastors, any of them. I hoped as I got up and got ready that I could drag myself through the day with minimal human contact and just make it through. This prayer would go unanswered.
I arrived at the church, expecting to find, like I had on almost every other Tuesday with minimal crew. Instead I was surprised and dejected to see that my Pastors were there waiting for me. I barely had time to unlock my office door before I heard a call from the Pastor’s office bidding me to join them for a meeting. Dread gripped my heart like a vice as I placed my purse within my office and made my way to the “Principal’s office”.
Tears were already running down my cheeks as I entered the office. I knew that they were all there to discuss me. They had only been waiting for me to arrive. My hope was that they were there to be a comfort to me as I desperately needed some comfort. I sat down on the cool, brown leather couch next to the Pastor’s wife and curled into her waiting arms as I openly wept now. I could barely form a reply as the Pastor began by asking, “You knew that we’d have to discuss what happened, didn’t you?” He asked that as if I had somehow done something wrong. I nodded my acknowledgement as my tears continued to soak the Pastor’s wife’s shirt. He then began the meeting.
“In times past the Holy Spirit has taught me to nip things in the bud before they become large issues and the Holy Spirit has directed me to nip this in the bud” (I’m paraphrasing of course. It’s almost impossible to remember word for word of what he said) “The issue that I see before me is that if you choose to become pregnant again that I will have no choice but to look for your replacement.”
As he said that it was like an electric shock jolted through my mind, two words pierced through the fog of my grief; “that’s illegal”. I didn’t speak the shocking words that had just forced their way to the forefront of my mind and I have wished a thousand times that I had. It was like the numbness of my grief had just been magnified 1000 times and I was too numb to comprehend what was going on.
He went on to explain how he just couldn’t see how it would work with me being pregnant and working at the church. As he explained at how impossible it was, he was painting the picture of a barefoot pregnant woman, incapable of leading worship because of the image that she presented to the congregation. He kept speaking of all the hardships of pregnancy, morning sickness, frequent potty breaks and possible complications and how all those would keep me from being dependable and able to perform the duties of my job. He kept explaining how the “barefoot and pregnant” image would just distract the people instead of lead them into worship.
His wife soon chimed in with concerns about how Chris and I would care for a child on only one income. How would we pay for daycare once the baby was born because I wasn’t going to be able to bring that baby to the church like I had with my other two children? (Aliya was 3 and Brendan was 5 when I had started working at the church and had accompanied me every day to work) Reason after reason was placed before my mind as they tried to convince me that to have another child was foolishness.
After all the reasons were so logically placed before me then the attacks began. It started with questions like “I thought you didn’t want to have any more kids?” “Just a few months ago I heard you say that you were done having children and didn’t want to do the baby thing again.” I tried desperately to explain that I had always wanted to have a third child but at the time Chris had been on the fence about it. I tried to tell them that I always thought God meant us to have three children. I felt like it was a promise from God to me. That explanation was followed by a shocking statement from the Pastor’s wife.
“I don’t think that it’s God’s will for you to have another child.”
The Pastor followed that statement with, “It was probably your statements of doubt and unbelief of whether or not you wanted another child, which I’ve heard come from your mouth, which caused this miscarriage in the first place.”
That statement just sent me into another bout of tears. The guilt and condemnation of that statement washed over me as I began to comprehend that maybe my lack of faith, like my Pastor was telling me, had killed my child. My mind was reeling with guilt, but I knew in my heart that statement couldn’t be true. I knew enough of my Heavenly Father’s love to know that my lack of faith was not the cause. My faith, or lack thereof, did not murder my baby. Lies are powerful but the truth is much more.
As my mind was spinning from the comments of condemnation consoling statements started pouring forth from my Pastor. (I want to include that the Associate Pastor sat through this entire meeting saying almost nothing the whole time. He was there as a witness yet never spoke up to defend me.)The Pastor sighed as he began to speak, almost as if to deal with all of my tears was exhausting to him somehow. He began by telling me how valued and talented I was and that “they just couldn’t bear to lose me as a worship leader.” Compliment after compliment was laid at my feet to try and persuade me against having another child. He even told a story about how his sister had been such an intricate part of his business, years past, and how she had managed the office for him and his dad. But then she left for her own selfish reasons (to have her son which was born mentally handicapped) and because of it their business had seriously suffered. His implication was that my selfishness in wanting another child could cause harm to the church (or mentally handicapped, depending on how you took his implicating words). He ended the meeting with this:
With a look of utter exhaustion on his face he said, “Malinda, I’m giving you a choice. You can choose to have another baby and we’ll support you in that decision and we’ll find a replacement for you. We will of course love you no matter what decision you make and if you have a baby we’ll love that baby like our own grandchild. But the moment that I suspect and find out you’re pregnant, I’ll start looking and interviewing your replacement.”
I was astonished that he wouldn’t wait to search for my replacement until I was in my third trimester since I wouldn’t be allowed to work after I had had the baby and I expressed that to him. His response was, “it is unfair of you to hold me and the church hostage, in hopes that your pregnancy is an easy one.”
“Malinda, I’m giving you the choice and I’ll support you in whatever you do.”
I rushed to him at this point, hugging his neck, thanking him for allowing me the choice.
The sick part of it all was I actually felt grateful that he allowed me the right to choose my life for myself. At the time I felt overwhelmed and grateful to be given the opportunity to make a choice for myself when it was already a “right” that I had in my possession, which was the power to choose. I hadn’t realized it at the time but slowly every choice that I had made over the last few years was actually being made for me by my Pastors. Since most of my “rights” to choose had been stripped away, why not the power to choose whether I had another child and continued to work. If they could get away with pregnancy and gender discrimination, take away my choices and keep me in subjugation to them, why not?

