Hi everyone.
Squareone: checkout [sermons2.redeemer.com] there is just some amazing stuff on there. As I said previously, the standard of the teaching compared to the rambling we often get at SMC is night and day. Have a listen when you get a chance!
Clive, about the recordings, I'm hoping they'll get passed over to Latigo as well but that's out of my hands. I am however looking at how I can discreetly record the sermons myself in which case it would be easier to put them in the public domain. And why not? It is the word of God afer all. It's not like it belongs to them.
Lintar: thanks for sharing again. I'm so sorry to hear that your memories seem to be much more painful. I'm more angry than pained and perhaps a little ashamed at having allowed myself to be manipulated. I also feel a deep sense of loss at having cut myself off from other christians and other teaching but I'm gradually changing this.
On another subject, I have always loved the singing and the music at Struthers. I was listening to a really challenging sermon recently (sorry can't remember where) about the use and influence of music within church. This has got me thinking about how formulaic and just how effective the music can be. What I've always thought to be the holy spirit and an annointing is most probably an emotional human response to the music. It's just something i've started to think about but I'm already wondering if we're not just duping ourselves buy creating an atmoshere through music.
Onother aside - someone I barely know (but knows that I go to SMC) told me about this thread and said that I should read it. I didn't let on that I knew about it.

thanks for that blackwatch, had a wee listen to the 'Christian's Happiness' sermon just now, thought it was excellent. A good way to start the day! :) Looking forward to working my way through all of the sermons over time.

I know what you're saying about music and it is healthy to test everything to see if it's real or just a nice wee feeling you're having. With hindsight- I often found the times of congregational singing at SMC to be the part of the service I got the most from and is the bit I miss, as, like you say there wasn't usually much 'meat' in the sermons. Often the hymns had more significance.... And they can definitely hold a tune at Struthers, I have to say that for them!! :)


Anyway...on with the day, with this in my mind from the sermon I just listened to - Romans8v28-30, our bad things turn out for good, our good things can never be lost and the best is yet to come.


Hoping and praying x

Thanks for all your recent postings. Welcome, Merciful7, and I do hope you find this Forum helpful to you, as you face the hurt and pain which is now surfacing, resulting from your upbringing in Smc. I'm glad you have found a church and have a personal relationship with God. I hope you recover completely from the scars of your time in Smc; it may take time; take it slowly.

To Blackwatch, I read that you are still in smc and yet you are having doubts and questions about the teaching and the manipulation. The very fact that you are on here and also enjoying listening to sermons from elsewhere, shows that you are not entirely happy with the way things are in smc and yet you say you do not want to leave - at the moment anyway. This surprises me. I hope you have not swallowed the lie that there are no good churches out there, at least none as good and holy, or none who practice holy living, as much as those in smc. This is indeed a lie. You say you are not leaving because maybe God might use you there. Well, God may use you and He can use us anywhere, but the smc leadership will most likely not LET God use you. On the contrary, the smc leadership and their underlings WILL use you. This is the experience of many of us and I know many such who left smc and are now active in ministry and moving in the spiritual gifts and being used deeply by God in various settings. These people were held back by the smc leaders and told not to do anything but just attend meetings and be quiet, and their gifts lay dormant and unused because of the controlling decisions of the smc leaders. Regarding secretly recording sermons, are CDs of the sermons not available any more? Has even that been stopped for fear of them getting into the "wrong" hands? I agree there shouldnt be anything to hide in a Christian church.

Re the singing in smc, I used to think it was better than anywhere else too, but I became uncomfortable about certain aspects over the years. I remember at times, we were cajoled into singing and singing and singing a particular song at the tops of our voices, until we were almost hyperventilating and /or out of breath. We were instructed to look at the leader who was leading the singing and make complete eye-contact with her (yes, always a 'her'!) and if she speeded the song up then we had to follow, and vice versa if she slowed down. Thus I came to realise that the congregational singing was very controlled and as a result, it lacked life and meaning. If I listen to it now on a CD, it sounds flat. In contrast, when I hear the singing in other churches, it is far more free and happy, not tight and ordered as it was in smc. If someone doesnt sing, well, that's OK. Loud or soft, it's OK. Nobody is going to tell you off. And such singing and worship is spirit-led, anointed and fulfilling for those of us who sing.

my experience of the singing was good (although I agree it doesn't sound the same on the recordings). Often, however, any joy was quickly extinguished by the preaching or something being directed at you by the preacher... or something else. I genuinely enjoyed the singing at Struthers.. but I found no genuine friend there.

