Chapter 7a - Doomed Repetition
"My boy," my father said, "I think the time has come for me to leave New Hope."
"Alright pops. Whats goin' on?"
And off we went.
*** *** ***
Now, to really understand what the heck is going on here, I have to backup a bit. But the problem is that backing up would take ENTIRELY too long, for the complete story cannot be contained in a single post to a blog. As a matter of fact, the entire story could not be told in anything less than a series of books, I imagine. And probably fairly long drawn out books at that!
So instead, I will give a woefully insuffecient summarization of the church that was New Hope. Though the church persists to the day of this writing, I will speak of it in the past tense since I am writing of its past, and I only have historical knowledge of it... that is to say, I really can't fairly comment on its current state. After I share what I know of New Hope's history, I will tell of its most recent, but certainly not its last (if we judge by it's history) , tale of deconstruction.
*** *** ***
Read about its roots...
New Hope was a church that was born out of a much larger church called The Local Church (though it goes by many different names I think) . I don't claim to know much about The Local Church (heck, as I'm writing this, I seem to be remembering that maybe they don't like to be called The Local Church... oh well... I don't know what other term to use so...).
Anyhow, The Local Church is claimed by some to be a cult, or at least having "cultic behavior unbecoming of the church." The Local Church, of course, denies it with much passion. Wether a full fledged cult or not, some stories I've been told about their fairly recent activity is at the very least quite , um... extreme. One story told by family members of mine tells of a time that The Local Church in our area held public protests in front of many of the large, well-respected churches in our community. If memory serves correct, the story tells of Local Church'ers wearing white aprons to attract attention as they marched around the parking lot of these other churches holding up huge protest signs saying things like, "THIS IS NOT GOD'S CHURCH" or something to that effect. So... pretty far out there stuff. And this wasn't like back in the 30's or something, this would be less than 50 years ago... mid-70's I'd guess.
I don't know the exact year it happened but I believe that The Local Church in our area SPLIT from The Local Church's greater demonination. They went non-denominational. Unfortunately, not horribly long after that, the pastor of the church who had lead the congregation out from under this proportedly cultish church became pretty heavy handed authority-wise himself! I wasn't there, but from the way the story was told to me, at a leader's meeting he told the group that he had a dream that confirmed that he was to be given more authority, and that one of the elders who was continually fighting him on issues was to be removed from leadership. (I beg forgiveness if I've totally hacked this background story to smithereens... I wasn't there, so this is all second/third hand and I'm patching the story together as best I can in my mind.)
Basically, a group of people became convinced that something was not quite right with that whole situation and decided to leave the church. A typical, messy church split occured... some left, some stayed. The people that left started meeting in somebody's living room to pray and read the Bible and such and over time it turned in to a full-fledged church. My father, was one of the people that helped to start the church. He was a founding member, the worship director, and unpaid and un-official pastor to the congregation... a pillar in this new church... "New Hope"
So... take that and add to it over twenty years of life investment. What was the product?
Well, 100% of my family (on my dad's side) was a part the church. Nine out of twelve of my mother-in-law's family were a part of the church. And friendships were deep and long standing. The church became ingrown. Focused more on itself, its community and wealth of long-standing relationships rather than focused on the core messages of Christ and relationship with Him.
Now ... how does the quote go? (quick google lookup) ... 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' ... yeah, thats it.
*** *** ***
So thats how things were. When my dad approached me and we began talking, I was completely and entirely built in to New Hope and had been since childhood. Son of the worship director... All of my relationships, friendships, and family members were there. My spiritual mentors and teachers. All were there. And it all seemed so RIGHT to me.
You see, there was a subtle, but undeniable, cultish church culture at New Hope that I had subscribed to (I'm ashamed to say). Looking back now, I can see that the ideology was very cult like. A subtle ideology that made people feel so good... but only once they broke in to the group. You were accepted and loved. But you could never leave... not without first being put down, or having your spiritual maturity questioned, or worse. It was BY FAR the exception to have friendships outside of the church... it was all so focused on US. It was something along the lines of, "If you aren't with us, you are against us." Or actually probably more along the lines of, "If you are not with us, you are immature in your faith, or not seeing clearly, or in sin, or all of the above."
