As we got in the car to drive away, I think we began to realize what had just happened. That we had gotten railroaded. That we had decidedly not gotten treated "pastorally." Truth began to hit us like a ton of bricks. As did the dire nature of the situation. We most certainly did NOT want to lose our church family.
Facebook
One of the first things that I did when I got home was remove everyone from Milestone (including my sister) from my facebook account. That was about 200 people and was a heartbreaking experience for me. I felt that I had to protect myself, however, from being "spied upon" again.
The accusations that Derrick brought forth about people calling the church office being concerned about me because of my fb notes was probably completely fabricated but I didn't realize that at the time. I was paranoid and scared that someone else would be "leaking" my information to them. Also, at that time, I had no idea that you could simply block people, hide certain things, etc. The only thing I knew to do was to just disengage from anyone from church. In retrospect, I know that caused a lot of confusion for most people. Several people did message me and ask what had happened. For those people, we agreed to simply tell them that we had had falling out with church leadership over marital issues.
We knew that we could not tell people, "Oh yeah. We got kicked out. We knew that there would be an instant division and people's loyalty would be to their church, and not to us. We felt that we should not come between our friends and their spiritual family. So we agreed to only tell people more if they asked and if we felt that they really cared about us and weren't just trying to get "the scoop." Not many really ever got more information. We did get a lot of cult-like responses, though. For the most part, nobody even wanted to know what their church leadership believes about marriage that we disagree on. Some people didn't even message back. It's like we simply became invisible. Like we had never been there. At any rate, it was too much to contact 200 people, tell them we were leaving, and have them sort of non-respond.
We also knew that we couldn't continue to be close friends with people who didn't know what had happened. We knew that we couldn't stand to hear them talking about their church home (our church home) while we sat and listened.
This is the analogy I use to explain what it feels like: Imagine that your parents kick you out of the house in the cold and you just watch through the windows while your siblings and parents have a nice, warm party around a fire. Not only that, but they open their arms to complete strangers while you just sort of shiver and watch your family love one another. Nobody really is going to come outside and find out what happened anyway. It's too warm in there by the fire and feels too cozy to go stand outside with you and shiver.
So, knowing how people behave in this situation (having done so ourselves several times), we resigned ourselves to losing our entire friend base and spiritual family.
Verification
When we got home, my dh got on the phone to Bob asking him if he had told Derrick that I was the cause of all their marriage problems. Bob said that he had never said such a thing and has no idea where he could even have come up with this idea. He said that he had mentioned an incident that had happened a few years ago but was simply recounting it and not making any kind of statement about myself. (There were other issues that came up in that conversation that I might touch on later).
I called Jessica (the time frame gets muddy here. I believe it was the next night) and asked her point-blank, "Did I ever say to you that all Milestone teaches women is to pray, submit, and read their Bibles? Did I ever tell you any such thing? Because they are saying that I did and are trying to kick us out of our church."
Jessica appeared shocked and very upset. She was emphatic again and again that I never said anything like this to her. She said, "I swear, as God as my witness, you never said that and I will go to Pastor Jeff and speak with him about it."
I asked her, "Has anyone even talked to you about this?" Now here's the clincher. She said that Russell Ann had pulled her aside at ballet classes on Wednesday and asked her a few questions about who she had been talking to, what they had been saying, etc. I asked her if nobody had asked her anything before this Wednesday? No. Absolutely not.
AND THEN she says, "Well, I did talk to one STAFF WIFE who told me that I should leave my husband but then I went to see Janna after that." Did you catch that?
So the whole accusation that I was telling Jennifer anything at all was simply fabricated. I think it was just assumed that because I sent an email to Janna expressing my opinions that I had expressed them to a bunch of other people, too. And sadly, no one even bothered to verify that.
And furthermore, here I was being vilified for allegedly encouraging this woman to do destructive things to her marriage and in reality it was a paid staff member's wife who was doing it!
At any rate, I was confident that my friend Jessica would go and speak on my behalf to Jeff. I got a very short text message from her the next day that basically said, "It was nice knowing you. I hope your family turns out ok." Now I have absolutely no idea what happened between the time that she was very upset about what had happened to us and the time when she sent me that text. My guess is that she got a phone call from someone telling her that I am just "divisive" and am trying to "stir up trouble."
Along those same lines, something else really devastating was done. Remember how Derrick asked us not to tell anyone about what was going on? We tried to stick to that other than to talk to people who were directly involved, just to find out if what was said was truthful.
