Quotesquareone I did hear from the platform that congregants should be careful about who they invite into their homes and am fairly sure it wasn't a physical safety issue that was being referred to. Were they referring to anyone off the street or visitors or new members to the church ? Sounds a bit like the policy is "don't invite people into your homes because their wor
Forum: Destructive Churches

Regarding the talk about love, or lack of it, people here have at times suggested a lack of pastoral care, particularly for the elderly who left the SMC. Who were never visited. From my fond memories of the distant days on the church I used to attend one thing always stood out, and that was the love and care for congregants by the leaders and fellow members. For example it was, and
Forum: Destructive Churches

QuoteStephenI have just gone back to page 1 and scanned forward to the latest page, and am amazed at how this site has evolved and the FANTASTIC contributions of so many people. I realise that there are many people who have been severly hurt by this cult, unlike me, who just had his fingers burnt, bt lved to walk away with my own little stories. If writing things down and sharing anecdotes help
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I have to say, cbarb and Rensil, you two seem to have a goldmine of information and anecdotes to share here. I find all your recounting of how things used to be, going back decades quite fascinating, and the latest posts very illuminating and revealing. You also give the impression of being cool people to boot. ( But of course all that may just be a front ;) ) Here's someth
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QuoteRensil Re the Shares, yes, I'm sure I remember the word "million" aswell, but couldn't give an exact figure. The SMC shares crisis occurred in Autumn 1987 when the big stock-market crash happened. To quote Dudley Moore in the movie Arthur : "and that was in the days when a million pounds was a lot of money"
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Ah, ok squareone. Would this person perchance be a son of one of the SMC Dynasty or "inner circle" ? back to the previous topic:- can someone here please give a firm figure for how much was lost in the Mr Black finance fiasco ? a few hundred thousand ? half a million ? million ? more ?
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Quotesquareoneam pretty sure the next leader after Mrs Gault at the Greenock church will be a man, will that make him the main leader of the movement since that's Mrs Gault's status at the moment? I wonder that if this indeed happens , If that would mark a return to the SMC apologetic I once heard many many years back that the "male" leader - Mr Black - was there to give t
Forum: Destructive Churches

QuoteRensilMost if not all pentecostal churches have a proper leadership structure and Board of Management. Most if not all ensure that leaders and elders are accountable to those further up or at the Head. Most have male pastors, leaders and elders as well as some women in these positions, which is fine. SMC is totally unique and different in this regard, in having all three main leaders wome
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I should make it clear that the links I put up there weren't intended to suggest that the content endorses or confirms my own hunches as written here. But just provide material for anyone interested in the ongoing psychology based research .
Forum: Destructive Churches

QuoteRensilQuotecbarb The youth outreaches on Saturdays with fun activities, I have never heard of and never known such. They must have been stopped. There used to be occasional Barbecues or outings but they were for Sunday School kids. I know SMC hold Youth Weekends in Greenock every few months, because a friend's children used to attend them, when the kids stay overnight in the Scho
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QuoteRensilJust to clarify things When I referred to Mary Black, she was Mr Hugh Black's daughter, so she was Miss Black, and NOT Mrs Black. Miss Mary Black took over main leadership of SMC after her father passed away and led it until her untimely death in 2004. I am not kidding with what I posted previously - that is what she said and that is what we were taught. Yes, we were told se
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QuoteRensil I presume in case new people found out and wanted to leave) as "perhaps the biggest test to come against the church and in that test, some people went down" i.e. they left the church, including someone she valued greatly who assisted her in leadership. So Mrs Black was saying that God was testing the church and its members. And a sign of passing that test was whether or
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Actually I was thinking back to periods in my life where there was a "sure thing" that everyone was being encouraged to get into. In my case it was property. In the very early 80s a friend said I absolutely MUST get on the housing ladder asap. Which I did. And benefited from the boom of that period as did other new housebuyers. Much later in the early 90s the same friend urged me
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Can this really be called a scam ? Seems to me there was no malicious intent in what Mr Black was doing. And I'm not getting any sense that he was doing this to line his pockets. I guess he broke quite a few rules in going behind the scenes so to speak in order to get a handful of their most pliable flock to sign up, and failed to seek, or by the looks of what cbarb says, take heed
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Quotesquareonehad to google that...Popov? Popoff?....the faith healer guy? or some reference to Rentaghost? though am not sure why either would spring to mind Peter Popoff is a disgraced pentecostal preacher who was exposed for faking "words of wisdom" at his supposed faith healing ministries. How ? he was found to be getting the lowdown on people in the audience through a wireless
Forum: Destructive Churches

