Dear all, My view is that it would be couter-productive to identify Latigo on this site (albeit anonymously through a “pen-name”). Not because it would in any way diminish what is said, but because it would strengthen the comments of one specific individual. This would create a sort of one-to-many relationship with Latigo at the top of the tree. But who put them there? Was there an electio
Forum: Destructive Churches

Treetop - I love it. I would also, in the spirit of Spartacus, be happy to say, "I am Latigo". Any other takers? Wouldn't it be great if we got 20 people to identify with the issues by all saying, "I am Latigo". I would also like to briefly return to a point made earlier by SeekingSusan, and that is how struthers need to create an enemy to justify their position. I w
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi all, seems to me that the best way to resolve any questions about latigo is to ask him/ her/ them. There is an email address on the latigo site, so I have sent a brief message drawing their attention to the recent posts and asking if they wish to comment. I will post any reply without editing in any way. Clive - I did not mean that the Struthers Leaders should necessarily reply to the L
Forum: Destructive Churches

Clive, As has been suggested in the other responses, I think there will be as many answers as there are individuals. Whether the contributors here are satisfied is not really the issue though, is it? These issues existed before this forum made them public, and the issues will continue to exist even if this forum dies. The main question to me is (1) What does GOD require of the leaders in
Forum: Destructive Churches

Clare, I am also interested in your comments that: QuoteclareBeing a leader of anything puts a particular responsibility on you to be open to srutiny, have maybe higher than average standards of conduct , and especially to set the example, to live , what you preach. Being a leader of a church puts an even greater responsibility seeing as they are dealing with peoples souls. One of
Forum: Destructive Churches

Quoteclare Am i totally nieve i dont understand how what i thought were deeply annointed people can seemingly be responsible for so much damage? How is it possible to stand infront of people in Gods name and get things so wrong!! ... I keep thinking it must be us who are mistaken , misguided or too sinful to stand the annointing . I am flabergasted i keep having to repost what i am thinkin
Forum: Destructive Churches

Rensil – well done for spotting that –I remembered there had been some reference, but wasn’t sure where it was. Hopefully that and other recent posts will provide some of the info Concernedmother is looking for. To all reading the forum, I still want to add something about how the overall organisation works however. It still seems to me that there is a danger that local experiences of one br
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi Clare, welcome to the forum. I love the conclusions at the end of your post. I am of a similar age (let’s not go there!) and see these as the foundation of my own faith. I guess I have travelled a bit of a journey in terms of what I think about Struthers. When I left, it still “seemed like the ideal way” to me. I felt I had failed and fallen short of the standard expected. The messa
Forum: Destructive Churches

QuoteRensil The first part of her entry seems to refer to how the SMC movement came about, when a small group left a large church which they considered to be cold and backslidden. Then in the second part she refers to those who leave SMC because they are backsliding and carnal, and judged to be so by an "on fire" leadership! If this isn't an example of twisted scripture and r
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi Concernedmother I take your point about not tarring people with the same brush, you are quite right not to assume that everyone in a particular group has similar belief or behaviours. There are one or two things to note however. I would for example suggest you start by applying that to the idea of not tarring things with the same brush to the word “church” as well. Just because an orga
Forum: Destructive Churches

Friends, I know nothing about this church, so cannot comment on what goes on. I have been involved in another church which did cause a great deal of hurt however, so I am interested in church experiences and how they can go wrong. What I find interesting is some of the comments here. There is much I agree with from both sides, but there are bits that worry me. For example, “fellow Christ
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi Anonymous43762, and welcome to the forum. It looks like you had had a very similar experience to the rest of us here – confusion, hurt and being made to think you are the only one that has any questions. Well, as Chesterk55 has pointed out, you are not. There are 21 people who have confirmed right here on Rick Ross that they have had a similar experience, and I am sure there are a lot more
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I am not sure that there are many positive reasons for encouraging people into teaching, I think they are more negative reasons (no surprise there). First Mr Black was of course a (head) teacher, so that made it respectable, (which is a positive reason actually). Second, we all know that one thing Struthers suppresses is independent thought. That probably stops most people from setting up
Forum: Destructive Churches

The Harold Camping prophesy reminds me of a Wikipedia article “when prophesy fails” which I think was pointed out by SeekingSusan in an earlier post (although I can’t find the link). I can see exactly that sort of thing happening in Struthers – in fact, come to think of it, it has already happened. Not regarding the end of the world, but regarding revival. The New Year Message and other “pr
Forum: Destructive Churches