My father subscribed to this thought process also and in many ways propogated it in some of his leadership failures. Again, I have to state that it was in very subtle ways. Or as a friend of mine describes it, in a very sophisticated way. It was not so out in the open as I make it sound here, for if it was it would have been quickly put down and crushed. No, this poison was sly, hard to pin down, and yes... it was sophisticated.
In addition to this spiritual arrogance, the church was non-denominational... that is to say, it was not governed by a larger body of believers and pastors. It was an island. And of course, that is always very dangerous.
New Hope had always embraced the responsibility given by Scripture to the church to measure out church discipline. They were willing and ready to excommunicate when needed to (thought I do not intend to imply that they took any pleasure in doing so). Church discipline is one thing, but on many occasions I would hear first time visitors that I brought to the Sunday service bring up the topic of authority. Somehow, they would nearly always mention that they "loved the worship... it was amazing"... but that the church seemed "a bit too authoritarian" for their taste. They were likely unaware of the depth of problem and/or trying to be polite but somehow, in just one visit, they knew something was wrong. All that is to say that the church had a reputation (by those who were not members) as being overly authoritarian.
We, the members, wrote them off as loonies of course. : )
The church progressed farther into to Authoritarianism when the senior pastor launched a self-written marriage class called the Agonia. Heavy on legalism, short on grace... this small-group marriage class did in fact help many severely troubled marriages find help. As a matter of fact, I learned a lot about the Bible and marriage in it. But, as the success of the course grew, so did the participation level of the church. Soon, nearly all married couples in the church were enrolled, had graduated, were teaching, or were being pressured to take the class. And at the core of the Agonia teaching was a dangerous teaching... "If you say its white, and the other 9 people in the room say its black. It is black. There is no COSMIC exception!" And when somebody in the class would refuse to accept the course of action called for by their peers... up the chain of command the issue went... first to the leaders of the group, then to the elders, all the way to the head pastor's desk, where the buck stopped. Of course, most of the time... this way of approaching issues will work. Afterall, there is safety in numbers. And the head pastor was not a bad man. He was loving and cared for those in his congregation.
*** *** ***
Now realizing that I could write on this stuff forever, let me end this Chapter by saying that in all likelyhood, things would probably have continued for quite some time in this state had the twistedness of all of this not touched my father's own home.
But it did.
History had set the stage, warning signs had not been heeded, and the church was headed for disaster.
** Continue the story with Chapter 7b**
"Alright pops. Whats goin' on?"
And off we went.
*** *** ***
Now, to really understand what the heck is going on here, I have to backup a bit. But the problem is that backing up would take ENTIRELY too long, for the complete story cannot be contained in a single post to a blog. As a matter of fact, the entire story could not be told in anything less than a series of books, I imagine. And probably fairly long drawn out books at that!
So instead, I will give a woefully insuffecient summarization of the church that was New Hope. Though the church persists to the day of this writing, I will speak of it in the past tense since I am writing of its past, and I only have historical knowledge of it... that is to say, I really can't fairly comment on its current state. After I share what I know of New Hope's history, I will tell of its most recent, but certainly not its last (if we judge by it's history) , tale of deconstruction.
*** *** ***
Read about its roots...
New Hope was a church that was born out of a much larger church called The Local Church (though it goes by many different names I think) . I don't claim to know much about The Local Church (heck, as I'm writing this, I seem to be remembering that maybe they don't like to be called The Local Church... oh well... I don't know what other term to use so...).
