21. Working on Staff in the IFB & A Look at Spiritual Abuse w/ James Safrit

This is the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring to light the legalism and abuse in the independent fundamental Baptist movement and to encourage believers to grow in grace through the scriptures. Now here's your host, John Hollifield. Welcome back, guys, to the For Freedom Podcast. I am your host, John Hollifield, and this is the For Freedom Podcast, the podcast that sets its theme from Galatians 5.1, For Freedom Christ has set us free, so stand firm, therefore do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. And it is the goal here in the podcast, and so we're 21 episodes in, and it's the goal to try to bring out to light legalism and even look at abuse from the independent fundamental Baptist movement at the same time, counteracting that, those two things, with the truth from the scriptures. And so that's been the goal, and we are coming to, we just finished the Baptist Successionism series, and I am going to transition. I want to transition to legalism after the holiday break. So what I'm going to do is we're going to have an episode here today of a subject that I wanted to cover. But before I talk about that, I'm just going to go ahead and give you a little announcement. This is going to be the last episode for a little bit. I am going to take a break after this episode for the holidays, and for November, December, and so I'm going to bring the podcast back in January, and I got some things lined up and some more interviews lined up to do on that. But today is a, I had no intentions of doing this topic, this subject, but it seemed like after a while, I started to get messages, people reaching out and talking about this, and conversations that I've had. And so it sort of impacted me to think maybe this is a bigger subject that we need to discuss. And the subject that I'm talking about is working on staff at an IFB church, what it's like to work on staff at an IFB church. And I'll be honest with you, I had an experience working on staff for three years at an IFB church and came out of that hurt and not really knowing what I believed about things, thought I did, but now look back at it and say, man, I was just so shallow. But when I left there, I sort of thought, well, that's just my isolated experience. But then I met my pastor that I have here in Tennessee, and we went out to dinner a couple of times, and he began to share with me some of his experiences. And I started to realize, well, this is, you know, two totally different situations from two totally different states, from two totally different camps within the IFB. But yeah, the situations and the treatment were very similar. And I began to think that there had to be something to this. And then I started the podcast, and I have people sort of reaching out. Well, I did the interview on the Preacher Voice podcast back in February. And it's episode 10 of the Preacher Voice podcast. And so I'm not going to go into all the details of my story. I may hit some points as me and James discussed this here. But if you want to listen to the whole story, you can go to that if you have it already and listen to that. But somebody that, an acquaintance that I had reached out and said this, just sort of encouragement about the podcast. And they said they had certainly, they had some bad experiences and ridicule while in the independent fundamental Baptist church, especially as a teenager. They were ridiculed publicly in a church sermon for wearing pants and to a youth activity. And there were several other instances that were similar. Then working in an independent Baptist church after getting married, they were exposed to pastoral hypocrisy and verbal abuse, taking advantage of every ounce of our time outside of our regular jobs for no pay. The pastor and his wife being allowed to speak however they wanted and answer to no one because he is the ultimate authority. Definitely don't hate my heritage. And I hold tradition in an open hand and take the good and learn from the bad. And then wrote some more encouraging things. And that sort of impacted me. And it got me to thinking, you know what? I think there's more out there. There's more people out there that, I know whether it's the Recovering Fundamentalist, whether it's Preacher Boys podcast, whether it's some of these Twitter accounts that are really addressing a lot of the things that happen in the independent fundamental Baptist movement as a whole. And I know that many people that are in the church, that have been in the church, church members have been hurt and have been abused themselves. But I think as far as just sort of zeroing in or focusing in or getting more specific about the dynamic of those that work on staff in an IFP church. And so James was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. We talked about the idolatry of America. James is my best friend from out in North Carolina. And he shared with me some things a couple of weeks ago about his experience. And so we're going to talk about this subject today, about working on staff at an IFP church. And really just sort of the umbrella under this is going to be talking about the idea of spiritual abuse. We've talked about on the podcast about sexual abuse. We talked about domestic abuse, but I don't think I've hit spiritual abuse yet. And so that's sort of the umbrella of the episode. James, it's good to have you back, man. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm doing good. Thanks for having me back on the show. It's good to be back on here. And even though we're not in the same room like we've done in the past, we're virtual through Zoom and we're able to hang out. But yeah, I'm doing great. We're just moved into our brand new house and that's pretty exciting. And we find out next week what gender we're having of our baby. So we've got some exciting things coming up in the future. That's awesome. That's all. Yeah. You're over there in the studio. Well, I'm sitting here. I want to be back in the studio, man. Do it. Do it right, baby. Yeah, that's right. Okay. But you just actually got over COVID, didn't you? I did. Yeah, we were quarantined for the 14 days or 10 days, however long it was supposed to be. Just listened to the health department. And I had lost smell, lost my taste for a couple of days, but it was no more than just a common cold for us. They say the symptoms that we got were the extreme side. As far as losing your smell and your taste, we never had a fever. We were pretty exhausted and drained, but it was no more than a common flu-like symptoms. