Deprogramming Devotionals

In the interest of caring deeply for the truth and for my readers who have suffered at the hands of unscrupulous, false shepherds and abusive/ unhealthy leaders I am compelled to share my heart concerning the aftermath of the abuse in my own walk with the Lord and dealing with some anger and resentment  issues which have   recently reared their  ugly heads  in my life. My hope is that someone will be helped by my experience….

It has been five full years since the church I was in, and where I served  the  wife  of two succeeding  pastors for over 20 years declined to  the place where it was clear to myself and my family that the pastor and his wife were bazarrely taking over my son’s family and taking his wife and  newborn child  away from both their maternal and paternal families ; and the Pastor and his wife were becoming the surrogate parents and grandparents to the young woman and the child….My family which consisted of   8 of us were quietly excommunicated with a lie….According to my counselor at that time the church was  now a cult….

There was an elder in the church whom I reached out to, that I had known since he was about 25 years old and for the whole twenty years which I was involved in the church I loved him and believed he loved me like a mother and I loved him like a son..He was totally taken in by the Pastor’s wife and was her stepson by the previous marriage and had been under her false teaching/ deception  from a teenager , years  longer than I had been, and he totally abandoned our family and refused to respond to my pleas for help…..Still.. I loved him..

When my son was twelve years old and my brother was 16 and living with me this elder was in his early 20′s and held a Bible Study  at my home with a few of the boys we knew , including my son and brother… It wasn’t long before my son and brother were  both saved…..

This was around 1986…In 2006 the bottom fell out of my family’s lives when the church listed to the left and everything began to sink…what I mean by this is many left the church..the church leaders even were helpful in my daughter in law divorcing my son without any scriptural reasons. or Biblical grounds.. My son’s heart and our hearts were broken… the divorce was final in 2009..

I have always prayed for the church leaders and the young elder I have mentioned with sincerity and love; for repentence and reconciliation.. How shocked I was in 2010 when this very elder was divorced from his wife of 20 years breaking up his family with four children and two months later marrying my daughter in law..Yet I continued to love him even though I felt totally betrayed by him..

In May of this year , two events occurred that impacted those in my family.. first the elder and my ex daughter in law left the church and started their own church and all communication was stopped with the church leaders.   About the same time the elder and our ex-daughter-in-law had their first child together.  I tried to be happy for them..I continued to pray for them.. But in my heart I still believe they are living in sin.. because she had no grounds to leave her husband and marry another man..

So as long as they were in the unhealthy church or even when they left and started their own church and I could feel it too was a root from the same unhealthy tree I could love them and pray for them… Then when their little first born son died of crib-death at 2 months old  I was sad for them , but there was a little place in me that felt justified and that justice was administered… after all when David sinned with Bathsheba , he lost his first born son, right?

I realized today that somewhere inside  me there has  been an infected boil of sorts which finally came to the surface… Today I found out the elder and his wife and my two little grandsons went to a healthy church last Sunday…The wife teaches a Good News Club.. I was bitter and angry and disturbed in my spirit all day over it… My family was so deeply  hurt by the leaders of the church, and these two people were involved in the hurt and betrayal  as well!  My family who love the Lord  has not even been able to bring themselves to go to a church.. I forced myself to go for the sake of my family and I have found a wonderful church home.. It sickened me that they could go in and act like a normal Christian family when they had done such harm…

I want to explain how the Lord has dealt with me in this situation…I had already planned to visit a friend who had a painful boil  the size of a silver dollar on her back in a place she couldn’t reach.. I was going to hot-pack it for her and try to get it to come to a head and give her relief…I went in fuming, angry and resentful and spent 3 hours hot-packing her horribly sore boil and gave her some relief…I cared about my friend’s pain and was there to help her.

Jesus  the  Great Physician cares for all His children’s pain…We sometimes  have resentment, anger, even rage pent up inside of us for various reasons..We can’t reach it, sometimes we can’t even see it, and we can’t fix it…. He has to lance the eruption  and clean it out so we can be healthy spiritually…He allows just the right  things that hurt dreadfully to come our way so the dross can come to the surface and be scraped off…Surrendering to his loving scalpel and trusting His love and mercy is the only way to be free of the unhealthy infection of anger, resentment and rage..