"Key Leaders"
Well the next day I got a phone call from a friend saying, "Hey, Derrick just called my husband
and told him that you guys were leaving the church? He said that he was notifying 'key leaders?'" You can imagine our dismay at having been told not to tell anyone only to have Derrick turn around and start calling people.
I will say, in the interest of full disclosure, that I did talk to two women who were not involved in this whole incident. One was a friend who was already somewhat disgruntled with how she was being treated in the church and one was just a close friend. I prefaced that conversation with, "I don't want to tell you anything that is going to affect your view of the church" and she assured me that she wanted to know what was going on, no matter what.
Now, it's funny to me that I feel that I have to explain the fact that I reached out to two people for support during this episode of our lives but, I am keenly aware, there will be people who will say, "See! You were trying to cause division! I knew it!" Of course, that is just silly. I was inviting people to Milestone the Friday before all of this happened, assuring them that they would never find a church home as connected and as like family as ours was.
Apparently, as a result of these calls to "key leaders" (or possibly because of the few calls we made to those involved), people at church on Sunday were already informing others that we had left the church. We were getting angry phone messages from Derrick wanting to know why we had told him that we were going to think about our decision and other people were wanting to know why we were leaving. We wrote a brief email that said this:
May 20
Derrick:
We won't be coming back to Milestone Church.
We won't be speaking with you or Jeff because we feel the first meeting was abusive.
If the church is getting phone calls about us leaving, we would suggest that this was instigated by phone calls made from you to "key leaders."
The Wells
I apparently didn't save the reply but I think it was very clipped and short and said something to the affect of "I understand."
More Fallout
On Friday the 15th, I had to take the children to a homeschool group event that we had already bought tickets for. Russell Ann and Angela were there as well as some of the other moms in the group. I sat with a good friend of mine to whom I had told the story (see below) at the opposite end of the row from Russell Ann and Angela. Tears were streaming down my face for the entire event. I kept thinking, "This is the last time I'm going to do this. This is the last time my children are going to see these children." I was heart-broken. I just tried to keep my face turned away because I didn't want Russell Ann or anyone else to see me broken-hearted. I had already been lectured on how women are too "emotional" and really didn't want to put myself in a place of vulnerability.
On Saturday night, we had some dear friends in town that we had known for years. They were attending Gateway that night and wanted to see us and invited us to go to church with them. I was really strongly resisting but my husband kept insisting that we should go because we were going to have to eventually. I submitted to his idea (ha ha) and got dressed to go. As the time was getting closer to leave, however, I found myself balled up on my bed sobbing. I felt like I was being asked to go on a date a few days after my spouse had died. I had a complete breakdown and announced that I couldn't go. I couldn't step foot inside a church. That it would be a long time before I could do so again. I tell this story simply to exemplify that this was a crushing experience for us mentally and spiritually. For months and months we would both have nightmares about all of it. I would burst into tears throughout the day. Eventually, I've had to get on anti-depressants just to deal with it all. I'm doing so much better now, but it really felt like it was going to just destroy our family.
More Verification
Also this next day or two after the meeting, I tried to contact Karly, whose husband I was accused of "counseling." I told her that I needed to talk to her and asked her if she had lied to me about why her husband no longer wanted to talk to us about marriage stuff.
(I didn't mention this in earlier posts but about the same time that this couple had started counseling with Derrick and Russell Ann the husband, Manny, started behaving very strangely toward me when he had previously been very friendly. I had called Karly and asked her, "What is going on with Manny? He seems to be acting strangely toward us and is definitely not talking about marriage stuff anymore." She simply said that she thought Derrick had advised her husband not to talk to anyone else about marriage but just to keep it between he and Derrick. She didn't indicate that there had been any kind of issue with me personally or with us. Yet it still bothered me. As I found out later, the problem wasn't really a problem at all. That was just another fabrication from Derrick. I'll get to that.)
At any rate, when I text message Karly asking her if she had lied to me, she got upset and swore that she had not and that she had no idea what I was talking about. The next day, I again tried to let her know that we needed to talk (I needed to verify what had been said). She sent me a text message back saying that she had to ask "permission" to talk to me and that it was fine as long as we didn't talk about "the issue."
I will just stop here for a minute to say that if you belong to a church where you have to ask "permission" to talk to people about things that directly involved them (or anything, really), there is something VERY wrong. I also noticed that nobody had to ask for "permission" to talk about me or to leave me completely out of the loop on things. This is another trait of controlling and abusive churches. When you are branded as an outsider, everyone shuts down around you.
But more on that later.
