Hi growing123

Welcome to the forum, it's good to hear the opinions of both sides of the fence, as it were. I agree that the conversation about ipads might have seemed to have lost it's focus a bit. I think the original point about them was not should they be used but should the church congregation be paying for them through the church offering. I don't pretend to know enough about technology to offer an opinion on whether or not ipads are better than pc's but I think it is wrong to take money from church offerings to pay for ipads for Cedars school. If they set up an offering for that purpose and poeple knew what they were giving too, that would be fine in my opinion.

I feel I must comment on the point you make when you say "I truly believe that each and every one of the leaders within the church care for and pray for their fellow members and truly seek the best for them" Of course you are entitled to that opinion, however I have seen numerous occasions that would point to them only caring for a select few.

I have heard Diana Rutherford and others say they are not 'drawn' to people and have made other comments about only be there for some. But I think actions speak louder than words and the many accounts of people in here show a complete lack of care, love and pastoral duty.

My own story (I'm not sure if you have read it) centred around being told that my friend and I were no longer able to have anything to do with one another. We could not even acknowledge one another in church. 6 weeks prior to this I had moved 450 miles, to live in Cumbernauld. I had no other friends and it was made clear to me that DR would not be happy about me forming fiendships with many, if not any of the congregation. This was because she deemed me to be"terribly unclean" When pressed she accused me of bein a lesbian. When I denie this she said she discerned it anyway so it must be true (paraphrase)

After this happened I sank into a deep depression. I came close to taking my own life one night. Thankfully I didn't have to bottle to go through with it. The following evening, close to tears I asked Diana Rutherford for help. I told her I was struggling to come to terms with what happened, that I had previously suffered from depression and that I was falling back into it in a big way. Her response was to tell me that f she ofered me help and support it would not be good for me. She then told me that if I wasn't happy with things then maybe I should move back to my home town. I was a broken woman and she turned me away. That could've pushed me over the edge and it is only thanks to God that it didn't.

I know that there are those whom they do care for, but my experience and what I have seen through this forum, shows that these cases are few and far between. Personally I have been shown more care by total strangers than by this woman who was supposed to be my pastor and called herself a woman of God, anointed and infalliable.

I think there is a big difference between judging someone and speaking the truth in order to warn others. I don't hate the Struthers leaders. I do dislike and disagree with what they have done and are possibly still doing. I was the one who was judged. I was the one accused of being a lesbian and being teribly unclean with no evidence to back this up, other than a feeling or discernment as it is called.

I actually think that the majority, if not all of the posters on this forum are a looooooong way off being like any of the Struthers leaders. From what I have seen they are willing to admit when they are wrong, to apologise if they have upset someone and not to make a judgement without a presentation of facts. I see none of these qualities in any of the Struthers leaders. Despite the wish of some that we would shut up and go away, I will keep posting on here for as long as I think it is neccesary. I really wish this forum was available at he time I was considering my move to Cumbernauld and Struthers as it certainly would have made me think twice

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CovLass
Hi growing123

I was the one who was judged. I was the one accused ...

Exactly.

That is precisely the problem, and I think you sum it up beautifully in your final paragraph. Supporters of Struthers want us to focus exclusively on our real or imagined faults. Many of us have tried to do that and it doesn't work. The leaders themselves don't do that, they focus on the faults of others, so why are they telling people to do what they can't do themselves?


I seem to remember that there is there is something someone once said about taking the log out of your own eye before examining the spec in others.

Hi growing123, and thanks for posting
I am glad you got out of Struthers and did not give in, through guilt, to the advice you were offered re a relationship and re make-up etc, by the leaders. Praise God that you had the inner strength to know your own mind and, as you say, be true to who you are and therefor make up your own mind especially regarding the relationship you mention.

However, don't be too hard on us who post here. From what you say, re the school etc, I am guessing that you are a young person. It seems that you have got the relationship and children which you wanted. You have got free while you are still young. You say your family are still members of SMC, but I assume from your post that you still have good relations with them. That's wonderful and to be treasured. But other people who were in SMC have not always been so fortunate. Some gave in to the leaders' instructions and broke up good relationships and friendships, causing much heartache. Some have lost contact with their grown-up children who are still in SMC, because these children have been told, in some cases, not to have contact with their parents or other family members because these are now "of the devil" and are enemies of Struthers. Much pain has resulted. You may not be aware of these situations, growing123, but I can assure you they are very real. And it isn't a simple matter, to forgive and work through these issues when your life has been severely affected.

Covlass has re-told us her story and I can assure you that her case is not unique in SMC. I could give several instances of people being treated similarly by leaders and not only in Cumbernauld. Many many adults have been treated abysmally by SMC leaders and sub-leaders too. You may not be aware of such cases if you grew up in the church with a good family around you, growing123. I agree with Covlass that there is a lack of care and prayer support for members. They select a few favoured ones and concentrate on them, ignoring the others. I also have heard leaders say, they feel no draw to certain people. So that's why we need this Forum, so that we can bring into the light the hidden things and help those affected and warn folk who don't know what is actually going on.

