Re: Has Anyone Ever Heard of Radiant Life Church in Sacramento
Date: September 04, 2008 06:09AM
Here is a letter I gave to Tony back in 2006 This was just as he was taking the elders and staff on a retreat to Tiburon. From that point Tony slandered me in front of everybody at that meeting and strongly encouraged people to boycott my business.
December 14, 2006
Dear Tony
I find myself in a quandary as I walk through the produce isle looking at all the fruit. I think back to the time when our son attending SOMA came to us and informed us that our ways are no good. He told us that he was not going to receive anything from us. From that point we have not had a platform in our sons life. I went to Greg Huth to ask him about this teaching and it was explained that there is some truth to this teaching, to that in comparison to God our ways are but filthy rags. The best we can do is support his decision. My wife and I have tried to embrace the Spiritual Parenting concept but the more and more we try to embrace it, it becomes a work based performance driven relationship it is simply a method to have power over our behavior and actions. If you look real at the fruit, this concept it has a lot of control and manipulation and I see many who have been hurt and wounded. I have to ask God if this teaching is from him and if it is then why I do we see so many marriages falling apart in our body. We have pastors and staff members who are separated or on the way to divorce court. People who only 4-5 months ago where being hailed a heroes of the faith are now in ruin. Relationships that were once strong and vital have now become distanced, embittered, cynical and if you stop and look many are walking around injured and limping along in life. Some still have the knife in their back and someone has their hat hanging on it with mainly yours Tony. It reminds me of a horror movie with the title “Night of the Walking Dead” I grieve for the marriages that have been broken and I grieve for the distance people have with God.
I like the analogy of life at sea, sailing on a huge windjammer where everyone is interdependent upon each other. Yet if we look at the church as a huge ship, what do we see and what are we experiencing? If the captain has been in his quarters all night and comes up onto the bridge he is given a status report. He is informed that the winds are blowing from the South South East at 8 knots and what the current course is. He is briefed and knows the condition of the ship. it’s crew members and passengers. I look at the story of the bounty and I believe there are lessons to gleaned that apply to our current situation at Radiant Life Church.
Captain William Bligh wanted everyone to know he was the boss, which was more important to him than efficiency. To compound the problem, he considered maximum control as a means to achieve efficiency. His micro managing of the HMS Bounty crew became a result that, everything went wrong. The crew finally had enough, mutinied, and cast Captain Bligh and eighteen crewmembers adrift in a lifeboat. Without charts or navigation interments, they sailed the open boat 3,600 miles to the Dutch colony, Timor, near Java. This outstanding achievement is only possible with a team united behind a common goal and navigated together.
The above story has elements of every work environment, the struggle between getting the job done and leaders desire for control. In Captain Bligh's case, he managed by control and the seamen were resisting control. Each side was in a fighting mood and each was searching for ways to outwit the other, not an efficient way to get things done.
Aboard the Bounty, Captain Bligh's priority was total control. In the lifeboat things were different, as the priority was survival, or get the job done. Survival automatically unites people into a team where team members are willing to listen to others opinions, free of social prejudice.
There were three teams on board the Bounty, each with their own goal as follows:
1. Scientist - they were focused on Bounty's mission.
2. Officers - they searched for ways to increased control over the seamen.
3. Seamen - they searched for ways to resist control.
After the mutiny, the mission was survival and everyone involved was totally focused on that common goal. Captain Bligh was now willing to listen to the opinions of the crew. Getting the job done became more important than control.
Leadership Aboard Bounty
1. Control has priority.
2. Social prejudice.
3. Three groups pulling in different directions.
4. Decisions based on preconceived opinions.
5. Control was the goal which resulted in no unity.
Leadership style that led to disaster.
Leadership in Lifeboat
1. Team unity has priority.
2. No prejudice.
3. All groups pulling together.
4. Decisions based on intuitive forces.
5. Unity was the goal, which resulted in control.
Leadership style that produced super results.
"Captain Bligh changed his leadership style in a matter of minutes." What had changed from the ship to the lifeboat was the structure of organization. On the ship, there were three divisions, each with their own goal. On the lifeboat, there was one, one division with a single united goal. The structure of organization caused him to change his attitude, which caused an apparent change in leadership style. In short, organization structure controls leadership style.