The Beginning of the End - Part 2

As that week went on my body began to tell me that something was wrong, yet again, with this pregnancy. I was already over 5 weeks at that point and I had waited till this point to take a test for the very reason I suspected what was going on with my body at that moment. By Friday, at almost 6 weeks, I knew that I would lose this little life too and he or she would join the others in the arms of my Savior before I even got to have the joy of their presence in my arms. When Sunday morning came, my body began the process of shedding the life that I had so desperately hoped for. Six weeks to the day.
I managed to get to the church with minimal tears that Sunday morning and I remember breaking down at the first face I saw. I could no longer hold in my grief. The Youth Pastor and Associate Pastor were there in the sound booth and immediately, as I explained what had happened they began to pray for me. The Youth Pastor prayed first and prayed for my comfort and for the baby that I had lost, but as the Associate Pastor began to pray there was a discernable difference between how the Youth Pastor prayed and how the Associate Pastor prayed. As the Associate Pastor began to pray I got the distinct impression that he didn’t believe that I had been pregnant. His prayer was almost like he was detached from the reality of what was going on. I can’t say that it was devoid of sympathy, but the tone of the prayer was like he was sympathetic to what I “thought” was happening in my life not to the “reality” of what was happening in my life. His view of reality and my reality were two different things. It wasn’t until weeks later that I figured out why there was such a discrepancy.
After this time of prayer, I managed to get through our regular Sunday morning practice with no tears and I made my way to the Pastor’s office for my Sunday morning “hello”. When I reached his office, he already knew of the circumstances because the Associate Pastor had already told him. I was expecting concern when I walked in the door, instead all I received was “I know you’ve had a tough morning, but put on a happy face and go lead the people”. Put on a happy face. Was he kidding? I was too numb from grief to respond. I mumbled something as I ducked out of his office and slunk into my office to hide for the next hour before service and try and keep myself composed. I led the people that morning just like I was told to do. God had my back where my Shepherds had not.
It’s only by the grace of God that I got through the service, or through the day, but I did it without anyone else knowing, outside the leadership and my family, of what had transpired. I thought the worst would be over as I went to sleep that night but I was wrong. I had gone through this before and survived. I would go through the grief again and it would lessen just like it had the four other times before. Little did I know that the pain and agony had just begun and those I thought loved me and supported me would be the inflictors of that pain, twisting my grief and prolonging it, impeding my healing.

July 2009 - The Beginning of the End

I’ve been avoiding doing this all week. It’s hard to write about tragedy. It’s even harder to write about loss. This part of my story is about one of the lowest times in my life. In a short time, I lost a baby, a family and my sense of belonging. It was like someone had suddenly pulled the rug out from underneath my feet and I was falling for what seemed like forever, the ground just an illusion. It seemed like the pain wouldn’t stop and the people inflicting the pain, with twisted faces, enjoyed my torment. Through it all, I was expected to keep a joyful smile on my face and pretend like nothing was wrong. So here it is, finally, my story of the beginning of the end.
July 2009 started out as an exciting month for me. I had just come home from a mission’s trip to Trinidad and Tobago a few weeks before and there was an expectation in the air at our house. Literally. My husband and I had been talking on and off for months about possibly trying to have another baby and we weren’t exactly being careful about preventing a pregnancy since we were discussing the possibility. My only fear about trying for a baby was the possibility of miscarriage. At this point, I’d already had four miscarriages.
It was during the Vacation Bible School that I began to suspect that I was pregnant. It was too early to test at this point but all the early signifying symptoms were beginning to show up. The weirdest symptom was my incredible sense of smell. I could literally smell every man in the room, distinctly. It was like I suddenly had the nose of a blood hound. Every man I came into contact with smelled musty and gross and even my husband’s smell turned my stomach. It didn’t matter if the man was wearing cologne, if he was male, he made my stomach turn sour and I had to control the urge to upchuck my lunch. As soon as this strange symptom presented itself, I started sleeping on the couch and avoiding all men like some kind of stinky plague. I’m sure at the time I offended more than a few men as I wrinkled my nose every time they came near. My husband was not the only offended one, I am sure.
Besides the weird blood hound sense of smell, I had the normal early warning signs of pregnancy and I was optimistically hopeful. Vacation Bible School came and went and I stumbled my way through it, bleary eyed from yet another pregnancy symptom, fatigue. As the end of the month drew closer and I was becoming more certain of my new expecting status, I dropped a slight hint to my Pastor and I was surprised by his reaction.
It was a typical Sunday morning and I had poked my head into my Pastor’s office to say my customary good morning greeting (he got upset with me once and talked to me about how his feeling got hurt when I didn’t say hi to him on Sunday mornings) when my Pastor asked me a strange question. He asked me if there was any news that I had to tell him. I remember trying to conceal my smile as I quickly walked to the door and announced, “Maybe in a week or two. I’m not sure yet”. As I passed through the doorway, I suddenly remembered a question that I needed to ask him so I quickly turned, pivoting on one foot, placed my hands on the door frame and poked my head inside the door. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words dried up instantly in my throat at what I saw.
There sat my Pastor with his head shaking as he placed his head in his hands, an obvious gesture of disappointment. The Associate Pastor sat down as I watched and stretched his hand across the pastor’s desk. My Pastor suddenly looked like he had aged ten years and was fatigued by my announcement that obviously confirmed his suspicions. Neither of them saw me as I slipped as quietly as I could back into my own office. Once there, I pressed my ear up to my wall to try and hear what was being discussed on the other side, but the two Pastors were being purposeful in their conversation so as to not be heard. They had closed the door and I could hear them whispering but could not make out the words of what was being spoken. I speculated that the topic of conversation was me.
I was perplexed and disappointed that my Pastor, the man I thought of as my second father, would be so disappointed that I might be pregnant. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend why. His own daughter-in-law, the children’s Pastor, had been trying to conceive for months. Why wouldn’t my Pastor be happy for me? If I was like a daughter to him, why would she and I be different from one another? Why would it be ok for her and not for me?

