Pastors that abuse their authority.

[jwp]

I belonged to the "dicipleship" movement from 1975 to 1979. The pastor was "the oil being annoited from the head to the body" We got to the point where we didn't do anything without consulting the pastor.

What a shame it was too, it's affected me to this very day. I still can't stand organized religion, and am super sensitive to control freak christianity. The way I see it is that Jesus was servant to us all, and that the his leaders (of today) should also be the chief servants. Jesus set up an inverted style of authority whereby he said that the "least of you shall be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven". That is contrary to mankind's way of thinking who the greatest is.

You know you've found a good chruch when the pator preaches the gospel, and labors on behalf of Christ, not usurping the authority and acting as if he were Christ. BTW, the Holy Spirit is a gentleman, who is never going to be a part of a lie. Many of these sects use the "Holy Spirit" as this power upon 'convocation' to control others. You will see people flopping on the floor, as if they had been shot, only to be 'slain by the spirit'. Whatever that means. The power of suggestion is greater than the power of anything happening due to an 'out of this world and instantaneous event called down by the pastor'.

Here's how you know where you stand in this type of situation. Ask youself this question "Is there any pastor that has ever escaped death?" You'll find that even these super-heros are subject to sin and death. And if they are so able to supernatually call down help, why can't they save themselves? The answer is that God is the power who has already set the standard. Nobody escapes his righteousness and the consequence of our sinful nature. Nobody is able to override what has been spoken by our Lord and Savior. We are safe in his arms and his arms only. We don't need MAN to interfere with our communication to him. (Including ourselves interferring with our relationship). Jesus prayed in the garden that "he not lose even one of his sheep". Don't you think God will grant that to his son?

Anyway, I love the Lord Jesus Christ and in my quest to seek him I've run into some foul people. Not all bad experiences though because ultimately what hasn't killed us has made us better. I know today, that the signature of a true shepard is the one who gently leads his sheep. You can't yell at them, you can't force them to go where they don't want to go, you just have to be there when they are ready to listen. That's what Christ does for us. Now, Dear Lord, just please help me to find your ultimate direction for my life. Amen.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

I found this detector the other day..
Is your pastor a super apostle?

http://www.cultwatch.com/SuperApostleDetector.html

[FONT=helvetica,arial,sans-serif][SIZE=+1]Scan clean. No Super Apostle influences detected.

That test was scary. I barely realized things like that went on. Thankfully, none of them do at my church! [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=helvetica,arial,sans-serif][SIZE=+1][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=helvetica,arial,sans-serif][SIZE=+1]
[/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[Wade Smith]

See my thread in the Denominational Formal Debate Forum

"Lies Your Favorite Preacher Told You"

Pharaoh's build Pyramids and demand brick without straw and beat the people when it can't be done.


God, on the other hand, gives mana from heaven, and turns bitter water into sweet.


God bless you.

 

[lismore]

[SIZE=+1][FONT=helvetica,arial,sans-serif]That test was scary. I barely realized things like that went on. Thankfully, none of them do at my church! [/FONT][/SIZE][FONT=helvetica,arial,sans-serif][SIZE=+1][/SIZE][/FONT]

I left a church last December. I did the survey based on that CHurch, it said this:


Off the scale! Super Apostle mind control methods detected. You are in a Super Apostle church. Strongly recommend you read all Super Apostle articles on this site. Leaving is your best option.


Glad I left then!

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

I left a church last December. I did the survey based on that CHurch, it said this:


Off the scale! Super Apostle mind control methods detected. You are in a Super Apostle church. Strongly recommend you read all Super Apostle articles on this site. Leaving is your best option.


Glad I left then!

Congrats on breaking free! Now, find a church where they love God and are true to his word, but don't do that stuff!

 

[lismore]

Congrats on breaking free! Now, find a church where they love God and are true to his word, but don't do that stuff!

Hello

I dont have the mindset anymore 'to find a church' as in a building or denomination. The same abuses, to a greater or lesser extent, are widespread in the institutional setting.

The church is where two or more believers meet together in Jesus name. The church follows me, because the 'Kingdom of God is within you'.

God Bless You.

 

[Izdaari Eristikon]

Hello

I dont have the mindset anymore 'to find a church' as in a building or denomination. The same abuses, to a greater or lesser extent, are widespread in the institutional setting.

The church is where two or more believers meet together in Jesus name. The church follows me, because the 'Kingdom of God is within you'.

God Bless You.

I understand, and I agree that we believers are the church.

But still, it must be possible for a church to avoid those problems, because I go to one that does.

God bless you too.

 

[mont974x4]

I understand, and I agree that we believers are the church.

But still, it must be possible for a church to avoid those problems, because I go to one that does.

God bless you too.

Me too.


