An e-mailed response to the previous post

I apologize in advance as this became rather lengthy rather quickly. I think you will find it relevant in response to the previously e-mailed question. I read the last post and could not help but respond. This blog has been very helpful for me in naming and dealing with my pain. But no post has required a response of me until now. And so, to whoever you are with the questions…You are right, no church is perfect, churches are run by people and therefore will always have flaws. As to the vagueness, there are specific issues all over the blog. Perhaps they lack the gory details, but they are there, you just have to see them. If I had the ability I could walk you through the whole blog with a highlighter showing you the causes of people’s pain. It seems the administrators here have chosen not to relate one time instances or many detailed descriptions because by most measures it would be trivial.

If people were to recount the detailed interactions and certain instances that caused the departure of anyone; it would take hundreds if not thousands of pages. Yet that desire for details is something that is inherently wrong with LFF. It is driven by information, and that information only flows one way. There are numerous weekly and monthly meetings to discuss the information and sin in the lives of sheep. But, this is pointless, it is a waste of all of our time to sit here and argue about what kinds of details are passed along about sheep to “shepherds.”

So perhaps you cannot see the specifics here and that is fine, allow me to help your search. As you can tell from reading, the most common topics are these; spiritual abuse, control, abuse of authority for personal gain, arrogance of leadership, and failure of the pastors to accept any point of view besides the their own. It is easy to miss all of these things going on around you; after all they are being done in the name of God. At times I missed them too.

Frankly, asking for intimate details is a bit of an odd request given that there are obviously an overwhelming amount of people that are hurt and only now finding healing. Whether you realize it or not, you are in a fact asking victims of abuse to recount the explicit details of that abuse. Is the pain not good enough, not real enough, must you hear the intricacies too?

I realize that for some it is hard to believe without unequivocal proof. So I will oblige you with some of the details of my own experience. Those in current leadership will deny this; again chalking it up, like usual, to gross misinterpretations on my part due to sin in my life. I will be the first to tell you that is no news; I am a sinner. Anyone who says they have no sin in their life is nothing more than a delusional liar, thus a sinner. So writing this off because of one’s sins is completely irrelevant, a shoddy argument at best. I say that only because this is the first route taken by the pastors to discredit the truth. However, it would be a waste of all of our time for me to sit here and make up some story about the church.

I went to LFF for nearly twenty-five years. Born and raised, a true product of the church. I have been through it all there. I have been yelled at, screamed at, and even cussed at by the former and current pastors. All this in the name of God and “righteous anger.” Remember, God only chastens those He loves. Oh, and my countenance I was always getting an earful for that. If I wasn’t smiling, I was sinning and so the yelling came again. People who have been around there long enough constantly said there are double standards and this one is classic. How many times have I been chewed out for my frown by the frowning pastor’s wife? Countless.

I saw my best friend’s family publicly humiliated for the sins of their son. These sins were the subject of a special members meeting that we were all required to attend. The poor choices of a teenager became the topic of discussion for the evening. The family was publicly stripped of their leadership responsibilities. They ended up moving away from Pullman and we were all forbidden to talk to them. The church had forced their own out; those who had given so much were ostracized by the leadership. For what? This tore me up inside, my best friend was gone and I could not talk to him because he was a “sinner.” Good thing Jesus talked to sinners or we would all be lost.

I continued to attend with my family but hated the fact that my parents were always doing church stuff. I rarely saw my parents as they worked for the church and were either working, ministering, or in their free time assisting the pastors with projects around their house. The church said family comes before ministry but they required their members to put family after church. This was never said but as every preacher loves to tell us, “Actions speak louder than words.” This was not just my family; the same was true of all of my friends’ families. Families always took a back seat to church. I was troubled by this and countless other hypocrisies.

At 16 I told the senior pastor that I did not want to go to the Christian School any more because we didn't have a football team and I wanted to play football. He replied by crawling across the top of his desk in a screaming fit of rage. He kicked me out of my house, right in front of my parents without even consulting them. I looked at my parents and they said nothing, we all knew to question his judgment, asinine as it was, was never tolerated. I spent two nights at a friend’s house before coming home and begging to go back to the school. Not because I wanted to, because I had to.

I hated the school, hated the church and hated the system I was trapped in. I was told how to walk, how to talk, how to act, and what to think. The growing number of discrepancies I saw caused me to never take anything at face value. And so I inwardly questioned. Questioned policies, questioned double standards, questioned the godliness of the tirades of the pastor, and questioned this false reality the church had painted for me. I knew questioning was never acceptable but I could not stand it. I could not take these thoughts tearing apart my insides anymore. So I began to ask but never received answers. Instead of being told why the way things were the way they were, I was labeled as a rebel.

I was then constantly in trouble for the tiniest things. Things that were not even issues garnered the wrath of the pastors. I once wore my hat backwards while I was shooting baskets. Like it or not, it is easier to make a shot if you are not hitting the bill of your hat every time you shoot the ball. Well, someone saw me with my hat turned backwards and reported me to the senior pastor. He then brought me in front of everyone at members meeting and while the current senior pastors watched silently, he yelled at me, hit me in the face, and banned me from wearing a hat ever again on LFF property. Apparently, he decided backwards hats were rebellious and therefore, to him, I was rebelling.

