I left an abusive fundamentalistic church/cult back in late 1998 after I couldn't take it anymore. I had been there for 12 long years. I left many close friends behind when I escaped, and as many cultic groups do, I was labelled a heretic after I "abandoned God's will for my life". Well, I figured it was about time I gave you all an update on my former church.

Shortly after I left the group in late 1998, I sent out letters to about a dozen of its members, outlining the abuses that were being perpetrated by the pastor. I also sent out about 10 copies of Jeff VanVonderan's book "The Subtle Power Of Spiritual Abuse". Six of the books were confiscated and burned. The other four copies were hidden by their recipients and read "underground".

In early 2001, I started a website forum established for the refugees of this church. We ran ads in the local newspaper promoting the website, and hundreds (if not thousands) of people from the local community visited it. The website outlined all of the cultish practices and abuses of this church for the whole city to see. It was amazing. The forum had over 120 active members at one time. It was the talk of the town.

In late 2001, about 100 members fled this church of 450 members. They all left for the same reasons that I did. Many of them had been the recipients of my letters and books and had visited the website forum. Then in 2004, the abusive pastor was terminated by the Board of Elders for the reasons that I outlined in my letters and website. In addition, the pastor was charged with embezzling church funds for personal use.

There are now only 50 members left in the church, and it is on the verge of collapse. All of my efforts in exposing the abuse were very successful. Going public in the local newspaper was the most successful strategy that I used. This ruined the image of the church in the local community, causing all of the members of the church to become embarrassed over the abuses (after all, in a church like that - image is everything). Once this happened, they were all looking for a reason to leave.

I am currently involved in filing a civil class action lawsuit against the church with several other former members who desire to get their thousands of dollars of building fund pledges returned. This will probably open up a big can of worms. Who knows - maybe Dateline NBC will pick it up.

Here's one of the many methods that I used to expose this pastor that you might find somewhat comical: One Sunday morning in early 2001, an older couple who had left the church and myself got to become kids again. I had photocopied about 300 copies of the signs of an unhealthy church from the RickRoss.com website, and we put them on the cars at our former church. We were laughing hysterically, and at one point the the lady who was helping us said "I feel like a little kid again!" I had never seen her have so much fun. Then we parked across the street in a vacant parking lot and watched the fallout.

I saw a girl come out right when church got out. She grabbed the flier off of her windshield, glanced at it, and went running back into the church. By this time the church doors were opened and people were all starting to come out and crowd around the doors talking. Within minutes, three ushers and one deacon came sprinting through the doors - they even knocked a guy and his wife over. They quickly scrambled through the crowd bumping into people to get to the parking lot. They literally started diving onto car hoods, grabbing the fliers off the windshields as quick as they could. It was if their very lives depended on them collecting all of those fliers.

This is what you call the control of information (one of the signs of a cult that was on the fliers). Fortunately, I know at least 50 of the fliers were found by the recipients before they were confiscated and burned by the leadership. Within three months of this occurrence, over 100 members left en masse (this was back in 2001). That took the church from 450 members down to about 300. Presently it's down to 50.

P.S. - The pastor took the fliers to the police, but they said they couldn't do anything because no laws had been broken. After that day, they had four deacons standing outside securing the building on all four sides during services. They were out there standing in subzero temperatures. I think they even staged a few Jericho marches to "take back the ground that the devil was trying to steal". Talk about a prison camp. I am so glad to be free!

Anyway, that's what has happened over the last five years to the church that I used to attend. It just goes to show that once fundamentalism and authoritarianism is exposed for what it truly is - people don't want it! It is not healthy. It is always abusive due to its theocratic form of leadership. It is the opposite of democracy, and it does not take into account the probability of human imperfections in the life of the dictator in charge.

8)

Hello,

I don't know what made me click on your message, as I usually post on a different board, the Miracle of Love cult site. But I did and I laughed like crazy when you described your scenerio of the so-called "men of God" dashing out of the church, grabbing those flyers, knocking people down.

We talk a lot on the other message board about how the truth should always be spread, no matter what and that you must be brave. I hope you don't mind if I copy and paste your story onto our message board to give our poor, beleaguered members a laugh, along with some encouragement to do the right thing.

I might take a page from your book...or should I say your flyer....Hmmmmm....

Don't worry about those horrible people. There's a special hell for those who blaspheme God in order to abuse others and further their own aims.

Happy Easter! Lily

hey..great idea!!!! I think I will do that to my former cult leader...you rock!!

JoAnne