Re: Richmond Outreach Center
Date: August 01, 2011 10:26PM
Valuable posts -
"But I have to say that there was something in my spirit that didn't sit right with certain things, i.e. being saved just by saying a prayer, and not having any follow up to it..yes, some of the people do genuinely give their hearts to God, but many just keep on living in darkness, thinking that those two minutes they said "Yes, God" will spare them from eternity separated from Him. Also, it was hard for me to understand why he would have people who, for the most part, don't have much formal education reading exclusively out of the King James Bible, with its archaic language. I do think it is a perfectly fine translation, but maybe it would be okay for people struggling with the KJV to read something like the Message or the NIV. To me it sounds like what the Catholic church used to do in the Middle Ages: make the gospel inaccesible to the common man and just tell the parishoners what they wanted them to hear. It is a power move."
"First let me say, don’t go back! Ever. It’s hard leaving your friends, but they are encouraged not to have contact with you anyway. They are told that you don’t want anyone to contact you and that you want nothing to do with the ROC. I know. It happened to me. Geronimo teachs that according to Matthew 10:36-38, you should hate your family. According to G, the ROC comes first, not your family. But my bible says in Romans 12:10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another. My bible says to honor mother and father. It does not say honor the ROC with all that you have and all your time. It does not say spend every waking moment with the ROC and all its 100,000,000 ministries. Oh, excuse me, 100+ ministries. Who cares how many ministries? If your leadership is promoting its own agenda, not that of God, what good is it? If the pastor is living way beyond the means of anyone else in the church, what does that tell you. If he allowed 1 person to stand up and give a testimony for 45 minutes – {better than anything he could have preached he stated} simply because she has the funds to get the ROC out of debt, buy him a $1,000,000 house, extravagantly decorate same house, buy the Big House, renovate the Big House and buy him a $100,000 vehicle, why should he need any of us. Don’t go back. They don’t need you. They don’t really want you. You are a threat to the ministry. Time will heal the hurt in your heart. You belong to God, not to a ministry at the ROC and definitely not to the ROC. "
"I recently read this as it relates to abusive churches/ministries written by someone who apparently knows his stuff:
"Does the group's leadership invite dialogue, advice and evaluation from outside its immediate circle? Authoritarian pastors are usually threatened by any outside expression of diverse opinions, whether from inside or outside the group. When outside speakers are given access to the pulpit, they are carefully selected to minimize any threat to the leadership's agenda. Coercive pastors are fiercely independent and do not function well in a structure of accountability. For the sake of public relations, they may boast that they are accountable to a board of some sort, when in actuality the board is composed of "yes-men" who do not question the leader's authority."