Yes, The Petitor , very disturbing . More or less , anyone who complains or asks questions is detracting from " her anointing " and is seen as being "demonic " .Complaints are described as " the waves disturbing OUR
spirits "

" OUR " .. referring to herself and those around who are " anointed " .

Also said is " do we listen to people ? " or " do we listen to God ? "

In other words , believing herself to be in a " higher " position with God , she ain't going to listen to anyone . Her way or no way .

Sad to say , that's the core of the problem they have . To have sermons like that , is awful for the genuine people . They will be scared to speak up , ask questions , or disagree with any of the so self assumed anointed ones .

Yes , Rensil , we were all told to " stay quiet , stay small " . How utterly wrong .

Has anyone else spotted the name of the leader of the Scottish Reform party? Malcolm Offord. A quick google shows that he was born and raised in Greenock.

Are the Offords still connected to SMC and is Malcolm Offord a relation?

blackwatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Has anyone else spotted the name of the leader of
> the Scottish Reform party? Malcolm Offord. A quick
> google shows that he was born and raised in
> Greenock.
>
> Are the Offords still connected to SMC and is
> Malcolm Offord a relation?

I was wondering that myself.

I had a look at the Struthers' facebook page a while ago, and one of the fairly recent weekly messages was from one of the Offords.

Malcolm Offord of the Reform party was brought up in SMC! His father was Maurice Offord who led one of the churches they used to have but can’t remember which one. His wife Doreen Offord is still alive I think and still in SMC. There were about 5 siblings but the only one apparently attends is another son, Graham Offord. Interesting fact, his wife Jennifer Offord is the minister in what is left of SMC Glasgow.

Good info thank you. Given his background in business he's presumably long separated from all the SMC nonsense. I wonder what he makes of all that now.

Mention of Maurice Offord. He and Jim McIlree were the whistleblowers in 1987. Mr Offord was one of the 4 legal trustees and Mr McIlree was a professional lawyer with his own practice (possibly the church lawyer, don't know for sure on that). They found out about the illegal multiple share applications that Mr Black orchestrated. The scandal where he gave young adults church (and possibly personal) money to buy shares in the sales of British Gas etc. and then sign the shares over to him/the church or to do an immediate sale and pass the proceeds back to him/the church. It was the actions of Mr Offord and Mr McIlree that gave me the possibility of leaving at the end of high school. They managed to get that church meeting on the famous Saturday night, when Mr Black admitted to some kind of financial wrong-doing but then was forgiven and allowed to continue on in leadership. Both whistle-blowing gentlemen immediately left the church, as did a good number of people thereafter.

RedRoad, Thankyou for that background information about Maurice Offord and Jim McIlree. I do remember the shattering incident of the financial mismanagement caused by Hugh Black in 1987. What we minions in the pews weren’t told was this background you describe. If my memory serves me right, Maurice Offord became seriously physically ill around this time and sadly passed away not long after that. So his whistle-blowing and leaving SMC were conveniently covered up by the news of his serious illness and passing. He was no longer around to explain what had happened. We knew that his widow, Doreen, stayed in the church and I believe took over the leadership of the branch-church which her husband had been leading, somewhere down the Clyde coast. (I may be wrong there). Yes, she is still alive and still attends Struthers Greenock. In my opinion, she is a very nice lady and a committed Christian: it’s sad that she has never got out of SMC.

We were told by the Struthers leaders and sub-leaders at that time in 1987, that Jim McIlree had left his high calling and “gone out of the light”, ie backslidden. We had no idea that he’d been a whistle-blower and that, as a lawyer, he had been put in such a difficult position. Well, I do know that Jim and his wife are still committed Christians to this day and I saw no signs of darkness or apostasy in their lives when I’ve happened to bump into them on a couple of occasions.

Yes, Malcolm Offord grew up in Struthers but I think he left the church and moved down to London after leaving high school. Again, I may be wrong but I don’t remember seeing him in the church after that. Maybe somebody can tell us what he thinks about Struthers now but I’m guessing he would want it left in his past. The Offords are a very clever and gifted family so I’m not surprised Malcolm is soaring in the political world.

I thought folks might be interested in the enclosed extract from the Guardian this week.

Quote
The Guardian online, Tues 31 March 2026
When Rachael Reign finally left her relationship and called the police, she came with a litany of allegations.
She felt parts of her life had been controlled, she told the call handler. She said she had been given instructions about what to wear, which included a ban on certain shades of nail varnish. She felt pressured to give up a portion of her income. She had been told that bad things would happen if she left.

But Rachael’s relationship wasn’t with a partner – it was with a religious group, the [church other than Struthers - feel free to read the original article if you want details]. And there wasn’t much the police could do. “If my boyfriend did what my pastor did, I believe police could have investigated it,” Rachael says now.

Interesting stuff. The guardian goes on to say how there are groups lobbying for the law to be changed to address this sort of behaviour. Even if that happens, I suspect it will be some time but, in the meantime, it raises some really important questions.

The central point lies in the final comment made by Racheal - "If my boyfriend did what my pastor did, I believe police could have investigated it”.

