Part 10: The "WHY"

So here’s my “WHY?”

I wrote most of this a few months ago and I’ve been praying about posting it ever since. I don’t ever plan on really promoting this on facebook or anything, but it stands as a reminder to others that spiritual abuse is wrong and it exists. My husband is better equipped to explain why spiritual abuse has it’s basis in false teaching. The Word of God is always twisted and used to promote an agenda in a church that has spiritually abusive leaders. But over the past few months I’ve watched the news articles about this church leader or that church leader denying their faith in God or being exposed in sin.

Well one particular leader spurred me into action and this story goes back to 2008. Todd Bentley is his name.

I remember the Lakeland Revival. I remember people from church urging me to go and make the trip to go see what was happening in that church and I remember not wanting to go and feeling very apprehensive about it all, even though I was in the Word of Faith movement at the time. So I didn’t go. Then only a few weeks later, the scandal broke in the news about Todd and his affair with his intern Jessa. They both claimed it was only an emotional affair but later it came out that it was indeed physical and that Todd was not seeking to reunite with his wife, but was leaving her. Todd, a few months later, married Jessa. Todd spent a short season out of ministry and around the same time as his marriage to Jessa, relaunched into full time ministry. In less than a year, Todd was back in full swing.

Todd, clearly, was unfit for ministry. Todd had others come forward about sexual misconduct and nothing was done back in 2008 and 2009. No one publicly dealt with Todd or Jessa! He was fully supported by those he was supposed to be accountable to and the Word of God was set aside.

Fast forward to 2019. In June, a pastor came out with a scathing rebuke of Todd and Jessa and has proof of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct and debauchery that’s not even unheard of in unbelievers! Sodom and Gomorrah type stuff! I don’t think I need to describe it further. Aslo we aren’t talking about one or two people that this spiritual leader preyed upon, but we are into the double digits here!

All of this got me thinking about all the former leaders in that church that I’ve talked to. There’s a lot of us and the church is less than 5 years old! There’s four different Elder families that have left and six or more Leadership families that have left and every one of them have spoken to the Head Pastor and voiced concerns about misconduct and the common theme of his wife running the church. Not one of us has come out publicly that I know of. So people who don’t know are still trapped not knowing that the church where they attend is not a healthy place for them to be. I'll gladly be the scapegoat as I've worn that garment before with my first church staff position. (I'm still talked about and it's been 10 years!)

Going back to the Todd Bentley issue. Todd has people who are supposed to hold him accountable. None of them have. Rick Joyner is directly over Todd and Rick fully endorses Todd’s ministries. Side note: Rick Joyner, Todd Bentley and Bill Johnson, over Bethel, are all connected in ministry and endorse each other. Now if that doesn’t make you go “hmmmmm”.

So, all of us former Leaders have spoken to people privately, but never come out publicly. Paul, the apostle, called out publicly false teachers. He didn’t go into a long drawn out story as to why. But there’s precedence in scripture that we should call out false teachers. Even church discipline guidelines say that we should publicly out them if they don’t repent. Each of us former leaders have met with the Pastor about this issue or that issue, with evidence, with accusation and not once were things dealt with biblically by the Pastor. I know, based on scripture, that the men in leadership at that church as Elders are not fit for ministry. I know this based on the testimonies of more than 20 people and biblically we only need two or three.

My fear is that the Pastor, his wife and the other Elders, if not called into account publicly will be like Todd Bentley, worse years later. It’s also my hope that other former leaders will speak out or at least direct those wounded under this false ministry to my blog so they can find some healing in knowing that they aren’t alone. None of this is done maliciously. You’ll notice I don’t use names and present facts. Occasionally, I put my assumptions in there but I label them as such, even claiming that I do not know for sure. I did my best to write this out without emotionalism or bitterness.