Team unity was used to overcome a disaster, not run a ship that would have prevented a disaster. Had the crew been motivated to achieve a common goal from the start, the voyage would have been a huge success.
Team motivation is a natural aboard windjammers. At sea, aboard sailing vessels, the results of crews' decisions are experiences NOW! And the reasons for the decisions are understood NOW! Crewmembers develop a desire to explore and learn about the world they live in. Windjammers are natural learning machines.
I’m concerned that your not being given accurate reports and that you have been insulated by officers who are nothing more that sycophants trying to keep you pleased and happy. Or your ignoring your responsibilities that they have been given. You said it the other day, we need to return to our first love and that is Jesus. And how do we do that? Do we just keep on with the mission at hand staying the course? I believe that we need to feather the sails, drop the anchor, and sound the alarm “RED ALLERT” man overboard! We need to attempt rescue of all the souls that have been injured and hurt. We need to get out of this mind set of working on my sins to achieve a more intimate relationship with God. We need to come to terms, that we can not fix our selves! We need to learn to trust….God.
This ship needs to be dry docked ASAP so that the master builder God himself can rebuild this ship.
Let me add this:
Your arrogance and controlling manor that you are guiding this church is just like Captain B You have set yourself up as the Master & Commander. And here is the real truth You have self appointed yourself to be seen as a Prophet and Apostle to the people in the Radiant Life circle the trouble is they too have found your teachings to be false and full of destruction. Tony REPENT!!! Stop practicing your Spiritual Parenting! by giving back the children you have taken from their parents!!
Man likes to take scripture and create systems, that put things into controllable boxes that explain what God has chosen to, not explain. There’s are problem. You see they coin terms and create paradigms that force you into an either or that scripture does not force you into. Then they take these coined terms and created paradigms and they demand that you and I take a side. And then they separate from all who disagree with their side. It seams about a step above demonic. You see it all over the place, words that are not in scripture that men create to kind of take a side. You see it in churches and churches will split over are you pre-millennial? all millennial? Or are you post millennial? There’s another one, another word a term that is not ever set against it’s self in scripture ‘charismatic’. Are you Charismatic? Or are you not Charismatic? I’ll separate fellowship with you, I swear! Just let me know are ya Charismatic or not just tell me!.and people separate Fellowship over it. Are you Are you Calvinist or are you Armenian? and if your are Calvinistic are ya 3 point? 4 point? 5 point? do you got the double indemnity clause? And churches split over that. There’s are entire churches that have theirs entire basis that “We are 5 point Calvinistic and that’s what we are take-in are stand on. And if you don’t agree with them then you’re not welcomed here. Here is new paradigm they call it Spiritual Parenting. Well what does it mean? I don’t really know but it kind of looks kind of like Paul and timothy…I think...and soon you got people breaking off relationship with their birth parents and being adopted as new adopted spiritual children….Where is it taught in the bible? I don’t know… and we have people breaking fellowship with us and others are now walking around hurt dejected
Going back to the two rooms, we have the “Room of Grace” and the “Room of Good Intentions” In the room of good intentions we strive to change into something that we not aren’t yet, Godly. In the room of grace, we grow up and mature into something that is already true about us, Godly. The first room creates a work-based performance driven relationship with God and puts the emphasis on the efficacy of my effort. And the second room places the responsibility on resources of God. God wants us to believe that he has already changed us so that we can get on with maturing us into what he has already made us. And trust opens the way for God to bring us into maturity with out trust we don’t mature because we are trying to change to become Godly.
Repentance formed of trust, not will power, there is forgiveness formed of trust, not some form of begrudging compliance and there is love received, not just given.
As a church, we use to collaborate with many other fellowships in the Sacramento area and lately we have become isolated. The CD TrueFaced by John Lynch that I gave to you with my first letter has revolutionized my relationship with God. I have found the teaching and instruction at Open Door Fellowship in Phoenix Arizona to be a breath of fresh air and I believe that God gave it to me to pass on to you and our church. 5 years ago, we were the room of grace.
My prayer is that YOU would come back to trusting God
Respectfully Submitted ~ Dan Davis
TONY YOUR FRUIT IS ROTTEN AND THE DISTRUCTION IMMENSE!