~ I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more. ~C.S. Lewis
~ It is wise to direct your anger towards problems – not people; to focus your energies on answers – not excuses. ~William Ward
http://www.finestquotes.com/author_quotes-author-C.S.%20Lewis-page-1.htm
Once again, we have BREAKING NEWS which we will share momentarily. Last fall a “family of churches” that goes by the name Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) came to our attention. How? We believe it was providential, but we’ll save that story for another day…
SGM was operating “under the radar” so to speak until some anti-SGM bloggers came along in late 2007 and 2008. They have provided a forum for those who have been spiritually abused in Sovereign Grace churches to speak out about the atrocities that have taken place and have been “covered up”. Recently, a “Reformed Big Dog” (RBD) who remains anonymous has gotten involved. According to Jim over at SGM Refuge, this RBD has requested that those who have been affected submit their testimonies to C.J. Mahaney, President of SGM (presumably through the RBD). There has been a flurry of comments in recent days on SGMRefuge.com and SGMSurvivors.com about this matter. We believe Jim is in the process of receiving these complaints which he will forward through the proper channels.
Just yesterday, Kris and Guy, who host SGM Survivors, posted the testimony of a 22 year old who grew up in SGM. She goes by the name “Set Free”. The story she shares is one of the most disturbing accounts we have ever read. Here’s the link to her testimony:
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=843
We encourage you to read her lengthy explanation of what it was like growing up in a family that was heavily influenced by Sovereign Grace Ministries. It's a blessing that she is able to communicate as effectively as she can, given what she experienced.
Here is a synopsis of her life story. Set Free is the eldest of six children. Yes, larger families seem to be characteristic of SGM. Set Free's parents joined SGM Fairfax when she was young. Her father was a dictator who ruled his family with an iron fist. The authoritarian principles taught in this "family of churches" only made his behavior worse. Here's an excerpt of what she wrote:
"The way that SGM / PDI leaders praised my father for demonstrating good leadership skills in his ability to ‘run a business’ [a lawn service] only served to nurture in him a mindset of an already sociopathic pattern of behavior. My father had always had an unbelievably controlling and manipulative personality, but as a member of SGM / PDI, this was not reprimanded in any way, in fact, the way that my father “controlled” his family demonstrated “good leadership skills” according to SGM / PDI."
Here's how Set Free describes some of her childhood experiences with her father when she was around seven years old:
"I can remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom crying as my father talked at me for hours and hours. This particular night I began to grow tired, as would anyone else, and I laid down on the floor while he was talking to me. He grabbed my arm and pulled at me to make me sit up. Of course the fact that I had laid down while he was talking to me was disrespectful and only proved to him that I didn’t care about what he was saying and had no desire to change. Out of frustration, I pulled my arm away from him. That set him off. He grabbed me and pulled me into a sitting position in his lap and wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug. I was struggling to get away, still crying and screaming at him to let go of me, he held on to me so tightly that I could hardly breathe and would not let go until I stopped crying and moving around. I can remember screaming to him “Daddy I can’t breath!”, but he never let go. It was not until I was practically hyperventilating and had given up my fight that he finally let go of me and let me sit back on the floor.
Things like this happened all the time. Another time, my father and I had been arguing and as usual I was putting up quite the fight. He sent me to my room and in my anger I slammed the door. Immediately after I slammed the door, he was in the room in my face screaming at me about what I bad attitude I was having. I just wanted to get away from him. When I tried to get up and walk out of the room to get away from him, he grabbed my arm and yanked me back into the room and slammed the door in my face. He then took a sheet and tied my bedroom doorknob to something outside that would prevent me from opening the door and left me in my room to “think about my behavior”. I can remember pulling on the door as hard as I could and screaming at the top of my lungs “let me out”. My father would leave me in my room until he felt like I had settled down enough to talk. He would provoke me to no end and berate me and belittle me and then when I finally reacted to the horrible things that he said to me, I was the one with the attitude problem and I was disrespectful and I was the rebellious child. I could do nothing right in his eyes."