Anyhow, The Local Church is claimed by some to be a cult, or at least having "cultic behavior unbecoming of the church." The Local Church, of course, denies it with much passion. Wether a full fledged cult or not, some stories I've been told about their fairly recent activity is at the very least quite , um... extreme. One story told by family members of mine tells of a time that The Local Church in our area held public protests in front of many of the large, well-respected churches in our community. If memory serves correct, the story tells of Local Church'ers wearing white aprons to attract attention as they marched around the parking lot of these other churches holding up huge protest signs saying things like, "THIS IS NOT GOD'S CHURCH" or something to that effect. So... pretty far out there stuff. And this wasn't like back in the 30's or something, this would be less than 50 years ago... mid-70's I'd guess.
I don't know the exact year it happened but I believe that The Local Church in our area SPLIT from The Local Church's greater demonination. They went non-denominational. Unfortunately, not horribly long after that, the pastor of the church who had lead the congregation out from under this proportedly cultish church became pretty heavy handed authority-wise himself! I wasn't there, but from the way the story was told to me, at a leader's meeting he told the group that he had a dream that confirmed that he was to be given more authority, and that one of the elders who was continually fighting him on issues was to be removed from leadership. (I beg forgiveness if I've totally hacked this background story to smithereens... I wasn't there, so this is all second/third hand and I'm patching the story together as best I can in my mind.)
Basically, a group of people became convinced that something was not quite right with that whole situation and decided to leave the church. A typical, messy church split occured... some left, some stayed. The people that left started meeting in somebody's living room to pray and read the Bible and such and over time it turned in to a full-fledged church. My father, was one of the people that helped to start the church. He was a founding member, the worship director, and unpaid and un-official pastor to the congregation... a pillar in this new church... "New Hope"
So... take that and add to it over twenty years of life investment. What was the product?
Well, 100% of my family (on my dad's side) was a part the church. Nine out of twelve of my mother-in-law's family were a part of the church. And friendships were deep and long standing. The church became ingrown. Focused more on itself, its community and wealth of long-standing relationships rather than focused on the core messages of Christ and relationship with Him.
Now ... how does the quote go? (quick google lookup) ... 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' ... yeah, thats it.
*** *** ***
So thats how things were. When my dad approached me and we began talking, I was completely and entirely built in to New Hope and had been since childhood. Son of the worship director... All of my relationships, friendships, and family members were there. My spiritual mentors and teachers. All were there. And it all seemed so RIGHT to me.
You see, there was a subtle, but undeniable, cultish church culture at New Hope that I had subscribed to (I'm ashamed to say). Looking back now, I can see that the ideology was very cult like. A subtle ideology that made people feel so good... but only once they broke in to the group. You were accepted and loved. But you could never leave... not without first being put down, or having your spiritual maturity questioned, or worse. It was BY FAR the exception to have friendships outside of the church... it was all so focused on US. It was something along the lines of, "If you aren't with us, you are against us." Or actually probably more along the lines of, "If you are not with us, you are immature in your faith, or not seeing clearly, or in sin, or all of the above."
My father subscribed to this thought process also and in many ways propogated it in some of his leadership failures. Again, I have to state that it was in very subtle ways. Or as a friend of mine describes it, in a very sophisticated way. It was not so out in the open as I make it sound here, for if it was it would have been quickly put down and crushed. No, this poison was sly, hard to pin down, and yes... it was sophisticated.
In addition to this spiritual arrogance, the church was non-denominational... that is to say, it was not governed by a larger body of believers and pastors. It was an island. And of course, that is always very dangerous.
New Hope had always embraced the responsibility given by Scripture to the church to measure out church discipline. They were willing and ready to excommunicate when needed to (thought I do not intend to imply that they took any pleasure in doing so). Church discipline is one thing, but on many occasions I would hear first time visitors that I brought to the Sunday service bring up the topic of authority. Somehow, they would nearly always mention that they "loved the worship... it was amazing"... but that the church seemed "a bit too authoritarian" for their taste. They were likely unaware of the depth of problem and/or trying to be polite but somehow, in just one visit, they knew something was wrong. All that is to say that the church had a reputation (by those who were not members) as being overly authoritarian.
