~ The Beginning Of The End ~

The Beginning of the End ~

{Three weeks later …}

It was a Wednesday night.  I was home sick, taking care of sick kids.  I remember looking at the clock and seeing it was exactly 9:00 p.m.  Josh wasn't home from church yet so I texted him to ask if he was on his way.  I received no answer.  

     

It was late when he finally called to say he was heading home.  He said I wouldn't believe what had detained him.  He couldn't believe it.  He couldn't even talk about it - all he could do was sit in stunned silence and weep.  We were up into the early hours of the morning just trying to figure out what in the world had happened.  It's been over a year since that night, and we still don't understand it.  None of it.  It just doesn't make sense.  

My husband and his good friend had been called into the pastor's office for another meeting.  The slew of false accusations and confrontation these two men faced were as ludicrous as they were unwarranted and unexpected.  They had barely been seated before the pastor accosted my husband with accusations concerning my mom (who lives halfway across the country).  He had called her a "preacher hater" and said he believed her to be the source of “cliques” causing division and disunity in our church because she had dared to disagree with him about something posted on Facebook that had to do with finances.  It was all so preposterous my husband could only laugh.  The pastor surely could not be serious.  The pastor further stated that she had told him in an ensuing private message that she was going to tell our entire family “not to follow their pastor.”  When we asked for proof of this, the pastor later provided us with a copy of the entire conversation, which proved that he was lying.  Even if it hadn’t, we knew this was something she would never say, because she has always had the utmost respect for my husband as the head of his family.   

The pastor then went on to accuse my husband of disloyalty, publicly disagreeing with his pastor, doing ministries with false spiritual motives "to look spiritual and further his own agenda,” and to harm rather than help the "cause of Christ.”  Everything that my husband had begun to do a month earlier had been seen as red flags, and was somehow misconstrued as a threat of some kind.  These men were further charged with forming cliques in the church with a few other select families.  The pastor alleged that the reason visitors were not staying was because we had not been friendly enough.

These men were also told that I had a problem with "pastoral authority.”  The pastor stated he believed this was due to the fact that I talked to my mom every day and she had "poisoned" me.  He claimed he had seen this time and again with others in his church in the past. Instead of going to either myself or my mother, he went to others both inside and outside our church under the guise of a prayer request to say he was being “attacked.”  Incidentally, this is something you will see he later falsely accuses me of doing.  (See Matthew 18:15)

    

This scenario is basically described with surprising accuracy in this excerpt from Ken Blue's book, "Healing Spiritual Abuse."  I couldn't believe the similarities.

"Suppose a woman in the church has a legitimate concern about the senior pastor's authoritarian style of leadership. She first speaks to the pastor about it, and he ignores her. She then talks to others about her concern, and at this point the pastor perceives her as a threat. He then counters her perceived attack by gossiping about her to the key leaders in the church. He confides to them that in a recent marriage counseling session with her and her husband, the woman confessed a deep rebellion against all authority, especially male authority. As their pastor, he is of course very concerned about her 'hatred toward legitimate authority,' but this does account (he observes) for her current attack on him. She and her concerns are thus discredited, discounted and dismissed. She is also personally hurt, because she is now labeled as rebellious.  Pastoral gossip is one means of controlling the flow of information and maintaining power."  ~Ken Blue. Healing Spiritual Abuse: How to Break Free from Bad Church Experience   

Misunderstanding, miscommunication, misconceptions and their accompanying accusations abounded.  During one of several follow up meetings, the pastor again reiterated that he didn’t feel we were loyal and was unsure of our motives.  When my husband asked what he had ever done that demonstrated any disloyalty whatsoever, the pastor referred to a recent counsel of men meeting in which my husband offered a perspective with which the pastor had disagreed.  The first time my husband disagreed he was immediately charged with disloyalty.  The pastor said all this put him in a very difficult position as far as keeping us in our ministries.  Having nothing to prove, we offered to step down from the ministries we loved.  We had been so blessed to serve God leading Jr. Church and the music ministry we were devastated to have to give them up.  Explaining it to the children was particularly difficult and even more heartbreaking.  

Despite our best efforts to save them, relationships we thought were rock solid began to crumble.  We had nothing but love in our hearts for our pastor and his wife.  When we moved here and began attending this church our hearts were bonded instantly with theirs.  I personally saw them as a brother and sister.  We had spent countless hours together in sweet fellowship and service to the God that we seemed to mutually love.  From our perspective, we thought our relationship was a safe enough place that we could share our hearts freely without fear of our loyalty and motives being brought into question.  Never once did we question their loyalty and motives towards us, and never would we have done so.  Our heart from day one was to love them well, and we had done nothing but faithfully uphold them in prayer, always on the lookout for ways in which we could help and be a blessing to them.  

As time went on it became increasingly clear that not only were things not improving, they were getting so much worse that if they didn't begin to change in a hurry, for the sake of our kids and all they were needlessly seeing and suffering, we would not be able to stay.  His ability to take his own manipulations and lies and pin them on us was unlike anything we had ever seen.  We didn’t know then that there was a name for this type of behavior.  At first it angered us, but after we realized how real this was and the extent of it, it only stirred our compassion.    

    

We had been assured that the things we talked about in the private meetings were confidential and that we didn't have to worry about them being "mentioned from the pulpit.”  Yet, these things somehow kept finding their way into everything that was taught and preached from then on in a completely inverted, dishonest way.  Nobody absolutely knew he was talking about us (except for those who had been in the meetings) but these lessons and messages were both defensive and condemning in spirit with the result being a feeling of either a spirit of confusion (for those who had no idea) or condemnation (for those at whom the messages were directed).  We now understand that this was intentional in order to cast doubt about us in the minds of the listeners once it became known of whom he was speaking.

    

We began to dread going to church.  Throughout the week, we'd pray and become optimistic, ready to see God work in church as he had been working in our lives.  We would arrive with hope soaring that our prayers for reconciliation and restoration would at last be answered, only to leave more battered and bruised and grieved than before.  This went on for more than two months.  

    

Although several people disagreed with it, we let our kids know how we were praying.  We were praying for reconciliation and that through this, the faith of our family would be greatly strengthened.  Since they were being directly affected one way or another by what transpired, we felt it only fair to be open and honest with them about what was going on.  It was a source of great spiritual struggle to our oldest son especially, but we have no regrets.  His struggle would have been greater had we concealed anything from him.  He not only had the right to know, he needed to know.  We cherished his input and perspective as we did that of all of our children.  We did not want any of them to think that this was normal or ok.  We did not want them to believe that good, spiritual Christians quietly and with shame endure that which they know is not only unacceptable, but needs to be spoken out against.  We have taught them from a young age that if someone is doing wrong, it is our duty to stand up for what is right, even if we find ourselves standing alone.  As painful as it was, this was our opportunity to lead by example.   

{We still haven't ceased to praise God that we were NOT alone!  As time went on it came out in various meetings in the pastor's office that there were several families who had been coming to him about similar things.  He thought we had been talking about it amongst ourselves and conspiring together.  In reality, in our efforts to handle things in the wisest way we knew how, we each had deliberately avoided speaking of it to others.  If the problem(s) had been fixed, there never would have been a need to talk about them with these families, but once it became obvious that things were only getting worse, what a tremendous comfort and gift from God it was to know we were not alone in our concern and heartache.}

    

December 22, 2013:  after many tears, fasting, prayer and counsel from many different men in the ministry, we did the unthinkable…   We left our church.