Sunday, April 24, 2011

You are Now Entering the Blogging Zone


This morning my pastors blessed me with a gift card as a thank-you for my service towards helping them with their church. They had struggled initially with purchasing the gift card for me because my loving Pastors have been walking with me, every step, as I blog my way into more healing, and away from Spiritual Abuse. They read every post that I write and look forward to each post as I openly speak about the hurt, abuse, good times and low times that I went through. Because they have joined alongside me in my journey they are sensitive as to where I have been, but they aren’t afraid of my wounds and they don’t care that I wear my scars proudly as a proclamation that I am no longer the condemned but the free. There is no condemnation from them about where I have been and how I have been treated at the hands of others like I have received from others before them. For that unconditional love and acceptance, I am grateful.

To some church leaders a hurt, bruised, and abused church member is someone who is only to be treated with caution. I’ve heard the cautionary phrase, “hurt people, hurt people” one too many times from the mouths of church leaders that somehow seems to disqualify an individual as useful to the body of Christ. Too many times the bruised and wounded in Christ end up being our homeless in Christ as they wander from church to church looking for somewhere to call home. I encourage you reader to be like those who open their arms to the homeless, the bruised, the battered, the wounded warriors in Christ, both in the physical and the Spiritual. It is time that we, the church, started acting like we are the church, and as ambassadors of Christ, open the doors of the embassy, which is our hearts, to the wounded and hurting of this world.
This is a shout-out to my Pastors….You have now entered my Blogging Zone…(cue the sci-fi music)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Blessings I Received


Before I get into all the nitty, gritty, nasty stuff that was really at the center of the spiritual abuse cake, the icing and the sprinkles too, I want to reflect upon the blessings that I did receive while I was at my old church.
I received a few things that were invaluable to me and I’d like to express that not everything was awful and terrible at that church. If there weren’t some good times, and every day that I spent there was unbearable, I wouldn’t have stayed. The problem was more with the underlying sludge that was at the bottom of their river of intentions. The water seemed relatively clear on the surface until you stepped into the middle of the river and your feet sank into two feet of river sludge, squishing and oozing between your toes as your feet sank deeper and finally getting logged, vacuum sealed in a thick blanket of muck. It was the things that I found at the edge and surface of the river that caused me to stay. There was that constant hope that the good things that I experienced would not be tainted by the sludge. Some of the good things I received did get a little mucky, but with God’s help I’ve been able to wash off the mud and continue on.
One thing that I did receive was an opportunity to walk into the ministry that God had called me into. Not many churches or church leaders would have given me the opportunity to lead worship and develop my gifts the way they did. God used them to grant me the opportunity to grow as a worship leader and as a minister and for that I am grateful.
Through that church I was also able to attend Bible School. Had I not been there I probably would have never received the opportunity to continue my education in the field that is closest to my heart. I probably would have never pursued the education on my own either. God again used them to help me to grow and succeed in my goals to become a minister.
At the beginning of the ministry, when the sludge wasn’t quite so deep, I did receive a lot of good teaching that helped me learn to stand upon the Word of God. I learned to trust God in that church. That is one more way that God used them to impact my life. At one time, that church was also like a family to me, dysfunctional as it was. When I had no close family to rely on they were there for me. They would buy us groceries when we were financially struggling and kept encouraged me when things were tough and Chris and I were struggling in our marriage. So there again, God used them to help support me.
The problem never lied with the good things that they did for me and my family, like helping us out financially, helping me through school, caring for our kids, giving me an opportunity to grow in my callings and giftings, or supporting me like a family would. The problem was they received, and kept for themselves, the glory of doing those things for us. Not too long after I left the church I received a phone call from the Pastor’s wife and the main theme of the conversation was the long list of things that they had done for us. It was almost like an accounts payable list. Apparently, I hadn’t settled my tab when I left. I guess five years of ministry and servitude wasn’t enough.
The downfall of a ministry always starts when we start taking the glory of our accomplishments and heaping it upon ourselves instead of placing the glory where it rightly belongs, at the feet of God. I’ve accomplished a lot of good things in my life, but I also know that I could have done none of it without God having my back.
So to end this post, I just want to give the glory to God and say “thank-you Father for leading me to that church where I received so much blessing and thank-you for leading me out of that church so I could receive so much more. Thank-you Lord for moving upon their hearts to encourage me and bless me when I needed it most. Thank-you for leading others to take their place, as encouragers and supporters, that will help me to continue to grow and to follow Your call and Your will. Thank-you for teaching me what it means to be a disciple and minister of Christ that is motivated by love and compassion. All I can say is thank-you.”