We must be careful we are not disobedient by forsaking the assembly. I fully recognize that we are the Church, and we can "have church" anywhere. Heck, I usually have a small service when camping and on hunting trips. However, we are social creatures and we need one another. The body is made of different parts in order to meet different needs. What would happen if I, as a foot, only hung out with the toes on one foot? I would miss out on a real chance to bless others and be a blessed by others.

I freely admit, that as a "Christian Anarchist" I am disillussioned with how we do church. That stems from seeing the abuse and the pharisaic rigid religious nature of many modern churches. Perhaps, God has brought me to be pastor to effect change? We shall see I guess.

 

[Wade Smith]

I did that "super apostle" test, and found it to be worthless.

Several of the questions that it uses as markers are bad questions because those are actually very Biblical principles, which the questionaire is marking as "bad" things.


For a test to simply pick up on the word "Apostle" or the phrase "Five fold ministry" and flag it as "Bad" is simply unreliable. While the phrase "Five Fold Ministry" doesn't appear in the Bible, the five ministries to which it refers definitely do appear in the Bible. That question should not even be on the questionaire.


For some of the other words that it uses as markers, a person may have heard some of those terms at their church because their pastor was preaching against it, but the question is unfair because it implies that if your pastor has even mentioned the subject then something must be wrong, leaving no choice but to either lie on the questionaire, or to answer "yes" to a question that is going to detect the pastor as a "super apostle", when it should not.

====

I'm pretty sure any church will have some sort of abuses when examined close enough, but when the pastor or some other individual or small group of people begin to have too much influence over the congregation's daily lives, then things have gotten out of hand.


Part of the problem with these pastors is they have the natural order of things in the Bible out of place.

Believe it or not, It should look like this:

God
Family
Nation
Church

That is the order in which God's institutions are established in the Bible.

But this is usually the order of a "Church" who's leaders have gotten out of order.

"god"
"Church"
Family
Nation


And what you will find is that they will destroy any boundaries between "Church" and "Family", and exclude nation all together, So that the end result looks like this.

"god"
"Church-Family"
Nation-"heretics"

In which case, they have become a true cult.

In the case of these second and third lists, "god" is lower case, because they are no longer serving the same God as a true Christian.
=====

Now the phrase "Church Family" is used in a lot of innocent, decent churches, so one should not necessarily be alarmed if you hear someone use that phrase.

In the context of the cult or cult-like church, what my phrase "Church Family" is referring to is the pastoral control over the family. Terms such as "family of God" and "We're one big family" become over used and mis-applied.

1) They control the finances - RUN!!
I've even heard of extremes going so far as demanding to see thier paychecks or tax returns.

This can also involve sending a jar or bag home with the family, encouraging them to save up money during the week for the "offering". i.e. coercion.

2) Control the living space - RUN!!

"Bible College" makes a perfect place for this, since it gives the leaders easy access to further manipulate people, but they may also tell families if, when, and where they can buy a house.

You may be encouraged to sell your house and move to the Bible college campus, or move to an apartment nearby, and it probably wont be the leader who makes the suggestion, but a lower member, probably your own age group. However, just because someone suggests something like this does not mean they are a cult, it could just be innocent "know it all" human nature, them thinking they know whats best for you.

I don't think every Bible College is necessarily a cult entity, but I am very warry of them because I find no scriptural justification for them,a nd they are very easily used as a brainwashing tool, especially since the reward/punishment system is naturally in place. pass/fail, etc.

"Every good christian ought to want to know how to minister the gospel to others."

sounds so scriptural because it is, yet it is easily warped as a control mechanism.

I know of a certain man who appears to have left everything and moved into a Bible College and its dorms some ~20 years ago. He has been working in the book store of the "church" all this time, earning scarcely more than minimum wage, and living in their dorm. By the time you figure "tithe and offering" plus his dorm cost, plus the fact that he buys all or most of his clothes from the church clothing store and of course buys all the pastor's literature and books, he is basicly giving every cent that he makes right back to the church. And he believes "god" has led him there for a reason. His was one of the most extreme cases I encountered, but there were literally scores of similar cases, ranging from teens and tweens to the elderly.

3) Control relationships - RUN!!
Tell you who you can and cannot marry BEYOND the scriptural authority. Biblically, A christian should NEVER marry an unbeliever, for example.

However, the cult or cult-like leader may tell you directly, or indirectly through his network, "you can't marry Jill," or, "you must marry Jane."

Why? Because Jane is a full blown member that the leader knows he can trust, whereas Jill may not be a member at all, or may be a relatively new member. They tend to try to marry senior members to less senior members in order to facilitate a stronger bond to hold the person from leaving.


4) Decoy or blackmale - RUN!!

A) The person you believe is the "Pastor" may not even be the true leader of the cult.

Even after you identify an organization as a cult or cult-like entity, it can be difficult to know who is truly pulling the strings. In some cases, several leaders may be blackmaling one another, so that there is no "one person" completely in charge, making it even harder to spot any clear pattern.