Quotesquareonebetween roughly 11 o'clock last night and 9 o'clock this morning there were 100 views of this forum page. That's quite a lot of interest if it's accurate, given that most people would be asleep for at least some of these hours!! I wasn't around at the time of the shares fiasco but I know a few right-minded people who Were around and who were and still a
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QuoteThePetitor The reality is not so debatable however. My understanding is that this was at a time that public companies (BT I think, but I could be wrong) were being sold off. Every member of the public was “being given the chance to be a shareholder” and everyone could apply for a limited number of shares. I have no idea how much, but lets say it was 100 shares at £1 each. Mr Black thou
Forum: Destructive Churches

Quotecbarb Someone made the point, not long ago, about the incident where Mr. Black lost a huge amount of the church's money in the stock market crash some years ago. This was after I left the church so I don't know all the details but I do know that Mr. Black had been preaching for years about the evils of gambling, including stock market gambling, but the congregation voted to keep
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QuoteRensilSorry, it was Squareone who was wondering why the leaders do what they do, not Clive. Sorry! No probs rensil. Incidentally, just the other day I was talking to someone who attends one of the satellite branches of SMC who mentioned in passing that a particular young girl, who used to regularly attend the branch services and go to the conferences for many years, no longer attends
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I was just thinking of how a SMC leader or Cedars teacher might handle a parent of a child that is either already at Cedars School Of Excellence, or being considered as a future pupil, where the parent asks the pastor/head about all the criticisms it is facing online. One could anticipate a response something like this: " In every organisation there will always be a few dissenters. P
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Thanks squareone, rensil and others here who helped clarify things regarding Cedars. its always best to get ones facts straight as much as one is able on these things.
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Heres just one small example of why I am suspicious of faith schools that are so closely tied, not just to one particular form of religion, but to one particular fundamentalist sect - and not merely that - but one particular church and small cardre of leaders. and I would be very interested to learn from those on this forum that might know :- Does the Cedars School use the "Acc
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Quoteblackwatch As far as the comments about the school go, I'm sure most of the individual teachers are doing a good job. But that's not the point. The school is a product of and affiliated to a church with an ethos and worldview that has been brought into question by people on this site and latigo. The school only increases their sphere of influence. If there were any truth
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Quoteblackwatch As far as i know, the cd's are still available but call me paranoid, if someone does put the sermons online, the first suspects are going to be the people that have a cd? I think it would be extremely helpful to have an "insider" like yourself keeping us abreast of things. I suppose the deciding factor is when and if it would ever come to you or other insiders h
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QuoteblackwatchLet me ask this - Is it morally acceptable for a preacher with an obvious obesity / gluttony problem to be preaching to others as to how they should live their lives? A tricky one I think. There are - of course many many doctors who drink and continue to smoke but when dealing with patients will emphatically inform them of the clear scientifically established facts and risks
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Quotecbarb I got a real heads-up recently when I watched a video my Mum sent me and I would recommend it to anyone. It's a video of a speaker called Louie Giglio and it features some of the pictures sent back to earth by the Hubble. One particular picture will take your breath away; just before the telescope went out of range of being able to send earth any more data, the controllers pro
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QuoteThePetitor I also love Clive’s idea that members of SMC keep a record of prophesies and their fulfillment. Good to know, but just as a reminder, I would like to reiterate that i’m encouraging concerned SMC member to record _anything_ that an SMC leader says that could be cause for concern, not just prophesies ( although that is relevant too ) , so that includes anything said in defe
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QuoteStephenI hope it is not Waco-esque, as there were very illegal goings on there. Although the thought of a full FBI raid on Struthers may bring a smile to some of the forum members faces. The interesting thing about the Waco incident, is that even though the predicted “end of the world” didn't come about, many of Koreshs followers - even survivors from the fire, still refuse to admi
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QuoteClive Clearly the character of Joan Jewell and her Waco-esque clique of self-appointed and self-declared "anointed prophets" is what constitutes the problem here. The forum post editing feature timed out before I was able to correct myself here. I really should have written “behaviour” here instead of “character”.
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Quotecbarb Clive, I listened to the interview you posted and found it extremely interesting and food for thought. The imagination is a very powerful thing and is part of that 70% of our brains that we don't use on a daily basis - I tend to think of it as the spiritual part of our brain which can make all sorts of connections we couldn't make with the concious mind. It was very us
Forum: Destructive Churches