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Issue of the Tithe Part 2


Every Sunday and Wednesday, the Pastor, Associate Pastor, or the Pastor’s son would stand up to say a little something about the tithe and pray over it. The elected person for that particular service would usually speak for about 10 minutes or more and it would sound something like this: “At this church you never hear a sermon about the tithe like one of those other churches down the street . Here we give because we love God. Turn in your Bibles to Malachi 3:8
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.
“Folks, it is wrong to rob God. God also says in this portion of scripture to test Him in this. Pay your tithes; make your tithe the first check you write every month. Give God your first fruits of your labor, that first 10%. I do. Do this and see if God won’t open up the floodgates of heaven and bring you a new job if you need one. Test Him and see if He won’t give increase and favor in your workplace, and bring you increase in your home life and divine ideas that you can put your hand to, to help you be blessed to be a blessing. Test God and see. Now, you don’t have to do this but I made a promise before God that I would never come before Him without an offering to give. This is between you and God, but I will give an offering, above and beyond my tithe, to God today because why?”…and the congregation would automatically respond… “Because we Love Him”
The tithing message would continue, sometimes with a testimony thrown in. Malachi 3:8 was the most commonly used verse to reinforce the tithe. Despite their claim that the tithe was never preached in that church it was preached every service with a good helping of condemnation thrown in. If you didn’t catch the manipulation, it’s there under the surface with the implanted idea that if you don’t tithe and give offerings that you are robbing God, you don’t love Him, and you will be cursed. Some other subtleties within the message are: Tithe to be blessed, tithe first-pay bills later, and give an offering if you really love God and as a way to get into his presence.

Issue of the Tithe

From the beginning of my employment, the tithe was a constant staff conversation. The topic of the tithe was particularly popular when there was an issue that involved the worship team or its members.
On my team there were a few individuals, who I was informed of by my Pastor, who did not tithe. Whenever these “non-tithing” individuals would express their concerns or opinions the leadership would respond with a “their opinion doesn’t matter because they don’t support the church with their tithe” attitude. It didn’t matter that these individuals practiced 4 hours a week at the church for two services that only amounted to about an hour’s worth of playing time, or that these team members rarely, if ever, missed a service and loved what they did. The louder these “non-tithers” complained the more the leadership discussed the likelihood of establishing a no-tithe, no-play policy.
I was never an advocate for this rule and always tried to skirt the issue, which of course gave the leadership the impression that I was a weak leader, but by that time I knew better than to openly oppose the leadership in any way. In my opinion, the tithe is a very personal thing between the individual and God. Any Pastor who keeps track of who tithes and how much they give as a way of keeping a checklist of spirituality, dependability, or worth of an individual within their congregation is legalistic and abusive. It wasn’t until 2009 that I saw just how closely the leadership was keeping tabs on people’s tithes, particularly mine.
My husband and I typically paid our tithe in one lump sum around the 15th of every month. We had been doing it that way for months. At the beginning of August my husband and I had decided that it was time for us to leave the church. We didn’t know how and we didn’t know when. All we knew was that we hoped it meant taking a job out of state and that is exactly what we were trying to do. When we made that decision we also felt lifted from our obligation to tithe to the church. Because of the situation that was quickly developing (I will explain in a later post) we no longer felt that we could financially support the church so when the 15th rolled around we didn’t write our customary check. Later that month we wrote a small check, but it was less than a quarter of what we usually paid as our tithe. After that, we no longer paid our tithes to the church.
Around the first week of September, during a random discussion about the worship team, the Pastor again mentions that there are “certain individuals” on my worship team that are not tithing as they should. I remember that as he said the words “certain individuals” he was wearing his reading glasses and he lowered his chin and looked over the top of the rims as he said those words. It was evident that he was speaking about me. He then went on to explain that by not tithing that these individuals were in jeopardy of not receiving their full blessing from God and if they were struggling financially they should always pay their tithe first and let God provide the rest. I walked away from the conversation fully knowing what individuals, me and my husband, he was talking about. I walked away letting him think I didn’t have a clue as to what he meant, but inside I was seething. I had just witnessed one more manipulation tactic and method of control, but by this time God was letting me see the ugly truth and the truth of the matter really stank.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Staff meetings


After the Youth Pastor came on staff at our church, bi-weekly staff meetings became a regular thing. We would sit down on a Wednesday, eat lunch, and give updates on each of our departments. The Updates were never really updates, but were more like glorified gossip sessions. We were all expected to openly discuss people that were causing problems within our departments. Then we would all analyze and discuss what their problems could possibly be; the outcome of our discussions usually resulted in the problem person not being “in line” enough with God and the vision of the church. Most of the time a problematic person’s behaviors were not the result of a faulty church policy or leadership issue, the issue was always with the problematic person. We would then discuss how to fix the problem and that usually meant discussing the possibility of removing the person from their volunteer position.

Removing people from their volunteer positions rarely happened but the threat of doing so was always used as a manipulation tool during meetings with the individuals. If a church member didn’t serve and volunteer with a smile on their face, and dared to complain, it would result in a trip to the “principal’s office”. It’s always sad when a congregation jokes openly about going to the Principal’s office when referring to a meeting with the Pastor.

The only time our staff meetings weren’t based on gossip is when there was a reprimand from the Pastor. The Pastor began to use staff meetings to openly humiliate and reprimand either the youth Pastor or myself in front of the group. This was another manipulation tool to get us to tow the line.

On one such meeting, I was caught totally unaware that I had made an error as came into the crosshairs during one of “those” reprimand staff meetings. The Pastor began the meeting discussing how certain staff or staff members had failed to respect him by not doing what he had asked of them. He glared at me as he spoke, and never took his eyes off of me as he went on with his tirade. He kept going on and on about how he was disrespected and that this staff member obviously did not respect him as the leader of this church. This staff member needed to remember that the “anointing flowed from the head down”, and if they could not get in line, they would not be blessed and they would be fired as well.

