Thank you Mike Tate,

This was very insightful and powerful.

I have had to come to terms with this in my own life. It has been hard to be honest.

I now see it in my sons and in the church they attend.

Paul said: The love of Christ compels me. I have spent most of my Christian life being compelled by the need for approval or acceptance by others.

The irony is that in most of us we can be doing the same things but out of totally different motives. Also,
we can have a genuine love for God and yet in our hearts performance is the lead motive.

Thanks again for a great statement.

To those reading this who are attending or are leaders at Turning Point.

One of my sons mentioned someone who has been reading these posts.

I think there may be more and I would like to express a few thoughts.

Whether you are a leader or a student at SOMA or a very devoted member there is a clear pattern you may experience as you consider the church and how it has grown from healthy to unhealthy. It is commonly called the stages of grief.

1. Denial: some teaching or attitude may come up and you sense it is out of balance. The natural instinct because you have such an emotional and financial committment may be to deny. You will say it isn't that bad and it couldn't be that bad because so many good things are happening (which is true). But then something else will come up and then something else. Someone you respect may leave and then you avoid talking with them because you may believe what they have to say.

2. Anger: when you realize there are things that are clearly unscriptural and then it is like a 10 car collision as each of the things you have been denying suddenly seem to all become obvious at once. Then there is great anger. You may become angry at Mike or your discipler, or Cyndi. You may become extremely angry at yourself for being so stupid. You may say something like "Why didn't I see this sooner!"

3. Bargaining. The pain of the anger is so great that you try to change it. You may start praying or try to change your attitude but it doesn't change. You may seek to change the church but it may not change. You try to do things that will make the pain go away. Maybe you hear someone and you think no I was mistaken afterall!! The church is as it says it is!!!! But then reality sets in there is no escape.

4. Depression. When I left TP I was exhausted and down for months. Part from the performance driven over committment. Part because the seperation was so painful. There was an adrenalin rush from being part of a highly committed highly energized group and now you are on the outside.

5. Acceptance. It may seem this will never be reached but there does come a point in time when you come to terms with reality. Ultimate peace can only come when you are willing to face reality. Sometimes we have to replay the stages because we slip back into denial.

To members of Turning Point I urge you to look in Blue letter Bible and look up all the instances of Apostle. Honestly search and see if any of the claims made have a Biblical foundation. That would be a good starting point. Pastor Mike if you could acknowledge you aren't an Apostle you could free people and yourself from authoritarianism. Then your true gifts could emerge in Christ and not you.

To ALL who are reading this forum.

WATCH THIS 5 minute video. It is VERY informative and interesting. Look at the "escapees" testimonies and see the similarities. ONE REALLY COMMON THREAD... None of them ever believed that their church was a cult. They were all convinced this was the best thing since sliced bread until....:(

Determine whether you are currently in a thriving church or a potentially DANGEROUS CULT. YOU DECIDE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6umJjEQBNk0

-Ryan-

This video is the other part to the first video. Watch the other video first.

video 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhakTixgcqU

Then watch the third part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JCFm2m79hA

I realized this is more like a 15 minute video.

TO NOTE: I want to make something pretty clear. Not all the things on these videos do I think that RLC and Tony Cunningham fits the mold of yet. But we need to all understand something. Signs and Time. The signs that these leaders carried were not all obvious at once. Certain signs led to other signs etc. Some of the video shows the results of what happens when these "smaller" signs and character triats go unnoticed or accounted for. Than there is TIME. The more time that goes by, the more pride and control that comes with an increase of authority grows. Just consider the beginning signs in these videos and compare them to RLC and Tony and look at the similarities. If you have true eyes and ears that are open, what you will see will shock you!!

-Ryan-



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2008 12:49AM by Deja Vu.

Mike Tate- Thank you for sharing that is excellent.

M & M Yours was excellent also!

Ryan (Deja Vu) : That 5 minute video was actually 10 minutes. Oh well.

What I got out of it is what we all have heard before and that is that in every cult pervert concepts that within context within the Bible are truth. Cults will do this in a couple different ways. One they will do what is often called “proof texting” where in the go through out the bible pulling verses out of context and make them mean what the want to prove what they are teaching.

