Now let me start this part of the story by saying this: This is a hard story to tell. This has changed our family forever. We will never see "church" the same again. Nor will we ever see church leadership the same again. We never, never knew that Christians (particularly leaders) could behave in such a manner. We never knew that they would or could lie. We never knew that they would remain unrepentant about their lies. We have left the institutional church as a result of all of this and will never return. We will never again call any man "leader" of a church. Christ is the only one worthy of leading His Bride.
So my email has been sent to Russell Ann by Janna. That was somewhere over the weekend of May 8th-10th I assume.
On Monday, my dh gets a call from Derrick saying that he wants to see him in his office. (At this point, I am enlisting my husband's help in telling the story to ensure accuracy.) My dh has a bad feeling about this meeting before he leaves. We sat in our bedroom and I tried to propose that maybe it's about something unrelated to our disagreements with the church over marital issues.
{Unbeknownst to me, my dh has contacted the children's pastor, Cris Taylor and had expressed his concern that I believed that the church is not on the same page with us as far as marriage paradigms. He also, apparently, expressed to him that I had a real issue with Derrick and Russell Ann particularly because of their beliefs on marriage. I think my dh was trying to feel out, also, what Cris believed about marriage to get an idea if I was off track or not. After all, if Cris (the resident theologian) ok-ed mutual submission, then we could stop worrying.
My husband believed this conversation to be confidential and private and he believed that he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. Reaching out to his leaders in the church to help him solve a problem. Cris told my dh that he needed to go and speak directly with Derrick and Russell Ann. He apparently then reported the entire conversation to Derrick.
It should be noted that I also contacted April, Cris's wife, and briefly told her I wanted to talk about some things privately as long as they could be kept private. She really hesitated on that one when I indicated that I didn't want her to talk to any of the other leaders so I dropped the subject.
Some may say that these conversations were "divisive" but this is simply not true. We would expect other leaders (particularly paid staff) to be able to contain any issues that we were having. One must also remember that we were trying to work through these issues and weren't spreading any kind of unrest to the congregation at large. I often had private conversations with my sister who was on staff and talked about issues that I saw troublesome and never had a problem with it. She seemed to be able to listen to me without reporting what I was saying to others and yet still went on confidently in her job. I expected every other staff member to have the same level of decorum.
Another fascinating note is that in the book Toxic Faith, there is presented a story about a man who did this very same thing (asked a "lower" staff member about something a "higher" staff member was doing) and got "reported" to the higher staff member and subsequently booted out of a church. This is spiritually manipulative and abusive.
In abusive spiritual paradigms, questions are not allowed. Leaders are unapproachable themselves with larger-than-life personalities and presence. This all but forces people to talk to someone besides the leader. Because this secondary leader is also enamored by the higher-up, they immediately report the conversation thinking that they will get a "gold star" for protecting the "unity" of the church. This talking (or disagreement) becomes "divisiveness" in the minds of the leader because he feels threatened and the disagreeing person is simply eliminated. Ownership of the part that the leader plays in this scenario is never admitted. It is always the other person's fault. But I digress. Back to the story.}
At any rate, this is why my dh was feeling a little fearful about the meeting with Derrick. And, yes, he was feeling fearful. Which should indicate the type of power that the church leadership had over my husband and our family. What was he fearful of? Getting reprimanded. Getting told that he would have to leave his beloved family. And that is exactly what was about to happen.
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