At first I was stunned and my mind went into a tailspin as I desperately tried to remember what task I had been asked to do and had failed to perform. Finally, it came to me about half-way through the tirade, after I had already started to sob openly in front of the group. It was a song that he had asked me to learn about two weeks prior and I had yet to even bring it before the team to practice it. My failing to learn the song wasn’t because I was intentionally disobeying him; it was because I could not locate the music for the song anywhere. I had asked him for a copy of the song so I could learn the song by ear and write it out for my team on at least two different occasions, but he had never given me a copy of the song. I couldn’t learn a song I didn’t have access to.

The tirade kept going as I tried to stammer out an apology for my over sight. I hadn’t meant to disrespect him or the other Pastors as he had stated, and as I sobbed out my apology four other staff members sat there like stone statues as I was openly shamed and humiliated. I sobbed through the rest of the meeting as it continued to go on around me. Not once was I acknowledged after that point of my humiliation. When it ended, I left the meeting for the refuge of my office and sobbed some more. Soon after, it was time for me to go and get my children from school and all the way there I continued to cry, resting my head on my steering wheel at stoplights to hide my tears from curious motorists. I had never been so openly humiliated and I soon began to wonder how the youth Pastor had endured so many of these open reprimands. To have that happen behind closed doors is one thing, but in front of the other staff was more than I could endure.

Later that day, after all the other staff were busy in their offices, or had left to do some errands before the service, the Youth Pastor slipped into my office and asked me if I was OK. No one else on staff even bothered.

Things that Make You Go Hmmm

Things continued to get stranger between the Pastors and me. The Pastor would introduce me to people as his daughter and the Pastor’s wife would sometimes introduce me as the girl who my husband considers to be his adoptive daughter. The Pastor’s wife was constantly bringing to my attention how many times her husband discussed me at home. He would discuss my wardrobe, my talent, and how much he loved me like a daughter. When I preached a 12-week series on healing for a video bible school that we were producing, I found out that the Pastor had taken home most of my videos and watched them. His son had also preached a 12 week series and he didn’t watch his own son’s videos. When I found that out I thought it was very strange, but I hoped it was a sign that I would soon be allowed to preach from the pulpit occasionally. Looking back on it now it is easy to see the pattern of inappropriate behavior that was developing, but at the time each incident seemed isolated from the other. The only thing I knew was that I had become very isolated from my own parents and my Pastors had become their replacements. I was loved and accepted and that was all that seemed to matter. I even began to call my pastor, Dad. He even announced to his sons while I was standing there that he had included me in his will.

Gift Cards


With each special occasion that occurred, either at the church or within my personal life, it soon became customary while I was on staff at the church for me to receive lavish gift cards for Dillard’s from the Pastor and his wife. If we were having a series of special meetings at the church with guest speakers, I would receive a gift card so that I could purchase new clothes for the event. My anniversary at getting hired on at the church was also celebrated by a gift card to Dillard’s. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas and the occasional just because bonus was usually celebrated using a Dillard’s gift card. The amount of the gift card was never less than two hundred dollars and I gladly accepted those fabulous cards as I filled my arms with much loved designer labels that I could have never afforded without those monetary pieces of plastic in hand. But with each card there was always a stipulation. I was not allowed to buy anything with those gift cards for my children or for my husband. After each card was spent I would be asked to confirm whether or not the entire amount was spent on me alone. I was also expected to wear those clothes right away. That part never bothered me so much because being the girly girl that I am I would of course wear my newest items of clothing at the soonest opportune moment. I would sometimes leave the store wearing my newest favorite item. But the request, had I really looked at it, would have been considered inappropriate at the time.

I do remember one incident where a gift card was given to me and the Pastors wife didn’t know about it. It was October of 2008 and we were going to be having a series of camp meetings and the Pastor had invited a few influential guest speakers to attend and minister at the event. A few days prior to the event a Dillard’s gift card was again placed into my hands and there was an added stipulation that the clothes were not to be worn before the Camp meeting. He expressed his desire that I look professional and trendy and to keep that in mind as I made my purchases.

Wednesday service rolled around and I could not help myself as I decided to disobey his stipulation that I not wear any of my new clothes before the Camp meetings. As I got ready for work that day I chose to wear one of the items that was part of an ensemble. I chose to wear a green and white tiered Liz Claiborne skirt that I had purchased just the day before. I slipped on the skirt, gave it spin, and made my way to the church. The Pastor’s wife upon seeing me immediately commented that she liked my skirt and so my response was that it was one of the items that I had purchased the day before with my Dillard’s gift card. I hugged her neck and profusely thanked her for her generosity in giving me, yet another, gift card. As I pulled away from her I noticed something strange, although she tried hard not to show it. Her face showed shock and bewilderment. She hadn’t known about the gift card that had been given to me.