I felt  painfully bitter  today.. Have you ever tasted a rotten peanut or walnut… It’s horrible and puckers your mouth and tastes nasty..the anger, resentment and rage  today gave me a “nasty taste in my soul.”  The only thing that would help is to repent of the anger, resentment , and rage … Then I felt immediately  clean/ spiritually whole  again .. It didn’t make anything people did to hurt myself or my family  right , it simply made me right with the Lord…

God is dealing with them as well as with me…. I am also a needy sinner … I trust He has my best in mind and because I know He loves me, I can risk loving others and wanting the best for those who have hurt me… It comes down to forgiveness..  If we do not forgive others, He will not forgive us… It doesn’t mean we have to agree with sin… We simply choose to believe in God’s goodness  and Trust Him,  allowing  Him to take care of those things that are more than we can bear… His ways are higher than our ways and we cannot see the whole picture as He can..He allows people to have free will…

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Here are  a  couple of wonderfully helpful Web-sites  that could bring awareness and  be comforting to someone suffering in a spiritually abusive church/cult .                         

1.       http://www.churchabuse.com/survey.asp

2.      http://www.batteredsheep.com/mission.html

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In a normal/ healthy church there can be differences of opinion.  Suppose someone in the membership  wants a blue carpet and the leader wants a cranberry color:  In a normal church there can be a discussion.  There can be a difference of opinion .  Usually the leader cheerfully defers to the other person.  He has nothing to prove.  He is humble. Often the leader isn’t involved with the discussion at all.  He leaves it up to the ones who are gifted in a certain area to decide.

In an abusive/unhealthy church a certain person or a couple of people  make  all the decisions.   The whole church revolves around them, even though you might hear a lot of the right spiritual doctrines  week after week.  There is no room for disagreement or discussion. If a member criticizes that ones judgment or asks questions, he is labeled a troublemaker , and if he continues asking until the leadership considers him a threat , he is often threatened  in some way  , and  if they are not silent are then  then  quickly excommunicated.  If you have questions about your church ask yourself…   Have normally faithful Christians been quickly excommunicated and suddenly  become “emotionally ill” and “undesirable”  in some way according  to the leadership?  You have only known them to be loving and kind… Maybe you don’t hear anything about “shunning”, but no one speaks to a person week after week as if the person is invisible until they stop coming. 

If you have questions about the church you are attending:   Find out who and how many have been excommunicated.  Often that word  excommunicated is not used as the persons are simply not spoken to anymore.  There has not been a meeting with the elders , and a healthy biblical judgment made with the person who is accused being present and able to face his accusers. There is a quiet  secret decision made behind the persons back.

A normal and healthy church uses all the gifts God has placed in the Body of Christ.  You will see people being used of God in many capacities to care for all the aspects of Church life.  Not a couple of people secretly deciding between  themselves what is allowed… There is open communication…freedom of expression….above all there is unconditional love.  If there is a problem it is handled with love and care.  Ask questions .  You will recognize the healthy by the quality of the answers…

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Spiritually abusive church leaders  demand  of their members to work work work, serve serve  serve, and then work and serve some more.   People are commanded to sacrifice their families and friends to meet the abusive system’s needs.  The leaders and the followers believe they are serving God, but they serve their egos as they seek greater notoriety within the system’s hierachy.  I worked for the Pastor’s wife in every area.  No matter how much I did , and what I sacrificed it was never enough for her.   She also worked incessantly and I was emulating her.  However  hard and long I worked, it never was enough….

I can tell you from experience that the amount of service demanded  often becomes overwhelming..People become so drained  and exhausted they cannot think clearly.   This is a religious addiction where often  people have a deep depression, extreme anxiety, and a general numbness (living in a gray zone without any feeling) these are a Red Flag and a symtom of addiction… Activity takes first place and dries up the souls of the addicts.   The True God has long ago been abandoned;  and works, activities,  and service to the system has taken His place.   Many of these religious addicts are left hopeless, and some become the victims of total breakdowns.  Some find God a harsh taskmaster, never recover, and fall away from the faith altogether.

Some of the above was taken from the book, “Faith that hurts, Faith That Heals” , by Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton.  It is a great read for those caught-up  in a spiritual addiction or just wondering if that is the case….   Perhaps reading this  might give someone a clue as to their addiction to religious works or to a person in leadership.

Addiction to a person was particularly true in my own experiences.  Understanding what true faith is and isn’t   helps to put our spiritual and personal addictions in perspective,  so that we can let go of them and finally realize for ourselves where the True God is and isn’t.  It helps us find His Grace again and His son Jesus Christ  again can become our “First Love.”  Remember Jesus Himself said, ”My Load is Light…”

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Most of us have read the verses from Matthew chapter 7 where Jesus speaks of the false prophets as “wolves in sheeps clothing.”  Then He says “you will know them by their fruit.  A healthy sound tree bears good fruit, but a rotten tree cannot bring forth good healthy fruit.” 