B) If the "official pastor" rarely speaks, you may also be in a decoy or blackmale situation.


5) Rarely or Never allow visiting speakers - RUN!!
Basicly, at this point they have something to hide, or they are becoming a mind control organization.

Sometimes a cult-like organization will allow a visiting speaker just for the sake of maintaining a "normal" appearance, but even then, it will be someone with beliefs as close to what the leaders want you to believe as possible. If the person gets too far out of line, they may never be invited back. This sort of behaviour can happen to some extent even within churches that have strong denominational affiliations. They may have a denominational leader who they allow to speak, because they must in order to maintain appearance, but otherwise virtually never have a visiting speaker.

Once they quit allowing visiting speakers all together, then they are becoming a true cult, and may completely cut whatever denominational ties they have.

In some cases, the entire denomination IS a cult.



======

On several of these things that I've listed, I really believe the police should be notified on 4, and probably 2 and 3 as well.

1 and 5 the police will just write off as "freedom of religion" issues, but 4 often involves illegal activity, and 2 and 3 may also involve illegal activity.


All of 1-4 SHOULD be illegal IMO. 5 is just a natural consequence of the other 4.

 

[ffinder]

To my regret i must add another 2 points as recently (April 2009) someone inform us that this same pastor announced a new commandment:

15 - Late at church? You just sinned! You don't touch the Lord's supper!
So if you come 5 minutes late you are forbidden to partake of the Lord's supper because you sinned against the commandment "thou shall not come late at church" many scriptures were given to support this.

16 - When the pastor commands it's the same as if Jesus commanded.
Pastor was done preaching, someone gets up and prophecies: "You just heard God speaking and not a man." and pastor says: "if you love me obey my commandments"!! I was expecting something like "im human, sometimes i make mistakes, test me if what i say agrees with the Word" but no such thing..

Pastors that abuse their authority.

That's the reason that about 90 believers left our church more than a year ago, some of them members for more than 12 years.

Following are the main points of abuse:

1 - Worship control
We were commanded by the pastor to worship the way he likes (shouting, screaming, dancing) and because most of the time we failed to do so
we were condemned as not praising God as loudly as He deserves.

2 - Submission to pastor
Submission in everything he says and anyone questioning his actions was considered a rebel and under a curse (1Sa 15:23) Many times the
pastor said if you love me (the pastor) obey my commandments. For more than 6 months he was doing Bible studies on submission to the pastor.

3 - Church authority structure
The old pyramid structure but worse than that no elders! The pastor in all of his decisions he hears from God, no need to consult others.

4 - Abuse of authority
How about expelling some workers from ministry suddenly without telling them why or
assigning a wife in a ministry without telling anything to her husband

5 - Pastor is servant
He said the workers are in the church to serve the pastor. He emphasized that everything must be ready when he comes to preach, he only
takes the microphone. Once he rebuked the workers for not moving a fallen banner, he went and moved it to our shame. You could only get
advice from him if you make an appointment at specific hours of the day. Once we had a case with demon possession but we couldn't call the
pastor cause it was outside his specific hours so we brought someone else from a different church.

6 - Finances
No accountability was given of where the money goes or what are their wages. On one occasion a large piece of land was sold and until today
we do not know what happened to the money.

7 - Money preaching
No, they never begged us to give but EVERY Sunday morning before the main sermon a mini sermon was preached by different workers on giving to
God.

8 - Vision of pastor
No one else had the freedom to have a different vision. He often said "there can be no 2 visions in this church". All workers and members main ministry was to fulfill the pastor's vision.

9 - Church show biz
Oh how many were sacrificed on the altar of church show! Once the show started you had to be there on time better yet half hour earlier
looking perfect with the right suit behaving right to the end of the show. One mistake and you got heavily rebuked. The show was more
important than the hearts of believers. Like a young musician not wearing the right tie he was heavily rebuked, he got really hurt.

10 - Traditions of man
Point 9 had plenty of rules and regulations that disobeying them you got whipped but also signing to become a member/tither for life was a
rule to new members. Lists were taken for members not attending services and also lists of who doesn't tithe who tithes and how much he
gives. You see we were accountable to him about our tithes/offerings but he was not accountable to us as to what he did with our tithes/offerings.

11 - Sensitivity to unbelievers
You try to bring your friend to church to get saved. If he doesn't go away at the hysterical worship and screaming from the pastor and some
others he will when money preaching starts. Usually they say "did you bring me here to get my money to them ?"

12 - Darkness underestimated
Satan has no power or authority today! claiming Col 2:15 "And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly,
triumphing over them in it." The original greek says 'striped naked' for 'spoiled' so the principalities and powers were striped naked from
their power and position (principality) and now they are naked that is they have no power or position (principality).

