Quote
Rensil
There have been several posts relating to the Cumbernauld branch of Struthers, but I'd like it to be known that the same controlling, favouritism and banning procedures occur in all the branch churches. Since every one of the leaders follow the same teaching and continually told us how much in unity the leaders are, then it followed that their treatment of members of their church grouping adhered to the same pattern.

I can certainly testify that these practices went on in other branches, but I think it is actually worse than that. Struthers Memorial Church is a single organisation that runs a number of local churches, coffee/ bookshops and a school. The controlling, favouritism and banning procedures are part of their “Divine revelation” of the right way to do things, so they apply equally in the churches, the shops and the school.

How could it be otherwise? How can they take “the Divine revelation of God” and NOT apply it to every part of the organisation? You just have to listen to some of the sermons, for example the one where the head teacher of the school preaches about how the school council is useless because it wants to change things rather than accept her authority, to see what the real values and ethos are across the whole organisation.

This of course contradicts the information the school hands out, but which do you think they really believe – the school handbook that is part of the liaison and engagement process that they preach that they don’t believe in, or the sermon which is meant to be the revelation of the Word of God?

On another matter, I recently realised that it is possible to see how may people are reading these pages. I do not have earlier records but on Wednesday 23 March, there had been 5775 visits to the Struthers Discussion Forum. The number of visits to the Struthers discussion forum each day since then have been:

24 March 2011 – a further 174 visits
25 March – 153
26 March – 173
27 March - 120
28 March - 100
29 March – 132
30 March - 158

… giving a current total of over 7,000 today. It looks like there are a lot of people interested in this discussion.

In that there are 17 posters of which at my guess around 14 have misgivings about SMC :

Ohio
clive
CovLass
ThePetitor
seekingsusan
anon201062
Treetop
Chesterk55
rrmoderator
CrazyMixedUpKid
Archbishop Laud
anonymousfornow
Uncertain
Rensil
lorna
lovealways
susie

this can mostly be explained by these posters checking out the website around 8 times each day, or less - if there are a few people just reading the content but not posting.


Two questions for those who know:

1) What is the rough number of people in the Struthers group of churches in total these days ?.

2) Is one of the above posters the person who created and runs the Latigo site ?.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2011 04:54AM by seekingsusan.

Well, it could be, except that I have only checked about a dozen times in the last week, not 8 times every day. I used to log in a lot, but now look at the higher level stats on destructive churches and only log in if there is a new comment in the struthers thread- partly so that I do not distort the stats. I know that others only log in when alerted of a new message by email, so they are not particularly contributing to the stats either.

I have actually done a normal distribution curve which would provide a reasonable estimate of the number of actual users, but it is all just estimates, so doesn't really confirm anything.

Sorry if I have mislead people. The initial 5775 hits was all dates up to and including last Wednesday - that was the first day I looked at the stats. Current count for the last 12 hours is over 200 hits.

You can find estimates of the number of struthers members on the Latigo site.

Why people do not leave SMC
1. Fear
2. Made to 'feel' they are walking away from God (even though SMC say dont go on your feelings)
3. Afraid they will lose there salvation
4. Which really is the stumbling block. They dont want to lose the feeling of the presence of God. Which is NOT true.
Why is the presence of God there? I believe it is there for people who are hurting and broken. Also the Word says, ''For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.'' - Matthew 18:20 This is main reason because the Bible says so.
The reason I believe Gods presence is there in a 'stronger way' is becuse of the way His children are being abused and hurt. Hurt emotionally. Hurt to the point they become sick not just emotionally and physically but mentally too. I personally know people in SMC the were fine in health before they went to SMC. Then after time they became ill either emotionally or physically or mentally too. They do not put two & two together. They go for prayer and nothing happens. And ask God why. It can then give them a wrong view on God. And get tied up in knots. Going on to think its something they have done. Some big sin. When all along it is the leadership. People may disagree with me. The truth is why are so many people coming onto this site and sharing their experiences to discover that many other people have had the exact treatment. I thank God for this site. That at last people are beginning to speak out against a 'church' a 'leadership' that abuses and hurts people. God will judge. ''The LORD demands accurate scales and balances; he sets the standards for fairness.'' - Proverbs 11:1

Just to be absolutely clear, following on from a private message, I would like to make it clear that I was not suggesting Lorna was one of those having any misgivings about SMC.

I think she was unhappy with being included in the list above, even if that list was merely of POSTERS, not detractors.

SeekingSusan

I feel its worthwhile to reiterate the critera the moderator of this forum - rrmoderator has listed as criteria for signs of a "potentially unsafe group".


1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.

4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.


