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Miki
Can a church be sued for Spiritual Abuse?

Remember what the bible says: Rom. 12:14-21 (NLT)

14 Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. 15 Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

17 Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. 18 Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

19 Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,

“I will take revenge;
I will pay them back,”[g]
says the Lord.

20 Instead,

“If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap
burning coals of shame on their heads.”[h]

21 Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

Just something to consider in prayer - I know its hard, I am struggling too.

tpcwocattender:

You might also want to consider that Jesus said many would come in his name and he would not know them.

Also read Galatians and see what Paul said about bad leaders.

Then do a word study on deacon, elder and evangelist within the New Testament.

Leaders should and are held accountable by believers according to the New Testament.

Forgiveness is good, but accountability and action are also discussed.

Forgiveness should not be used and excuse to do and/or say nothing.

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rrmoderator
tpcwocattender:

You might also want to consider that Jesus said many would come in his name and he would not know them.

Also read Galatians and see what Paul said about bad leaders.

Then do a word study on deacon, elder and evangelist within the New Testament.

Leaders should and are held accountable by believers according to the New Testament.

Forgiveness is good, but accountability and action are also discussed.

Forgiveness should not be used and excuse to do and/or say nothing.

rrmonderator - I agree with what you have said. Some here have had and others have not had an opportunity to speak to TPC regarding their hurt. The majority appears to have tried to speak to leadership and have not been given any credence. This is disturbing at the very least. My only point is that once you have gone with love to leadership we do as Christians have the promise that God does battle for us and we can choose to forgive and trust in him. It is not easy, I know and I am experiencing this in my own way at TPC. The accountability that you mentioned, the structure that is laid out in the NT for churches and the overseers is what has failed TPC's congregation. The accountability lies with elders and their lack of leadership and discernment. My hope was not to dissuade but to encourage Miki that we can trust in God for justice. I know that my being a current member of the church may give the appearance that I am protecting the leadership from some for of legal action, let me say that this is not the case at all.

Thank you RRmoderator.

We have forgiven those who have hurt us. Only a few understand the extent of what TPC did to us and our children. When all you know if "Fear" of doing the right thing or feeling crazy because you think you're doing the right thing ~ then getting rebuked or being shunned... well, it ended me in the hospital quite a few times. I felt like I was going crazy and not good enough for my husband and children so I took overdoses of pills. I didn't want to be around if I was not good enough for my family. At that time, I kept thinking they were better off without me because of what was being said to me.

It still brings tears to my eyes when thinking about it. How I almost lost my life. I have a blessed life and and wonderful family. We are closer than ever. I was just wondering what people do when you go done the "Spiritual Abuse" list and find that "WOW! this all happened to me!" and it's happening to so many others. Is this God's way of saying "Go", "Follow me and I will show you the way".....

So those of you who wanted to hear what we went through at TPC for 8 1/2 years. This is part of it..... it's too hard to say more! God bless!

Miki, I too experienced feelings of not being good enough. I was on the verge of being suicidal and I knew it was time to leave TPC. This was just a couple weeks ago. I still struggle almost daily.

There is so much expected of you at TPC, so much to do, so many areas to "serve". This year alone, I was involved in SOMA, Childrens, VBS, Summer Jubilee. I had to back out of Summer Jubilee and had a panic attack when I had to share that with a leader. It seemed to me like women (and SOMA students) were expected to be these paragons of time management and be able to serve in any and every capacity expected and needed. My kids were missing out on so much time with me because I was always serving. I couldn't do it anymore.

My kids have since commented on the fact that they get more time with me. This is why I'm a mom.

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belongs2Him
Miki, I too experienced feelings of not being good enough. I was on the verge of being suicidal and I knew it was time to leave TPC. This was just a couple weeks ago. I still struggle almost daily.

