Welcome to the Forum, FilthyBackslider. Thanks for posting. I'm glad you've enjoyed reading the contributions on here and that it's made you realise you weren't the only one to experience such things. I hope this has helped you. I actually found it hard to write your name, FilthyBackslider, because I don't believe anyone should be called Filthy. I understand where
Forum: Destructive Churches

Clive, you wrote:- "Every person who has contributed their testimonies here are - in actual fact in no small way - exhibiting scepticism and one hopes questioning deeply the place of "faith" - as it is expressed in religious sects with strong overbearing leaderships. Bring on doubt I say." Yes, people who have posted their story on here, and who have at one time been
Forum: Destructive Churches

Yes, totally agree with you, Petitor. It's not really a large amount by outside standards. However, I was kind of contrasting the situation with what it had been like in SMC before the influx of young folk at that period, which Cbarb has told us about. It looks like the Church seemed to change and Miss T took full and authoritative control at this time, and went into action to mould and &q
Forum: Destructive Churches

Some very interesting posts here. Thanks, everyone. Clive, I will listen to the podcast you speak about as I am always interested in such stories. You said, it's more a strict Brethren type of sect rather than Pentecostal. The thing is, however, that Hugh Black took a lot of his teachings from his own strict Brethren upbringing and transferred them, probably unknowingly, into SMC. I t
Forum: Destructive Churches

Wistongirl Ok, I apologise for misunderstanding you and I am very Sorry for the comments I made. I know you chose to leave. I know you had to reconstruct your life after leaving as everyone else has. You said yourself that your life is now fulfilled and happy. Please don't go off and stop posting though. We value your contributions and enjoy reading your posts very much.
Forum: Destructive Churches

Ifellaway You are completely accurate in your view that Effie's visit was a cold, calculating act and not done with your best interests at heart. You're not the first and you'll not be the last. I know someone else who had an unannounced visit from her - which is bad manners in itself to turn up at someone's door - to tell the person, who had been a committed Christian and
Forum: Destructive Churches

Chesterk55, you mention clapping. I do not recall any clapping in meetings apart from in children's meetings. The children's part of the Saturday night meeting, where you mention kids' choruses with clapping, couldn't have lasted long because I don't remember them doing that after a time. In SMC meetings, there isn't to my knowledge any clapping during the singing
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi Wistongirl Yes, I know the story you're referring to now, by Cbarb. That was about another girl and not the lady you're referring to. Just to clarify.
Forum: Destructive Churches

O, Chris19, you just made me laugh SO much with what you wrote in your recent post! So so funny! Well, re the hooped earrings, I was thinking of the girl whom Wistongirl refers to, I.e. the lady who is now leader of the (so-called) London branch-church near Aylesbury, who did wear them. So, I don't think you were the first to dare to wear hooped earrings, Chris19! LOL! Anyway, this girl&
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi there, Wistongirl, and welcome to this Forum thread. Thank you for telling us your experiences of when you were within SMC. As others have already said, I am glad that you managed to leave and have gone on to have a happy and fulfilling life. Your life would have got stuck and your personality wouldn't have got the chance to develop into the person God wants you to be, had you remained
Forum: Destructive Churches

Ifellaway, sadly most of the welcomed guest speakers who visited SMC have now passed away. Another super one whom we had was Drew Greenwood (now deceased) who was friendly with Hugh Black, as Drew was with many other church leaders. We also had Jean Darnall and Jackie Pullinger way back in the 1980s. Jackie is still alive: she does missionary work with addicts and the homeless in the Far East.
Forum: Destructive Churches

A few comments re a couple of previous posts that were put on here a week or two ago: Firstly, to The Petitor, I just really loved your "Complaints Procedure - draft for discussion". See page 98 of the Forum. You've summed it up so well and hit the nail on the head. That's just how it is! Secondly, to Cbarb, I love your list of rules for the rule-book. See page 97 of Fo
Forum: Destructive Churches

In response to E.Ray's comment: "And I am wondering as well what peoples opinions of Grace and Jennifer are? I found them to be much nicer people though ok only experienced them at camps." Grace is the main leader of SMC now, since the death of her sister, Mary Black, in 2004. So, as such, she has, supposedly, authority over the other church leaders. She sits and listens to t
Forum: Destructive Churches

I have just read the new article put on the Latigo site, entitled "Update, Two and a Half Years On". It asks about why SMC has still not produced a book of rules, setting out clearly what their beliefs really are and explaining how people who join the church will be treated. Two and a half years have gone by, with this Forum continually buzzing with posters old and new who tell their
Forum: Destructive Churches

Welcome to the Forum, E.Ray, and I am so pleased that you have got yourself out of SMC and seem to be doing OK. Thanks for your contribution. Having friends delete you or cut contact can also happen as time goes on. Leaders won't be very pleased about you posting here so openly, for example. However, don't let anything stop you now. You're free to live life! Just to clarify re
Forum: Destructive Churches