Set Free then explains how her mother was treated by her father, which was encouraged by the pastors in SGM. She writes:
"In the same way that my father was encouraged by the church to raise “obedient” children, he was also taught to view my mother as the person that was put on this earth to serve him. The Bible says, “wives obey your husbands”, but the church as well as my father took this one way out of proportion. Even before my parents were saved and became members of SGM / PDI, in his anger, my father would throw my mother across the room completely airborne while she was pregnant with me. He wouldn’t think twice about lurching into completely physically abusive behavior. After they joined the church my father treated my mother like she was his slave. If something wasn’t done, he would yell at her and try to intimidate her physically. If the house was messy he would yell at her and tell her what a horrible mother she was and what a horrible house-wife she was. [when I say yell, I mean to put-down, condemn, discourage, belittle etc.] This behavior from my father had been present since my parents were first married, but once they became members of the church, the behavior only got worse."
Next, Set Free shares that her family moved to Atlanta, Georgia from Fairfax when she was around 9 years old to plant another SGM church. She gives an unusual explanation for why some families are chosen to "plant" another church:
"One of the leaders of this group has 4 children 2 boys and 2 girls [At the time we were not aware that the oldest boy had molested a child in another of the PDI / SGM churches and SGM's solution was to send his family to another church!!!!!]"
Even more shocking than that was what she writes about the son of the senior pastor at the church plant in Atlanta:
"While we were living in Atlanta, the oldest son of the lead pastor forced my friend to participate in oral sex with him. She was around 16 years old at the time."
One of the most disturbing parts of Set Free's story was her account of what happened after she cooked dinner for her family. She prepared the meal because her mom (who home schooled all the children — typical of SGM families) was overwhelmed with caring for the other children, especially the youngest who was autistic. Set Free spent 45 minutes cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, and her father "inspected" her work. He noticed a grease spot on the bottom of one of the pots and demanded that she wash the dinner dishes AGAIN! She obeyed in a compliant manner. During the second inspection, he found a small spot on the bottom of another pot. He flew into a rage by grabbing all of the dishes out of the cabinets, throwing them on the kitchen counters, and dictating to her to wash ALL OF THEM! Here's what she writes:
"The counters were piled high with dishes and my father went back to his TV show and told me to come and get him when I had finished washing all the dishes a 3rd time. With many tears and sobbing the majority of the time, I washed all of the dishes in the sink again with my father coming in on commercials to check on me and stand over my shoulder and criticize me the entire time. This whole process was about 4 hours and when I had finished washing all the dinner dishes and the additional dishes for the 3rd time, I reluctantly went to get my father for “inspection”. This time the dishes were good enough, but as he scanned over the counters, he found a crumb in the corner of one of the counters. I can remember choking back the tears hoping that he wouldn’t spank me and at the same time I was so angry that he couldn’t just leave me alone. I had busted my A** and it had gotten me nothing but punishment.
At this point my father moved everything off the counter and told me that I needed to get a hot cloth and clean the whole counter with soapy water. I had had enough … I told him that if he was mad that the counter had 1 stinking crumb on it, then he could wipe it. Bad move on my part. It was around 11 pm, and not only was I spanked for being disrespectful, but I was also grounded and the “talk” went on for about another hour or so. I went to bed that night so angry and so upset. I had spent hours in the kitchen earlier that afternoon making dinner only to be left to clean up the dishes myself and be un-relentlessly criticized by my father and disciplined for being lazy. Things like this happened every few days or so. [By the way, my mother was taking care of the other 4 children and bathing them and getting them ready for bed while all of this went on. I don't want you to think that my mother just stood by while all of this happened]."