However most Preachers of the Gospel do the same thing matter of fact that is how Tony teaches the concepts of Spiritual Parenting, Covering, and Hierarchical Institutional Church leadership. It is how every other perverted biblical teaching I have personally ever encountered within in churches has been taught. The second thing of course is cults purposely take commonly used or high impact words that are found in the bible and build false teaching around them.

My point in bringing this up in response to Ryan’s post is that even though we all know that we cannot afford to throw out the baby with bath water regarding on some biblical truths, because someone has perverted them. If you take everything said by the people explaining what cults are in those videos to heart and believe it all then, every church even those with true orthodox doctrine, is a cult.

I feel 1000% confident this is neither Bryan’s intention nor where he is coming from in posting the YouTube videos.

_______________________

I kind of feel that I need to share with you all some things I believe which I also believe contribute to the problems in churches and in some instances lead to churches becoming cults or at least destructive.

Many of us have been taught that the word Church within the pages of English translations of the New Testament comes from the Greek word ecclesia.

However in truth it actually replaces the word Ecclesia. The word church is a translation of the Greek word kyriakon which is not used in the New Testament and in Greek society and culture was only used for Pagan Cult Temples. That is until the time of Constantine who in an attempt to legitimize the Christian “Religion” in the eyes of Roman Citizens started what eventually became the “Roman Catholic Church” by building kyriakon’s and implementing format, structure and titles copied from Pagan Roman Cults and Government.

The word Ecclesia literally means Called-Out Ones and refers to the whole company of those who are in Christ has a completely different meaning from kyriakon.

Through out history and in different regions of Greek society kyriakon was actually spelled differently, some versions used an “H” instead of a “K” as the first letter and I believe not incidentally to our topic the “H” versions of the word is where the word hierarchy originates from. Derivatives of such as kyrios and others were used in reference to the top down style of leadership of the Roman Government.

Even after his supposed conversion to Christianity, history tells us Constantine continued to worship the Roman “sun god” and false gods and even considered himself a god.

This is how a hierarchical leadership came into “Christian” churches.

I believe this is at the root the devil has used for much of the false teaching about leadership, covering, spiritual parenting, extreme discipleship, etc.

For me this information as helped me understand how the things like at RLC and other Institutional Churches have happened to me. It also helps me understand how Tony C and others have been deceived and perpetrated the false teachings and practices they have.

If anyone is interested in learning more on this topic I strongly suggest the Book "Pagan Christianity" by George Barna and Frank Viola. I also have a video documentary that covers some of this and more and if anyone from RLC Sacramento is interested in it PM me.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2008 03:40AM by TomWilson.

Here is the video 4 and 5.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JCFm2m79hA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H_VndkxtM4

Thanks,
Ryan

Tom

Quote

"My point in bringing this up in response to Ryan’s post is that even though we all know that we cannot afford to throw out the baby with bath water regarding on some biblical truths, because someone has perverted them. If you take everything said by the people explaining what cults are in those videos to heart and believe it all then, every church even those with true orthodox doctrine, is a cult.

I feel 1000% confident this is neither Bryan’s intention nor where he is coming from in posting the YouTube videos.


I need to make something very clear. I do not believe or agree with the above quote in BOLD letters. I don't believe all churches are able to fit into the context that is shown in these videos. There is a common thread and characteristic that manifests itself in every REAL cult. If you watch these videos, you will discover these threads. Only TIME will begin to reveal the REAL truth. I do not want to go into what this thread is or what these Characteristics are since we have already posted much about it.

Watch the videos. It will help you all understand just a little more of what you may be dealing with. My suggestion. Move QUICKLY with GREAT concern. Why? None of these leaders in this video started out the way it ended. Quite the contrary. They started with good intentions. With Love. With acceptance. With good. SOme started with Jesus as their epicenter. With great authority and issues of control, everythign turned inward. I do not want to see a similar end.


-Ryan-

Quote
TomWilson
If you take everything said by the people explaining what cults are in those videos to heart and believe it all then, every church even those with true orthodox doctrine, is a cult.
I feel 1000% confident this is neither Bryan’s intention nor where he is coming from in posting the YouTube videos.