Hi All,

CBarb thanks so much for your post. Your words mean a lot and my knowing how similar other people's experience has been is a great boost to me. I think it will be a slow process in turning my head around from the SMC teachings but as you say, each time I need to pray for God to help me to put it aside. I am now married with a small child and my husband isn't a christian and has no church background which can also be difficult for me, although he has no qualms with me attending church with our wee one.

There is definitely still anger and confusion there with me but I appreciate your prayers and I will also pray for you.

Thanks also Rensil - it will be a slow process but hopefully I will get there.

Big love back to you all! xx

Let me ask this -

Is it morally acceptable for a preacher with an obvious obesity / gluttony problem to be preaching to others as to how they should live their lives?

squareone, glad you enjoyed the sermon. There is so much rich teaching on there, i'm sure you'll be really blessed by it.

Rensil, just wanted to pick up on a few points. To be clear (sorry if I've been a bit vague) it's taken me about 18 months to get the point I'm at now. I no longer regard the leaders as anything other than deluded. The irony about their approach to holiness is that what it produces is deeply unattractive and surely the opposite of true Christ-likeness. The broken lives, the folks cast aside, the people left questioning their faith and their spiritual worth, I believe with all my heart, these are the people that Jesus would be spending time with.

It's hard to see the problems and the issues at first and probably in some ways, I didn't want to. I can only describe it as a gradual awakening. As far as other churches go, as I mentioned previously one of the biggest eye-openers for me was attending another church and hearing a guy who really could preach. I know that one day, I will go to another church. I've learned to love other christians who have different views and beliefs and are in the main, a lot more balanced and adjusted.

As far as i know, the cd's are still available but call me paranoid, if someone does put the sermons online, the first suspects are going to be the people that have a cd?

Your comments about the singing rensil are superb.

If the people that run the Latigo site are reading, this may interest you. If you read my previous post about a family that I was in touch with regarding the cedars school. I learned over the weekend that they had found the piece on 'humiliation' and specifically the views of the head teacher to be in their words 'creepy and odd'. That article had a real impact on them.

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blackwatch
Let me ask this -

Is it morally acceptable for a preacher with an obvious obesity / gluttony problem to be preaching to others as to how they should live their lives?

A tricky one I think. There are - of course many many doctors who drink and continue to smoke but when dealing with patients will emphatically inform them of the clear scientifically established facts and risks associated with
smoking. I dont think one would call them hypocrites.

If I am a convicted murderer is it wrong for me to tell my son never to murder or get into crime ?

With the gluttony question, it probably depends on how honest she is about it. I know who you mean but I only heard her preach a couple of times so I don't know if she addresses this issue from the platform or not. (Although I seriously doubt it). We all have problems I guess, but if she expects and harshly holds the congregation to believing something - that Christ meets all our needs - when that's not true for her as she obviously takes much of her comfort from food, then she's being a hypocrite

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blackwatch
As far as i know, the cd's are still available but call me paranoid, if someone does put the sermons online, the first suspects are going to be the people that have a cd?

I think it would be extremely helpful to have an "insider" like yourself keeping us abreast of things. I suppose the deciding factor is when and if it would ever come to you or other insiders having to lie or deceive to
continue remaining undercover. Before it comes to that it could be of value to stay. Maybe you can attend a few meetings in other churches on other occasions.

I don't think your'e being paranoid regarding CDs etc. Best to be careful.

What I would strongly suggest for now, is that you never report immediately on any significant event or saying right after it happens. Instead just write it down, then after a randomly varying delay of a few months mention it here if you feel it worthwhile.

Regarding music, as someone who used to be a musician in worship groups I can absolutely confirm that there are musical techniques and devices that we used, either consciously or instinctively that were guaranteed to achieve certain emotional effects, even states in the congregation. Not that i'm against music in worship at all, but one ought to know that music is often used as a "tool" to manipulate a congregation into certain states. It can be to prepare - as in megastar faith healer events - to achieve altar calls, or - more sinisterly to get old gullible ladies to reach for the cheque book or credit card number.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2012 07:14PM by Clive.