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, this idea, I want to give a definition. Bostroviccian, this actually, I think, comes from his book on the Child Safeguarding Policy book. And he actually has a definition chapter and he defines spiritual abuse. And so I want to read that definition. And then, James, what I'd like to do is just turn it over to you to sort of tell, talk about your experience in the IFB and working on staff there. So spiritual abuse is administered under the guise of religion. It includes harassment or humiliation and possibly results in psychological trauma or spiritual injuries. Spiritual abuse may include the misuse of religion for selfish, secular, or ideological ends. Spiritual abuse can occur when a perpetrator incorporates religion into the abuse. It is normally afflicted upon others by a pastor or ministry leader. So, James, just go ahead. I'm going to turn it over to you at this time and then we'll go into a discussion. Yeah. Yeah. So I've told a little bit of my story, how I was raised in an independent Baptist church in Salisbury, where we grew up at, went off to Bible college. Really, the Bible college is where we were exposed to more of the legalism side of the IFB movement, not so much as the church we grew up at. And then four years later, we moved to a church in Idaho. And my goal is not to bash anyone there. I love the people there. I've got good relationships with some of the people still there. But I just want to sort of share what our time was like there. And we moved there three weeks after we got married, four weeks after we got married, something like that. We got married May 21st. And we moved there the second week of June. So it was a couple of weeks after our honeymoon. And then the week after we got there, we went straight to summer camp with our teenagers. So I had only known them for about five or six days before I went to summer camp. And our first year there at the ministry was gracious. They were, I mean, it was like any other ministry in my mind. In Bible college, we were going crazy hours, school and ministry. So when we got to Idaho, there was really not a lot of difference there. Me and my wife were married. We had no kids. So we were able to invest a lot of time into the ministry. And that first year was, I was told by one of the staff members, enjoy your first year because the honeymoon ends quick. And I really didn't understand what he meant by that. Um, so I mean, the pastor had us over for dinner often the, they would do some stuff with us often that first year. Uh, and after that first year, all of a sudden the, the meal stopped, the relationship that we had began to invest in stopped, um, as far as the personal side of it, it turned into professional and no longer personal. Um, the expectations were raised. There was more put on my plate. Uh, and I didn't mind. I like staying busy. I like doing stuff. Um, but with those extra responsibilities, typically you would want to, or expect some compensation. And, and there was never any type of, uh, I say never there. We did get a raise. I got a raise two years, um, two twice. Um, I went full-time from part-time and then two of the years I got raises. Um, but other than that, there was no, started teaching in the, in the school that they had never got paid for that. Um, started coaching, never got paid for that. Became the athletic director, never got paid for that. So all of a sudden these different titles were added and there was no extra compensation. And at the time I didn't know any difference. Go ahead. So basically what you're saying is that you were on staff at the church as what was your title at the church? I wasn't even considered a pastor. Um, the, because the only pastor that the church could have was the senior pastor. And so they gave me the title of the youth leader. Okay. So you were the youth leader. So the church paid you as the youth leader. And then you taught, uh, let's, let's just say the second year, how many classes were you teaching at the school? Second year I taught, uh, may have been two or three classes. It wasn't a lot at first. Okay. And then by the time you left, how many classes were you teaching? I was teaching six to seven classes. And based on your compensation from the school, was that basically volunteer? Pretty much. Yeah. I volunteered teaching the school 40 hours a week, plus all my grading, plus staff meetings and volunteer coaching. They, they, well, they did tell me and my wife that since we both coached, cause my wife coached volleyball. Um, there were pictures of my kids sleeping underneath the volleyball cart because my wife is coaching. I was coaching football. Uh, so there was that neglect there, but you know, we enjoyed what we did. Uh, they told me that since we coached, they couldn't pay us, but they would give us free lunch at the, at the, um, cafeteria every day. So I think that, that was our compensation. Okay. So, but how, how many, okay. You and your wife together, you and your wife together, how many hours after school ended, you would you say was put in for coaching? Our typical work day, I would get to the church between six 30 to seven 30, depending on what time my wife needed to get there, um, in the morning. And most of the times we didn't get home until about nine or 10 that night. Okay. So if school ended three o'clock, you basically went into coaching. Yeah. Coaching or games or whatever else was, was there. We, we had football and basketball and I helped with both. So you're talking about another, let's say anywhere, let's say four o'clock. Let's just, let's just be generous. We'll give it four o'clock to about eight or nine o'clock. Five, five to six more hours. All right. So five hours per person. So that's 10 hours times four. Cause you guys didn't do games on Wednesdays. I'm assuming. Yeah. There was no, no schedule on Wednesday, but we went straight into church. So you're talking about, you're talking about 20 hours, 20 extra hours. And your compensation was for lunch. Yeah. Well, you know, we had free lunch. Yeah. So a little food, a little food. Go on. Sorry. I did. I just want to clarify those things. So after we had Brody, of course, life with the child. Now there's needs with the child. There's needs at the church, you know, mowing and taking care of the fields and taking care of the facilities and all the things that entailed with, with what I was doing. Um, we began after Brody starting to, I began seeing the, the fatigue in myself, not necessarily where it was really noticeable, but I began seeing the drowsiness. I began seeing the, the work just being more overwhelming. And I never really shared that with anyone. I just continued to press on as much as I could, uh, as hard as I could, as fast as I could building relationships because in my mind, this is what ministry is. It's burning out for Jesus. It's doing everything you possibly can in the ministry to do whatever can be done. Um, and so in the moment there was no, Hey, I'm doing too much. Hey, I, you know, no one ever said, uh, Hey, you need to slow down. No one ever said, take a vacation. Um, I, in the four years we were there, we took one vacation. One, one week vacation, uh, to my knowledge. Um, I took a small vacation. Um, the last year we were there, my brother had given birth to his first child. And so myself only flew out to North Carolina to be there for his birth. But as far as a family vacation in the summer, to my knowledge, there was only one vacation that we took in four years as a family vacation. So, you know, there was just that little bit of, um, you know, when I would say vacation, well, you know, we really got a lot of things going on, uh, just that, you know, are you really given 110, 15,000% to the church, you know, mentality? Um, so fast forward a little bit, we're there for four years. Um, some things happened at the church with some sin with another pastor, one of our youth leaders. Um, and so I began praying, you know, God, is this where you want me? And so God began to move my heart and we began to, um, pray about for about six months. We prayed and fasted about, um, should we even move on? And so we got to the point where we felt that God was telling us that it's time for us to, to part ways with the ministry. And so we met with, I met with the pastor and told him our feelings, told him our thoughts. Um, and he, but go ahead. Just, just for clarification, because I, I know you, I know this, but for the audience, um, you started to see sort of how this was taking its toll on you when you said you guys were praying for about six months in that leading up to that six month barrier where you start praying, you started praying because you started seeing problems. You started being, you know, you became aware of, of the, the issues even taking its toll on your family. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is the question I think would be helpful for, for anybody that's listening that doesn't understand the on staff dynamic. Why was it difficult for you not to just pull that trigger? Well, the thought of we're the only church doing it right. If you go somewhere else, they're not going to be doing it right there. You know, you're going to be out of God's will. This is where God brought you, you know, just those thoughts. Um, and it was January. I remember the night specifically, it was January when I rolled over in bed right before we went to bed. And I looked at my wife and I said, Allie, I said, I'm just, I said, I don't know why I'm thinking this. Cause I mean, we had talked, but we had bought a house. We had talked about living there for the rest of our life. Like we love the area. We love the people. And I said, I don't know why I'm saying this, but I think God is, is wanting us to pray about maybe leaving this ministry. And well, you said something there that I think that that was what I was trying to get out of you. And that, because we talked about this is why, uh, it was because you said you love the people. Yeah. And those relationships that you had built four years in ministry and working with people, that's for anybody listening that that's maybe served on that has not served on staff. A lot of times you endure a lot of abuse and burnout because you genuinely love the people you're, you're ministering to. Yeah. Yeah. So that night in January, when I rolled over and told Allie that I think it's time for us to pray about moving to another ministry, she looked at me and her words were, I've been praying for about a year for that. I just didn't want to say anything to you because I wanted God to work through you and not me trying to manipulate you. How did that make me? What did you think? My heart broke because I'm thinking, why didn't you tell me this? Why, why didn't you feel comfortable talking to your own husband about it? And so I began praying and I told her, I said, over the next couple of months, I just want you to pick a time and fast for a couple of days, pray about it. I'm going to do the same thing and we'll get back and we'll talk about it in a couple of months. Let's just not talk about it. Let's just continue on and just see where it's at. I didn't want to make any knee jerk reaction decision. I didn't want it to be. I had a similar experience with mine. I was talking on the phone with one of my other best friends and he was sitting there telling me it was a Saturday and I'd already been back from the church and he was sitting there. We had already had our first child. She was a baby, playing in the floor with my wife. And he's sitting there talking to me and he's like, man, you're just, you're doing too much. You're, you're, he said, something's got to change. You need to change. And he was just really just being a good friend and confronting me. And, you know, I always tried to be on my high horse and have pride about the fact that, you know, I'm not neglecting my family. I put my family first because I think about that. Yeah. But denying and lying to myself that I actually wasn't. And I was sitting there talking to him on the phone and I said, I was trying to prove him wrong. So I took my phone, took the phone away from my hair. I said, Mary, she said, what? I said, do you think I spend too much time at the church? I mean, look, she doesn't think so. And she looks at me and she goes without skipping a beat. She says, I do wish there was one morning where you could wake up and didn't have to leave. And I just said, I put the phone back to my hair. I said, I got to go. Because it's like I had that same feeling that you had when your wife turned over and looked at you and said that. It was like, you know, it was sort of that realization that this one area where you just had such a big thing that you didn't want to fail in. You almost realized that you were failing. Yeah. And so, yeah, I agree 100% with it. And because so many times we deceive ourselves and we think too highly of who we are. So we get to the point, I go to the pastor, I tell him, hey, we're going to be leaving. We feel it's time to move on. And he said, well, he said, just pray about it. And so I said, well, we have been like, we've been praying about this for six months because this was in June. And he said, well, he said, you've got camp coming up and you've got a mission strip coming up. And he said, why don't we just, we talk about it after your mission strip. And so I said, okay. I said, but I'm telling you, I said, we're, I think our time is done here. We're going to, we're going to move on. And so mission strip came and went and I sat down with him and I said, I said, we, we put our house on the market. I said, we've already got a couple offers. I said, church members are looking at our house and asking, why are we moving? What do I tell them? And so we, you know, he has, well, you know, whatever. And, and so I told him, I said, this will be our last day. I think it was August 14th. I said, we'll be moving out and we'll be moving on. And his question to me was this. And I shared this with a teenager just yesterday as we were talking. And his question was this, where are you going? And I looked at him and I said, well, we're going to be moving back to North Carolina where my family's at. He said, what church are you going to? I said, we're not going to a church. I said, we don't have a church offering us anything. I said, we just know that our time here is done and we know that God's going to provide for us. He said, so you're not going to, I said, no, we're not. So it's just, I guess his thought was the only reason why we would leave is because someone else offered us a job. You had something better in, in, in, you know, that you were going to. Yeah. It was just to, and I told him, I said, there's nowhere else we're going. Like we're just, it's time for us to be done. And I don't want to stay anywhere longer than what God wants us to. I don't want to do a disrespect to you. And I don't want to do a disrespect to my family and be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And so I feel it's time for us to leave. So we're going to move on. And so that was end of July. So we had a couple of weeks left. And so the next Sunday he gets up and he announced that the next Sunday would be my last Sunday. And I was in the sound booth with one of the sound guys and I had two or three deacons wives stand up and start crying. And I leaned over to one of the deacons that was with me. And I said, Hey man, I said, why is your wife crying right now? Have you not told her? And he said, well, we were in a deacons meeting while you weren't here. And the pastor told us that you were thinking about leaving, but you're not going to go anywhere. And all of a sudden, like he's just sort of putting his will forward on us. And so I said, well, we're leaving. Like, this is what God wants us to do. So we left. Wasn't a great leaving moment there. There wasn't any type of, you know, farewell party. Not that we expected anything. And we got back in North Carolina. There was a moment where there was some things I needed to take care of in Idaho, some financial stuff just to tie up some loose ends. And my wife got a little upset and she wrote an email to the pastor and went and locked herself in a room and sent him an email. And I asked her, I said, what are you doing? She wouldn't come out. Finally, she came out and said, I just sent our pastor an email. You can read it now. I didn't want you to read it because I knew you would talk me out of it. So it was like a seven page email. And in traditional format of this church, he sat down with staff members and read this email to all of them. And basically sort of mocked it and tried to make himself feel better. What is right? What is not right? Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. And so in doing that, I know this because you had an acquaintance. I had an acquaintance there who called me and said, he asked me what I thought of the letter and I told him I agreed with the majority of it. And ultimately about a week later, he was fired because he stood up against the pastor. It was pretty much the way the story went. And so ultimately the whole experience, looking back now on it, I've been away from that ministry for five years now. Looking back on it, it was some of the, I guess the best way would say was my soul was in a spiritual drought. In those four years. I was so overworked and so underfed because I was being poured out so much. There was no one pouring into me. Wow. And so looking at that now and the ministry I'm at now and what God has brought me from there to here. And that's five years of growing. God has allowed me to be at a place where the people respect the office of the pastor. The people respect the position that God has put us in. And there's never a moment where I've said, hey guys, I need to take a week off just to spend time with my family. And every time the deacons have said, go enjoy yourself. And so it's a blessing where I'm at now. I just wish that nine years ago when we got there, we would have realized that this is what ministry could be like serving where God wants you serving in a place that's gracious, serving in a place that takes care of your family. When the, the moment, the last interview that I had at this church, when they slid the note, my current church, when they slid my pay across the table, my mouth about dropped because it was double what I was making in Idaho. And I was going to be doing a fraction of the amount of, of time invested as far as extracurricular stuff. When I got here, it was so much of a, I was so busy at my last ministry doing things. And I thought, okay, I've got to do those things here. And my pastor looked at me and he said, James, he said, you've got to slow down. He said, we're paying you to minister to the people and to study God's word. That's the job of a pastor. What did that do to your spirit and your heart? Just to hear that from your pastor. It was almost like, who are you? Why are you saying this? This is so contradictory to everything I've ever been taught in Bible college in my first ministry. ministry. And so I had to take a moment to step back. And for the first time in ministry, I began actually feeding my soul. I had time to read books. I had time to pour into myself. I had time to refresh my own soul so that I could pour into other people. And I think that was the biggest disconnect in my first ministry was there was nothing that I didn't have time to pour into my soul. I didn't have time to refresh myself. So how was I expected to pour into other people? How was I expected to refresh them when myself was running on empty on fumes? And, you know, you know, preparing a message the night before because I've been teaching all week. And so on Saturday, the only day I have off, I'm spending time trying to figure out what God wants me to preach. And then on Wednesday, I've taught all week long. And so there's no sports. So there's three hours before I'm figuring out what I want to teach on that night. And all of a sudden, it's just now when that's time for me to preach, I've got literally, I try to spend 15 to 20 hours in study and prayer of what God wants me to teach and preach on. And I think that's a huge difference in my life. Knowing and understanding that. That's, that's, yeah, I totally, I totally get it. I identify with it. And, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm thrilled to hear where you're at now. I want to transition now. I want to read one statement. There was an article that I wanted to read before we transition to this next part. Um, it talks about spiritual fatigue and insecurity. And when I read this statement, and as I was preparing for this a little bit, it says that a controlling climate creates burdened people. And I began just to think back of the burden of me, the burden of the people. Um, every deacon's meeting was about finances and about whatever it was. Uh, it says this where Jesus is King, there is peace, rest, and hope. But where the pastor is King, people are weighted down. Victims are afraid. The ministry begins to decline in opportunities. There's disagreements in church leadership. And even when there are evident problems, this exhaustive posture of performance and insecurity can bleed into the victim's work, health, and relationship. And I began to just compare my first ministry where the pastor was King. And if you did anything against him or his family, it was like you were sinning and you were on the outcast. And now in the ministry where we elevate Jesus, there's that peace. There's that rest. There's that hope that we can trust in the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, instead of putting our trust and hope in man, as you end every episode, um, keeping Jesus. To God, not the pastor, be the glory. To God, not the pastor, be the glory. And so how many oftentimes do we glorify the pastor? And rightfully so as the pastor should be lifted up at times and honored at times, but in every situation, it's not, let me call the pastor before I buy this house. Pastor, will you come pray over this house before I buy it? Will you come? Cause I've heard stories of men that would do that and families that would call their pastor and have him come bless their decision. I don't know where that says that in scripture. No. And, uh, uh, this is, I did an actual, uh, taught in our church on spiritual abuse. And, and one of the research articles that I came across was an article by a lady named Mary DeMuth. And she wrote an article about 10 traits of spiritually abusive ministries. And that's sort of what I want to do is, is try our best to try to get through these 10 things. And James, as we go through these things, you might have a little, uh, word to add, or maybe an anecdote that sort of matches what's going on here. Uh, but I'd like to go through this and sort of see, and let me say this, we are talking both of our contexts come from, uh, a background in the independent fundamental Baptist movement. That's sort of the context of the podcast. But let me just say this, Mary DeMuth is not writing this about the independent fundamental Baptist. She's just writing this about spiritually abusive ministries. And so I want to preface this by saying it does not have to be an IFB church to be characterized this way. In fact, I think a couple of mega church ministries have come out recently, which has caused a lot of stir with, with these types of things, whether it's Harvest Bible Chapel, uh, with James McDonald and Elgin, Illinois. And, uh, you know, a lot of the things that came out of there match up to a T with what we're going to talk about. Um, even from what things I've heard about Bill Hybels and Willow Creek, uh, a lot of that stuff sort of matches up a lot with, with these types of things. So, um, this is definitely something that can happen in the church, but James and I tend to, we've experienced it in the IFB church. And since I've been doing this sort of thing publicly, I've seen more and more and more testimonials