This experience at that church wasn’t without blessings but it made me very aware that the problem of false teaching and spiritual abuse is rampant and we all need to be diligent to study the word of God for ourselves so we can see when someone is trying to lead us astray and use manipulation and witchcraft to control and destroy lives.

I conclude with this:

Luke 8:17 For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.

Luke 12:1-3 Beware of the leaven of the pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops.

Part 9: The gossip

We’ve also had people who have left that church tell us they’ve heard gossip about us. The gist of the gossip is that Geoff and I demanded paid staff positions and when we were refused that we got upset and left. Also that we, of course, just like the other Elders and their wives who left before us, are in sin and that we are Pharisees and have no love and grace. The same story is told over and over about those who were once in leadership, who have since left. You can honestly interchange the names of the individuals, like those paper dress up dolls I used to play with as a kid. The same accusation fits every individual who has left. Isn’t that strange?

Actually, it’s not. It’s a common theme among those who spiritually abuse. They are never wrong and the fault always lies with someone else. If fault needs to be accepted it will be the very least grievous

fault possible in order to deflect from the greater sins that were exposed.

In all of this, with every former Leader I’ve spoken to since we left in May of 2018, there’s this common thread that the Pastor’s wife runs the church and it’s been joked about as the “church of (insert the Pastor’s wife’s name). Tools that she uses to make people comply are false prophecies and gossip spoken over people and about people. I had my own false prophecy of my death and destruction in a text message if I were to leave the church and not submit to their leadership.

The gossip was rampant and flowed out of her mouth like a dripping faucet, flowing into many conversations that I had with her and she seized every opportunity to tell me something about someone else. I was told about affairs of people I’d never met, but knew on facebook, I was told of financial trials, I was even told about sexual preferences of certain leaders in the church. All of it shocked me and made me feel uncomfortable. I wish I would have boldly spoken up and squashed it but I didn’t. My need and want for acceptance won out over my desire to stand in truth. I bring it out now so that people can identify and expose this common thread of gossip and false prophecy. All of it was aimed at promoting her authority and position over others, to make others doubt relationship, and to force loyalty to her alone and all of it, the manipulation and lies, continue to this day with no accountability to anyone.

Some may be wondering why I decided to post all of this. This long, long story, that to some may not seem that bad. There’s many more details that I left out. I focused on my story more than others, although I’ve spoken to many former Leaders and their stories are much the same. The theme is there’s no accountability for any of the Leaders/Elders in that church. If you don’t comply 100% you are gossiped about and forced out. The Pastor’s wife is the head honcho, and if there are ethical issues, the Word of God is set aside, and the agenda is pushed instead and the truth hidden.

Part 8: Returning equipment and Facebook comments

It took almost a month for us to get our music equipment back. They showed up on a day I was cleaning a house and I think that may have been strategically planned.

The newly Returned Elder and the Pastor’s wife showed up at the house and Geoff was kind and polite and helped them unload the equipment. As he passed the Pastor’s wife with my keyboard, he looked down to avoid hitting her with the cumbersome instrument and noticed her video recording the entire exchange on her phone. He clearly saw the video running as she had the screen facing up, with the camera towards the ground and he saw the video record running. It’s just sad that she would go to such measures, but none of this surprised me at all when he told me about it. The extremes that I’d dealt with after leaving that other church in 2009 were way worse so that was child’s play in my book.

There were a few things that they missed upon returning equipment and Geoff let them know. Eventually, it was a returned but it took a few more weeks.

Since we left...People, even one of my own team members, deleted me on Facebook right off the bat and the trend continued for months. I knew what was going on, just like the other two Elder’s wives, I knew the gossip was probably horrendous about me, just like it was about them. I can’t say I have a single real friend left from that church. There’s a few acquaintances that will still reach out and say hi whenever I run into them in public, but we’ve pretty much been cut off. Initially, there were a few men who kept in contact with Geoff and expressed how much they missed us both. It’s just sad, because for a year these people were my family, support and I poured into them with everything I had.

