A few readers have tipped me off to a couple new blogs that are dedicated to discussing the imperfections of Sovereign Grace Ministries.
One reader is a former City Bible member, and here is her family's experience at this church:
We attended the Tucson Sovereign Grace church for 2 years. We had so much fun in the beginning because people were so friendly, the pastors were so "humble" (unlike cbc) and we just loved it.
then we had an "observation" – a good reformed word for "issue" with the pastor and met with him several times and found that the humility shown across the pulpit no where to be found. the pastor lied to us, the associate pastor lied and wouldnt even hear our issue, instead turned it around and called us sinners and accused us of having marriage problems.
There have been 10 families that have left this last year – most for the same reasons as us. this church is only about 150 people btw so a huge exodus.
Tucson SGChurch is now having all their members – reup their membership and in order to be a member, they have to sign that they are in total agreement with the entire doctrinal statment of the church and one of the items is "I will read my Bible every day" I will try to get a copy of this from a friend there – she hasnt signed it yet.
If you're not a member, you will get NO care – no care group membership allowed, you're not allowed access to the phone directory – this is a very social church, we all wanted access to that.
I want to touch quickly on this issue of "false humility". I had a somewhat similar experience with the pastor of a church I attended in college. When I first attended the church, I thought the guy was great and very humble. And then a few issues came up with his children, in which I got stuck in the middle. (Basically, his oldest son, who was seventeen, ran away from home and ran straight to my place to crash on my couch for a week. My college roommates thought this was highly entertaining. Myself, I was annoyed.) Anwyay, the more I got to know the pastor, the more I realized he was actually a pretty arrogant man. And not a particulary good pastor. I didn't stop going to the church, but I did cut back my attendance a fair amount. As such, I tend to think the humility in most pastors is just a well-rehearsed act. But I digress…
As near as I can tell there are several SGM churches all over the country. And here are the blogs that discuss these churches.
I love seeing other congregations blog about their church and its leaders. Pastors are there to serve you, not you them.
Thank you for the link!
I run the sgmrefuge blog, and noticed that we had some visitors referred by this site.
SGM is a pretty major “movement”, with around 70 franchises. Their leader, CJ Mahaney is becoming an influential voice in evangelical circles.
Thank you again for mentioning us. this is my first visit here, and I’m going to surf around for a while.
Grace,
Jim
I love the “Before you blog” sidebar on the sgmsurvivors.com site.
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Hilarious…because its true.
The sad state of today’s “church” is that pastors have become more like actors, entertainers, hype-artists…than humble servants. I’ve only been in a handful of churches throughout my life, and while there were a few MFI slop piles, I have also been lucky enough to come across a couple pastors who were just as comfortable exhorting christians towards Godlier living, as they were standing up in front of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people and admitting they were just as much a schmuck as I am!
With more blogs popping up regarding these other
churches…errr…businesses and the veil lifting off the eyes of more of their followers, I’d like to think sites like these are serving notice to thesepastors…errr…CEOs that your facade is about to come crumbling down.My wife and I attended SGM Pasadena for about a month on the recommendation through a friend of a friend. It seemed like an extremely humble church. First day we were there we had invites to 4 or 5 different gatherings with people we didn’t even know. One of the associate pastors had us over for lunch the following week. We stopped going though because we sensed too much inbreeded behavior. We got the sense that you were either one of them or could have nothing to do with them. Coming from BT/CBC we did not want anything like that again. Plus they had such an emphasis on kids and home school that it was a little distracting. We were in are mid 20s then with no kids, so we really didn’t want to be forced into a kid’s focus all the time. So based on my minimal experience I can’t really say if SGM is a good or bad thing, but I can say that it seemed just like every other big ministry movement. Somewhere along the way the leaders made it less about Jesus and more about them. Pride and arrogance seem to always ruin a good thing. I am sure there are many good quality people with SGM, but I am also sure that there are many bad apples spitting on the truth of Christ. Very sad that this continues to happen all across America.
Cat went to church in College?!
ex-CB Slave,
SGM is a franchise. They have crafted their methods quite well.
You would experience the welcoming behavior across the country.
If you had attended there for 6 months, you would have found yourself surrounded by a group of wonderful friends.
Then, if you left, you would have found that you SGM friends were “just too busy” to continue to fellowship with you. Once they realized that you had left and were not coming back, you would soon realize that these people were not your friends at all-they were just following the system.
