Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: blackwatch ()
Date: September 02, 2024 05:21PM

It's amazing that most local churches have survived (in some cases hundreds of years) without controversy or scandal of any kind. There's always going to be divisions and disagreements - that's human nature. That's not what we're talking about here.

This is a church absolutely steeped in controversy and personal tragedy and yet none of it has ever been addressed. Additionally, questions have always been asked around finances - and who can forget the BT Shares scandal? Today, we STILL find the same questions being asked.

The people I genuinely feel sorry for are the good, kind-hearted folks who blindly trust the leaders. None of them would agree with nor would want to be part of the hurt and the pain that's been inflicted but yet, by not challenging it and facing up to it, they are complicit. It's like they're paralysed or under some kind of spell and unable to do their civil duty. That's the real awakening that's needed here.

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: ThePetitor ()
Date: September 03, 2024 07:44PM

Amazing Grace, these are some really good questions about the school finances etc. I suspect you are right and most of the congregation know very little about where their money goes.

It seems to me this is one of the big problems with the “God will tell us exactly what to do” approach. Apart from being unbiblical (happy to tease that out if needed) it clearly does not work in the case of Struthers. The questions you raise prove that beyond any shadow of doubt, and there is other evidence like how the “New Year Word” predicted exactly the opposite of what has been happening to the church this year.

Blackwatch – with you all the way. I think your comment that, “ This is a church absolutely steeped in controversy and personal tragedy and yet none of it has ever been addressed” sums it up, and of course provides its own answer as the reason it is “absolutely steeped in controversy and personal tragedy” is precisely because “none of it has ever been addressed”. If they had addressed things when they arose, they would not be in this position today.

I find it bizarre that they seem to have a core doctrine of “it is not my problem”.

That to me is exactly the opposite of the Christian message. Probably the best-known parable of all time is the story of the good Samaritan. It is known not just by Christians but by most people of other faiths and none. If any of you have friends from another culture where Christianity is not the main religion, ask them if they know any stories Jesus told, and you will find the good Samaritan if probably top of that list.

Why? Because it is part of the radical core message Jesus preached – you need to love everyone, including those who are not like you. Yet Struthers takes exactly the opposite approach. Unless you are attending the church, you simply do not exist – they have no interest or responsibility at all for your wellbeing or anything else.

This is most clearly seen where it come to mental health issues. In any other church, discovering someone was struggling with mental health is a reason to put a bit of support in place. Not in Struthers – in Struthers finding someone is struggling with mental health is a reason not to talk to them!

It is amazing that the regular members go along with this. The only explanation I can find is that they simply do not think about it. In Biblical terms, they have hardened their hearts, which is never a good thing.

Doubt do still creep in though (and I mean doubts about the omniscience of the Struthers leaders, not doubts about their faith, which is a different issue).

As soon as folks realise that the leaders are not omniscient, they start to question. Once they move away from the “you should never question anything” rule, they realise one of the big things they need to question is whether the leaders actually care about others, including former members. That is the point most folk leave, as they cannot find any evidence to support the idea that the leaders care about anything other than themselves and their reputation.

It all links back to the above point that, “none of it has ever been addressed”. Reaching out to folk to support them through difficult times and address concerns would not only ameliorate the controversies, it would also allow those in the pews to see the leaders actually cared, and would stop the church haemorrhaging members.

On a related note, I have been listening to a bit of Brenee Brown recently. She talks of the difference between sympathy and empathy suggesting that the key is “connection”. Sympathy is a cold impersonal thing, but empathy is different because it includes connection – you hear what the person is saying and you find something within yourself that relates to that and understands it. That allows there to be a connection. The person looking for support sees that the other person has made a connection, so allows them in to help.

So… did Jesus have empathy? Of course he did! Wherever he went he made connections with people and everyone knew that he understood them (see the woman at the well and other stories).

Do Struthers leaders have empathy? Are they able to build a connection with people? Do they even try? Or do they go about saying, “not my problem”?

I will leave that to readers to answer.

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: Al Duff ()
Date: September 05, 2024 08:58PM

Dear all

I was interested to see the latest church school financial figures Amazing Grace (great pseudonym BTW) outed a few posts back. I find them shocking. As I said before, the church school was a bad idea from the start and I told Mr Black so.

Just a little more detail on that, if I may. When I went up to him after the proverbial Saturday night meeting where his daughter had suddenly announced it, he said - I remember the encounter vividly - after I said I thought it was wrong on several grounds, 'But we can train children more deeply through our own school'.

To this I said,'But Christians are meant to be the salt of the earth. If the kids aren't strong enough, strengthen the Sunday schools, then send them out into the world to change it. Cocooning them every day and night is unhealthy and unwise - and against the whole proven model of this church, which has had most of its growth through mainstream schools'.