At the time, I didn’t think much of her reaction other than it was an oversight on her husband’s part, but that day was the beginning of some very strange conversations between the Pastor’s wife and me.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

New Youth Pastor


June 2008 also marked a time of excitement for the church because we now had a youth pastor. It had been almost two years that the kids had gone without one. It also meant that I could possibly have friends within the leadership outside of the Pastors and Associate Pastor. At this time, I was really feeling the pressure of constantly being scrutinized by my Pastors. If I said anything to the Associate Pastor he would go and convey it to the Senior Pastor. Everything I ever said, even to the core members of the church, went up the chain of command. Within the church there was an informant hierarchy that no one could escape from. Nothing was kept in confidence within the walls of that church.
Soon after the Youth Pastor and his wife joined our dysfunctional leadership team, I quickly felt extremely sorry for them. The Leadership was constantly nagging the young man for everything. This young man was reprimanded for everything and for nothing. The long list of complaints against him seemed endless. His suit was wrinkled, his shoes had paint on them, he missed a spot while painting the youth room, the darkening screen had fallen off the door and didn’t he know that meant someone could see into the building and steal our equipment, his wife was too quiet, she didn’t dress right, she wasn’t engaging enough with the kids, he couldn’t play the guitar well enough…. The list of complaints went on and on and the longer the list got the more I desired to reach out to them.
I started keeping my steamer and lint brush in my office just to help the two of them pass the “physical appearance” hurdle every Sunday morning. It wasn’t like these two were sloppy people because they weren’t, but it was like the Leadership had it out for them from day one. There was nothing these two could possibly ever get right in their eyes.
The constant rebukes that these two faced only increased my compassion towards them and it wasn’t long before the three of us had formed a bond of friendship. I had their back and they had mine. Within the confines of our friendship there was the knowing that these two would keep my confidence.

Graduation Part 2

My parents had made the long eighteen hour drive down from Canada to see me graduate, and that should have been a great time with my family but it wasn’t. I was still required to work and was not allowed any time off. By this time I had just accepted the fact that I was a permanent fixture to the church’s decor and I made excuses for my Pastors as to why I couldn’t afford the time off. I remember my mom being just a little upset that I couldn’t even take the Wednesday night service off to visit with her. I also remember my Pastor speaking his frustration too. His frustrated musings went something like this, “Doesn’t she know how important you are to this church? How can she expect you to take time off when there is no one else who can do what you do? I think your mother is actually upset and angry because she is jealous of you. After all, have you heard her actually say that she was proud of you for completing Bible School?” These are the types of things that I heard for most of my parents visit. These frustrated musings did not stop when they left either.
My Parents quickly became the focus of my Pastors concerns and I was often asked to speak at length about the relationships that had with my parents. These conversations would always end with their exclamation of how they could not believe how my parents were not proud of me. Seeds of how my mother was obviously jealous of me were constantly being planted and the seed that was watered the most was the one that I was their adoptive daughter. They were my new parents and they were proud of me. Slowly, it was like my parents were weeded out of my life by my pastors constant demeaning of them and the relationships that I had with my family. My family was slowly being replaced by my Pastors.

Graduation


June of 2008 was a month of sweet relief. Graduation. It marked the end of my school journey where I had done what no other in my class had done. I had done the work of the ministry and gone to Bible School. I ended up graduating only one tenth shy of the valedictorian and boy, was I glad for that one tenth. I was proud of my accomplishment but the church had invited key people to speak at the graduation and I had the task of making sure that the music was perfect and I only was able to play during half of it. I couldn’t have been valedictorian and do all that I was already doing.
When my mom was told of my one tenth deficit she was actually a little miffed that I hadn’t been recognized for my accomplishment. At that point, I could have cared less. I was just glad to be done.
Bible School had been incredibly tough on me. I had facilitated the classes faithfully and because of it I had been yelled at, abused, and had rumors spread about me by angry students. All of this was because as the facilitator I was required to enforce the rules. My position as Class Facilitator threatened the delicate balance of my position as Worship Pastor on a continuous basis. I was not liked.
What did not help that position was the constant indoctrination of beliefs from the leadership that I should keep myself set apart from my team and from the congregation. The leadership firmly believed that in order to be a good leader, that leader was not friends with whom they led. They believed that the minute that a leader became friends with members of the congregation that is the minute that the respect for the position and respect for the leader was lost. I was constantly being questioned and cautioned about my relationships with those upon my team. The senior pastor particularly did not like me having friendships with people in or outside of the church. I was even questioned about my friends on my facebook page. Some of those people, particularly those who had left the church, I was asked to delete and not have contact with. Slowly, I was being isolated from everyone else except them.
I was alone.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Wedding and the Jail Cell


When I had been on staff for just over a year I met a wonderful, sweet girl named Bethany and I invited her to join the praise team. She was a fantastic addition to the team who could play the guitar wonderfully and she could sing lead as well as harmony. She was exactly what I needed on my team. Up until that point I had no one who could have covered for me in the event of an illness, crisis, or even a planned vacation. It was like I was in a boat with ten people and I was the only person with an oar to row.
When Bethany joined the team, I was incredibly excited because up until that point I hadn’t had any time off and Bethany was my chance for some much needed R & R. Within weeks of her joining I began preparing her for that very possibility. My goal was to have her ready so that Chris and I could go up to Georgia for a very dear friends wedding at the end of March, 2008.
As the time drew nearer to the wedding, I approached the Pastor about taking that Sunday after the wedding off since the drive would have been a good 8 hours away from where we lived. The Pastor gave me a conditional release to go; the condition was I could go if he felt like Bethany could successfully handle the Sunday morning service on her own. I was completely elated when I heard that because I thought Bethany was doing really well. Her lead vocals were not as strong as my own but she had this sweetness to her worship that was somehow reminiscent of the innocence of a newborn baby. There was this intoxicating fresh quality in how she sang, which was completely different from my own bold style. I honestly thought that the Pastor would appreciate that about her and allow me to go.
A few days before I was to leave, I again approached the Pastor about the upcoming wedding. I fully expected for him to allow me to go as I hadn’t had a single day off in over a year. Instead I was completely shocked and disappointed as he refused my request for the Sunday off. He told me I could still go to the wedding if I could ensure that I would be back by Sunday morning and fully rested for the next day. I felt completely crushed as I heard him speak. Who could reasonably travel with two young children, eight hours in car, attend a wedding and visit with people who you haven’t been able to visit with in years, and then turn around and drive home another eight hours. There was just no way that we could possibly do that. As I sat there and contemplated what he had just said, it was like the very air was being sucked out of my lungs and the room was closing in around me. I felt trapped. It was like the door slammed shut on my cell and there was no escape and at that moment I knew it. I had signed over my fate when I failed to speak up and it was like I no longer held the title to my own life. Somehow the title had been transferred into his hand. He owned me.
That moment began a time of intense favor, but with that favor came the chains of control.