 In the same context  a couple of verses later He says that “not  everyone who says Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom.”  To some He will say “I never knew you.”   Even though they say to Him “We prophesied in Your name, We cast out demons in Your name.”  He will say to these, “Depart from Me you who act wickedly (disregarding my commands.)”  Matthew 7:15-27  Amplified Version 

 In the same context he goes on to talk about how important to  build your house on the rock and not the sand.  It is no small thing for a church to be built upon the sand by omitting the Word of God when forming and disregarding His commands.”  It is a foolhardy thing!  That house or church  is doomed to fall.

When one enters a main stream  Bible-believing church , he can be pretty sure there is accountability. Even if a pastor there is dominating , narcistic, and self serving you know they will not last long before they are voted out.

In a church that has no accountability a new member doesn’t know how the church began and what it was founded upon.  Often the stipulations of the Word of God are neglected, and overlooked  when  a well-meaning someone wants to start a church. 

 In the non-denominational church where I attended  as a new Christian  back in 1986 , I had no idea for many months that the Pastor and his wife had recently been divorced from their former mates as Christians , and had begun praying  together and  believed they were led to start  a church.    God’s Word does not allow for His Church leaders to be divorced.  So the foundation  of this church was weak , and would never hold up over time.

True to form , history repeated itself and fourteen years later the same fruit appeared again when the same Pastors’ wife and her step-son,  along with a young man (a preacher wannabee)  conspired together ie: prayed  to cast her Pastor husband out of the church as a reprobate ,and  the three  rebels led the church members to shun him.  I stupidly assisted in these regards.

The young man (preacher wannabee)  then was divorced from his wife, and left his four children, married the original Pastor’s wife , and the two of them  led the second  church  together  for 17 years,  until another church split occurred in May of this year    .  I once heard a servant of the Lord say that these kinds of churches usually only last 12 or 13 years. They lasted 17 years, but many were ostracized, abused, and deceived  in order to keep it going….

When the original  split  occurred,  most left the  church  in 1994.  The wise ones left, and I was one of about 19 who stayed. I was totally caught up serving a charismatic woman, who led the church with someone elses ex- husband..;  I loved her, loved the “gospel message” that I heard ,  and I refused to listen to my conscience screaming within me or the Holy Spirit’s still small voice. .  I believed her evasive and spiritually twisted reasons that it was ok  for them to divorce their mates, to  marry  each other and lead the church , that  because her husband had  actually divorced her  it was alright for her to lead the new church married again to someone elses ex-husband.  I believed that God put them together to serve Him and the church.  I had no wisdom and my family has suffered  dearly for it.  I had on not rose-colored glasses but deceptive lenses and blinders..

The  basic message seemed to be the same as one  given in any healthy, sound,  mainstream evangelical Bible church.  The doctrines included “The Cross” , “The Blood Of Jesus”, and most of the other deep Christian doctrines.  We always said it was a lot like a Billy Graham Baptist Church.   It was anything but!

With it’s roots (foundation)  being flawed,  and no one to be accountable to,  it just kept repeating the same history and bearing rotten fruit. . There were divorces, broken homes , and good people  who loved the Lord were again and again pushed out of the church and shunned as unacceptable…  The unhealthiness  in the church finally progressed to a point where the Pastor’s wife helped Christians  divorce one another . After my family left in 2006,  it got worse and  again true to form  (history repeating itself once again)  an elder with four children who serves as a “missionary”  became divorced from his wife and married a divorced woman half his age.   In any main-line church no missionary  serving in that capacity would be allowed to continue  serving in that capacity after a divorce.   This is definitely  a red flag!

So again history repeated itself.  A second  split has  now occurred from the same defective / unhealthy  root of human design.   The  church formed after the original split of 1994  is  now down to  less than a handful of members,  but new ones who come in and are  searching for Truth will  have no idea of the churches’ beginnings and  ongoing  unhealthy / unsavory charactor.  Like lambs to the slaughter they  simply meet these nice people who seem to be  Christians  who are saying all the right things.  When they come to their senses  it may be too late to avoid a  terrible  spiritual shipwreck,  and emotional  pain and abuse from these wolves in sheeps clothing and too often people actually lose their faith as well as their crucial connection with God Himself….  The same is true of the  unhealthy off-shoot of the original church…

So, it pays to ask questions. Find out who has  left the church  and talk with them as to why they left and what they saw that was offensive to their consciences… Are there people  of good charactor who are being shunned or talked about as evil by leaders or members?   Satan knows all the right things, he uses deep spiritual doctrines  for his stratagies and he loves to deceive religious people.