I had to start deleting and blocking people myself eventually. Particularly the Pastor’s wife as she was making nasty comments in response to some of our comments on facebook. A mutual friend of ours asked for praise reports on his Facebook and I responded with how God had provided a few extra jobs for me when we needed the money. The Pastor’s wife’s comment, immediately after mine, was “Praise God, He pruned our vine”. Now that was vindictive and just downright hurtful. So I took a screenshot, sent it to the Pastor in a text and explained that I’d be deleting and blocking his wife because of her hurtful conduct and I prayed that this wouldn’t be taken as offensive but for my spiritual and emotional health, at this time that I could not continue to be her friend on facebook and I prayed he understood. He never responded!

There had been numerous comments along those lines and any opportunity to make a nasty comment on either our friend’s pages or our own, she took every opportunity. So eventually we both blocked her.

The Facebook harassment rears it’s ugly head every now and again. Geoff, my beloved husband, loves to post theological stuff on facebook and occasionally it’s in response to someone from our former church, and then mysteriously the Pastor’s wife will respond to Geoff’s comments on facebook in rebuke. We have no idea what is said and honestly she shouldn’t be able to see Geoff’s comments either because we blocked her, but somehow she sees the comments and rebukes Geoff. It all just shows her heart.

Part 7: Home again and Confrontation

When we returned, still there was no attempt to address the issue of the misconduct of the Director. We kept waiting. The kids were having issues and the Pastor’s Son kept hounding my son trying to get him to gossip about it and my son refused. You could tell when we came back that all the inner circle of the church knew something was going on. Finally, I took one lady into my confidence.

Her and I were close, or so I thought. I shared with her what the Director had done and how the Pastor and his wife had responded with no action and complete and total disbelief. I even shared with her the “seed of division”. I told her most of it didn’t matter because we felt called to leave to start our own ministry anyway, but that we had been waiting for over a month for resolution and nothing had happened and we were hoping to still have relationship. I was grieved. She was grieved. But both of us knew that Geoff and I were indeed called to something outside of the church and so the two of us stood in her hallway praying together over us leaving to launch out and praying to hold onto and have restoration in the matter with the Pastor and his wife, and the Director and accountability for all.

The next Sunday came after I had confided in her and we decided to make it known to the Pastor that we’d be leaving to start our own ministry and that’s what we felt strongly we needed to do. The Pastor came over and Geoff and Him had a great conversation about Ministry and the Pastor was excited and talked about us staying on for a transition time and that the Church would fully support us and help us launch. That had always been the vision of the church anyway was to launch other church plants. So Geoff was extremely hopeful. I was a bit more skeptical and cautioned my husband about starting a ministry under the church because we could not according to biblical standard really submit ourselves under the leadership of every Elder in that church. I, too, was hopeful. I think we all do that, just hope things will fall into place and we can keep going without really confronting the bigger issues. In the end, we agreed, to give it a few more weeks to see what God was doing and continue praying. It didn’t take long to get our answer.

The next day was Men’s group and Geoff was busy preparing the lesson and I, and my daughter, were busy cleaning a house when I started getting some strange messages from the Pastor’s wife. Some really vague stuff about not counting me disqualified for ministry because I had sinned and that she counted me as such a good friend that she was glad we could be transparent with one another (although I knew that transparency was a one way street at that point). I thought the conversation odd because I had never mentioned to anyone apart from my husband that I deemed anyone biblically unqualified. I excused myself from the conversation as I was busy cleaning and thought the whole thing odd. It seemed like a fishing expedition, seeking for me to admit to something, or for information and confirmation of what I thought. Little did I know it was part of a big set up.

Later that afternoon, the Pastor asked Geoff to meet him prior to the men’s group and Geoff assumed it was more talk about a future church launch so he was hopeful and excited. He had no idea what was to come.

