Hi ThePetitor I surely do remember the preaching which contained warnings about Satan’s attacks coming on Struthers in the days and weeks leading up to Camp! If anything went wrong for anyone during this time period, including illness or accident, it was attributed to a pre-Camp attack on them. This sort of teaching leads to fear and anxiety. I remember folk getting very tense and troubled befo
Forum: Destructive Churches

TheGreek Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I was particulary affected by what I heard in the > psychologists talk about why their time in > Struthers has hurt people so badly for so long. I don't find that is universal with people departing cults. TheGreek, which psychologist’s talk about Struthers are you referring to? Sorry, I may have mis
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi everyone. I’ve been catching up and reading all the recent posts of which there have been many. It’s great to see the Forum buzzing!! Thanks to you all for the thought-provoking and informative posts. I would concur with what others have said in reply to FalkirkBairn re her harrowing experience whilst a teenage attendee of SMC. It is truly shocking to read your story, FalkirkBairn, but Than
Forum: Destructive Churches

Talking about Struthers voices and the way Struthers people all pray in a similar way publicly, does anyone remember hearing about mantles being passed on after a leader passes away? The concept derives from the Old Testament account of Elisha receiving Elijah’s mantle after his passing. It’s not a teaching that’s unique to Struthers. Other charismatic and Pentecostal groups believe in mantles
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi everyone As usual I have greatly enjoyed reading all of your posts. I too have now been contacted by the BBC journalist and will be arranging to speak with them shortly. I don’t think anything will be said in meetings about the BBC investigation, not yet anyway. When Alison Speirs left, not much was said in meetings but the preaching at the time covered Bible quotes such as, The Lord is my D
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi Rainbow This is thrilling news about you having been contacted by the BBC with a view to speaking about your past experiences at Struthers for an investigative documentary. I’d encourage you to Go for it! Yes, it feels a bit scary but, as you say, it will help other people. People who are still in SMC but unhappy and unsure there, and people who have left SMC and are still suffering from the
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi FalkirkBairn67 and welcome to the Forum. I’m so pleased to hear that you’ve been reading the Forum posts from the beginning. It is good that you now feel able to post and share your experiences of your time in SMC. Just take your time with it. There is no hurry. I hope you can also chat more to your family about what happened. It is shocking that so many ex-members of SMC are left with trauma
Forum: Destructive Churches

Rainbow, thanks for sharing your traumatic experience of so-called “deliverance”. It is truly shocking, especially because you were so young. I really don’t think the deliverance was necessary and I don’t believe that you actually had demons. You might have made mistakes or spent time with non-Christians but that won’t cause demons to enter you, in my opinion. There are strict safeguarding ru
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi Rainbow I have also received that warning message a couple of times when I was just about to post something on this Forum. I came out of my account then signed in again and everything was fine and I was able to post. It could be something to do with the Rick Ross website as we had problems with it a number of years ago, then it got fixed by whoever runs it. I wouldn’t necessarily assume that
Forum: Destructive Churches

Daisy69, Do you mean this death happened after deliverance in Struthers? Which Struthers branch-church did this occur in? How can they be proud about it if someone has lost their life?
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Thanks, Escapesoon. I do not in any way see your post as mere “ramblings”. What you’ve said hits the nail on the head exactly. Yes, I do remember the stares. I recall stares from whichever leader was up on the platform preaching, or even in one-to-one conversations (so-called interviews for counselling) with someone in leadership. Sometimes you felt that a leader knew all your sins and shortcomin
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Rainbow, I think it’s best if you don’t name names when you share your personal story. If you can share more without naming people, please do. I don’t mean re the names you have written in your post above. These are all leaders, or meant to be, so that was fine. We need to know these things. Frankly, I am shocked, but not surprised. No wonder young Cedars residents didn’t want to communicate
Forum: Destructive Churches

Thanks for all your recent posts, folks, which I’ve read with great interest. Welcome to the Forum, S30, and thanks for sharing some of your story about growing up in SMC. Shocking to hear that a leader advised your mum to divorce your dad, and while you were present too. I hope your parents did not take the advice. Sadly, it’s not the first case that I’ve heard of advice being given to married c
Forum: Destructive Churches

Wow!! This Forum is buzzing! Welcome to the new contributors to the Forum, Standbyfive, Rainbow and Escapesoon, and great to hear from others who have posted before, either recently or in the past. ThePetitor, this Struthers forum took off in a big way in 2010/2011, so it has been going for 13 years! This coincided with the launch of the Latigo website - latigo214.info - with detailed posts expo
Forum: Destructive Churches

O, Petitor, you made me laugh so much with your comment about hair-dye not changing what’s at the roots! Hilarious! But true. Daisy69, I appreciate your sharing your experiences at Struthers on here. I hope you are recovering well after leaving SMC. Please don’t think about returning. You have definitely made the right decision to leave and you’re right about the spiritual abuse that goes on i
Forum: Destructive Churches