I think we are all arrogant at the core, some people more than others, some movements more than others, but we are all arrogant, including myself. My Christian experience has span from one extreme, Arminianism, to the other extreme, Calvinism. The arrogance of people, churches and church movements who are theologically Arminian is easy to spot, they are typically but not exclusively Charismatics, I know this doctrine inside and out because I once held to the doctrinal tenets of the Charismatic movement (well, I still kinda do partly, but I would need a beer and cigar to walk you through how that works, but I still hang on to some of the Charimatic stuff, I’m kind of an “Agnostic Charismatic”, I believe God still does miracles but I’m not beating down his door to perform one). BUT, on the other side, I was once moving very Reformed/Calvinistic, but I struggled with the “ignorance” of most Reformed Pastor’s I knew. They seemed to be just as heavy handed, legalistic and fundamentalist as most Arminian churches I attended, but their’s was cloaked in this false sense of humility. Though I admit they are much more theologically sound then most Arminians I know, but at the end of the day neither side is exempt from the abuses we discuss on this blog.
I was shocked discover how many hard core Reform guys go down that legalistic road abusing sheep in their wake and yet have a much stronger emphasis on God’s grace, sovereignty and the finished work of the cross than most Arminians I encounter. But here’s how I think it works, most Calvinist get so swept up in the TULIP (i.e. SGM, Household of Faith, etc…) that they mistake it for the gospel. The TULIP for many Calvinist is ULTIMATE and the gospel is PENULTIMATE, when it should be the other way around. Much of the TULIP hangs on the gospel, but they reverse it.
So their abuse is not so much “principally” driven, like Arminian churches such as CBC, TCC, TBN, who beat you up for not getting with the program, theirs is “theologically” driven, hence they kick you in the nuts for not adhering to the 5 points of Calvinism. And we all know if you make an “idol” either of a theological or a principle-centered system that Christ is not at the center of, abuse happens.
Just to connect the dots…
Josh Harris is the SR pastor of Covenant Life church – which is the Sovereign Grace main church – His dad is Greg Harris, SR Pastor of Household of Faith, not affiliated with Sov Grace as far as I know, in Portland and of course Greg’s twin boys, are the infamous Harris twins earlier mentioned in this blog.
Another connection, the Harris family, Greg & Suni(?) with their kids including Josh used to attend CBC – I still have the church directory with their picture in it.
Sadly, even in the homeschooling churches, like Josh H.’s dad’s church, the congregation is constantly reminded of the “homeschool royalty’s” celebrity and success. It’s backwards, the way families serve the leader’s “vision”, and quite a bit isolated from the Great Commission. The church is there to serve it’s leadership and to foster a more “successful” family structure, and no need to invite in all those pesky unsaved, messy families out there. There’s a weird emphasis on inviting other committed christian leaders out there to host them and get a taste for how the church operates, instead of inviting sinners in.
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So, Greg and Sono used to be members there at BT/CBC? What made them leave?
They along with 10 families, I believe, sent a letter to CBC eldership telling them they disagreed with CBC and that they were leaving to start another church.
Its a step in the right direction. I wonder if they got a letter from Davis, Write, & Tremaine?
Holy cow Nd, nothing says “brotherly love” like swift kick in the man-parts ! (I guess it’s ok if it comes from a church leader … in Jesus name of course!)
ouch,
ICE
Negrodamus,
I can appreciate the Tulips to Armin background. The “sort all it down to doctrine” approach to god is very much a head trip. It aides people in feeling superior with their “super knowledge” and results in a pshudo-relationship with “god”.
Knowing about God is not “knowing God.
What freedom there is in a relationship based beleif in God! It allows his presence in everyday life… whether it be a little buzz from beer or catching sight of a humming bird on an afternoon walk. The miracle is recongizing his love so eminant in all parts of life.
I understand what you mean by “agnostic-charismatic”. There is so much I don’t know about God, but what I do know is that I need to continue to believe He is LOVE.
I have a blog where I critique the groups/courtship practice that Josh Harris and Sovereign Grace Ministries promote:
http://www.ikdg.wordpress.com
I Kissed Dating Goodbye: Wisdom or Foolishness?
When I first read Harris’s book on “kissing dating goodbye” I was appalled. He failed to share any of the problems with the system he promotes though the church he now pastors had years of experience with the approach. Harris was quick to point out the defects with dating but not the defects of his approach.