Hi guys

Nice to see some new names on the forum for a change. Funnily enough I don't have very much to say at the moment except to re-iterate what's already been posted by Rensil and CovLass.

Hi Growing123, there's nothing wrong with being pro Struthers but I notice you are giving your support from the outside. Does that mean that you could not 'make the grade required' because you wanted to wear make-up and have control over your own relationships?

You say you are not attending the church now but you still support the leaders of the church. I would have to say that I think this is a little contradictory since you obviously don't agree with the leaders or you would still be attending the church. Or have I missed something?

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, I don't know, I just find that a bit confusing really.

We're not here to look at forgiving and forgetting, most of the people posting here have already forgiven but to forget would be to consign many other unsuspecting souls to the same treatment. Should we really turn a blind eye and allow more people to be hurt because they weren't in possession of the full facts - however nasty?

I would just like to see how the SMC leaders justify the imbalances, not just in church finances, but more importantly in how they deal with different people in the congregation.

PS. A wee tip, Ifellaway, copy your text before you hit the [Post Message] button and that way you can just paste it back if you have to log in again. I learned that the hard way myself. :-)

As always bigggg love and huge huggggggs to all
God Bless xxx

I have been thinking about the whole idea of judging others and want to add one other point, which has been made before, and that is that most of the people on this forum are witnesses - they are not the prosecution or the defence.

If you read through the posts, you will see that a great many say “this happened to me”, “the impact this had on me was” or “what I saw or heard was”. These are not actually judgements; they are references to verifiable facts. That doesn’t prove they are all true of course, but they are things that could possible be proven one way or the other.

A few pages ago, Kelvin raised a number of questions and said he (I am assuming Kelvin is a he) found many of the claims unbelievable. But he didn’t bring any actual evidence – just a claim that he found other evidence unbelievable and concluded that, since it was so obviously unbelievable, it should not be investigated. (Now, why does Cardinal O’Brien come to mind at this point? It is hard to believe that anyone is still thinks that the “sweep it under the carpet” approach is justifiable.)

When Kelvin was pushed for which claims he found unbelievable, the only one he could specify was that cbarb was looking at her father through rose-coloured spectacles (I paraphrase). So a vague assertion about lots of things being unbelievable boils down to this one issue, which doesn’t really have much to say about the church itself, either good or bad. Not very weighty stuff in my view.

I do also have to agree with CovLas when she says,

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CovLass
I feel I must comment on the point you make when you say "I truly believe that each and every one of the leaders within the church care for and pray for their fellow members and truly seek the best for them" Of course you are entitled to that opinion, however I have seen numerous occasions that would point to them only caring for a select few.

I have not only seen that sort of favouritism, caring for a select few, I have seen people who were favoured by the leaders suddenly cut off and left with no support at all. That is not the action of someone truly seeking the best for others, and it is not the action Jesus himself said a shepherd should take if one sheep out of one hundred goes astray.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Opinions are one thing, but there is also a responsibility to examine the evidence base for opinions and to at least try to determine the facts.

From the evidence I see, the leaders are only there for the few they decide they are “drawn to” – and I believe any objective review would confirm this conclusion.

I am not sure whether any or all of this is relevant to the Review being undertaken by the Scottish Charities Regulator, but it seems to me that it is, as one of the key features of a charity is that it should be of public benefit. If the benefits are just for a few that are selected by some unverifiable mystic process, I can’t see how that is a public benefit.

By the way, if anyone is interested in reading the "witness statements" from posters here, have a look at the thread on The Refuge in Wendover, Aylesbury, as SeekingSusan created a useful summary of these testimonies there.

Hi guys

Just a little note - the I-pad versus pc conversation happened over no more than 10 posts out of what? Over 800 posts and, while the focus may have been lost in three or four of those posts, this is not a thread which anyone should be grasping at as an example of the WHOLE of the FORUM. The main point about the I-pads was to discuss the FINANCIAL situation of the church and the fact that money from the collection plates of the various churches was being used to subsidise a FEE PAYING PRIVATE school, while the congregation were led to believe that NONE of their money was being used for the school. THAT'S THE FOCUS - not the debate on whether I-pads or pcs are best. To pull out that particular set of posts as a focus for attention is a bit weak and shows that people are not reading the other 800 and odd posts; or are choosing to ignore them.

