analyzer
05-20-2009, 04:52 AM
Hi to everybody. First of all I would like to thank you for all of your valuable contributions that were so edifying and that encouraged me to join this forum. Of course I would like to tell my story right away, but before I am going to do that I want to:
1. Introduce myself: my name is Gerald, I live in Austria Vienna and have experienced the ups and downs of free evangelical church life for the past 26 years. I am more the analytical kind of person and part of my free time I am doing math on a recreational level. The way I process things best is not to react or to retaliate but to analyze a situation. Thence my nickname: “analyzer”. If we can define things with the God-given gift of discernment, our perspective is getting so much brighter.
2. Share a few of my general observations about free evangelical church life:
a.) Many a local church can become the breeding ground for sociopaths because of people' s willingness to submit and to serve. If nobody takes advantage of the unsuspecting, potentially the local church could be a foretaste of heaven, but sad to say, more often than not the leaders become dicators in the sense of Matthew 20:25.
b.) The greatest tragedy I have observed in others and also in myself is this: as we turn away from spiritual abuse we succumb to the temptation to turn away from God too. We are faced with the challenge to separate the siamese twins of godly investment and spiritual abuse with a tiny scalpel and regrettably very often both of the twins don’t survive the operation. I, personally, went into a deep depression turning back to old, self destructive habits that I used to depend on before I entered into church life. The good news in this tragic story: The One Who is Faithful and True didn’t send a lightning bolt from heaven to strike me down but challenged me with this thought:
“How long will you refuse to put your hand into My hand and let Me lead you into a personal and lonely walk with Me, without a mediator in between, even if that means to walk contrary to the direction of your earthly leaders. Stop sucking your thumb, don’t hide behind the leaders, get up and walk with me”
By encouraging to take up personal responsibility I am not implying that abusive leaders will get away unpunished (James 3:1). By the grace of God I was able to define the first two steps that I have taken contrary to my (ex-)leaders direction. I will refer to them in my next point:
c.) Selfish and ambitious people are swinging fom one extreme to the other and thereby blatantly contradicting themselves. By the way, to make contradicting statements is one of the distinguishing marks of a sociopath. Because of the selfish pride of abusive leaders we went through a church split in 2005. The most startling thing that I had to witness was that leaders, who once adulated and flattered each other, changed their minds to such an extreme that they don’t even expect to see each other in heaven.
And here are my first two concrete steps how I will not follow my (ex-)leaders:
1. I will admit that I once aggrandized and adulated my (ex-)leaders.
2. And now I am fleeing from their sorcery to ascribe them to the devil.
Reality teaches us that we all contribute, heal, reconcile, do good, but at the same time hurt, disappoint, destroy and sometimes deceive. Abusive leaders will not admit the downside of their history and therefore they refuse any critique. It’s the all to familiar “no talk rule” and “there is the exit” practice. As I am teaching the book of Revelation at the moment I see the letters to the 7 churches in a brand new light: First the recommendations, and then (for 5 of the 7) the scary part: “But I have a few things against thee, …”. It is that “few things against” our (ex-)leaders, that has caused us to have an exchange on this forum, for which I am very grateful.
This is the way my (ex-)leader preaches to the congregation:
God gets things accomplished:
1. inspite of you and
2. because of me.
In reality, at the end the Lord will get all the glory for getting His will accomplished by stubborn and selfish people, comparable to the ravens feeding Elijah contrary to their nature.
d.) Some free evangelicals may mock the confession booth of the catholic church but overlook the unspoken mediatorial role of the Pastor in their own church.
Thanks for your patience to read my lengthy post.
A more detailed story will follow. I will try to relate it to (hopefully) your comments, advices and questions.
1. Introduce myself: my name is Gerald, I live in Austria Vienna and have experienced the ups and downs of free evangelical church life for the past 26 years. I am more the analytical kind of person and part of my free time I am doing math on a recreational level. The way I process things best is not to react or to retaliate but to analyze a situation. Thence my nickname: “analyzer”. If we can define things with the God-given gift of discernment, our perspective is getting so much brighter.
2. Share a few of my general observations about free evangelical church life:
a.) Many a local church can become the breeding ground for sociopaths because of people' s willingness to submit and to serve. If nobody takes advantage of the unsuspecting, potentially the local church could be a foretaste of heaven, but sad to say, more often than not the leaders become dicators in the sense of Matthew 20:25.
b.) The greatest tragedy I have observed in others and also in myself is this: as we turn away from spiritual abuse we succumb to the temptation to turn away from God too. We are faced with the challenge to separate the siamese twins of godly investment and spiritual abuse with a tiny scalpel and regrettably very often both of the twins don’t survive the operation. I, personally, went into a deep depression turning back to old, self destructive habits that I used to depend on before I entered into church life. The good news in this tragic story: The One Who is Faithful and True didn’t send a lightning bolt from heaven to strike me down but challenged me with this thought:
“How long will you refuse to put your hand into My hand and let Me lead you into a personal and lonely walk with Me, without a mediator in between, even if that means to walk contrary to the direction of your earthly leaders. Stop sucking your thumb, don’t hide behind the leaders, get up and walk with me”
By encouraging to take up personal responsibility I am not implying that abusive leaders will get away unpunished (James 3:1). By the grace of God I was able to define the first two steps that I have taken contrary to my (ex-)leaders direction. I will refer to them in my next point:
c.) Selfish and ambitious people are swinging fom one extreme to the other and thereby blatantly contradicting themselves. By the way, to make contradicting statements is one of the distinguishing marks of a sociopath. Because of the selfish pride of abusive leaders we went through a church split in 2005. The most startling thing that I had to witness was that leaders, who once adulated and flattered each other, changed their minds to such an extreme that they don’t even expect to see each other in heaven.
And here are my first two concrete steps how I will not follow my (ex-)leaders:
1. I will admit that I once aggrandized and adulated my (ex-)leaders.
2. And now I am fleeing from their sorcery to ascribe them to the devil.
Reality teaches us that we all contribute, heal, reconcile, do good, but at the same time hurt, disappoint, destroy and sometimes deceive. Abusive leaders will not admit the downside of their history and therefore they refuse any critique. It’s the all to familiar “no talk rule” and “there is the exit” practice. As I am teaching the book of Revelation at the moment I see the letters to the 7 churches in a brand new light: First the recommendations, and then (for 5 of the 7) the scary part: “But I have a few things against thee, …”. It is that “few things against” our (ex-)leaders, that has caused us to have an exchange on this forum, for which I am very grateful.
This is the way my (ex-)leader preaches to the congregation:
God gets things accomplished:
1. inspite of you and
2. because of me.
In reality, at the end the Lord will get all the glory for getting His will accomplished by stubborn and selfish people, comparable to the ravens feeding Elijah contrary to their nature.
d.) Some free evangelicals may mock the confession booth of the catholic church but overlook the unspoken mediatorial role of the Pastor in their own church.
Thanks for your patience to read my lengthy post.
A more detailed story will follow. I will try to relate it to (hopefully) your comments, advices and questions.