He then looked as though he was beginning to agree with me. He ended with 'that's not how Alison and Mary feel' (that sentence is verbatim). I don't think he really believed in the church school.

But as I said in an earlier post, even assuming it was right, it should have been a cash cow for the church, but instead was a vampyre which sucked - per the figures, over many years, unless I am misinterpreting them -the bulk of the wealth of the church.

It not only impoverished the church - possibly stealthily (did the average punter in the pews really know that most of their tithes were shoring up a failing private company?) - but it hijacked the whole narrative in the church. It was all about the school now. What a disaster.

Some will no doubt say, this is an unspiritual guy talking from his mind. No, I 'felt led' to confront the church school project. (The mind is not the antithesis of the spirit, BTW: as CS Lewis put it, the mind should be 'irrigated' by the Spirit.)

I do not believe it was conceived in revelation. If it were, what was the revelation? Describe to me the vision, its sequence, its structure, its date. They can't, because there never was a vision. As I said a few posts back, the school was imho cooked up in the imaginations and ambitions of Alison Speirs and, influenced by her, Mary Black. It was wrong from the start, and it has now (as most cheap private schools do, even those which make money for a while) come crashing down.

I am banging on about this because it was the main issue which got me frozen out of the church. I was being preached at from the much-coveted (by some) platform and recall actually shaking my head as Alison preached at me! Someone came up to my wife and said, 'I saw your husband shaking his head'. Lol.

I want to end this not very polished post by apologising, however, to the Speirses. I said in an earlier post that they had snubbed my self-exonerating email when they contacted the Latigo website suggesting I had started that website. I looked up my old emails just now and they did in fact initially respond. So I must withdraw my accusation that they were were bad-mannered and did not have a sense of fair play. If you're reading this, apologies.

My personal experience of Alison was mixed. She once gave me really encouraging advice on a work matter. But on another occasion I phoned her when she dissed John the Baptist in a sermon, saying he should not have meddled in politics. I protested at that comment. She said someone close to her had also picked her up on it, but then said the fact that I was questioning a leader meant I was out of order. That is a terrible way to respond, and is what makes some people on this forum - but not me (see much earlier posts) - think that SMC is a cult. Because that is precisely how cults keep people down.

Anyway, thanks for hearing me out.

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: Al Duff ()
Date: September 05, 2024 09:01PM

Dear all

I was interested to see the latest church school financial figures Amazing Grace (great pseudonym BTW) outed a few posts back. I find them shocking. As I said before, the church school was a bad idea from the start and I told Mr Black so.

Just a little more detail on that, if I may. When I went up to him after the proverbial Saturday night meeting where his daughter had suddenly announced it, he said - I remember the encounter vividly - after I said I thought it was wrong on several grounds, 'But we can train children more deeply through our own school'.

To this I said, 'But Christians are meant to be the salt of the earth. If the kids aren't strong enough, strengthen the Sunday schools, then send them out into the world to change it. Cocooning them every day and night is unhealthy and unwise - and against the whole proven model of this church, which has had most of its growth through mainstream schools'.

He then looked as though he was beginning to agree with me. He ended with 'that's not how Alison and Mary feel' (that sentence is verbatim). I don't think he really believed in the church school.

But as I said in an earlier post, even assuming it was right, it should have been a cash cow for the church, but instead was a vampyre which sucked - per the figures, over many years, unless I am misinterpreting them -the bulk of the wealth of the church.

It not only impoverished the church - possibly stealthily (did the average punter in the pews really know that most of their tithes were shoring up a failing private company?) - but it hijacked the whole narrative in the church. It was all about the school now. What a disaster.

Some will no doubt say, this is an unspiritual guy talking from his mind. No, I 'felt led' to confront the church school project. (The mind is not the antithesis of the spirit, BTW: as CS Lewis put it, the mind should be 'irrigated' by the Spirit.)

I do not believe it was conceived in revelation. If it were, what was the revelation? Describe to me the vision, its sequence, its structure, its date. They can't, because there never was a vision. As I said a few posts back, the school was imho cooked up in the imaginations and ambitions of Alison Speirs and, influenced by her, Mary Black. It was wrong from the start, and it has now (as most cheap private schools do, even those which make money for a while) come crashing down.

I am banging on about this because it was the main issue which got me frozen out of the church. I was being preached at from the much-coveted (by some) platform and recall actually shaking my head as Alison preached at me! Someone came up to my wife and said, 'I saw your husband shaking his head'. Lol.

I want to end this not very polished post by apologising, however, to the Speirses. I said in an earlier post that they had snubbed my self-exonerating email when they contacted the Latigo website suggesting I had started that website. I looked up my old emails just now and they did in fact initially respond. So I must withdraw my accusation that they were were bad-mannered and did not have a sense of fair play. If you're reading this, apologies.