The facts are:

1. The congregation are being LIED to about where their money is being used.
2. The church have misused a massive amount of funds in the past and seem to be still doing so, with no accountability to the congregation who are providing the funds.
3. FALSE claims of holiness and anointing are being made on a continual basis in order to CONTROL the members of the congregation.
4. The name of GOD is being abused by church leaders who use His name to get what they want from the congregation (as in the examples of the need for a PRIVATE school run by the leaders and their families and in the example of 'Revival by I-Pad' to justify the expense of these items - paid for by the congregation and NOT the parents of the children attending the PRIVATE shcool).
5. The leaders have no ACCOUNTABILITY to anyone for ANY of their actions and, when questioned, they turn the tables and accuse the questioner of being 'faithless', 'sinful' or 'in need of deliverance'.
6. The imbalance of treatment of different members of the congregation causes pain, heartache and destruction of people's belief systems and faith.
7. The congregation are being LIED to about people who have subsequently LEFT the organisation.
8. The leaders and their families seem to be allowed to live by different RULES than the rest of the congregation - in relationships with the opposite sex and in the acceptance to the "inner circle of the privileged few".
9. The insistence that everyone who does not attend SMC is somehow 'sinful', with some members being encouraged to ostracise their own family members or friends, is very ANTI-Biblical (the Bible teaches us that family is of the UTMOST IMPORTANCE and attending SMC is not a requirement of God)!
10. The leaders make up their OWN versions of events in the Bible to suit their particular sermons and somewhat skewed views of what the Bible is actually teaching.
11. Self-evident double-standards abound in the leadership of SMC.
12. Leaders and their families are commanding SALARIES from church funds and this would have been completely abhorrent in Miss T's day. In fact she would have had you publically drummed out of the church for even suggesting you should get paid for the Lord's work. I'm assuming here that the need for the school in the first place, would have been put across as something GOD was telling the leaders they should do. This is ANTI-Biblical since, as far as I can read from MY Bible, commerce in the church is SINFUL.

These are the MAJOR issues as I see it, if I've missed anything let me know.

I made the posts regarding the I-pads versus pc's to illustrate how UNNECESSARY the EXPENSE of a 1:1 ratio of I-Pad to children and teachers actually was, considering the school is continually making HUGE LOSSES.

This is just ONE MORE example, out of MANY which have been posted here, of how inefficiently the congregations' funds are being used and as a warning against the same mis-management of funds which happened when so much money was lost on the stock market by HB. It's not just the LOSS OF FUNDS but the fact that HB was expounding on the evils of stock market gambling to the rest of the congregation while he, himself, was the actual GAMBLER (see point 11. above)!!

To put the whole I-pad thing in perspective - Cedars is the ONLY SCHOOL IN THE WHOLE WORLD to have opted for the 'classes by I-pad' in such a totalitarian way. That would be fine, if the school was paying for itself - but it's NOT and the congregation are subsidising the school year in and year out but being led to believe that this is NOT the case - and that's just OUTRIGHT LIES!!!

Now, if the leaders can LIE so easily about something like that then why should you believe ANYTHING which comes out of their mouths? We know for an absolute FACT that the leaders have LIED about the people who have left the church, so again I chant "WHY SHOULD YOU BELIEVE ANYTHING THE LEADERS OF SMC SAY?"

Does the Bible say "Thou shalt not lie, except if you are a church leader and need the congregation to give you money for a project" or "except if you want the congregation to ignore or ostracise someone the leaders don't like." It certainly doesn't say that in MY Bible!!

I am a teacher of distance learning students so I am in a good position to point out that the expense of the I-pads was totally unnecessary for the education of the children in Cedars. But the MAIN POINT of the conversation was regarding the EXPENSE to the congregation and the LIE that the school was paying for itself.

I would urge anyone, who wants to use that particular conversation to malign the posters here, to READ the other 829 posts on the forum before jumping on one or two posts as being examples of the rest of the VERY REAL and heart-breaking experiences which have been posted here. I-pads are not the issue - MIS-MANAGEMENT of FUNDS and subsequent LIES about that mis-management are the TRUE ISSUES surrounding that series of about 10 posts.

As always biiiig love and huge huggggggs to all
God Bless xxxx

'paid for by the congregation and NOT the parents of the children attending the PRIVATE shcool'



how do you know this? (have assumed you are referring to the ipads, apologies if not)


I was under the impression that the parents were paying them up over a period of time, don't actually know where I got that from though



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2013 04:37AM by squareone.

squareone

I do not know what parents are charged. For all I know, the cost of the iPads may be added to invoices. What we do know from the church’s own accounts is that the members of the congregation subsidise the school however. The amount of money the congregation gives to the school would be enough to cover the iPads or a number of salaries. I seem to remember the amount in 2009 was £150,000, which was about £500 from each member of the congregation – more than enough to buy an iPad. I think it has been less in the two subsequent years, but it is still substantial.