and situations in different ministries that, uh, go along this line. So let me get into this. Number one, the traits of this. John, I think that, I think that if we would have been in the Catholic church or if we would have been raised in the Mormon church and we would have seen this, we would be talking about those things. But because our background is in the IFB, we're going to only talk to the things that we can put knowledge to. Well, yeah. I mean, I was thinking about this the other day. Okay. Uh, I like to listen to, I like that show that came on A&E, Leah Remini and the Scientology and the aftermath. Okay. I thought it was, you know, what she was doing was great. I enjoyed the show. I liked how she was exposing this cult. I'm not going to go do a show on Scientology. Yeah. I'm going to let Leah Remini do a show on Scientology. You know why? Because Leah Remini knows Scientology. Yeah. So, and I, I think that we people, I hope our audience understands we're not picking up. We're not trying to bash. We're not trying to tear down. We're just trying to expose some of what we have went through and maybe it resonates with other people. Yeah. I think that's the, the thing though. It is resonating with other people. And I think that's where the cord has been struck. Yeah. So the 10 traits of spiritually abusive ministries, number one, they have a distorted view of respect. Abusive leaders demand respect without having earned it by good or honest living. What do you think about that? Yeah. You know, in my first ministry, I would say that that doesn't fall into place. I think that my pastor was an honest man. I think he earned a good, honest living. Um, he was not afraid to change a light bulb in the church. He was not afraid to climb a ladder. Um, he was not afraid to show up on a work day and roll his sleeves up and get dirty. Um, and so to where I've seen in other churches where the pastor that would be below him to pull weeds or to mow or to pull weed eater out. Um, so in my personal situation, we didn't really have, I didn't see that as a distorted view of respect, um, for myself. Yeah. But I do believe that it is definitely situations in other, it's describes other people in different situations. Well, I think this comes into play with, uh, the whole pastor is King mentality. When you start talking about the pastors, the Lord's anointed, he's God's anointed and you start using very, very bad biblical interpretation or exegesis by trying to acquaint him with the story of King Saul and David in the book of Samuel and how Sam, David wouldn't raise his hand. Yeah. Samuel, David wouldn't raise his hand against the Lord's anointed and that kind of stuff. Um, you get into this type of thing because he's, he's the pastor. It doesn't matter what he says or what he does. You got to respect him. And, uh, so number two, number two, they demand allegiance as proof of the followers allegiance to Christ. Uh, just an explanation about that. If a follower deviates from the leader's way, they are deviating from Jesus. Have you seen that? Yeah. So I've actually spoke with one of the most recent people that I served with at the ministry there, um, at my first ministry. And this person said that they went to another church, um, because they were just struggling. And so they went to another church for just a one-off service. And when they came back, the pastor basically said, what are you doing? Why did you go there? And basically strip this person of teaching and helping out with the teenagers anymore in the church because they went and visited another church because they just needed to get away for a moment. It was in the same community in the same town, but their allegiance was now looking at, oh, maybe they're looking at going somewhere else. Maybe they're, uh, following something else. And so that allegiance wasn't there anymore and it deviated from the will of God. Well, that comes back to what you were saying earlier about how the attitude of we're the only one doing it right. We're the only one having the right way. So therefore, where do we get that right way? Well, your first answer is probably going to say the Bible, but how do we know that what the Bible says? Well, the pastor's teaching us the Bible. And so if that right way tends to become the pastor's way. And so therefore, if we deviate from what the pastor's saying, then in effect, we're not going the right way. We're not following Jesus. We're not following God. I see this so many times, especially when we were in Bible college, whenever you see like, whether it's church planners or missionaries, they come through and they say, we need, we need guys going to this area and going to this area to start, uh, churches. And this area, whether it's the Northeast or whether it's the South or it's, uh, the Southwest or whether it's in, uh, California, that there's no Bible believing church in this area. And then you go there and you find church after church after church. What they meant was there's no independent fundamental King James, only premillennial church in that area, but there's churches already there preaching the gospel. Prime example of that church. We grew up in. Yeah. When our new pastor came, there was a man that came in and spoke a revival. And he said this statement, I'm the only Baptist church in hidden night, North Carolina. Okay. All of a sudden we're not talking about, we're not talking about Asia. We're talking about North Carolina, hidden night, North Carolina. I come to hidden night, North Carolina. And I remember him saying that. And I see his church, but yet I'm serving at a Baptist church. And I began to do the math and I believe there's one, two, three, four, five, maybe six other Baptist churches in hidden night, North Carolina, but he is the only independent fundamental Baptist church in the night, North Carolina. Five of the other six are, um, Southern Baptist. And one of them is just an independent church. They're an independent Baptist, not a fundamental Baptist. Um, and so in his mind, he's the only church in hidden night. Yep. So, and that's, that was his words. Well, this sort of goes along with the third one too. We sort of hit that. They use exclusive language quotes like we're the only ministry really following Jesus. Quote, we have all the right theology, uh, believe their way of doing things, thinking theologically or handling ministry and church is the only correct way. Everyone else is wrong, misguided or stupidly naive. And that's what we, we basically talked about. So let's go to number four. They create a culture of fear and shame. Often there is no grace for someone who fails to live up to the church's or ministry's expectation. And if someone steps outside of the often unspoken rules, leaders shame them into compliance. They often quote scriptures about not, not touching God's anointed or bringing accusations against an elder. Yet they often confront sin in others, particularly one who brings up legitimate biblical issues. And I put this in bold, or they have their circle of influence to take on this task of silencing critics. Mm-hmm. I remember one staff, it was, uh, I think we did four all staff meeting gatherings a year. They're mandatory. I was on a Saturday morning. Um, and I remember specifically, that was one, it was maybe my second year in. And we had just done an icebreaker game where we're team building and, um, about to come back and settle down. And we sat there and me and a friend of mine, we were talking, uh, cause the game was over and we were transitioning. And the pastor had said something and I was finishing my statement at the same time. And when I was finishing that statement, he called me, he said, James, I said, be quiet. In front of everybody, everybody got quiet. Everyone else was talking, but yet he called just me out because he had to impose his authority, his will as the pastor on me to call me out. It wasn't like I was trying to be disrespectful, but it was just, we were talking, we were finishing the conversation. Everyone else in the room was doing the same thing, but yet he had to call me out because at the time I'm like, okay. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I've, I've seen the same thing. I've, I've definitely seen the same thing. In fact, the, the ministry that I worked at, I never heard ever the pastor say anything about, you know, touch not the Lord's anointed or you're supposed to do, you know, be loyal to me or anything like that. However, it was very pushed by the circle that was around him. And anybody that would question maybe the direction he's going or disagree with the question, the direction he's going would be considered a divisive person and mark them as a divisive person. Come on. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, number five, uh, often have a charismatic leader at the helm who starts off well, but slips into arrogance, protectionism, and pride. Where a leader might start off being personable and interested in other issues, they eventually withdraw to a small group of yes people and isolates from the needs of others. These ministries and churches harbor a cult of personality, meaning if the central figure of the ministry or church left, the entity would collapse as it was entirely dependent on one person to hold the place together. I don't know if you've seen this in, you know, either personally or broadly in your experience, but I, this, this sort of comes across to me as more along the lines of, of the, the mega church type of thing. Like, uh, whether it's IFB or not, you think about the IFB mega churches, whether it's, it's, uh, uh, uh, Hiles, Scop, um, uh, Sexton, Clarence Sexton, um, uh, Treber, Paul Chappell. Uh, in fact, Andrew Garcia just did an interview on the Preacher Voice podcast and he really shed some light on what, you know, sort of the same along the same lines of what we're talking about, what it was like working on staff there for Paul Chappell. And, uh, so this type of idea of the charismatic leader who really just sort of like the, almost becomes a cult of personality. I've seen that more along the lines in sort of the mega church dynamic. Yeah, I would agree with that. It's, I would not say that my first pastor was a charismatic leader by any means. Um, he did have that circle of small group of people that were close and close knit. Um, and so, but I, I wouldn't say that he would fall in this category, but I do think that, yeah, it would be that mega church, especially those church plants that have grown. Uh, the Paul Chappell, very charismatic Eric Pacey, where we came from. Um, you know, I'm actually surprised at the first Baptist church of Hammond as they've continued to be a quote unquote big church. Um, after houses died, Scott has went to jail. Um, I'm surprised they're actually still functioning as a. A mega church. Premier mega church. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. And I, I think this, this really categorizes many churches outside of the IFB. I think the whole mega church culture that we have in evangelicalism today, uh, I'm going to say something very unpopular here. Hmm. And I know that the, the criticism is going to be, well, yeah, of course you'd say that you have a small church, but I don't think the mega church culture is a healthy one. And I don't think it's, it's been good for the overall church of Jesus Christ. Um, you know, you see things like the, the, Oh, give an example. Let's give an example outside of the IFB. What happened with, uh, was it Mars Hill church? And yeah. Driscoll. Yeah. Driscoll built a cult of personality, very toxic staff environment, sort of like what we're talking about here. I mean, and then what happened to the churches? What happened to it? Like after he left, it dissolved. Yeah. Well, the ministry dissolved, but actually, ironically, if you look at those Mars Hill churches that were one-off church plants, um, they all became autonomous churches and they were started to be led by the pastor that was there. And some of them closed the doors. And what you're saying is, is, is correct. Some of them did close down completely, but then some of the more healthier ones have, have thrived. They have. And I think that's a bigger picture of this parachurch ministry where one church is sending all these other small satellite campuses. Maybe isn't the healthiest because you're still dependent on one man. You're still dependent on Mark Driscoll as your leader, just to use that as an example. And then all these other supporting churches where there's a pastor, but you know, he's really not our pastor. We've got Mark Driscoll. But when that Mark Driscoll steps away, those other churches, that pastor starts pouring in those people. They start trusting in the leadership of that individual local church and they've started to thrive and grow. But it all stems back to that one charismatic leader trying to keep his, his influence brand brand and push it among all these other churches. Yep. Okay. Number six, they cultivate a dependence on one leader or leaders for spiritual information. Personal discipleship isn't encouraged. Often the Bible gets pushed away to the fringes unless the main leader is teaching it. Hmm. We had a discipleship curriculum that we did at our church. And it was encouraged by a lot of different people to do it. I took several teenagers through our discipleship because I was over the teenagers. So I wouldn't say this was ultimately in our ministry, but I have seen this definitely in other ministries. But let me challenge you on this, this thing just a little bit. I was, I don't know if I was listening to, I don't know if I heard this. I was on the RFP or Preacher Boys. I don't know whose testimony this was, but I was listening to a podcast the other day and somebody brought this point out and I thought it was fantastic. It said, this is a fundamental, a fundamental misunderstanding of discipleship. And this is why. Discipleship is a process. It's a lifelong process. It is a process of you following Christ. What have we done? We've relegated discipleship in the 13 weeks. And after you've gone through your 13-week program, there you are, your disciple. And it almost comes across like, okay, I'm there. I'm the faithful Christian now. And I don't need to really learn anymore. And the other thing about this point is that too, is like, is the pastor controlling the flow of information? And some may argue, say, yeah, well, he's the spiritual leader. He's supposed to. I mean, but are you really, I try to encourage our people not just to read, but read differing opinions. Because that helps you decipher between the right and wrong. I think sometimes, I think this problem finds itself in men and pastors that are scared to death that the Holy Spirit can't protect their people. Yeah. I want to go back just for a second, John, because I'm a little confused. So the disciples were discipled for longer than 13 weeks. Jesus' disciples. Three years? I thought it was just 13 weeks that Jesus spent with them and said, go turn the world upside down. You're being sarcastic. Oh, yeah, I have been sarcastic, John. Well, I mean, you think about Paul. The same person I was listening to brought this out about Paul. I mean, Paul was training for almost 14 years before he actually started going into ministry. Yeah. But