Members and leaders of Struthers, if you heard of a boyfriend treating their girlfriend that way (or vice versa, let’s not be sexist here!), coercing and controlling them, and telling them bad things would happen if they left, what would you do? Do you think it is acceptable?

If not, why do you accept the coercive behaviour of this organisation, which is very clearly evidenced in these pages?

I know some folks try to dismiss the concern about coercive control because they somehow magically know that every single person on here (over 150 different people, and many others not on here) is a wicked person with terrible motives and lots of “seeds of bitterness” or psychological conditions, and that terrible things have happened to them, but that is just hot air.

That rhetoric is NEVER supported by verifiable facts. Most of the time, it is not supported by any detail that can be judged and, when it is, it is all nuanced and secretive. The whole message is that it is "known to" (actually made up by) the leaders, but not the kind of information that they share with the peasants - "you ignorant people are not in a position to make your own judgements, you simply have to obey your betters".

This is morally bankrupt and of course cuts across the whole message of Christianity. If you are in Struthers you no doubt here about how you will one day stand before the throne of God and have to answer for your actions [well, unless you are a leader, they are exempt :-) ]. Do you really think you will be able to say, "oh. I never followed up with any of these people who were hurting because the leaders told me that everyone who left automatically developed some sort of psychological condition and became full of bitterness"?

Parable of the Good Samaritan anyone? "Oh, I never went to bind his wounds because I thought they might be infectious".

There is NO evidence to support this rubbish about those leaving developing "seeds of bitterness", bad motives, having a terrible life or any sort of infectious psychological condition (other than honesty and a desire not to see others suffer).

It is easy to verify one way or another. Just drop folks here a personal message, ask them about their lives, have coffee with them, open up your own vulnerabilities and see where that leads. This is not difficult stuff. Relationships #101 as they say. (Even if folk do not want to reveal their identify, most will reply with something like, "a person called xxx is happy to speak to you, would you meet with them?" That maintains confidentiality.)

Every single member of Struthers needs to reach their own conclusions, they cannot simply accept the rhetoric spouted from the platform, especially when packed with innuendo and unverifiable commentary on others. You need to make your own judgements and I would suggest that, to do that, you should reach out to one or two folk here to try to understand them on a more personal level.

Others then take the “the leaders never actually said that” approach regarding these coercive behaviours but, as has been pointed out previously on these pages, if the leaders did not intend to control things like whether members watched TV, wore makeup, dressed a particular way, spoke to certain people or had respect for others then they are the worst communicators in history, as that is the message that everyone received.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2026 03:36PM by ThePetitor.

Oops, another post, and one that ties in well with the comments above.

Not planned that way though, I made the above post then received a message from a friend including the link below.

[youtu.be]

I will be totally upfront and say the clip is about how to identify spiritual abuse. It is about 15 minutes long.

Everyone in Struthers should listen to this.

Everyone.

E V E R Y O N E.

Every single person who sits in the pews. 15 minutes of your time.



For each of the points made, you can then chose what you think. Is it:

1) that what is said is wrong, that the behaviours mentioned are not ways to identify spiritual abuse;

2) that what is said is correct, that these are ways to identify spiritual abuse, but these behaviour are not seen in Struthers, so there is not a problem;

or

3) that what is said is correct, that these are ways to identify spiritual abuse, and these behaviour are seen in Struthers, so there is a problem.

Seems to me these are the only three possibilities.

I cannot see the harm in anyone watching this. It is just a guy giving a view. There is no link at all to Struthers in the video. Surely every person in every church should be concerned about the possibility of Spiritual Abuse. How on earth could anyone not be? So is it too much to ask to spend 15 minutes listening to this? Surely that is even more urgent when some people have expressed concern about spiritual abuse.

This has to be taken seriously. The New Testament model of decision-making is to allow everyone to have a view, so everyone needs to be informed. If you do not keep yourself informed and able to express your view in the church then you are not fulfilling your role as part of the body of Christ.

So, whoever you are and whatever position you hold in the church, have a listen. If you conclude that either option (1) or (2) is correct then fine, you have listened, you have added to your knowledge of how things work, or at least what one person thinks, and you have decided all is well.

If you decide option (3) is correct, then you have to think very seriously about your position.

I’ve thought long and hard about writing this so here goes. Nobody is going to apologise. When you’re in that mindset, you feel so strongly that you’re in the right and that to see things from a different perspective would be so, so wrong. What I don’t understand is that a lot of of the people asking for apologies were in that mindset themselves once and were in the church because they enjoyed it (not the people who were brought up in it I hasten to add, but those of us who chose to go and loved it at that point). So no one is going to apologise for spiritual abuse. It’s impossible, maybe it will help some of you to realise that but there is no way I would be apologising for doing what I thought was the will of God when I was looking at it through that lens.

I do however agree there needs to be a declared accountability for the financial debacle on the loss of perhaps 2 to £3 million through ego-trips and wrong projects which have used up the generous contributions of saintly people who’d really no idea what was happening to their money.