When he got there it was an ambush. The other Elder had returned from Deployment just the weekend before our wedding so he was in attendance. The Pastor and this Elder immediately started into my husband with pages of printed out scripture saying that I was gossiping and spreading gossip in the church and that Geoff needed to get his wife in line. Scripture after scripture they tried to quote, except every scripture they used had nothing to do with gossip at all but had to do with false teaching and my husband refuted each scripture that they tried to hand out in judgment, as some kind of sentence to my guilt. My husband stopped them up short and rebuked them for taking scripture out of context and asked them to explain what this was about.

So apparently, a woman had made a comment to the newly returned deployed Elder the day before that she had confided in me at some point about an issue she had with the two people in the leadership. Immediately, I got accused of being a gossip because someone confided in me about an issue they were having. She came to me in confidence and I gave her sound advice to pray for them because some personalities are indeed difficult to get along with. I also suggested she go and confront it head on. I can’t tell her story for her as it isn’t my story to tell. What she didn’t say, or even mention to the Elder, was the time frame of when she had reached out to me which had been months before. This discussion where she sought me out for advice was before the altercation with the Director/Elder.

So when the Pastor and Elder accused me of gossip to Geoff, they claimed multiple people had come forward and accused me of gossip but never provided the names of anyone other than the lady who had confided in me months prior. They absolutely refused to allow me to face my accuser as per scripture which Geoff reminded them of. This was an obvious witch hunt and it had started weeks prior with that sermon that was false teaching claiming 2 Timothy 2 was about gossip. The next two Sunday sermons had the same theme as well even though none of the text had anything to do with gossip. In fact even after we left, we were informed by some that the messages for weeks contained the same theme and it was to the extreme that even sharing good news, like a job promotion, of someone other than yourself, was gossip.

So I’d only confided in one person inside the church and that had just been 3 days prior. I’d love to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe she didn’t claim I was a gossip, but I have no way of knowing and honestly that trust is now broken and I’ll never know if she did or not. But throughout their ambush meeting they kept insisting that Geoff put me in line and rebuke me for my sin.

My husband defended me. He asked the Pastor if he’d ever talked to me about the incident with the Director/Elder and confronted him as to why he never dealt with it. He also confronted him on the fact of his word and that the Director was indeed informed the very night we spoke with him, after the Pastor had promised not to tell him. The Pastor claimed that the Director was never told anything to which my husband and I do not believe because his own wife had told us about the emergency meeting that same night I had stepped down and that the Director had apparently cried and said what a wonderful worship leader I was. He had also claimed, according to the Pastor’s wife, that the conversation on the phone didn’t happen that way and that I’d just misunderstood him and his tone. I remember responding to her false assertions with the comment, “well it’s pretty hard to misunderstand the words I feel sorry for everyone around you and that you’re abusive to everyone around you”. She had brushed me off, as if I hadn’t even spoken.

I always found it strange how in the presence of others this Director would put on this act like he was so supportive of others around leadership but speak so negatively and harshly, extremely condescendingly about myself and others to me and to others that he deemed beneath his authority.

But in it all, both Geoff, in the moment, and me later after the recounting of the meeting, we both believed the Pastor’s testimony to be a lie about the Director not being informed.

Geoff also begged and pleaded with the Pastor for him to talk to me and restore relationship. Geoff pleaded with him as if the Pastor was my brother to make restoration, to which the Pastor flatly and adamantly refused claiming he’d never be alone with me as a woman. Geoff kept imploring, saying of course it shouldn’t be alone, and to have him there, have the Pastor’s wife there, have the other Elder and his wife there, anyone, just if he would please talk to me and hear me out. He begged him to hear my side of the altercation incident and to hear my son’s testimony to which the Pastor again refused and made a scoffing remark about my Son not being qualified to act as a credible witness. Geoff asked why, at age 17, was my son not a credible witness, to which the Pastor replied, “really?”, as if my son was a convicted proven criminal and compulsive liar.