yet, you got that 13-week discipleship. All right, number seven. They demand blind servitude of their followers but live prestigious and privileged lives. They live aloof from their followers and justify their material extravagance as God's favor and approval on their ministry. Unlike Jesus' instructions to take the last seat, they often take the first seat at events and court others to grant them privileges. They typically chase after wealth at any cost and often at the expense of the very people they shepherd. I don't know if this is necessarily something that's guilty. Let me put it this way. Do I think there's some IFB pastors out there that would secretly try to have this type of things? Yeah, but I don't think this would be something that would be characteristic of IFB pastors at all. Even the ones that we would consider bad ones, I don't think this is the case. Yeah, I don't either. I agree with that. But, I mean, you look at megachurch pastors. Again, I think that this is where the megachurch dynamic is problematic. Number eight, they buffer themselves from criticism by placing people around themselves whose only allegiance is to a leader. We sort of covered a little bit about that. Number nine, they hold to an outward performance but reject authentic spirituality. This places burdens on followers to act a certain way. Dress an acceptable way and have an acceptable lifestyle, but they often demonstrate licentiousness, greed, and uncontrolled addictions behind closed doors. The point of this, the behind this point is sort of the idea of when all of everything comes out, a lot of times these leaders demand this type of lifestyle out of their followers. But when it all comes out, they were not like that at all. Yeah, I agree with that. And, again, I think that as pastors, you have to be very careful what you're putting on your people. Your people are responsible to Christ. They're guided by the Holy Spirit. They have the Word of God. Your authority as a pastor ends with the Bible. You're not there to control them. You're not there to, you know, keep track of what, like James said, they don't. Why are they calling you to get your blessing on whether they should buy a house in this neighborhood or that neighborhood? That's ridiculous. Yeah. All right, number 10. They use exclusivity for allegiance. Followers close to the leader or leaders feel like lucky insiders. Everyone else is on the outside, though they often long to be in the inner circle. If someone on the inner circle speaks up about abuses, lapses in character, illegal acts, or strong-arming, that insider immediately moves to an outsider. Fear of losing their special status often impedes insiders from speaking up. James, do you have anything to say about that? Yeah, I think that we saw that even with my friend when the pastor brought him in and read that letter and said, hey, what do you think of this? Meaning he was in the inner circle. Yeah, I was there when one of the other staff members left and wrote a letter to the pastor, and he brought us in and did the same thing. So I knew it was going to happen because it had happened before. There was a track record of it. And him being an honest man, when you ask him a question, he's going to give you the answer. And so he responded and said, yeah, I agree. And all of a sudden, it went from inner circle to the end of that week, he was fired. He was gone. And he had left that ministry because he didn't agree. He didn't give that unadulterated allegiance that he was expecting. And so, boom, you're done. You're dead to me. As the words of the great Mr. Wonderful and Shark Tank, you're dead to me. Okay. So whenever I did that episode with the Preacher Voice podcast, a former member of the church that I was at reached out to me. And it was somebody that I had a friend. I had spent time with and poured time with. And he actually was involved in the church. And he served in the church. And towards the last year I was there, he was the sound guy. And they moved him. They basically, I mean, it was so much like a jerk. They, in the jerkiest way that you could think of, they basically pushed him out to where he was like, I'm done. I'm leaving. And I was so angry about that. But I was like, I was so guilty of this right here. I was afraid to say something about it. And I was like, well, I guess, you know, I got to, you know, toe the line with the pastor. But here's the only thing he was guilty of, thinking for himself. This guy was basically an individual. And what they couldn't stand about him is that he did not agree or do basically how the soundboard was supposed to sound with them. And for that reason, instead of coming to him, sitting down like men and saying, listen, we're just not connecting here. Maybe we should. No, they found the jerkiest ways possible to try to just push him out. And he left. And so then they made it clear that they weren't coming back. He tells me this story. He says, the pastor's wife shows up on his porch to talk to his wife. Well, he tells her his wife is not there. She's at school or she's at work. I don't remember which one. So she sits there on the front porch and tries to talk to him. And she says these words, quote, We realized we let you in on the inner circle too early. When he told that to me, I said, what the heck is the stinking inner circle? What is that? I mean, how do you have the audacity to say something like that to somebody? It was so ridiculous. Last thing here. Abusive leaders are condescending, critical, and micromanaging. They may use scriptures to veil their sinful behavior or validate their personal experiences. Real quick. I want to, I'm just, we're not really going to comment on this, but I want to hit these just for help of those. What are the effects of spiritual abuse? You talked about this at the very beginning. First of all, spiritual fatigue and insecurity. So James talked about that, and you actually read the quote. So spiritual fatigue and insecurity. The second thing that this causes is the dread of God. A lot of times people have wrong ideas about God. They feel like that he's hard to please and harsh. And then the third thing is scriptural skittishness. Victims of spiritual abuse may experience anxiety when reading the Bible. They may have been accused of scripture rather than lovingly and patiently instructed. There's many passages in the Bible where they're probably thinking to themselves, you know, they totally misunderstand and have seen that used to beat people over the head. So we need to wrap this up. I want to leave on something for help with people. So how to help those who have been spiritually abused. Number one, build trust. Build trust. We have to build trust with those. And this is a process, if you've been through this, that is going to take time. You have to, you know, work through, pray, and seek God on using that. Because a lot of people that have been abused in churches by pastors, they put up a wall. Because if there's anybody you're supposed to be able to, like, and I don't know if you've said this today, James, but I think you said it to me when we talked about this before, that it sort of went from, yeah, I worked on staff, but I felt like I had a pastor too. The switch was I didn't have a pastor. You know, and staff members need a pastor. Yeah. And that's that being spiritually fed yourself and your starvation of that spiritual necessity that you are neglected sometimes by being on staff and in this abusive type relationship. And that's why when I came back to North Carolina, I spent two years trying to rediscover and trying to really read in and figure out what I believed, why I believed