Set Free explains that after living in Atlanta for three years, her family moved to Jacksonville, Florida to plant another SGM church. The abuse by her father kept getting worse and worse . . . She writes about how she tried to get him to help her with a math problem (remember that she's homeschooled), which she just wasn't understanding. He showed her how to solve it over and over again, yet she still didn't understand. After sharing that part of her testimony, this is what immediately follows:
"After sitting and listening to this for some time, I finally got tired and tried to bring the conversation to a close. I tried to walk away and leave the room, but my father grabbed me and pulled me back into the room. I pulled away and tried to get out of his reach, but he grabbed and pulled me back into the room and pushed me up against the wall. I pushed him back and tried again to get away, but he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me up against the wall and lifted me off the ground choking me. The only way for me to get away was to kick and punch him until he let go. I am sad to say that this was not the worst physical abuse situation that I was in with my father. I lived in constant fear of my father and also in fear of the “discipline” that would come from the pastor when my father would tell them how defiant and disobedient I was.
You see when, my parents became members of the SGM church in Northern VA, my father was already abusive and controlling with my mother. When he saw how the leaders of the church encouraged women to obey their husbands and only added to my father’s misconstrued ideas that the men were in control and that when it was all said and done, the husband was “in charge”, he quickly adopted their teachings and thoroughly enforced them in our home. This was not just with my mother, as evident by what I have already told you, but also with my siblings and I. My father was in control at all times and if for some reason he felt that one of us was threatening his authority or challenging him in any way, he immediately reacted with discipline, punishment or some other means to ensure that the person “defying” him was put back in their place as quickly as humanly possible. Things only got worse the longer that we were members of the SGM church."
When Set Free was around 14 years old, her mother would spend hours and hours on the phone with her aunt Noel. Remember, she's homeschooled so she was constantly around her mom. Her mother would jot down notes on pieces of paper during the phone conversations and then throw them away so no one would see them. However, Set Free would retrieve them so she could figure out what was so upsetting to her mom and aunt. If you had spent time reading the SGM Survivors blog, as we have, you would immediately recognize the name "Noel". You see, Noel shared her own testimony on the Survivors blog (see links below). It's a very lengthy story, but in a nutshell Noel's 3 year old daughter was repeatedly raped by a 15 year old boy in their SGM church. The teenager was babysitting other SGM children while the parents attended SGM leadership meetings. What’s most upsetting about Noel’s story is that the church hid the problem. Her story really is a MUST READ!!! Here are the three installments to Noel's story, along with a follow-up post.
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=276
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=290
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=298
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=312
There are even more upsetting details Set Free includes in the remainder of her testimony; however, this post is already too long, so please read her story at the link provided.
You may wonder whether the horror stories written by Set Free and Noel are isolated accounts. No they are not! While they may be extreme, we have read many accounts of church members who have been abused and neglected by their pastors. Sovereign Grace Ministries has utilized the internet more than any ministry we know. Ironically, it’s this very communication tool that is bringing about their downfall.
Just today on the Sovereign Grace Ministries blog called "C.J. Mahaney's view from the cheap seats & other stuff", C.J. posted the fourth installment of his interview with Randy Alcorn. His final question to Randy is: "What do you do for leisure?" Randy answers by explaining that in December his leisure includes going to his mailbox daily and "hoping for the annual arrival of chocolates from my friend C.J. Mahaney." Randy concludes by saying he prays God will keep C.J. around for his wife, his family, and the Sovereign Grace churches and also to keep those chocolates coming! Here's the link:
http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/
SGM, the charade is over!!! We recommend to C.J. Mahaney that he spend less time sending chocolates to his buddies at Christmas and more time addressing the atrocities that are happening in Sovereign Grace Ministries' "family of churches"!!!
PS: Recently, a former pastor claimed to be a good friend of C J Mahaney, the self-proclaimed “Head Apostle” (Egads!) of Sovereign Grace Ministries. He extensively quoted CJ in a recent sermon. A real friend would tell C J to spend more time stopping the abuses of “his” churches instead of running around to conferences telling others how to be good Calvinistas. Said former pastor is morally obligated to refuse to appear on any platform with this neglectful “Apostle” and any other pastor from this abusive group of churches, no matter how much money is involved, until these reported incidents (way too many) have been investigated and stopped!
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Do you think these things happen only in SG churches? I experienced the same abuse as a young man, but the church I grew up in (main stream denomination) knew nothing of my father.
