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Committed2U
Moderator,

I must say that the manner with which you are attempting to finger Tony as the source of misleading teaching in my life is rather disturbing. Are you seeking an unbiased view of this, or have you already made up your mind?

I would address your questions as follows:

1.) What has Tony done wrong? To my knowledge, nothing.
2.) How are Tony's teachings wrong? To date I have, for the most part agreed with what Tony teaches (obviously after evaluating it for myself)
3.) Which of Tony's teachings do you find specifically to be mistaken and in need of correction? None, as I have for the most part agreed with Tony's teaching thus far.
4.) How did Tony mislead you? To date, I am not aware of a single instance in my life where Tony has misled me (intentionally or otherwise).

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Committed2U
whatajoke,

I will continue to respond to the individual issues (like SpeakTruth), because it is in these individual issues that we will find the true "big picture" emerges - not a contrived "big picture" cooked up from a series of "bad feelings" or personal agendas. Have people been hurt at RLC? Yes. Are most of the accusations written on this site true? A few, yes; but most, not by a long shot (IMO). BTW, what do you consider to be "within" RLC?

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rrmoderator
Irritated:

Answering a question with a question is evasive.

You went to RLC and you said that they have "their own version of 'koolaid.'"

What specifically do you mean by that?

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Committed2U
Concise points (sorry, its getting late..=):

- braveheart, thanks for your response...I will look J & K up, as I still think of them, and wonder how things be...
- with respect to authority...no, I am not aware of any authority that I have at RLC
- joe & aaron: love you guys, hope things are going well...
- in re-reading the blog from the beginning (skimming, mind you), I noticed that TMACs list wasn't directly addressed...what follows is to the best of my knowledge true, but does not neccessarily reflect the thoughts, views or opinions of Radiant Life Church (or any of its affiliates, leadership, etc...sounds like the opening on a DVD...;-)...these are purely my own views:

1. Why does RLC have young adult women living with elders or pastors? Well, not to mince words, but RLC does not have young adult women living with elders or pastors. There have been, and likely still are young and old people (men & women) living with individual elders or pastors, but this is not a "policy" or "mandate" of RLC. Rather, this is an individual choice these persons make for varied reasons. To my knowledge there is not a single case of anyone being forced to live with someone they dont want to live with. I hope that anyone reading this can understand the importance of this distinction between policy and individual choice.

2. Why did these girls leave their good families to follow Tony? Perhaps this is a good point of clarification. Tony is not the only person that I am aware of who has people living with him. In fact, I am aware of quite a number of families (both in leadership and not in leadership) that did have or currently have a person or person(s) living with them. As to this precise question, I can think of a number of reasonable purposes for temporarily living with another person(s) (and possibly leaving a good family in the process). Let me list a few (these are actual reasons that I am aware of)...a) parents moved out of state and son wants to stick around-with parents blessing, of course, b) daughter is a nanny, and wants to make money c) family lost home, needed a place to stay, d) two families who are close friends want to live together, e) family has extra rooms so 3 college guys move in...so on, so forth...if you need more I have them...and these are just the ones I'm aware of...

3. Why do I know one girl in particular who wants to go back to her mother, but is afraid that she is not obeying God if she leaves RLC? I dont know if this is a question that anyone other than this girl can truthfully answer (and its possible even she cant). I can think of many possible explanations...lets see: 1) she can't hear Jesus' voice, and thus is in-secure in His direction, 2) perhaps RLC is where God would like her to attend, 3) she is listening to another person instead of listening to the Spirit of the living God within her....these are just a few of the possible reasons that I can think of why she might be afraid she is not obeying God...

4. Why are they planting another cult in Katy, TX? I guess so the people there would not know about them. - Well, not to state the obvious, but this statement assumes that RLC is a cult. (I believe the previous answer said something like "assumes facts not in evidence") In addition, you are assuming that the motivation for planting the church in Katy, TX is so "the people there would not know about them". On the contrary, my understanding is that RLC Katy does not hide its relationship with RLC Sacramento, and that the motivation for the church plant had a whole lot to do with winning the lost in a place that Pastor Tom felt he was being directed to go. Frankly, I think this question you ask is really rather strange. Don't most fellowships of believers plant churches?

5. What are they doing with the girls living with the elders? Tell me that this is not strange to you. - This is not strange to me. The answer to your question obviously depends entirely on why they are living there in the first place. Perhaps they are watching kids, just living life, going to college, etc....what do most people do in their lives? Why would you assume this is anything different? Now, obviously if you personally saw something of an inappropriate nature, this would be a sound reason to assume something "out of the ordinary". Did you personally see something of an inappropriate nature?

6. Why are married couples living with other married couples? Possible answers might include a) they are good friends, b) can't afford a house alone, but together they are able to get into a house, c) want to experience living with others (certainly is not uncommon outside of the United States), etc.