13 - Church name above Jesus name
Someone said to him "you must put Jesus is Lord above the name of the church outside the building". No he said. And how about the many
T-shirts printed with the name of the church in front and Jesus name behind.

14 - Curses
When we left three of us our names were given from the pulpit with warnings no one to speak to us along with the following scripture
Pro 24:21 My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change:For their calamity shall rise
suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both? He said he is not the one cursing us but the Bible.




Maybe some of you have experienced abuse from leaders in other points than the above.

I believe that all of the above points are unscriptural therefore we could not continue in this kind of a church that might turn to a cult. He would not listen to anybody even leaders from other churches. No change to this day. What i'm concerned with is the believers that go there and they suffer but they don't go away because of fear.

I'm thinking of distributing facts about spiritual abuse among the churches
(without mentioning names) so that believers will wake up shake off the fear and find Christ centered churches.

Thanks in advance for hearing my story,
FF.

 

[SistrNChrist]

I do believe that there are churches out there that do preach the true Gospel, because I am a member of a church that operates on a system where the pastors are accountable to other pastors as well as the elders of our church. In fact, there have been times where our pastor has said that she loves it when people have questions about her sermons because it shows that they're reading their Bibles and not just operating on blind obedience to the pastors.

 

[ffinder]

..true Gospel, because I am a member of a church that operates on a system where the pastors are accountable to other pastors as well as the elders of our church..

Is that system a pyramid system? or a Bible based system.

A pyramid system is when the elders are accountable to the pastors and the pastors are accountable to the senior pastor and not the other way around! (i.e. a pastor is not accountable to an elder but the elder is accountable to the pastor) trouble is the senior pastor is accountable to no one!

A Bible based system is when the pastor is accountable to the least significant beleiver. I always say that i will submit to the pastor that submits to me. "Yes, all of you be subject one to another" 1Pet5:5

FF

 

[creation61]

Please read this website. I think you will find it interesting if not helpful. Please type in Dictator pastors in google and see the website called dictator pastors. Very informational

 

[Episaw]

The problem with 'the pastor' is that the NT does not teach a pyramdial structure headed by one man. That is something that has been imposed by church leaders over the centuries.

Nowhere in the NT will you find a job description of the modern pastor. Whether he is a good or bad pastor, the reality is he just should not be there in the way that role is performed today.

I believe that this is one reason why revival cannot come. We need new wineskins for new wine. I am very happy to be experimenting with what I believe is something that could facilitate revival.

John
NZ

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

 

[Episaw]

Hello

I dont have the mindset anymore 'to find a church' as in a building or denomination. The same abuses, to a greater or lesser extent, are widespread in the institutional setting.

The church is where two or more believers meet together in Jesus name. The church follows me, because the 'Kingdom of God is within you'.

God Bless You.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO VERY TRUE!!!!

 

[Episaw]

Me too.

We must be careful we are not disobedient by forsaking the assembly. I fully recognize that we are the Church, and we can "have church" anywhere. Heck, I usually have a small service when camping and on hunting trips. However, we are social creatures and we need one another. The body is made of different parts in order to meet different needs. What would happen if I, as a foot, only hung out with the toes on one foot? I would miss out on a real chance to bless others and be a blessed by others.

The assembling together in the Greek is assembling in homes. Those who assemble in public buildings are not assembling together. You will note that the scriptures do not make any mention of the Sunday morning meeting.

 

[Episaw]

Spiritual abuse, and it's many permutations, has been a problem throughout the history of the church. And while abuse can happen in any church, in any setting, the most prolific and common type of abuse, today, is chiefly the brand of abuse that has, in one way or another, stemmed from the megachurch movements of the last couple of decades. Regardless of the flavor of the oppression, spiritual abuse always leaves the victim wounded and lost.

In addition, there are those bogus leaders who are more concerned what the denomination says and pleasing them rather than follow the teaching of scripture and the voice of the Lord.

 

[Episaw]

We just have to keep praying for the Lord to help us find a place around other like believers. God Bless You all!

Get in touch with House2House at www dot house2house dot net. The Dales have contacts all over the USA, so they might be able to help you.

Barna Research reckons up to 1 million christians a year are leaving the man made church for church in the home.

 

[Andrew12]

a good pastor is like a Shepherd, he gently guides his sheep and tries to find them good grass to eat and cool sweet water to drink. He also does his best to protect them from predators. but He is also a servant to the church.

 

[Jamey]

I haven't read the whole thread, so sorry if this is subject has been gone over already.
Abusive people can also be found in the biblical church movement also. Where you have people you have sinners and being abusive is a sin like anything else. It is based on pride. What we have to do is continue in the Word and let it guide us in those areas. I will say that in the IC you will find a better chance for abusive leaders because of the un-biblical structure that fosters such pride. Just be on the look out for them and becareful.
J.