We, the members, wrote them off as loonies of course. : )
The church progressed farther into to Authoritarianism when the senior pastor launched a self-written marriage class called the Agonia. Heavy on legalism, short on grace... this small-group marriage class did in fact help many severely troubled marriages find help. As a matter of fact, I learned a lot about the Bible and marriage in it. But, as the success of the course grew, so did the participation level of the church. Soon, nearly all married couples in the church were enrolled, had graduated, were teaching, or were being pressured to take the class. And at the core of the Agonia teaching was a dangerous teaching... "If you say its white, and the other 9 people in the room say its black. It is black. There is no COSMIC exception!" And when somebody in the class would refuse to accept the course of action called for by their peers... up the chain of command the issue went... first to the leaders of the group, then to the elders, all the way to the head pastor's desk, where the buck stopped. Of course, most of the time... this way of approaching issues will work. Afterall, there is safety in numbers. And the head pastor was not a bad man. He was loving and cared for those in his congregation.
*** *** ***
Now realizing that I could write on this stuff forever, let me end this Chapter by saying that in all likelyhood, things would probably have continued for quite some time in this state had the twistedness of all of this not touched my father's own home.
But it did.
History had set the stage, warning signs had not been heeded, and the church was headed for disaster.
** Continue the story with Chapter 7b**
posted by Miroslav at 11:09 PM
6 Comments:
Sounds like the church my parents were part of before I was born called the Church of the Living Word. The "Living Word" did not refer to the written Word in the Bible, but the sayings of a mere man. He dangerously deceived many and went my parents finally left, they were ostracized.
Hey Miroslav,
I haven't read this whole blog post yet as I am too busy being a mommy today, but thought I'd share a bit of irony with you.
That first chruch leader of the Local Church split -- the heavy-handed authoritarian one you mention -- we see him OFTEN Sunday mornings at our MEGA-CHURCH! And I do think our mega-church was one of the ones on the list of churches being protested in the 70's. Its just so weird how things come full-circle.
Sister Deb
P.S. And now I'm switching places with this man, wondering how much of church a mega-church can really be, biblically-speaking. That's a whole 'nother subject.
Aaron,
Mind if I inquire as to how you think that church experienced affected your parents' walk with Christ? Both short term and long term...
Mama to 3 Soaring Arrows,
(now thinking you may have to change your handle in the not too distant future...)
Yeah, there is definately some irony in ALL of that.
And now, attention all readers, I direct you to Mama to 3 Soaring Arrows' blog, One Beggar's Bread, where she will elaborate on her thoughts about church structure. ; )
Miroslav
Three years later I still can't/don't know how to deal with any of this, but I know that reading that made me cry. And I don't do that...
...Found you through Rhonda's blog. I think one of the worst things about all of it was that there were some awesome people that I knew, you and J being two of them, and somehow it's almost become too scary to deal with any of those people.
That was long-winded and said nothing.
Hi. I'm glad you're writing this. I hope you don't mind if I read it.
Be afraid no longer! Feel free to deal with us! ;D
And yes, I intended and expected my invitation to Rhonda to be an invitation to all of you.
Please feel completely welcome. You are free to lurk or comment as much or as seldom as you desire!
Love to you,
Miroslav
Rhonda,
J was very very happy to see you today! We both instantly began saying how much we have always enjoyed your company and personality. How about we have you over to hang one of these evenings before you hit the road? I'll have J email you... if you are up to it coo', and if not, thats coo' too.
As far as my blabbering here... for better or for worse, I was "privy" to the whole series of events from the get go. If you were never made aware of all that lead up to what happened, you are welcome to keep reading and you will at least hear this side of the story. Maybe it will give you a totally different perspective, maybe it will all sound like crap, or maybe it will just add to your own experience.
Though the facts and events surrounding the New Hope collapse all seem pretty clear to me, a more devestating and mysterious collapse has occured lately, one of my faith. And that is really the point of this blog. I really regret not having it as an outlet as the whole New Hope thing went down, and so I'm just kind of doing a retro-diary thing on the subject for sake of the history of my Christian faith.
Glad your socks are rocked,
Miroslav
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