Behind Closed Doors


It wasn’t long after I started on staff that I began to question the types of things that went on behind closed doors. I noticed that gossip was a way of life within the leadership. At first this really bothered me, but as I became accustomed to its frequency I crumpled under the pressure to conform and I soon joined right in. I began to rationalize away the concerns that I had about the massive gossip issue that any outsider would have immediately identified as wrong. I kept thinking that if my stress in ministry was any indication then the stresses of my leaders must be so much greater than my own, so they must need to vent their frustrations like they did. I quickly rationalized away every prick to my heart about what my leaders and I were doing as we sat around every day and discussed the “issues” in the congregation. The worst part of it was the gossip train soon had more passenger cars added to its line.
People within the core group of the congregation were soon in the know about each other and every other congregation member. Secrets were no longer secret. I soon knew of who had had affairs on their spouses, who had committed tax evasion and had almost gone to prison, and which people had been kicked out of prior churches before landing at ours… I soon knew every nasty detail about every congregation member’s life and so did everyone else within the inner circle.
Another issue that I noticed was how past members and past staff were discussed. When I started working at the church it had been open three and half years and in that time one worship leader had resigned, the youth pastor/worship leader had been fired and a volunteer secretary had been asked to resign. These three ex-staff members had left the church and moved on, yet the leadership discussed them on a continual basis. Horrible things were said about them constantly. Statements about their character, integrity and mental capacity were always being made. There wasn’t a week that went by when these poor people weren’t discussed.
People who had left the church were also discussed as well. Early on in the ministry, before I was staff, there had been a deacon board and one of the deacons had accused the Pastor of misappropriation of funds. The Pastors response was to dissolve the deacon board. After that, one by one, every single deacon left the church. Every time another ex-deacon would leave, the same story of how the Pastor was falsely accused would be rehashed and this time the newest member of the “I left the church club” would be defamed and gossiped about. It wasn’t just that way about the deacons either. Anyone who left the church for any reason was bashed and talked ill about (except if they happened to move to another state). Some people were deemed as backsliders, some were labeled as un-teachable, some were described as having some form of mental illness, and even some were suspected as having some form of demonic oppression or possession. The theme of all the labeling soon became very obvious; the church was never at fault, only the ex-members.
I wish I could say that the gossip was only limited to happening behind closed doors but it wasn’t. It happened from the pulpit as well. Names would of course be left out when leaders were preaching, but it was always obvious to most of the congregation who was being discussed and it was never in a positive light. These gossiped about people were used as constant fodder for examples of how not to live our lives. There were many times when entire sermons were made up of these types of stories with the occasional scripture thrown in. At times it was like the scripture was thrown in there as a stamp of approval to justify the behavior that was happening from the pulpit. Most of the time, we all sat back, shook our heads in approval and laughed.

The Newest Staff Member

It was now September of 2006, and school was in full swing. Along with keeping up with my other volunteer responsibilities at the church I was now in school and helping to facilitate the classes. I was now spending so many hours at the church that my husband was beginning to complain about never seeing me. At this point, I had been attending that church for two years and the only service I had ever missed was when I was in Trinidad and Tobago.
Around that time I was also feeling this burning desire to be launched into ministry. I knew that somehow, just around the corner a ministry opportunity was there for me and I could not wait to see what it was. Little did I know how very difficult full-time ministry really was. There is a huge difference between being a volunteer and being the leader, especially in this church.
In October of 2006 the unthinkable happened. Scandal struck our church and the current worship leader and youth pastor was fired from his position and suddenly, without warning, the task of leading worship for the congregation fell to me. This is where the real journey of spiritual abuse began.
The first few months were awful, difficult, and filled with strife. There were constant battles to be dealt with because of my lack of experience, my lack of actual piano training and people did not accept my transition from volunteer to staff very well at all. One moment, I was just one of the group and the next I was the person who everyone relied on to “make it happen”.
One of my major problems was that I struggled with faster paced songs. I didn’t have a guitarist to cover up my lack of skill to carry the kind of fast paced praise songs that the Pastor was demanding. So I spent hours upon hours playing songs along with the CD’s so that I could master the rhythm needed to successfully carry the song as the lead instrument. In those early days of ministry, it was not uncommon for me to spend at least 8 hours playing the same song over and over. I was dedicated to succeeding. The constant rebukes and whispers that went on behind my back that said that I couldn’t do it only fueled my desire to prove them wrong.
Four months into my new position as Worship leader, the Pastor delivered a devastating blow. He sat me down and told me that I was not making enough progress in the faster paced songs so he was going to have an old worship leader, who had resigned just the year before, play the praise songs for me. He very plainly told me that despite the long hours of practicing that he knew that I was doing, he did not think that I was capable of ever playing those songs. He believed it was beyond my ability.
Later that week, I tried to resign but somehow he convinced me to stay. He praised me for my ability to lead the people in worship but continued to insist that fast paced songs were beyond my ability. He praised me for my obvious progress and skill at leading worship then followed it with a statement of amazement that I had made it this far. He never believed that I would have lasted this long. He told me it was his wife who believed in me and thought I would be a great worship leader one day, but he never saw those qualities in me. He thought I was a good leader behind the microphone, but not from the keyboard and it was ok to admit defeat and my lack of skill on my instrument of choice. Then he graciously allowed and encouraged me stay on as staff because he now saw some potential in me despite my lack of skill. I suddenly felt so grateful that I was given the opportunity to be on his staff. I felt so unworthy to be there as a staff member that I again was crying in that office.
I left that office even more determined to succeed at those faster paced praise songs. I was grateful that I still had my job but I failed to realize in that moment that I had just been masterly manipulated. Telling me that I couldn’t do something was the exact button to push to make me prove that I could. The manipulation may have worked but manipulating people is not godly. Manipulation is never love.