it, because there was so much that was poured into me that was not truth, I guess. And I wanted to rediscover it for myself and try to figure it out. So I guess that's why I'm at the point where I'm at. Yeah. And that's the second thing. This is where you need to take time. Legitimize what has happened to you. And you may need to lament. You may need to lament the fact that you've lost some things. Things are different now. Things are going to be changing in your life as you're growing through this. Understand for those that maybe want to help others, there's felt unsafety in some scriptures. Many people that's gone through this, opening your Bible is equivalent to brandishing a dagger. You know, people have been, the Bible has become a weapon. We need to get to a point of a heart-centric relationship with scripture. A heart-centric relationship with scripture. Knowing that the scriptures are something that affect your heart first, and then that affects your outward. But so many times, the scriptures are used to say, this is where you're behaving wrong. This is this, and this is this. And it's a rule police. And we need to understand that the scriptures are intended to change the inside, so then that affects the outside. Explain the Father. Show Christ. We need to go to the—this is one of the things that's been helpful as I've preached through the Gospel of John. You need to—I encourage anybody that's gone through this, do a study in the Gospel of John, because you will be reacquainted with God the Father and Jesus Christ in that. And then understand God's vision of power. Jesus came to explain the Father to us, and he used his power to serve and love. His authority healed the tormented. It didn't further the torment. Jesus is not— That's huge. Yeah, it is, because so many pastors use their authority and use their power to keep people in some kind of fear and subjection. And that is not Christ. I think—I'm going to do an episode at some point in the future on pastoral authority, or like James gave me the term pastoral superiority. Come on. But one of the problems, I think, is because that comes with that view, is that they miss what Jesus taught in John 13. And what Jesus taught and gave to the disciples in John 13 was the example of the leadership they were supposed to then carry on, and the example that a shepherd or pastor is supposed to have in a church. And what is that example? Lowering yourself in the form of a slave to wash the feet and serve your people. That's powerful. That's true. Not get up there. I'll be honest. We just went through pastor appreciation here. You know, October's Pastor Appreciation Month. And to be honest with you, as someone who does this and is also a pastor, I cringe at pastor appreciation. I'm just being transparent today. I do. I don't like it. I don't like—I don't want the attention. I almost think that it's—maybe I'm—I don't like it. You know what? Don't appreciate me. I don't like this honor thing. I almost feel like, you know, I don't know. I just—it's just me being honest. But I think these are some things. I hope that this has helped you just identifying with some of these things and pointing them out, but also some of the things that James has said today and that I've mentioned as far by way of help. There is help in the Scriptures. And if you've been through a situation like that, then understand that the Scriptures, the Bible, was not accurately represented to you. And I want to encourage you to either find a biblical counselor or find a good pastor, a good pastor, someone who can demonstrate the Scriptures to you biblically. James, do you have anything final to say? No, I just agree with that. I think that studying Scripture, it's what got me to the point where I'm at and being to the point where we can fully digest what God has for us. And to understand there's hope, maybe you're in a situation where you financially, you know—because that's a big thing. I think that even though most IFP churches don't pay well, it's still a paycheck. And you think, well, if I leave, how am I going to get financial compensation? How am I going to make money? And that was a struggle for me as far as with our family, you know. We had only been in one ministry. We didn't have a ministry we were going to. And the fear of not knowing how God was going to provide for my family. I just had my second kid when we left. Jade was a couple of weeks old. And so that was a huge fear in my life of, do I leave right now, even though I'm about to have another baby? But ultimately, I had to understand that God is sovereign. He's going to take care of me. And the social status of having a job and having those things, you have to put that trust in God and letting Him take care of that. And almost humble yourself and to say, God, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm just going to trust you. And maybe that's a step that God is helping you in. Because when we go through those valleys, we're understanding of what God has designed for us. And so maybe that's going to help someone today. I don't know. But, yeah, it's definitely a process. It's definitely something that is tough. But God is there in those tough times to give us comfort. Yep. Thank you so much, James, for being on today and some of the insights that you had. And even sharing your story. I know there's always sort of like trepidation a little bit with talking about things like that. And also it sort of brings up memories and those things. But I appreciate your willingness to do that. And I know your heart and your desire is the reason you do it. It's because you have a hope that maybe just somebody hearing your story will help somebody. And, you know, we want to point people to the Bible. We want to point people to the scripture because even though we've seen it misused, we believe that when accurately handled, it is God's gift to us as the hope for our lives, the plan for our lives, and the truth and way that we have to live our lives. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you guys for listening. And I want to thank everybody that's listened to the podcast. We're about to hit 5,000 downloads. And I am so thankful and undeserving of that. 21 episodes in. And like I said at the beginning, I'm going to be taking a break with the holidays. I got two trips that I'm making in November. Of course, I know many of you are probably the same way. You got the holiday season is a busy time. You got a lot of family get-togethers and those types of things. And so we're going to do that and take some time. I've got a very busy schedule, of course, with the church here. But also I'm working on the final stages of my certification for biblical counseling, which means that I've got to do a lot of biblical counseling in the next time. So I've got to take some time to do that. And so my intention is to be back in January. And so coming your way in January, and I'm looking forward to some things we're going to talk about in January. I'm going to plan on doing an episode on biblical interpretation and transition that into how legalism is not just a wrong interpretation. And so we're going to talk about different areas of legalism. We're going to talk about music. We're going to talk about dress. We're going to talk about King James only-ism. So a lot of things coming your way in 2021. And hopefully COVID is not one of them. Okay. So I appreciate it. All the love that I've gotten on the podcast. And so please like it, share it. Leave a rating review on Apple Podcasts. And until next time, guys, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. 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