There is so much expected of you at TPC, so much to do, so many areas to "serve". This year alone, I was involved in SOMA, Childrens, VBS, Summer Jubilee. I had to back out of Summer Jubilee and had a panic attack when I had to share that with a leader. It seemed to me like women (and SOMA students) were expected to be these paragons of time management and be able to serve in any and every capacity expected and needed. My kids were missing out on so much time with me because I was always serving. I couldn't do it anymore.

My kids have since commented on the fact that they get more time with me. This is why I'm a mom.

I know how you feel belongs2him - I too have had to say no to several serving opportunities. I had to tell myself, if I can't do this with joy and excellence without sacrificing my family time I can't do it. I now have a very limited area where I feel God is calling me to use my gifting. I remember when I said no - it was tough to do and I felt like if I didn't do it no one would. I almost talked myself out of saying no but I knew I couldn't go home and tell my family that I had to miss more family time. That would not have go over well. We (I say we because I still go there) have stretched ourselves so thin and with the size of the congregation shrinking it is becoming harder to find those wanting to help out. As a church this needs to be addressed. There needs to be an understanding of what we are capable of as a body and that some things that we once did we may have to let go of for a season. I understand that we can all stretch ourselves and that God need us to be his hands and feet to do the work necessary to deliver the message of salvation. This sacrifice of service must be rooted in love and joy not obligation. I have heard it preached from our church that sometimes you start out of duty and that duty terns into desire. There is truth there. However, duty is not a hammer to be used.

Miki and belongs2him....Yes, yes, yes! to all of it. There is an expectation to serve, to perform, to not only be good enough but to be excellent at EVERYTHING! I too, have struggled with suicidal thoughts and mental illness. While I'm not ready to claim that it's b/c of TP, I will say that the issues at TP certainly exasperated my already *fragile* state of mind. My husband and I were talking over the weekend about how I have also been rendered incapable of making any decisions (and how difficult this has been for him). It has been so ingrained in me to just *do what I'm told* that I can hardly think for myself. I am so *afraid* of making a bad decision, that I leave the decisions up to others.

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tpcwocattender
I know how you feel belongs2him - I too have had to say no to several serving opportunities. I had to tell myself, if I can't do this with joy and excellence without sacrificing my family time I can't do it. I now have a very limited area where I feel God is calling me to use my gifting. I remember when I said no - it was tough to do and I felt like if I didn't do it no one would. I almost talked myself out of saying no but I knew I couldn't go home and tell my family that I had to miss more family time. That would not have go over well. We (I say we because I still go there) have stretched ourselves so thin and with the size of the congregation shrinking it is becoming harder to find those wanting to help out. As a church this needs to be addressed. There needs to be an understanding of what we are capable of as a body and that some things that we once did we may have to let go of for a season. I understand that we can all stretch ourselves and that God need us to be his hands and feet to do the work necessary to deliver the message of salvation. This sacrifice of service must be rooted in love and joy not obligation. I have heard it preached from our church that sometimes you start out of duty and that duty terns into desire. There is truth there. However, duty is not a hammer to be used.

Attender....
The *problem* that I found when saying no was that while you are told that it's "okay" it really wasn't treated as okay. I personally was told that I wasn't serving enough. That my husband wasn't serving enough. After saying "no" to a few things that interfered with family time, we were told that we needed to trust that God would care for our family, for our children, and that sometimes we just needed to sacrifice a little (more than we already were). I also found that by saing no, we were slowly *pushed out*.

Yes, I too, found performance was/is a measuring stick at TP. Basically focus on excelling at your service, worshiping, sacrifices for the kingdom (TP). Forget that you have a family, your family is TP everything else is going to be just fine God will provide. God will let you prosper IF you give your all to TP and the building of the kingdom (TP). Just face it we can never perform, serve, worship, sacrifice enough. Here is scripture according to TP "It is by works not by grace... ."

There are wolves with sheeps clothing here on the forum. Should you be one of those "wolves"..... run back to your leaders and let them know how sorry it is that they are very paranoid with hidden agenda's!