My personal experience of Alison was mixed. She once gave me really encouraging advice on a work matter. But on another occasion I phoned her when she dissed John the Baptist in a sermon, saying he should not have meddled in politics. I protested at that comment. She said someone close to her had also picked her up on it, but then said the fact that I was questioning a leader meant I was out of order. That is a terrible way to respond, and is what makes some people on this forum - but not me (see much earlier posts) - think that SMC is a cult. Because that is precisely how cults keep people down.

Anyway, thanks for hearing me out.

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: ThePetitor ()
Date: September 08, 2024 05:42PM

Al Duff,

Yup, that is all part of the problem with the whole model – no opportunity to question, no need to plan or evaluate, or even to reflect. That is simply not scriptural – and, as we are witnessing, it doesn’t work.

It is interesting that many people that left Struthers did so not because they were turning away from God, but for exactly the opposite reason – they felt they were seeking and following God, and the Struthers leaders were not listening to the voice of God. Jock’s testimony a while back was one that struck a similar chord.

On another note, I have just heard another Struthers story that fit what is now a well-established pattern for many, possibly the majority of those who leave.

(1) Some sort of hurt/pain,
(2) a total disregard for that pain
(3) the Struthers leaders thinking what happened will go away if ignored so they stick their head in the sand
(4) strangely enough, it does not go away, so…
(5) weeks, months, years, even decades later others are made aware of the pain the person suffered and go ‘whoa-this is really not ok’

The thing is, they could have dealt with one thing at a time. If they had done that, it would probably never have hit the public spaces, as it would have been dealt with quietly. Now it is all coming at once and that is of course a public interest story.

The key point is in many ways point number two, the total disregard for any pain caused. That seems to me to be central to the Struthers approach, and it reminds me of something I have thought for a long time, which is that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.

From a Christian point of view, God is of course love. Love is not just one of his attributes, it is a definition of what/ Who he is. But we know God hates things (basically things we talk about as ‘sin’). He could not hate things if hate was the opposite of love, so it must be the other side of the same coin. God shows both love for things and hate for things and, taken together, that is God, the God who is Love (with a capital ‘L’ so to speak).

The opposite of love is not therefore hate, it is indifference. That is exactly why Jesus was so critical of the pharisees: they didn’t care – they cared about their own little rules and regulations – cleaning the outside of a cup, not healing on the Sabbath, washing before a meal etc, but they did not care about people. They did not care if a blind man or a man with a withered hand could be healed, that was just irrelevant in their eyes.

That is exactly what the Struthers leadership do. When someone is in pain (point 2 above) their practice and advice to others is to ignore it – “Whatever you do, don’t think about the pain that is caused, that might cause you to care. No, no, don’t do that, think about something else, you have to remain indifferent to the pain of others: our whole approach is to become people who are incapable of showing any connection or empathy, as that might lead to us having to step outside our bubble and offer help and support.”

Quote
Matthew 23v15
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

I guess that pattern also fits with the discernment issue – instead of pain, some people are conscious of God’s leading and take that to the leadership. Since it did not come directly to the leadership their reaction is however exactly the same – indifference. “If doesn’t matter what God is saying to you, all that matters is what we think God is saying to us.” There are quite a few stories that fit that pattern as well.

Adapting the above process to refer to guidance rather than to pain gives:

(1) Some sort of sense the God is providing guidance,
(2) a total disregard for that guidance from the leadership
(3) the Struthers leaders thinking the issue will go away if ignored so they stick their head in the sand
(4) strangely enough, it does not go away, so…
(5) weeks, months, years, even decades later others realise that there might have been a bit of truth in the insight/ guidance that others not in the leadership had.

Once again those in the pews are seeing this panning out – advice about the bookshops, the school, the way the budget was going, the repair of buildings, the need for openness, the need for some formal training in scripture, the need for compassion rather than indifference… I could go on.

All of these have been drawn to the attention of the leadership and the leadership have simply ignored them – “if God is not telling us directly, then it is not important – how dare you think you have information that God has not revealed to us!”

How is that working out?

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: blackwatch ()
Date: September 09, 2024 11:31PM

Some excellent contributions of late.

Al Duff - here's some general characteristics of a cult:

Charismatic Leader: Cults are typically led by a charismatic leader who commands deep loyalty and devotion. This leader often claims to have special knowledge, authority, or divine appointment, and may not be accountable to any authorities outside the cult.

Isolation: Cults often isolate members from the outside world. This can involve physical isolation—living in a commune or isolated area—or emotional and psychological isolation, where contact with non-members, including family, is discouraged or forbidden.

Indoctrination: Cults usually enforce a rigid system of rules and beliefs, often through intensive and manipulative indoctrination processes. This can involve thought reform or "brainwashing" techniques, which might include control over the environment, control of information, and heavy demands for conformity within the group.