Whether this money from the church pays for the iPads or for staff salaries (or anything else) the point is that the school could not survive without the members of the congregation each forking out money to subsidise private education. Many of these ordinary members will be struggling to pay for things for their own children but are paying for private education - with iPads - for others. There was some discussion about this back on page 6 of this forum.

If you want to read more, there is quite a lot of information about the finances (and other matters) on the Latigo site (www.latigo214.info). I am presuming most of the readers here will be familiar with that site but it has been a while since it has been mentioned so, just in case anyone has not come across it, it is a website with the declared aim “to place in the public domain information and articles for people who have questions about the practices, teachings and beliefs of Struthers Memorial Church.”

I find that interesting in itself – how many other churches need to have a separate site to put relevant information in the public domain? I would have thought most would be putting information in the public domain themselves, not creating so much secrecy and confusion that there is a “market need” for some other organisation to create forum to disseminate information.

Anyway, the point is that the latigo site includes analysis of some of the financial aspects of the organisation. There are articles on the 2009 accounts, the 2010 accounts and the 2011 accounts, and there is also an article called “Struthers Memorial Church and the Generous Gift” which takes figures from the 2009 books and shows that, for each child in the school, the parents (in 2009) paid an average of £3036 per child and that the church members contributed £1318 per child at the school.

I know not everyone is interested in the details of the finances, but these articles make interesting reading.

Hi guys

Just a wee correction, the accounts are freely available to anyone who asks for them (although I think you might have to pay a small fee to receive them). SMC are required by law, as a Charity, to make their accounts public to anyone who asks. There's more info on this on the Latigo site. So it's not really that the accounts themselves are secret - although certain aspects of them are open to question - but rather that the congregation don't seem to be aware of just how much they are subsidising the school or even if they are aware they are making ANY contributions to it at all.

From what we have read, the leaders of the church have publically stated that the school pays for itself and that NO SUBSIDIES from the general church funds are used towards the upkeep of the school or the staff who work there. However, the facts in the accounts (for the past THREE YEARS at least) have shown this statement to be completely UNTRUE.

The burning question is "If the 'powers that BE' in SMC are so holy and anointed by God, how can they possibly BLATANTLY LIE to the congregation for as long as THREE YEARS. One then has to ask, if we analysed the accounts of the Charity back as far as the time the school opened would we find it ever breaking EVEN, much less making a profit? If the school has been making a loss since it's inception, then the congregation have been LIED to for a lot long than 3 years!

This only makes the whole sham of this 'holy anointing control freak rubbish' even more apparent. Even if no-one in the congregation relates to anything else on this site - they surely must be asking why they are being LIED to on a regular basis from the mouths of those who claim to be specially anointed by God. How can anyone be that close to God and yet LIE so easily and so continually? Worse still, the lies don't stop at the financing of the school, oh no - LIES are being told about some members who have left the congregation also and certain members have been ostracised because of the jealousy of some privileged members or leaders.

Don't kid yourselves guys, you might well be experiencing God in your life but you are not being led by people who are WORTHY to LEAD YOU never mind you being worthy enough for their attention. You are having the wool pulled over your eyes so much you can't see past the fluff any more. Take a good look and don't continue to allow God's name to be used to perpetuate LIES, so many LIES. Surely it must make you wonder, if you have any sense at all??

I could pretty much guarantee you that the people in the congregations who are deemed to be 'worthy' of their pastor's attention (who aren't in the pastor's immediate family) are the 'YES' men/women. Those people whom the pastors know they can easily influence and gain support and adoration from. I would be willing to bet - if it wasn't a sin :-) - that the people who don't get into the 'inner circle' are the strong members of the congregation with a mind of their own and not so easily swayed by the 'Witches of Eastwick' (sorry about the parallel it gave me a wee chortle so I couldn't help it).

Sorry I got carried away a bit there ... but yeah, if anyone wants to see the accounts (solid proof that we are telling the TRUTH here) you're allowed to ask to see them.

The amalgamated losses of the school, for the past three years, is something in the region of £300K plus. That shortfall had to have been covered by the general church funds because there was no money from anywhere else to cover it, since the coffee shops make very little contribution to overall church funds. Therefore, the money given by the ordinary members of the church is being used to subsidise the private school - which is ALLEGEDLY 'Paying for itself'.

As ThePetitor says, it's all broken down and analysed on the Latigo site - it's very informative stuff I'd recommend a read. It does tend to put things in perspective a bit.

I have to say though, squareone, I can't honestly say I KNOW exactly what the subsidy from the general church funds was put towards and I'm really just throwing out the most obvious areas where the money might have been spent; such as the I-pads and a part of the staff salaries but I suppose the money could have been spent on anything at all - but it was still taken from the general funds of the church members while the members were being led to believe that the school was paying for itself.

Have a wee look at the Latigo site and see what you make of the accounts analysis yourself.

As always huge love and biiiiiiig hugggs to all
God Bless xxx