CovLass, you are (once again!) spot on in your analysis. The Leaders in Struthers can go around saying “yes of course we make mistakes” all they like, but until they take action to correct these mistakes, no-one is going to believe them. As I said on 22 March: “Confusion and upset, and it is always the fault of the people, never the fault of the leaders. That is why I think Matt 5v23 is so i
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi English, good to hear from you. I remember the Pudsey group well, including a story about one of you nearly being sold for 25 camels, or something like that. I also heard about the money being invested and lost in the stock market crash, and a number of professionals leaving at that point as they thought what happened was unacceptable. I know Mr Black volunteered to resign over this at a
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi Biscuits and Sola, and welcome to the forum. It seems like everyone has had basically the same experience – trying to do what they are told, always being told what they are doing is not good enough, but no idea what else to do. That is certainly my experience, and I suspect it is the current experience of many of those still sitting in the pews each week. In terms of your question about
Forum: Destructive Churches

In case no-one has noticed, one really bizarre thing has happened in the last few weeks. Remember the discussion about what constitutes a cult? Archbishop Laud proposed a definition, I also made some suggestions as to what might constitute a cult, there were a number of related comments then the moderator came in to give the most widely accepted view. All good stuff, but there was another cont
Forum: Destructive Churches

I agree with the comments about all of the branches displaying exactly the same worrying characteristics. The whole leadership model is totally unaccountable, with the central leaders sometimes even having “discernment” about individuals in the branches and giving the local leaders some instruction about what a particular member of their congregation has to do. The local leader then has no choi
Forum: Destructive Churches

There have been a few quotes of the Struthers interpretation of scripture in the Struthers memorial church thread. I thought this was sufficiently interesting to deserve a thread of its own, so have started this discussion. If it catches on, fine. If not, that is also OK too, I think there is quite a lot of info out there already! Examples of the gospel according to Struthers are: &quo
Forum: Destructive Churches

QuotesusieHi Seekingsusan I understand why they would still want to go there. I myself found an amazing presence of God. That is one thing I can never explain to anyone, If the abuse and false doctrine, are really going on, why is the presense of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so eveident there. Does anyone know? Susie I think there is a lot of truth in what has been said so far – it
Forum: Destructive Churches

Well, it could be, except that I have only checked about a dozen times in the last week, not 8 times every day. I used to log in a lot, but now look at the higher level stats on destructive churches and only log in if there is a new comment in the struthers thread- partly so that I do not distort the stats. I know that others only log in when alerted of a new message by email, so they are not p
Forum: Destructive Churches

QuoteRensilThere have been several posts relating to the Cumbernauld branch of Struthers, but I'd like it to be known that the same controlling, favouritism and banning procedures occur in all the branch churches. Since every one of the leaders follow the same teaching and continually told us how much in unity the leaders are, then it followed that their treatment of members of their church
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi LoveAlways and Susie, and welcome to the forum. And hello to Rensil as well - I am not sure anyone has actually welcomed you yet. It is really good of you to take the time and share your experiences. I know how hard it can be to talk about issues in the past but, as you can see from the forum, you are not alone. It is also not the first time I have heard of post-traumatic stress syndrom
Forum: Destructive Churches

rrmoderator Thanks, good to have an authoritative source to correct my waffle! I would certainly not want to argue that struthers is a cult on the basis of the above. What is however beyond question is that people have been and are being hurt, and the leadership has no interest in doing anything about that. Whatever the definition and doctrine, that to me is fundamentally wrong. I kn
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rrmoderator I am not in a position to answer all of your questions, but I can shed some light on this. Struthers Memorial Church is a company limited by guarantee. That company has charitable status and controls the churches, the school and the coffee/ bookshops. There is only one company, so all of the activities are part of the same organisation. I am not sure how they get away with h
Forum: Destructive Churches

Well, since everyone seems to be listening to the sermon of 12 March, thought I would get in on the act too. I have just listened to the sermon and noted a number of interesting points and phrases. 1) The preacher actually says, “seeds of bitterness”. Now what is that? Is it bitterness or isn’t it? From what I know about people who have left Struthers, including what I read on this forum, t
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi uncertain, and good to hear from you. It is good that you are enjoying the presence of God, singing with others and indeed the shared aspiration for holiness. As C.S.Lewis says, “joy is the serious business of heaven”. Others on this forum may disagree (please do – we like different views!), but I cannot see anything wrong with enjoying a sense that God is giving to you, and that you are re
Forum: Destructive Churches

Many of you will have noticed that a new article has been added to the Latigo site . As always, some really interesting points are made, but I would like to add my own thoughts about one point that Latigo has not particularly covered. That is the insight into the nature of the speaker herself. The sermon quoted makes a number of statements about human nature including: “every human bein
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi anonymousfornow, and welcome to the forum! I can totally understand how you feel. I think there are many people out there who felt they were the only one - I certainly did! As this forum confirms however, that is not the case. I know that one of the things I struggled with was "how could I be right and everyone else in the world be wrong?" Now that I look back, that is of co
Forum: Destructive Churches