LFF has a FILE on YOU

Truth about Living Faith Fellowship's File Systems:

If you have ever attended Living Faith Fellowship, they have a file on you. The leadership has always tried to avoid answering such allegations about filing systems, as denying their existence would be an outright lie (not that lying bothers them). I first saw the file system while volunteering by vacuuming rooms at the church. I was vacuuming a room in the old brown church, which houses the PCS grade school, Bible 'college' and other miscellaneous offices. In the back of the room numbered 111, there is a closet which to my knowledge is always kept locked. For some reason on this day it was not.

I opened the door, curious as to what I would find. In front of me were many file cabinets. I opened one to find rows of files, all arranged alphabetically. Every file was on a different person, couple or family. Every file had a picture paper-clipped to the front. You see, when you first attend LFF they enrol you in a class called Going for the Gold, and snap your picture. While attendees assume that the picture just goes up on the wall, in fact it becomes a part of the permanent LFF file system, identifying the stuff in the files with you.

I was horrified, but it got worse when I actually looked in the files. In each person's file were stacks of reports from different levels of leadership. The Going for the Gold guides who helped people in the introductory studies wrote reports. The Small Group Leaders wrote reports. The Congregational Care Leaders wrote reports. The pastors wrote reports. Every report was on different forms that were distributed to these people for report-writing. And every report had initials or signatures of the higher level leadership and pastors that had read and reviewed them.

The reports I just discussed were cutthroat. They discussed the intimate details and secrets of the peoples' lives. Tales of marital disputes. Tales of problems with children. Discriptions of couples' aspirations to have children and the problems they had. Disscussions of childrens struggles in school and the disciplines suggested to parents. In the few minutes I saw what was in the files I was horrified. They were not censored and did not spare the people the privacy they probably assumed. Discussions and conversations that they had with their guides and immediate level leadership that they probably assumed were in confidence were regurgitated on paper for others. If the people knew their conversations were to be repeated, they would probably not have opened up. These reports were quite frankly a gossip chain which sent information all the way up the leadership structure to the head pastors, if necessary. Things in the reports were highlighted by the reviewing leadership, and highlighted items were sent higher. Info that was crucial or particularly sensitive were passed to the top.

My horror and what I saw was all brought home when I found my own file. In the file was a lot of information that I didn't even know about myself. There was my complete demographic info from the sign-up sheet for the Going for the Gold class. There was my picture, which looked more like a mug shot or passport photo, taken portrait style like all the rest with a light background for easy identification. There were reports of my "bad attitudes" and different "spirits" that I displayed when being corrected or chastised by leadership. The most eye-opening form of all was the one that described the first day I ever attended LFF. It was a form that is filled out by all of the section greeters at LFF. Every section during a service is covered by a couple that is supposed to greet the new people and then report on who came. The report on me told in detail the exact clothes I was wearing, along with the exact descriptions of the people with me. It told where I was from, why I was in town, and had a description of my thoughts on the service. It then had a spot where follow-up was assigned to a different LFF member who was supposed to check up on me.

Why all these forms are neccessary for LFF I do not know. Why they need to know all the intimate details of their members' lives I do not know. Some of these forms had information that was outdated and unnecessary. Many of the files were on people who had not attended church in years or more than a decade. However, their information and photos were still kept. I was disturbed by the audacity of the church to keep such records on their members, but I kept silent about them. In my opinion it is something that everyone who attends LFF should be informed about, and all of the records should be made public. I think there would be hell to pay if many of the members found out what was written about them and how their private concerns were spread around LFF leadership.

In recent years, I know that Living Faith has tried to move their file system to electronic records. Every saturday morning during the service crews that are required for members, there is a crew of people who have been LFF members for a very long time that are on "data entry crew." This crew spends their time working on the LFF database and entering data into it. The size of the database must be astronomical, simply due to the amount of time that has been spent working on it. In the files are many of the secrets of the members, but the files themselves are one of the biggest secrets of the church itself. I dare say that if the extent of the system were made public, the church membership outcry could be crippling. The electronic system eliminates the large concern of the paper trail the hard files created.

The descriptions above are not imagination or fantasy. They are the truth about file systems at LFF.