I later received this facebook message from Karly on August 10th that said this:
wow girl, it's been too long. i really don't know what to say, other than i am so sorry about everything that has
happened with Milestone, and although i do feel really bad, we honestly had NO idea it would turn into this. we both
went back to talk to Pastor Derrick about how something that just casually came out during one of our counseling
sessions, intending to be a positive example of something we had worked on and resolved, ended up
blowing up into the very painful scenario it did. and honestly we trust our pastors, and understand why PD felt he
needed to do what he needed to do, but nonetheless, it was still very difficult.
Please note the complete glossing over the fact that the "trusted pastor" completely misrepresented what was said. This is exactly the kind of environment that people are involved in. Some are more susceptible than others. But, overall, there is a VERY strong sense of, "If my pastors say it's ok, it must be ok." I used to fell the same way. I, too, turned my head too many times when I saw arrogance, mockery, etc. But I'll talk about that in a later post.
The Beginning of The End of Good Friendships
On Sunday, I called my good friend Angela and she was angry with me for not telling her that we were leaving. I tried to explain to her that we were told not to call anyone. She wanted to know how other people knew and I explained that the church itself had been calling people.
This was probably the very first time that we saw what we knew was coming: complete dissolution of most of our cherished relationships. We knew (because we had behaved the same way towards others) that we were now on the outside and would be looked at with suspicion. Watching that particular friendship slip away was like a knife in my heart.
The Last Bit of Verification
At this point, we have had three people tell us that their words were completely taken out of context or just weren't even aware that anything was going on.
What about the third issue or "accuser?" What about Tommy Briggs and what he said about all those women telling him that I was confusing him on marriage?
Here's what transpired via email prior to our meeting:
May 15
Janna and Tommy:
Frank and I need to get together with you as soon as possible. We are very concerned because if what is being said to us is true, we have had a breech of confidentiality and/or some grave misunderstandings.
Thanks,
Cathy
He responded:
May 17
We're way on an interview weekend.
Have Frank contact me next week and i'll try to hook up with him.
T
Please note that the original email was very clear that my husband and I wanted to meet with both Tommy and Janna. The reply email was directed to my husband alone and spoke nothing of Janna.
I responded:
May 18
Tommy:
I heard that you and Janna were away.
Frank and I aren't really interested in meeting anymore with anyone apart from one another as it is clear that this has caused major issues and disunity in our marriage. We would like to meet with you and Janna together and just briefly. It doesn't have to take much time.
We were ousted from the church this past week based in part on something that you and she allegedly told the pastoral staff and we just want to talk to you (for our own consciences) and find out the truth.
We are not interested in causing any divisions or problems in the church but we do feel we need to speak with the two of you and settle any misunderstandings or make any peace that is necessary.
Since this has been a very difficult week for us, we would like to bring some closure as soon as possible.
Thanks,
Cathy
I won't post the other two emails simply because they're very short and just basically say that Tommy is willing to meet with us (alone, sans Janna) at 10am after his morning workout at It's A Grind.
By this time, it's almost a week after that initial meeting. We were anxious to complete our "investigation" and were hopeful that we could still bring some sanity to the situation.
We sat down with Tommy in the coffee shop. We cut right to the chase. I told him, "Tommy, I'm going to tell you now what Derrick said that you said and I need you to be totally honest with me. I need to know if you said these things." I then related to Tommy what Derrick had said.
He looked at me in the eyes and shook his head and said, "No. No, I never said that."
I was taken aback. I think I was suddenly realizing a lot of things. A lot was sinking in.
I restated what I had said and asked, "Are you saying that you never said this? You do understand what I'm saying?"
"No. As I told you, I told Derrick whom I met with and I did tell him that some of the women were having issues about marital roles but I never mentioned your name at all. And the women themselves never mentioned your name. You never came up either in my conversations with the women or with Derrick."
I was really hopeful at this point. I knew that the Briggs were leaving and that they had a lot of influence in leadership. I was certain that the next words out of his mouth were going to be, "Hey, let me go talk to Derrick and we'll get this thing all straightened out." Sigh. That was not the case.
Instead he said something like, "You know, this kind of thing happens and you guys just need to go on in God and find a new church home."
I blinked. I just couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that now four people had seen the deceit and manipulation and just outright lying and were just letting it happen.
My husband tried to small talk a little bit and I just laid my hand on his thigh, indicating that I was done. I couldn't sit and listen to this man's plans to go minister in another church. I was so very, very disillusioned with character and truth and courage.
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