 A word to the wise from one who learned the hard way:  Don’t be deceived by what seems like the right words,  what appears to be deep spiritual wisdom, the old hymns etc. ,  and pay attention to your own conscience and inner voice.  Listen for God’s still small voice.  If something doesn’t seem right  in the church it probably isn’t!

This week ;Pat Robinson , a well known Television/Evangelist caused an uproar in religious circles when he said Alzhiemers is a death of sorts and is  valid scripural reason for someone to leave his or her mate..This is a travesty to the faithful men and women who have stood by their mates through years of hardship and losing thier life long marriage partner to that dreadful disease… When a man who is leading others, has studied the Word of God for many years takes a stand opposite of God’s own words, beware!

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When a victim  is caught in a spiritually unhealthy situation they really need to talk to someone  unbiased, who is not connected in any way with the “church”  that one is attending.  It could be a wise friend or a professional counselor.  Some have found more help with a counselor who does not advertise being a Christian.

 I found a counselor  who was a Christian, three  months before the abusive church experience blew up, when I was  almost overcome with anxiety.  I still did not know or recognise my being in a cultish/unhealthy church.  However my counselor realized that I was in a spiritual battle , and reminded me of the armor I needed to withstand and fight against the opposing  spiritual forces.   I was immediately helped by recognizing the battle for what it was, even though neither myself nor my counselor knew as yet  the extent of the problems in the unhealthy church  where I had attended and served  for 20 years.

Three months after the initial visit to the counselor all Hell had broken loose in the abuse by the church leadership against my whole family , and a lie concerning my mental health was perpetrated  , that I was “bi-polar”  and somehow  evil,  and was told  stealthily  and cunningly to the membership in order to cause them to cut off their fellowship , therefore excommunicating  myself and my family.  It was devastating;  an utterly shocking blow , and hard to take in  and process , as I thought these people truly had loved me, and I had served the pastor’s wife for 20 years and continued to love her. .  My family was a quarter of the church membership.

I soon went back to my counselor and the first thing he said to me when I told him what had happened was, “Sherry, you are not bi-polar , and you just left a cult.”  I don’t know what I would have done or how I would have worked through the  insidious level of spiritual and emotional abuse without hearing those affirming truthful words from his lips.  Although I was still in inexplicable pain for months, feeling bruised and beaten all over my soul and spirit, I  knew my counselor had told me the truth.

He has been a great blessing in my life, and I believe his help aided me to heal quicker than most , and to keep my relationship with God in tact through it all.   His advice against anger and resentment was a key that kept the door of my heart open to God. I highly recommend finding some help when you are experiencing emotional and spiritual abuse or pain.   There are  free clinics , and some with low prices and others  that go along with ones wages according to  what they can afford…  Brother or sister, get some help!  No one can get better all alone. We need perspective and someone to help guide us back to a place of hope, trust, and  a healthy spiritual life…

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Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction~   Blaise Pascal

Having experienced the deception of two false religious authoritarian systems, steeped in  fragments and  twisted laws of the Christian religion;, I have found the ones claiming to be “Born Again” and who are living under a veil of elitism, and believing they know more than ordinary Christians have caused the most harm to  innocent people…….

The deception seems so real and  is so all – incompassing it seems to envelop spirit, soul, and body and without the intervention of the Lord Himself;   the  persons , both leaders and members are caught  in Satans deadly trap of “religion” as if flies on a spiderweb….

I am a Christian, born from above, am a member of a wonderful church body and thank God it is about Him, knowing Him and being known by Him in a close relationship…

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There was a church with fifty members who met regularly..The church was founded upon the break up of the Pastor’s family and the Pastor’s  new wife took control over everyone and everything … 

 After Seventeen years, that church is for all intents and purposes a dead church…God Himself pulled down the high places of pride and arrogance and there stands a building and a Pastor;  alone  without a congregation….He has broken down the demonic strongholds that had control .

God Almighty  is not to be mocked…He is a fearful and awesome God.. He answers the prayers of the abused and downtrodden  and in His own way in His Own time…We can pray because we know He hears us and  we can trust every situation to Him..

But my friends we need to Fear Him and not to gloat and rejoice at the answers to prayer that cause destruction and turmoil to the people of God who are walking in a way contrary to His will…He loves them as well as us and He will do whatever He has to , to draw them back to Himself..We must live in a state of forgiveness..

.We live in a fallen world and any one of us can easily be drawn away into deception…I was caught in deception for many years, if not for much heartache and misery I never would have gotten free… If not for the Faithfulness and Mercy  of God I would never had been rescued…

And so dear friend, fear God and marvel in His greatness and power but do not gloat over your enemy’s defeat……..God answers prayer….