Suddenly, everything about me was being judged, the clothes I wore, the people I talked to, even the Christian music I listened to. Yes, Christian music. The senior pastor even preached a message one Sunday saying in front of the entire congregation that he was angered by the fact that some of the people who grew up here had gone to a Christian rock concert in Spokane. I was in college but I had to beg for his forgiveness for being rebellious and going to a Third Day concert. Unfortunately I was a little early, no one in the church yet approved of the music they now sing in worship services.

It became too much, I hated that place and I could not take it anymore. I began doing what I wanted and not telling anyone about it. But they found out; I was ex-communicated from the church. The current senior pastor and an assistant came to my apartment and told me I was no longer allowed to speak to my family, my friends, or anyone associated with LFF because of “un-repentance” in my life. Was I sinning? Emphatically yes. But sin was not tolerated so they wanted nothing to do with me. My friends were told, “Don’t talk to him; he made his own bed now let him lie in it.” And so it was, for three years I had almost no contact with my family and all those I grew up with; it was not allowed.

And as quickly as it began, it ended. I wanted my family back and my life without God was a wreck. I returned to my home late one evening and once again found God. It was perfect, innocence at last. I loved everything about Him, and was enamored by anything that had to do with my new found Savior. I asked forgiveness of many people for my rebellion and for believing lies about them. My joy was complete

As the school year approached, I was asked if I wanted to be a JCD. I said, “No.” But “no” was the wrong answer. I was asked to meet with the soon to be campus pastor who strongly encouraged me to become a JCD. I was still not convinced so the current senior pastor met with me and again strongly encouraged me to join. And I did. Within a month I hated it. I was in trouble for not filling out reports or not spending enough time doing this or that. The system had taken hold again; backbreaking rules replaced true love and an innocent desire for God. Then all at once the joy I had vanished.

As I became more involved I was shocked. The things that had troubled me as a youth did in fact happen. I asked forgiveness for what I thought were juvenile misconceptions on my part. I sought forgiveness for being critical of the double standards, forgiveness for thinking of the pastors as arrogant, and forgiveness for assuming the anger (verbal abuse) that had driven me away was ungodly. Yet, all these things were still happening; I was led to believe I needed to ask forgiveness for the sins against me. I became confused and the closer I looked the more I saw. I brought these issues -- which I could give you even more specifics but it would overwhelm you -- to people in leadership and to my surprise, some of them agreed. But the senior pastors felt otherwise.

Then it snapped, I saw many of my friends start to leave the church for the exact things that had troubled me in the past. I tried to point out why they were leaving to the new pastors but it was useless. I had no voice and that which deeply troubled me was to them, untrue. So I opted for anonymity. I drafted the letter that appears on the very bottom of this site and sent it to the pastors. (I was a little surprised when I found it here on this blog, but I am glad someone is making use of it.) It became a witch hunt. And after several weeks I came forward and claimed my previously unsigned correspondence. This led to several very long meetings that went absolutely nowhere. I did receive an apology from the senior pastors though…”We are sorry you feel this way, but how you feel is not accurate.” That was a first, up to that point in my life I had never been told of my errant ways in an apology. I was made to feel guilty and I myself apologized for writing the letter. Which in retrospect was a mistake; I said nothing untrue and was only trying to stop the efflux of members.

After a few more pointless meetings, I left. Since then, I have seen hundreds of people leave for the exact same things I tried to point out; control, manipulation, double standards, and abuse of authority. But what grieves me most are the ones that really tried the ones who really “pressed in.” My friends on the worship team and in the CCF band were forced out for not being submissive to someone’s personal idea of holiness. For not choosing the “songs God wanted to hear for worship.” For refusing to admit, and I quote, “LFF is the best church in world.” For questioning when what they heard from God was not what their pastor was telling them. For singing songs in worship that God’s song selector had not yet approved or had a chance to sing on a Sunday. Apparently the songs God wants to hear on a Friday must be sung on a Sunday first. He seems to like a larger audience to introduce potential worship service classics. For many reasons people have been pushed out and innocence destroyed. These reasons coupled with the inability of the senior pastors, past and present, to accept any differing point of view or minor criticism from anyone has driven a host of people from LFF.

And so here a growing number of the departed come, expressing their pains, searching for God in the mess “His anointed” made for them. And the thing that hurts them beyond what you can even imagine is the fact that the church they loved and poured so much into wants nothing to do with them. Its leaders label the pain, as generalized complaining and ungodly criticism rooted in sin. The confused lives of the departed are held up as “I told you so’s,” aiming to force others into submission. The leadership thinks they know best and if you feel otherwise be prepared to pay. They say they have changed but it is only appearance. There is still the underlying spirit of manipulation and control and it is still crushing people’s souls.

I apologize for the long e-mail and can only imagine the varying interpretations it will get if you post it. I am not angry at anyone or anything that happened to me. I do not blame any of my actions, both in youth and adulthood, on anyone. I made my own choices and so did those who hurt and manipulated me. I have forgiven them and moved on. It is not anger I feel toward them, instead I pity them in their crippling inability to see the pain they have inflicted and continue to inflict on many. I hope by giving you some of the details you requested you will see the topics on this site are in fact real. There are many more details but I have already gone on far too long. I know there are those who will interpret this as bitterness and that is fine. Sometimes it is hard to infer the proper meaning through words on a page. I cannot control the way this is received and can only hope somehow, someway it will help someone.