After pleading with the Pastor for some type of conversation to happen with all parties involved and the Pastor’s clear refusal Geoff managed to shut down the meeting as men were beginning to come into room to attend the Men’s group. Nothing more was said. We sent our resignation letter a few days later and never went back. In our resignation letter, we asked again for resolution and the return of our equipment. The only response that we got was that they had changed the lock codes on all the doors and we could not pick up our music equipment and to contact them about it and provide a list of equipment.

Side Note: I spoke to the woman they said was proof of my "gossip" and she confirmed the only thing she had said was that she spoke to me. She didn't tell them any information about our conversation. She said she was immediately rebuked for gossip. She was not asked about why she spoke to me, what was said, or when the conversation had taken place. It was an innocent comment on her part and she immediately rebuked because of it. 

Part 6: The Wedding

After her conversation, I knew things would get worse and really, really considered pulling out, having someone else marry us and greatly scale down the wedding. We could have done a small reception only at our friend’s house. Our wedding day turned out to be a beautiful day and I could have made it happen. My dad was strongly suggesting it and we really wavered. I just knew things weren’t going to work out. I knew that there was a lot of fake, trying to keep us happy stuff going on. If I blew the lid off the truth by sharing what had happened, it would have been bad. My husband and I were pretty prominent in the church and both of us extremely visible. It’s been almost a year and we still get people telling us how things aren’t the same without us.

The wedding happened and turned out beautiful and we had a fantastic day! There was no drama, not as many people came who had claimed just weeks prior that they were so excited to attend. So the reception ended up very small. One thing that bothered me in light of what had happened, I wasn’t too pleased about this Director having such a big role as MC at our wedding. If I’d have been asked I would have said no as I knew anything he did wouldn’t have been sincere or in Christian fellowship.

Side note: I had been praying, praying, praying that if God wanted us to keep relationships, and there to be restitution, that this Director would come to me to confess and apologize. He never did. If I yelled and screamed at someone like that, as a believer, the shame and conviction would just eat me alive. I’d never be able to be so cruel, even if I thought it true what I was saying. As believers we are supposed to be known by how we love one another. That’s why I could never wrap my head around some of the rules because almost every single rule was based out of control and not loving, the welfare, or the growth of the believers within the worship arts department. Every rule, brought restriction, legalism, and more restrictions than when I’d worked with professional paid musicians or when I’d been paid staff! I had more work to lead worship once every three weeks, than when I’d been on staff at my first paid position and I led worship there between 3 and 5 days a week depending upon whether we had a Sunday evening service that week or if I was leading in our sister church in Chipley. The amount of stress I was under was incredible with no grace ever! I firmly believe that this worship director/Elder is a wolf in Sheep’s clothing. Wolves love rules, legalism and are faucets of false teaching meant to enslave instead of bring Christian freedom through Christ. Wolves always bite and devour!

Well, we managed to get through the wedding with little incident. Graciously, I gave the Pastor’s wife a painting of mine that she had been drooling over for months as a way of thank-you for all her hard work. It had quite the price tag on it, but I gave it as a way of thanks and as a hope that we could get past this issue and hopefully restore the relationship. Unfortunately, restoration wasn’t going to be possible.

The morning after our wedding, we were getting dressed, ready to check out of the hotel and push on to our honeymoon destination when I got a text from my Son, saying how he’d been cornered by the Pastor’s wife and her son, pushing him for information about us, if we’d told anyone, and what we were going to do. At the same time, Geoff logged into the live feed and began listening to the sermon. Suddenly, we both looked at each other in shock as we heard the words “seed of division”. The Pastor was preaching about people gossiping and having a seed of division in them. The sermon was on 2 Timothy 2 about rightly dividing the word of God and he was preaching it as if that passage of scripture was talking about the early church gossiping! Wait, What! This was so clearly an agenda message and we were on the agenda to be discussed from the pulpit! There were quite a few lovely little hints in there about people talking about leadership and if they do so they are in sin. Keep in mind, there wasn’t anyone we had spoken to in the church about the incident with the Director. We did seek outside counsel with Pastors we’ve known for years and trusted. But no one knew anything inside the church.