8. Followers feel they can never be "good enough".

9. The group/leader is always right.

10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

I omitted 7 since to my knowledge such material as yet doesn't exist ( unless one counts the latigo site ).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2011 10:52PM by seekingsusan.

Hi this is my first time on here I have looked at the forum for the past couple of months and I also suffered very badly at the treatment by SMC like so many others on this forum. It has taken years to rebuild my live after losing everything, even my marriage was tested because of the abuse of SMC.
The reason I am replying to this particular message is you were talking about the lady involved in witchcraft from England and what happened to her and I would like tell you the truth of what really happened.


1 "She was in witchcraft" The truth is she was saved and born again by the spirit of God like those of us who believe and was saved in her own home and baptised in the Holy Spirit.

2 ' yes hundreds of years" Why the double statement? Isn't it amazing that nothing is impossible with God

3 "I was not convinced" Can you not see how damaging these words are to this person. It appears to me that this statement you have made is very similar to the emotional abuse that many on this forum have suffered at the hands of SMC leaders
Can you please explain clearly what you mean by that statement?

4 "Went and joined the London Church" She was already a member of the London Church and had been for 18mths

5 "Was sent to the Cumbernauld church" This woman decided to move to the Cumbernauld church as it was advised it would deepen spiritual life.

6 Can you please explain the rest of your statement {I watched, and the weeks past etc. and I was getting more convinced that she hadn’t been delivered. What do you mean by this.

7 "One day SMC leader walked into the room and the woman was sitting practising witchcraft."
This is a totally blatant lie given by the SMC leadership to discredit this woman and obviously it worked as you believed it. As you know yourself and from others on this forum SMC leadership used this tactic regularly.

8 "After that the SMC leader took her to the police and nothing more was heard about it." Another blatant lie

This woman was not taken to the police she asked to go to the police as she needed somewhere to live. As she had nowhere to live due to the blatant lies and abuse from SMC

9 What sermon?

10 "I think you know that Struthers are known for discernment. Where was the discernment there? "

.
I question your discernment lovealways- as you should not air your comments or talk about some you have very little knowledge of plus making a very upsetting statement that has has caused this person to be deeply upset and has brought back the horrific pain and suffering caused by SMC.

Please don't feel this is personal thing against you as we have all suffered somewhat and you have no clue at all what happened and what we suffered.


I did not want to comment on this forum but feel I have been forced to because of your post regarding this woman from England.
I know this woman personally and she is a very Godly lady full of the love of Christ. Still walking with the Lord and a woman of integrity.

How do I know her you may ask

Because she is my wife of 24 years.

Dear out of it

I am sorry if you have been upset by anyone on this forum. but to be fair and help you understand, the victims themselves have obvoiusly been fed a lot of false information from the leadership in S.M.C. about the situation regarding your wife. This as you will know is the normal procedure in S.M.C. regarding people who leave. Do not let this put you of from adding your voice to the many people who have suffered at the hands of S.M.C. There is an old saying "EVIL HAPPENS WHEN GOOD PEOPLE STAND BACK AND DO NOTHING"
God bless you and grant you peace and restoration in all things.

Susie

Dear Out Of It

Im sorry that you and your wife have been hurt and had to live through that pain again. I echo hat Susie has said. When you are part of Struthers and even afterwards it is often to hard to distinguish what is true and not true. Up until recently I had even questioned my own actions and it took a while to get rid of the "If SMC leaders said it then it must be true"`attitude.

For what its worth I too heard the story about your wife and thought, If Diana was that 'discerning' then why didnt she discern that if its all true? At the end of the day as we all know, those of us who leave are portrayed in a bad light. I think the more bizarre the behaviour the greater the story has to be made up in order to justify that. That your wife was encouraged to move from England to Scotland and was then thrown out of Dianas house, seems particularly cruel. I too moved from England to Cumbernauld, althought through no encourgaement from the SMC leaders. They just 'encouraged me' to go back there. I dread to think what lies have been made up about me to account for my leaving.

One only has to hear a Struthers sermon to understand that from the leaders point of view (a point of view they are making known as gospel with the rest of the church) all contributors to this forum are full of bitterness and poison and the reason they left is because we arent really interested in serving God and dont want to walk in the way of holiness.

Im glad your wife is walkng with God and I hope she finds comfort as others have done, knowing she is not alne and was not the only one who was treated badly

God bless you both

CovLass

I am sorry that I appear to have hurt you and your wife that was not my intention. I was mearly relaying from memory what was said in the sermon that was preached on that sunday we all heard meaning the congregation. In my naivety I believed what was preached, fool on me for believing someone that I thought I could have trusted at that time. It is not the first time that this pastor has blatantly lied to the congregation. Regrading an individual's moral fibre. I apoligize if the tone in my message came across as accusatory this also was not my intention.