Welcome to the Forum, Hugh-black and Daisy69. It’s good to hear fresh stories from people who are new to the Forum. Hugh-black, you mentioned the issue of grooming. I don’t think this issue can be easily dismissed and described as a falsehood, as some here are saying. Although there was never a sexual element to the grooming, I think that the other signs of grooming are and have been present i
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi cheerylizard Our discussions about Cedars House took place on this Forum in November 2023 and if anyone wants to read those in order to understand what cheerylizard is getting at, they are on Page 158 of this Forum. I’m wondering why you want to reply now to my queries which I wrote in posts here in November 2023. I accepted your corrections that Cedars House was not owned by SMC, as I and
Forum: Destructive Churches

Here is a link for a YouTube message by an American lady, Roberta Morrison, entitled Church Trauma. I thought people on here might find her talk helpful. She has been through the experience of church trauma herself and had to leave ministry behind. So she knows what she’s talking about. She calls it none other than spiritual abuse. When you listen to her, it could be Struthers that she’s talk
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi ThePetitor No, as far as I know, the Cedars house was never registered as a House of Multiple Occupancy even although there were twelve to fifteen unrelated people living there. Looks like it should have had a HMO license. The rules for Inverclyde Council HMO licensing say the following: “If you rent a property which has three or more unrelated occupants and it is their main residence, the
Forum: Destructive Churches

cheerylizard I’m still a bit puzzled by your post about the house in Greenock called “Cedars”. You say that it is and has always been a family home with an actual owner. When I knew it and visited it, there were always quite a number of people living there. There was Alison Speirs, her friend, their teenage children, a young couple with a child, plus a number of students and young, single people
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Hi cheerylizard I did ask for clarification when I wrote about Cedars house. As ThePetitor says, much in Struthers is clouded in mystery and one doesn’t get told the details about their many and various properties. So I don’t know all the comings and goings of Cedars House. I do know that residents all had to pay a rent. If it was once bought privately by Alison and Sheila, that’s fine. We all h
Forum: Destructive Churches

In a recent post, ThePetitor was asking how and when Alison Speirs was appointed as a Struthers leader. Everything I have to say about this was spoken publicly in church meetings and will be on tapes/CDs somewhere. Nothing is secret. As far as I remember, it was in the late 1980s when Alison was recognised and promoted as a church leader. Hugh Black told us at a Summer Camp meeting that he had li
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hello everyone These accounts are very enlightening: thanks for going over them and commenting on various points of interest, ThePetitor. I think I can answer some of your questions. In your post about the accounts you were asking about the mention of two flats which are owned by Struthers, one of which they are planning to sell. I seem to remember that the two flats are located in London and s
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Hi everyone Good to hear from you again, Anonymous. I’m glad you received a welcome at Struthers. I don’t know if all of us would. You said in your previous post that your family still attend, so I hope they are cared for there. Yes, ThePetitor, I also heard that the New Dawn Coffee/Book-shop operated by Struthers in Greenock, has recently closed, with the reasons given as the ones you wro
Forum: Destructive Churches

I’d like to add a couple more things in response to curiositykillsthecat’s post above. The Cedars teacher, Miss Emma Rukin does have a full teaching qualification. She has a degree plus a postgraduate teaching certificate. She might not have completed these when you were at the school, but she definitely does have these qualifications. She is currently Depute Head of the School. The Head Teac
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Thanks for all your recent posts. It’s good to see more ex-Struthers members and ex-school pupils having their say here on this Forum. Welcome to the Forum, MW89. Glad you found this Forum when you were googling for information on the church, even though it’s some time ago when you were part of Struthers. Experiences of Struthers can still affect us years later so I hope you’re now doing well
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi curiositykillsthecat and welcome to the Forum. Thanks for telling us more about Cedars School and about your experiences there as a pupil. We only usually hear from pupils or ex-pupils who have also been, along with their parents, part of Struthers Church, but rarely hear about someone who wasn’t also part of the church. As The Petitor points out, there seem to be similarities between the
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi Free@Last_Sometimes Thankyou for your post and a big welcome to this Forum. Well done for having the courage to post here and well done too for getting yourself out of SMC and walking in freedom, even if you only feel that you’re fully free sometimes (as your name suggests). Your story is very interesting but also concerning because of the ways in which you were treated, especially as a c
Forum: Destructive Churches

Thankyou, FatHippo, for your detailed and interesting posts about your time in Struthers as a child and teenager. Welcome to the Forum and I am so glad that you felt able to come onto the Forum and share your experiences of being part of SMC. It shows that there are people, maybe a substantial number, who read and follow this Forum without making themselves known or not right away, anyway, like y
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Thanks for the link to the podcast interview, anonymousfornow. I have listened to it a couple of times to make sure that I did not miss any of the detail. I am not sure whether it’s you who are speaking on it, anonymousfornow, or if it’s another young person who used to be in the Struthers Pudsey church, so I will refer to the interviewee as SM instead of just saying “the guy” or whatever. Hope
Forum: Destructive Churches