My point in the above is not that every Church is a colt. That certainly is not true! I'm also not trying to discourage anyone from watching the videos. However one person on the videos in partucular made statements regarding cults that could be said to fit every church I know of. That however does not make them cults. Some of the things one person said I have heard from someone who I know beleives that all evangelical style churches are cults. I do not beleive that.

Thank you Ryan for sharing these videos with us. If for some reason I offended you Ryan I apologize that was not my intention at all.

By the way I am in the process of watching the rest of the videos now myself.

TOM,
No offense here! Your forgiven though. I just needed others to know my position. I am not offended by others thoughts, opinions or insights. Please feel free to share.

-Ryan-

Another note about recent conversations with Mr. Cunningham.

For those of you in the recent staff meeting in which Tony addressed our confrontation with him in the church parking lot, I realize that he addressed the incident because it was noted to him that it had been written about on this forum… however, I think you ought to know that it was not just a matter of Ryan and I accusing Tony of saying things and him denying those things… it was not that simple for him. You see for the sake of time I did not get into the details of the “talk” in my first post… the reality is that Tony was questioned on his recent slander of me and Ryan directly and others. These are incidences in which he has already been proven to have spoken out against myself, Ryan, and other in view of the elders of RLC… the elders have told him to stop his lying and slandering. So when we confronted him about these things he initially lied to us stating that he had not said such things, until he was reminded that it had been proven at which time he clamed up and looked at the ground. Tony was then questioned about the specifics of things said in a slanderous manner about several leaders at RLC; Including but not limited to Tony telling Brandon in a private conversation that I was a coward and I was Chestless… this is a proven fact that he said this and even admitted it in the presence of the elders. He also was confronted about calling Bill Simon scum and worse than an unbeliever, he said this to me at the table in his dining room a week before Bill Simon moved to Oregon… Ryan confronted him about him actively telling Lisa’s (Ryan’s wife) friends that she was dangerous and they should not be friends with her, again a proven fact… he was confronted about a series of slanderous remarks made against former leaders and elders of RLC, things that he has admitted to in the presence of elders during this investigation… he denied all these things and more to us yet we were able to prove them all over again and he was caught stuttering in his attempts to lie… and when asked why he instructed several wife’s to leave their husbands AND FAR WORSE he said that they were not telling the truth. During this conversation he essentially told us that Brandon was lying, that my wife was lying, that Ryan’s wife was lying, that Brandon’s wife was lying and that everyone he had been confronted about was making up stories…. (Not comprehensive at all)

That’s a lot of liars!!!… People with no reason to lie, that would have no gain in making up stories…

At the same time he was reminded that he had lied in soma teachings about people and their circumstances… again these things have been verified by soma students and the elders know about them and are supposed to be addressing them!!! He has been under investigation due to these things… all and all we caught Tony in several lies when speaking with him. Each time he was caught he just stared or stuttered. I asked that he stop speaking about me to people and he smiled at me, I said to him at that time “I should not expect you to stop slandering me should I” at which point he smiled again, saying nothing… then Ryan said” there is your answer”… this meeting was not a matter of us accusing Tony and him denying claims it was a matter of calling him out on specific incidences in which he has already been proven to have lied and slandered…

I will not mention everyone Tony spoke of negatively to me over the years, but I think it is only fare to say if you are an elder it’s likely you were talked about, particularly if I lived with you… if you are on staff I am sure you were talked about….

I and many others are willing to meet with Tony any day in a public forum in front of the entire congregation and talk about these things. I have nothing to hide, I do not come with false accusation only what I saw with my eyes, what I have heard with my ears and what is proven fact now… let us see what kind of chest Tony has when he is confronted publicly as the bible calls for…

I am still Matt Michalak, I have not turned into the devil as some would have you believe. There was a time when many of you trusted me and even called me your friend. I am not a liar, just ask me and ill tell you… but really, what would I have to gain by voluntarily leaving close relationship with Tony for no reason and opposing him… the fact is it’s not for “no reason”…

Oh and Tony… you’re not supposed to be coaching your staff anymore… remember…