I know of two other blogs about Sovereign Grace Ministries “imperfections.”
http://spiritualtyranny.com/
http://ikissedsgmgoodbye.blogspot.com/
Jim,
I’ve been on your site – Below is a comment from your blog & is a very insightful view as to what is happening in SGM – very sad. My heart breaks for you. My husband and I were lucky to have friends who left SGM after we did, so we are outcasts together & loving our freedom. My story is the one in this post.
My husband & I find it very eerie that the tactics used in your situation is so similar to the tactics SGM used on us and our friends who left.
From SGM Refuge:
I have “known†Jim and Carole from another blog. I think I can assure you that they did everything they could to reconcile their differences with the SGM church they left. The problem is, what do you do when the SP you are speaking with will not receive any form of correction, no matter how many witnesses you bring?
Many of us have run into this sort of thing. My husband and I took four others, but it made no difference. The Pastors we speak of (and I’m sure there are exceptions) are “above†the rest of us. They don’t seem to think that we are capable of confronting them, that we could possibly have anything worthy to say. They even reacted in anger. We were polite, respectful, and loving in how we approached them. Yet, there was no humility in their responses. What happens then?
What is a member to do if he/she has followed scripture, but the Pastor has not? None of us are on this blog to gripe and complain. We are here to reveal a deep-seeded problem in SGM Ministries that span the country. There are many believers whose freedoms in Christ are being robbed by men who think they have the authority to stand between man and God. We love these people. We want to see them set free.
If the leaders will not listen to us, then we go to the people. I hope I have explained this well, and I mean no disrespect to you. It is love that motivates us. I am sure that if anyone comes on this blog in a different spirit, Jim or Carole will step in. But give them a chance. Thank you.
I cant believe how many people have been dogged out by Sovereign Grace. And it seems like they are OK with that. I am one in a Godzillion. Its all the same BS. approach the pastor of 20 years with a “concern” You are then confronted and unless you “repent” Well I was _______asked to find a church where you can submit. The details of the story were twisted and the caregroup leaders were all informed of my REBELLION. (uh…never mentioned what the issue was that I asked about) Hush little baby don’t say a word.
Thank God, there is a God and that He is one who sees.
busy b
It is sad that is has gone on for so long. At least now some blogs, like the ones mentioned above are starting to expose at least some of what is happening with that group.
It is also nice to see that these blogs have been a source of healing for people that are some of SGM’s road kill.
busy b,
I swear that exact same thing happened to me. It is so weird to read these web sites. I could have told you, your story with my name in it.
Busy, I’m sorry. It hurt really bad. Almost cost a life.
I have my response in writing. It was so sad…
What is Going on at SG Kingsway in Richmond VA?
Have you seen the following blog entry? Gene Emerson is half heartedly admitting mistakes he made over 10 years ago. You can read about it here:
http://sgmrefuge.com/2010/08/16/the-kingsway-way/
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=1721
Having read the abuses going on at the Bryans church in Idaho, I came back here to read my story that I posted 3 years ago. LOL I was so mad back then I couldn’t even voice myself well – Wow.
Anyway just wanted to thank you guys for running this blog – its really helping heal people from all the bs some of us have survived throughout the years. You’re doing a great job!
Thanks Tricia for sharing again. And for the affirmation.
A polyanna posted somewhat simultaneously with your post and in her ignorance and blissful life condemned us all.
Have you seen the recent news about Mahaney?
This site has a number of documents that reveal a number of sad actions on the part of Mahaney:
http://www.scribd.com/sgmwikileaks
These documents give a lot of the reasons for Mahaney stepping down.
You can also read comments about them at:
SGMSurvivors.Com
SGMRefuge.Com
steve.. its a pretty choppy document to read and it all looks like it’s old news… 2009, 2010??
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It is old correspondence that was between various leaders. One item brought up is that C.J. Mahaney attempted to blackmail Larry Tomczak the other cofounder of the group. It also shows how Mahaney didn’t live by the rules he imposed on others in the group.
Kris has one blog post that discusses these documents:
http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=2333&cp=2#comments
Here is another useful blog entry:
http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/07/08/c-j-mahaney%E2%80%99s-temporary-resignation-and-sovereign-grace-ministries-shades-of-john-piper/
606 pages — that’s a lot of time and energy. Most books are 200 to 300 pages.
I think I remember when the Mishlers moved to Az. from BT back in the 70′s. Do I have that right Tricia? Also small world, I remember going to a retreat weekend at SGM for a ministry called Healing Streams. That would’ve been maybe late 90′s. Nothing much seemed wrong then, but of course I was an outsider just visiting.