We spent our entire honeymoon, just praying, talking and seeking God for the direction he wanted us to go and after that Sermon, it was the confirmation for us to leave that church. We even sought out godly counsel and everywhere we turned, there was confirmation to leave, we were just asking God the question of When.  

Part 5: Telling the Pastor, His wife's intervention

That Sunday afternoon, just as our Pastor was leaving on a mission trip for 10 days, he called to let me know that I would not have to lead worship in the month of May. I told him that was fine as I was stepping down anyway!

He was shocked. I asked him if he knew about the altercation with the Director and he said no. I only got to tell him three of the nasty comments that the Director said to me and the Pastor was so floored and said he couldn’t believe it. I told him that my son was a witness to the whole conversation as it was on speaker phone. Geoff and I made him promise that the Director would not be notified and this would be dealt with as soon as the Pastor got back. He made us promise not to tell anyone I had stepped down.

Well the Pastor did not keep his word at all and we found out from his wife a day later that they had an emergency meeting that very same night and the Elder was indeed informed and denied it all.

The next morning I received a notification that I was removed as a worship leader from the scheduling program the church used. Within an hour I was asked by our close friend in the worship arts department if I’d stepped down. I refused to lie and said yes. This member also knew that the other worship leader was also stepping down (I had nothing to do with that decision and it was just coincidental and I’m not completely sure as to his reasons). So this man messaged the Pastor and his wife saying he was concerned and asked why were both worship leaders removed or stepping down. Well that prompted a very interesting conversation with the pastor’s wife where she accused me of having a “seed of division” in me.

The conversation was all cordial. I wasn’t going to be rude, but everything she said, although said in a sweet manner, with the air of false concern, was direct spiritual abuse. She informed me that I misunderstood everything the Director had said and sometimes this Director can get passionate, but he never yelled at me, nor said such hateful things to me. I wasn’t even allowed to tell her the conversation I’d had with the Director. The only thing she knew was the few phrases I’d told her husband. I told her my son was there and the phone was on speaker but to her that didn’t matter and that was completely glossed over as if I’d never spoken. She claimed it never happened that way and then explained how I was forbidden to step down as a worship leader. I was told I was in sin for doing so, and because of this “seed of division” in me that I was to submit myself under their leadership and all managing responsibilities were to be taken from me and that the Elder and the returning Elder from Deployment would take upon the responsibilities of picking who played with me, what songs I was singing and my song list. She detailed how I would go through a restoration process until the “seed of division” was no longer found in me.

So in my mind, I have this internal dialogue going on… “So, let me get this straight, I get yelled at and screamed at by an Elder who literally just disqualified himself from ministry, who acted like a demon possessed man, and you are going to tell me that not only did it not happen that way, despite having a witness, that I’m supposed to submit myself to some cult like reconditioning process and the man with the clear outburst of anger who has gone off on people like this before gets away with it and you guys are going to do absolutely nothing?!? Yeah, I’m so outta here! Now, I just have to convince my future husband and pray, pray, pray, how to get out of this with our heads held high.” All the while, I just did the customary “uh huh’s” and I listened and told her that me stepping down was firm and I would not be reconsidering it. She asked me to pray about it and I said I have and would continue to do so.

I then asked that we put everything aside for now because I just wanted to get married to man I loved. To that she agreed.

Part 4: The Altercation

Three weeks later….Now this was about 2 weeks prior to my wedding and you can only imagine how stressed I was. I was finishing sewing my dress and working with the Pastor’s wife to get everything finalized as well as moving into a new house, the one that we’d share, just the weekend before. Plus I was doing some emergency babysitting for a friend with a hospitalized husband. Unfortunately, it was also my week to lead worship and I was extremely ill. Massive vertigo!