Am I lazy? Reprimand # 3

The months were flying by and I was busier at the church then I had ever been. I was volunteering in children’s church, co-leading the junior youth, leading a dance team, starting a youth band, volunteering on the worship team, leading worship for the Thursday prayer meeting, and leading worship for the occasional Wednesday service. I was involved! And to top it all off, the Leadership were talking about opening up a Bible School and they asked me to facilitate the classes in exchange for my tuition. I gladly agreed because it was my heart to minister and I desperately wanted to go to Bible school.
I had previously attended a Bible School right after High School that was supposed to get accredited but it never did. So I had spent two years earning a degree and paying tuition for a degree that was not worth the paper it was printed on. I looked at this new added challenge of going to an accredited Bible School as my chance to finally get the education in ministry that I had been longing for since I was a teenager. But just as school was about to start, I was again called into the office for a reprimand.
This time I was brought into the office with the Pastor and Associate Pastor. The Pastor began to speak with me quite harshly with what seemed like a prepared speech, complete with scripture to prove his point. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
Right after the mission trip in December of 2005, I had a meeting with my boss who explained to me that he could no longer employ me because of the economic downturn that was happening in the housing market. The housing market bubble had popped and people were no longer buying homes, or the much needed insurance that goes with the purchase of a new home. I had gotten laid off.
When I got laid off, I immediately pulled my children from daycare because we could no longer, on one income, afford to keep them there. When this happened I lost both my slots in the local daycare at the reduced rate of the part-time status that I had negotiated upon when I first started working. Since it would cost double the amount than it had previously cost to place our children back in daycare that would allow me to work, my husband and I both decided it would be best if I stayed home and cared for our two children. It just wasn’t economical for us to pay the increased rate of daycare when my paycheck, after expenses, would be less than 80 dollars a week. Once we included the extra cost of gas into the expenses of my working, I would have essentially been working for free. There was no economical benefit to my working outside of the home. Besides, my children were 2 and 4 at the time when I stopped working. It was much more beneficial for our kids for me to be at home.
I tried to explain all of this to my Pastor as I sat there dumfounded that he was essentially calling me lazy. He made me feel so guilty for being a stay at home mom. He said things that were hurtful, like I was blessed to have a husband to take care of me and I shouldn’t impose upon my husband like that. He even insinuated that my husband might leave me if I didn’t contribute more financially to our marriage. I cried, yet again, as I was made to feel ashamed. I left that office promising them that I would go out the next week and go look for a job. My heart was incredibly heavy as I cried out to God when I left the church that day. “Why Lord? If I am doing all these things, in this church, in Your name, why is being a mom and servant not enough?”
It wasn’t until years later that that I received the answer to that question. God’s requirements and man’s requirements are very different.

God Called Me!

The mission trip was truly great and I felt the Call of God upon my life like never before. I knew as I ministered to those people on foreign soil that ministering is what I was made to do. I was coming into my own and I preached my very first sermon to those precious Indian people. God moved upon their hearts as I spoke. Woman after woman approached me and spoke about what an encouragement I had been to their hearts. I spent a long time praying and encouraging each one as they came to me. No one could have told me at that moment that I was not called to be a minister of the gospel. That trip placed a seed in my heart that refused to die.
Soon after getting home, and back into the swing of things, God opened this amazing door for me to move into my calling. Our regular worship leader was out on Thursday and was not able to play the piano for our prayer service. I did not usually attend the Thursday prayer meetings but that particular day I was there and just tinkering around on the piano in the sanctuary. As I was tinkering, the Pastor’s wife noticed me and asked me to play for the prayer meeting that day. I thought it was fantastic. It had been a few years since I had lead worship anywhere and my last attempt had gone terribly awry, so I was eager to get my feet wet playing and singing in such a relaxed setting. With only a few people attending the prayer meeting and the focus on prayer and not me, I thought that was just what I needed to not feel nervous.
I began to play and as I did it was like this river just started to flow out of me that was mixed with scented perfume. It was like this scented river flowed directly to the throne of God. I received the shock of my life as God began to use me in worship like He never had before, and as I looked around the room at all the prostrate people I was amazed at what God was doing, through me! The Pastor’s wife soon got up and began to prophecy that this day was my beginning in ministry and I should never forget that day.
I have never forgotten that day and it is the one day that God reminds me of when I ask Him why I went through the pain and agony of Spiritual Abuse. He reminds me of February 2, 2006 as the day that I began to walk into what He had called me to do. He called me in that church. Then He called me out of that church. There was purpose for me in that church. There is a purpose for me out of that church. The purpose for me out of that church is greater than the purpose for me in that church. That church was just my beginning, not my ending.