I've so enjoyed all the recent posts and have laughed as well, not at any of you, but with you. In answer to Clive, I totally agree with recent posters that setting up a Facebook page or Group would be a pointless venture. Firstly because when someone leaves SMC, most or all of the folk in SMC who were their Facebook Friends will promptly delete the person who left, from their Friends
Forum: Destructive Churches

Archbishop Laud You may not ever have witnessed a child being manhandled by SMC leaders but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened or doesn't happen. Covlass has told us, on here, her eye-witness account of what she saw happen to a child in the Cumbernauld church. I don't think she would have made up that story. I believe her completely. People can choose whether to believe
Forum: Destructive Churches

Very well put, The Petitor. Yet another example of SMC leaders taking a verse out of context and using it to justify THEIR conduct. Yet another example of them twisting Scripture to suit and to condemn those who don't agree with everything the leaders say. I heard verses used in that way, on innumerable occasions whilst in SMC. It is a form of mind-manipulation to keep people held in to t
Forum: Destructive Churches

Your post is very interesting, Chesterk55. Please don't miss it, folks! I will keep a look out re OSCR, regarding any reports of the investigation. Just to encourage people to keep on posting here, this Forum thread is being read by many people, i.e. those who have left SMC, those still in SMC and those looking for a new church to go to. On here, people are getting information about SMC
Forum: Destructive Churches

Can I again reiterate, please look at the Latigo articles on: How many members does SMC have? These articles, one posted about 2 years ago and the other, a newly updated one, posted last month or thereabouts, give information on the branches which are in existence and those which once were but have now closed. Of the latter there are a fair number, which seems a contradiction to what SMC claim,
Forum: Destructive Churches

Good to hear from you again, Ifellaway. Just wondered if you could clarify something you wrote. Which SMC branches are east of Falkirk? Do you mean the Edinburgh branch? It is very small. I can't think of any others. Also there is Gorebridge which once went out from and is now back in, under SMC auspices. To my knowledge, from hearing people's stories, these branches are just a
Forum: Destructive Churches

It must be because you were just a kid back then, Cbarb, but I'm not surprised you didn't know who was who and who was married to who, because they don't make it very obvious within SMC circles and married couples rarely serve alongside one another. Mrs Grace Gault is Hugh Black's youngest daughter of the three. She married Wesley Gault in the 1970s. She is now main leade
Forum: Destructive Churches

Cbarb, you mention the current leaders and when they would have first entered SMC. Well, the main leader of Struthers now, Mrs Grace Gault, will have been in the church since babyhood because it was her father, along with Miss Taylor, who started SMC. So she won't have known any other way of life apart from life within the close confines of Struthers and its strict separationist teaching
Forum: Destructive Churches

Cbarb, you were asking and wondering if being brought up in SMC and going through the Cedars School might have had negative effects on young people. From what I know, children who attended Cedars in its initial years when it only went up to S2 (age 14 approx), had to then, after S2, move on to attend an ordinary state school to continue their education near where they lived. I am aware that so
Forum: Destructive Churches

Ifellaway I am surprised to read what you've posted re Enhanced Disclosures for people working with children or vulnerable adults. While I am in no way sticking up for SMC, as far as I was aware, they always put people who were working with the children, through the Enhanced Disclosure Scotland checks (now PVG) and only allowed people who had no convictions to work with children in the chu
Forum: Destructive Churches

Squareone I wrote what the Head Teacher told the congregation, in my post here on March 20th on Page 88. That's what she said.
Forum: Destructive Churches

If the parents are now paying instalments and thus paying back the iPads, then why was this not said to the Church at the time the iPads were introduced? That isn't what the Head Teacher told the members of the church. If the members had been told that the parents would be paying up, fine, but they weren't told that. There was nothing said about the parents paying up the iPads in insta
Forum: Destructive Churches

I gather that this is the time of year (March) that SMC take their special annual collection from the church specifically to go towards Cedars School. This collection takes place at a Saturday night meeting when, of course, the maximum number of SMC members and visitors are present. Amounts raised in the past have been £15,000 or more, that is from that one-off, special annual collection. This,
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi growing123, and thanks for posting I am glad you got out of Struthers and did not give in, through guilt, to the advice you were offered re a relationship and re make-up etc, by the leaders. Praise God that you had the inner strength to know your own mind and, as you say, be true to who you are and therefor make up your own mind especially regarding the relationship you mention. However,
Forum: Destructive Churches

Hi, Ifellaway, and welcome to the Forum. I am glad you felt able to post on here. It is interesting to read your story and I am sorry that you are struggling with health issues. I presume, from what you wrote, that you were brought up in SMC because your parents were/are members. It saddens me to see what happens to children brought up in SMC, many of whom (fortunately) do not continue ther
Forum: Destructive Churches