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Are you wondering if what you are experiencing in your Church is actually Spiritual Abuse?

Here is a link to a great definition of Spiritual Abuse including a  large number of resources which I have found to be a wonderful help myself:

You will have to type it in, even simply “wikipedia Spiritual abuse” will bring this link right up top in Google…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/spiritual_abuse

This definition covers a wide variety of  abuses and symptoms within an abusive church system…

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It is definately a process getting ones self completely released from the hold of a controlling person, especially a spiritual hold.   As for me, I went through a few stages… In the beginning when a bazarre taking over of my newborn  grandson occured by the church leaders , I thought it simply a misunderstanding.  

 I had been close to the leaders of the abusive church, serving them for over twenty years.  Until my own family was the target,  the abuses had affected other families and individuals and the pastor’s  wife was able to smooth things over to make me and other church members  believe that those  people were wrong according to the Bible ,  and she was right.  It is not a pleasant thing to admit that I was vulnerable,  and easily controlled by her, and was also part of the process of hurting innocent people, if even without realizing it.  However, admitting the truth  and making amends where I could , clearly helped me get free quicker than most.

At first like I said I thought it all a misunderstanding , and I was determined to help the leaders see that what they were doing was off the wall.  My trying to help them was to no avail.  I did not realize it was on purpose,  and the plan all along was to rid the church of myself and become surrogate grandparents to my grandson.  It was a major betrayal against myself and my whole family…

I found that for a while I was full of unfounded yet profound fear that they were perhaps right and I might be wrong, fear and  terror of God’s wrath coming upon me for defying their “spiritual” teachings….. I was terrified to read the pastor’s wife’s “Daily Devotionals” which were really designed as a way to control people by using their fear of failing God.  Finally, when I realized how controlling her Daily Devotionals  were,  I began to take each one apart , dissecting  it , squeezing the twisted, cultish  untruths out of it…  I did this for almost three years to get my mind free of her twenty years of control.

I believe what happened to myself  and my family was very similar to a major betrayal and a final break  in a long marriage.. It was much the same as having lived for years with a  beloved mate who was nothing but a pretender all along ,  and an adulterer who used you from the beginning.   The break was extremely painful because I truly loved the pastor’s wife, on my part  as a sister and friend , and  abruptly found out that she had no capacity for loving anyone at all, not only  myself.   I spent many a night curled up in a ball in a kind of agony I had never felt before..

I had to work through the pain… I wrote through the pain for almost three years… Writing ones feelings and thoughts down is a powerful release.  As the words leave the pen the pain seems to become reduced too.  It seems to make room for the truth to come into the mind as well.  This is a helpful aid in any good twelve step plan to break addiction… It worked well for me…

I am a believer in the  power of the  Living God and His son Jesus Christ.  I believe that the blood of Jesus shed on the cross is my only salvation.  Sadly,  I have seen where many who have suffered abuse and betrayal  by a church leader have thrown away their faith in God and His Son.  In my opinion these false, controlling, power hungry,  ”spiritual” leaders,  underneath it all want to be little “gods”  themselves, therefore their intent is to usurp the True Gods’  place in a believer’s heart.  So, if we throw away our love for Him and our dependence upon Him they get their way, and we are the loser’s for it.

I know from experience that it is hard to pray when you are overwhelmed with confusion about spiritual things. Sometimes one is even angry at God because of what has happened.  I heard Chuck Swindoll , noted Author, Pastor and Teacher, once say when it gets that bad he simply cries out “Help me God!”   My counselor has told me during my darkest hours to say to God, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.”   Believe me He hears these kinds of humble truthful prayers.  He understands our anger and is quick to forgive when we ask…

Finally,  you can begin to get deprogrammed by: 1.  Facing the truth head on even if you have to admit wrongs you have had a part in yourself, when possible ,trying to make amends with anyone you have hurt along the way.  2. If there’s a place of great fear inside you , don’t run away from it..  Get professional help if you need to..  3.  Write out your feelings, and write  the truth, against the teachings, doctrines and actions that have held you captive…Writing is a powerful tool to freedom.  I believe it’s a way to clear the mind of the old and make room for new thoughts.  4.  Pray simple prayers of faith… “Help me God.”  “God have mercy on me a sinner.”  God will lead you out, you can trust Him…. He is nothing like those false leaders…He is a God of Love.

Please contact us if you are hurting because of church leaders who have gone astray and are false shepherds. We  can only use our own experience to help bring healing closure for you… It is our pleasure to do what we can to help you.  We are not counselors here,  only other human beings  who have been deeply hurt by wolves in sheeps clothing . We feel that we can share our own experiences and our own path to freedom… We care….

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