Out of desperation, I called the Director and asked him to take over my week as there was no possible way I could do it. And then the drama started. I started getting text messages from my kids and they were beyond upset that the Director had sat one of my team down and told her she didn’t follow the rules of “shadowing on his team” so therefore she wasn’t allowed to sing. I sent her a text and she tried to assure me it was OK and she’d just sit that week out and run the sound instead. Keep in mind, I’d had her scheduled, with the knowledge of the Director and Pastor for three weeks prior. She had been “shadowing” attending every worship practice for 5-6 months and only once had she been allowed to sing on stage. She was a great singer! I had advocated for her to be utilized for 4 months up until that point and the Director refused to schedule her! It became very apparent that any suggestion that I had, the Director would not even consider and do the exact opposite.

So in the end, I texted the Director, asking simply what was happening, that I was getting upset texts from my team members and could he please call me. A few hours later, he responded and his response was jarring! He demanded that when I wanted to act like an adult that I call him. So I did immediately. I was calm and not once did I raise my voice and calmly asked what was happening and why the woman wasn’t being allowed to sing. It was a simple, question and he went off! Immediately, as he began yelling, my son was standing in my bedroom doorway and I signaled to him to sit on my bed and put the phone on speaker. My son sat there with me as I was yelled and screamed at for almost an hour. This Elder even paused his tirade twice because witnesses came upon the scene as he explained how he was walking away from the Pastor’s property. “Hold on a second, the neighbor is walking his dog”, he said. Then a second time he told me to hold on as the Pastor’s son was pulling into the driveway and he gave him a cheery hello.

I was told that he felt sorry for everyone in my life and that I was abusive to everyone around me, and what must it be like to be my children being abused by me. On and on he went, vilifying me. Sneering at me, mocking me and my years of “ministry experience”. He was speaking down to me as if I was a bug beneath his very existence and every word dripped with incredible hatred. He kept mocking my maturity level as a Christian saying that I obviously wasn’t mature enough and He felt God was trying to get me to grow in this area or that area. I simply kept saying his name, very calmly, over and over and over again. I kept redirecting to the issues of team equality, his unbending rules and defending the woman who had been unfairly set down and quoted his own rules back to him and how she’d been more than faithful and he’d known for weeks prior. For almost an hour he shouted about how I’d broken every rule and what a horrible person I was. I kept trying to come to a resolution. In the end he refused to listen and my worship team was decided by him to be what it was and I wasn’t allowed to borrow anyone. I also calmly confronted him on behalf of the other worship leader because he had crippled that worship leader and his team as well, by taking his keyboardist and moving them to his own team. His team was at 15 people. Mine was down to 5 and the other worship leader’s team sat at 6 or 7 people. I stood up for other members of the worship department as well who I know had talked to him about switching teams so they could be used elsewhere and he denied their requests. I defended those who were getting burnt out because he was borrowing them from other teams, yet the rules didn’t apply to him. Only me.

There was absolutely no reasoning with him. At all. Anything I said about helping team members grow, I’d get screamed at. Any and all suggestions, I got screamed at. My son, having witnessed me go through domestic violence was beside himself in anger, punching the bed and almost crying out of frustration. It literally was like talking to a 5 year old who was determined to horde all the toys for himself.

Geoff stopped by at the tail end of the conversation and by that time the screaming had stopped and no resolutions had been made and I got off the phone. I informed Geoff and we decided together that I was done leading worship at that church. I would no longer lead worship under that Elder’s leadership and we both discussed how his outburst clearly made this man unfit for ministry and Eldership. My son, of course, gave witness.

I spelled out the clear spiritual abuse that happened and how this was so very similar to the church I’d left in 2009 and we needed to prayerfully consider leaving the church. In fact, I was pretty resolute, that night, that we needed to leave the church. Wedding or not!