Do you think SGM knew all the details? If a child seems obedient (even if it is out of fear) wouldn’t it seem like the parents are doing well? What would you blog if the pastors asked to see how the father or mother parents?
Did you bother to get the parents’ perspective on what happened?
It appears to me you are so angry at SGM you look for any reason to malign them. Certainly, even if the stories you quote above are only partly true, they are horrific. I wish I could say I have been the perfect, godly father. However, that does not mean SGM is not an effective ministry with godly desires. I can say my parenting techniques have become more gentle and caring than before I began attending. I have learned what it means to be an encouraging, humble parent/husband (not that I am in any way the best example). I have been taught servant leadership, building up my wife and children, training them to love God’s Word and live for Him. I thank God for SGM and my church!!
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“Did you bother to get the parents’ perspective on what happened”
“You see, Noel shared her own testimony on the Survivors blog (see links below). It’s a very lengthy story, but in a nutshell Noel’s 3 year old daughter was repeatedly raped by a 15 year old boy in their SGM church. The teenager was babysitting other SGM children while the parents attended SGM leadership meetings. What’s most upsetting about Noel’s story is that the church hid the problem. Her story really is a MUST READ!!! Here are the three installments to Noel’s story, along with a follow-up post.”
Which part of that did you not understand?
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GeeP,
So glad you’re having a positive experience in your SGM church. Unfortunately, MANY have been abused in this “family of churches”. That’s why multiple web sites exist for those who have encountered serious problems. I wonder why several former SGM pastors and care group leaders have posted critical comments on these blogs…
If you ever challenge the status quo, they’ll be there to listen to you and lift you up, too. I dare you to read Noel’s story over at SGM Survivors. It’s kinda long and rambling because it was written by a mother whose three year old daughter was raped by a fifteen year old boy from her SGM church. Here’s the link: http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=276
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GeeP,
Since your hyper-authoritarian leaders likely dictate that SGMers NEVER read NEGATIVE blogs, here’s a recent comment over at SGM Survivors by someone who attends a sister church (or possibly even your church). Take a look…
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=1687
“Still there
July 29th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
In each of our churches (if any of us are still in SGM) we need to see the root of the problem which in my opinion is that the leaders of SGM came out of the old Shepherding movement. I believe that this has caused them to develop a top down, heavy handed approach to leadership that recognizes only PC graduated (with a few exceptions) paid staff pastors as elders. This approach is not only unbiblical, it is just backwards. The early church started with Elders that were probably not paid. They were all tentmakers so to speak. Paulson use of the word pastor or shepherd provides a encouragement to the elders to care for the people as a shepherd would care for sheep. I would suggest that the term has perhaps more to do with poetry than polity.
So what we have are elders. They are the leaders of the church. Some of them might even be paid by the congregation so that they could serve with less distraction. OK. We now have some of the elders that are paid staff in the NT. Add the deacons, that are doing the nuts and bolts work and we have a properly balanced leadership structure.
Not in SGM. Our church is so lopsided. We at one time had five pastors on staff and then added a sixth when the senior pastor’s good friends son, who was raised in the church, came back from the PC. This young guy was made a pastor…actually the Executive Pastor. All of these things happened with no congregational input…no one saying that it seems like a bad idea to put a seemingly mature, but unproven 24 year old in charge of a 700 person congregation filled with 40 and 50 somethings and their kids.
It isn’t quite nepotism, but it is as close as it can be, since neither of the senior pastors two sons are up for becoming pastors. The real shame is that he is denying the young pastor the experience of planting a church and working hard to build it…things that he himself had and matured from.
So now we are down to four pastors. People are leaving in droves. The church finances are way way down. If they have to let a pastor go, the exclusive leadership circle will tighten and bad decisions will continue.
All the damage that will be done, all because, they have screwed up polity.”
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GeeP
We have nothing to be angry about personally in regards to SGM. But I am mad as all get out at their alleged abusive tactics as outlined on SGM Survivors, et al. I hate to sound cynical but one day you will see what we mean. It seems to happen to quite a few.