7. Why are members force to submit to the authority of Tony? I have attended RLC for quite awhile, and I have never been forced to submit to Tony's authority. I have also never been forced to submit to Tony's opinions (and I do have opinions contrary to Tony's, that's for sure). This goes for all of the other leadership too.

8. Can Pastor Tony ever be fired? Yes in fact, he can.

9. Why future pastors and elders are all ready hand selected by Tony, but with the delusion that the church members have a vote?...I cannot answer this question fully. All that I know is that the members of the body do have the opportunity to approve or disapprove of any elders who are candidates. Beyond this I would need to get a copy of our bylaws to know anything more (and yes, to my knowledge, the bylaws of RLC can be obtained by request)

10. Why do a some members practice commual living? While I can't speak to all of the specific reasons, a good start would probably be out of a desire to emulate what is recorded in Acts 2:44-47 (thats one of the reasons why I lived in community for a short time...)

11. Why are individuals deceived into doing certain things?...It definately sounds like you had a rather negative experience. I'm sorry you had to go through that. I don't know who said what, but if someone intentionaly acted in a deceitful manner then I hope the individuals involved will be more precise and open with their intetions in the future (my hope is that you made your disapproval known to them at the time of these incidences...otherwise, they may not even realize they are doing something deceitful - again assuming they were being deceitful)

12. Why are marriages and families being destroyed?...Well, I don't know that I can address this question in any real terms (since we arent talking about a specific marriage, or a specific family). My observations have been, however quite the opposite of this: Most marriages that I have seen at RLC are doing better than average. I say that in a rather precise manner. This is just a guess, but I would say better than 75% of marriages at RLC at least seem to be doing better than average (with the other 75% being somewhere at or below average). Now, of course there are marriages that have gone through some rough times (what marriage hasnt), and there are about a handful that I can think of that are no longer together. Still, I would say 75% is a good conservative guess as to the number of marriages that are at least doing better than average. The same goes for families.

13. Also, what will you do if your beloved child told you one day that they were disowning you to go follow a church? I would likely cry and plead with them to reconsider. I assume (perhaps I should not) that you are reffering to the spiritual parenting issue raised throughout this forum. I actually have heard this story from a couple of parents, and every time I hear it I am nearly brought to tears. Before I go into my observations on this issue, perhaps a definition, as I understand it is in order.
You will not find the term "spiritual parenting" in the Bible (believe me, I looked). My understanding of "Spiritual Parenting" is that it is something of a peculiar relationship, definately not for everyone (maybe not even most), and is much less about being taught something as it is about catching something (anotherwords, teaching vs. a way of life). For example, you can teach someone to play baseball, but can you teach someone to have passion for the game? For the most part the answer is no. In the first case you are "teaching" them something, but in the second case they "catch" something from you personally (passion for the game). Well, my understanding of "Spiritual Parenting" is it is mostly about the things in the spiritual life that are "caught", not "taught". I'm sure this doesnt adequately explain it, but perhaps if there is someone reading this who can give a more thorough treatment of this subject. Some examples from the Bible that I think might possibly display this kind of relationship: Elijah/Elisha, Paul/Timothy, possibly Peter/John Mark, and possibly Moses/Joshua (there may be others, these are the only ones I can think of at the moment)

Here are a few of my observations:
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a) People jumped on a bandwagon to be "spiritually parented" without having a clue about what it was they were doing
b) Some persons tried to teach this "peculiar relationship" as some kind of "do this, dont do this" teaching (which entirely misses the point, in my opinion)
c) Some of those who saw themselves as being "spiritually parented" were looking for a list of "do this, dont do this", instead of simply looking to extract a way of life (faith, passion, fervor, devotion, etc.) from the person they wished to emulate
d) Some persons were looking for a "magical wand" to instantly be transformed. They were sorely disappointed when things didnt quite go as they had hoped.
e) There were specific individuals who mis-understood "spiritual parenting" and operated something more akin to the Shepherding Movement than to voluntary, Christ-centered, Christ-pursuing godliness.
f) Some people who were being "spiritually parented" or were "parenting" let their egos get the better of them, and used it as leveraging tool to get what they wanted.

When you sum up the above observations, and combine it with some of the personal issues that various persons may have been dealing with (in-security, performance-based love, anger, fear, etc.), you end up with what amounts to a real mess for some people. I dont claim that I have a comprehensive list of observations here, nor do I claim to have a clear definition of spiritual parenting (if there really is one). These are just what I understood to be the case, and observations that I either personally made or know of through second-hand sources.

14) Why do people fear leaving RLC? I have no idea why. I personally am not afraid in the least bit to leave RLC. However, at this point Jesus has not directed me elsewhere, and until such point as He does I'm not planning on going anywhere.