Exclusivity: Members are often told they are part of a special elite with an important mission, which can elevate the group's purpose above external laws and ethics. Non-members are typically viewed as outsiders, enemies, or even evil, reinforcing group solidarity.

Demanding Loyalty: Cults frequently demand unquestioning commitment and loyalty to the group and its leader. This can be manifested in financial contributions, relinquishing personal property to the organization, and performing unpaid labor or recruitment efforts.

Penalties for Leaving: Leaving a cult can be difficult, with former members facing harassment, threats, guilt, or shaming. The cult may teach that leaving the group will result in dire consequences, either spiritually, physically, or both.

Exploitation: Cults often exploit members financially, sexually, or through labor. Members may be pressured to give up their savings, take on financial burdens for the group, or submit to sexual or relational demands from the leader.

Expressed as a percentage, how much of the above would you say has been applicable to SMC at some point or another?

Let's distill it down even further:

"Cults are typically characterised by having a charismatic leader, promoting isolation from the outside world, demanding extreme loyalty, enforcing rigid belief systems, and exploiting members financially, emotionally, or physically"

It may not be as extreme as other cults but you'd have a hard job convincing me that the above isn't accurate or fitting.

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: FalkirkBairn67 ()
Date: September 10, 2024 01:52AM

Blackwater what you have just discrided is SMC to a T .

These pass few weeks has been very hard to hold my tounge about the rumours so called leaders of Struthers have passed about myself what are all lies.

What's has got to me more is how they have said I'm mentally unbalanced. Yes I put my hands up I'm on medication for my mental health. But so are 1000s others 4 in 10 adults are.
I'm not ashamed of it .Yes at times I have been very low but that's because of what's went on in my personal life from a very young age. Also got alot going on with my health and latley I'm having panic attacks a nightly nightmares. But who's to blame for alot of it Yes SMC my nightmare are what happened back then .
But instead of being undersyanding about this they have spread about I have been admitted for treatment a few times what's untrue Yes for 30 I was in a mental health ward but I was a staff member so they need to get there facts correct. But as I said there's nothing to be ashamed of having mental health problems
OK I'm off.my soap box but had to get this of my chest.

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: Al Duff ()
Date: September 10, 2024 02:06AM

Hey Blackwatch, I agree that SMC has displayed many of these traits. However, that doesn't, in my book, make them a cult. These traits have been exhibited by innumerable other Christian groups, e.g. the Brethren, the Montanists, the Covenanters, the Jesuits, etc. Not to mention other religions, freemasons, the Red Brigades, the mafia, and so on.

None of these is a cult. A cult for me is a group with these traits in extreme form and masquerading as Christian, such as - well I won't name them because I don't want to offend them. Most of their members are good, very good, people.

The problem with calling SMC a cult is that you will put people within SMC off wanting to get out of it. Because they know that it is not a cult, they will think everything written on this website is beside the point.

I think, therefore, Rick Ross made an unwise move in renaming his 'Cults and Destructive Churches' site a site for 'Cults' only. Where does that leave people in destructive churches? Have destructive churches vanished? Having said that, my hat is off to Rick Ross for this amazing free site and his exceptional moderation.

Anyway, if you don't mind, I won't continue our debate. What is much more important, and interesting, is reading about people's experiences, especially newcomers to the site.

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: blackwatch ()
Date: September 10, 2024 04:58PM

FalkirkBairn, I'm appalled to hear that SMC have used your mental health in any way. That is totally inappropriate. I'd like to know more about the context of this:

Al Duff,

Happy to agree that there's little merit in that particular debate. One final observation that I'd like to make however: You've given your own particular / personal and quite specific view of what a cult is. This is a bit like arguing against the sky being blue because it's not a very specific shade of blue. There's broad / universal agreement on the characteristics of a cult and this is the application that I would make. (Happy for you to have the last word on this if you want to respond).

In any case, it's a side issue and I agree that there are more important things :-)

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Re: Struthers Memorial Independent Pentecostal Church
Posted by: lintar123 ()
Date: September 10, 2024 10:41PM

Hello,

I haven't posted for a long time . Some of the Struthers experiences I have read about recently are horrific.

My experiences were clearly detailed in my previous posts . Have I recovered ? .... mmm .
Thankfully we left the place and lived to tell the tales to our wonderful family .

Have had experiences of " bumping into " Struthers .... " leaders " and have been totally ignored . How Christian !

I have no desire to enter a debate . However, I have to say , that I believe fully that Struthers is and was a cult . I knew people who lost their life . I knew people who suffered mentally ,physically and emotionally .
I know deeply my own experience as a young genuine person . I know the difficulties of having many questions that we never had answered .

Oh yes .... there will be some ..poor souls ...genuinely caught up in what they are told . How terrible !

For me ... and no doubt many others .... I would definitely define the place as a cult .

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