As I read through Jim’s last post (Mick Jagger and CJ Mahaney on Leadership), many thoughts were tumbling around in my mind.
As I was sitting here sorting through my reactions and responses to this post, I realized something… I have talked about the authoritarian leadership SGM practices, I’ve referred to it many times, but I’ve never spelled out what I mean by that term.
I know many of you have your own up close and personal experiences with SGM’s leadership style, and could probably do a much better job at defining it from your own unique perspectives, but since I have lobbed this accusation freely and frequently, I want to share what I mean by “authoritarian leadership.”
First, as we’ve stated here on multiple occasions, the Episcopal style of government is the jumping off point, imho, for all of the abuses and “under the thumb” leadership tactics that SGM employs.
Having said that, here are some of the issues that readily came to mind:
1. Complete and Total Submission to Leadership: In other words, you need to be a “yes man.” Whatever leadership asks of you, whether it’s serving in a particular area that you may or may not be gifted in, or going to a specific care group whether you want to or not, you must always answer their “requests” with a resounding YES! You must also support all decisions made by leadership, from your local church level all the way to the top, to CJ himself. Even if you don’t agree with the decisions, you must support them… no questions asked. You must be “on board.” You must accept leadership’s observations and input into your life. Even if they are wrong. Even if their input is unbiblical. If you disagree, you are proud and rebellious. If you don’t do what is asked of you, you are marginalized, and marked with an “R” for Rebel. Or, if you protest too much and too often, you run the risk of being asked to leave their church. Or even excommunicated.
2. Serving: It is not unusual to be asked to serve in areas that are outside of your gifting. And it is not unusual for you to NOT be asked to serve in areas within your gifting. I don’t profess to understand the logic in this. But, it seems to me that there are a few things going on here. One, to see if you are a yes man, totally committed and loyal to the leadership of your church. Will you accept and follow leadership’s master plan? Even if you would be better suited, given your God given giftings, in another area of ministry or service? If you question the request, or say “no”, are you marginalized and penalized in a way, and not asked to serve anywhere, except, of course, children’s ministry, or cleaning the church? Are you labeled a “rebel”? Or “prideful”? And, if you tell leadership you are gifted in an area, and would like to serve using that particular gifting, you are labeled as “proud.” After all, who are you to tell them what your giftings are? Leadership has to be the ones to “recognize” your giftings and tell you what they are. And then they need to “knock you down a few notches” to deal with that pride issue. Can’t win for losing, as my Mom is fond of saying.
3. Care Groups: If you are a “strong couple/single person”, leadership “asks” (more like expects) you to go to a particular group. Even if that particular group wouldn’t be the best fit for you and your family. Again, many of the above mentioned reasons would apply here. As well as the intent of leadership to make a maybe-not-so-gifted care group leader a “success” by filling his group with strong, committed, loyal folks to help him out. Then maybe his shortcomings may not be so noticeable.
4. Modesty: One thing I want to state right off the bat… I am in favor of girls and guys dressing modestly. But, here is where I run into a snag: Why is it completely placed on a SGM woman’s shoulders to dress in such a way as to not cause men to lust? I understand the whole “hoochie mama” kind of dress that is so prevalent in our society today can be an obstacle for almost any man. Immodestly dressed women are all over the place… at the mall, at sports events, even the local gas station. But here’s the deal… his own issues need to be addressed… lust doesn’t just go away because visual temptation (used very loosely here) has been minimized, via his local SGM church. If men don’t rein in their own sinful lust, they are going to have a huge problem, as they will continue to habitually walk in this sin. Women outside of SGM churches are not going to accommodate these men by dressing more appropriately. It is a SIN ISSUE, and as such, should be dealt with in the same way as other sin issues… through prayer and repentance… asking God for a total heart and mind change. I am totally in favor of helping our fellow brothers out. But it’s not my responsibility to do so, at least to such an extreme level. Another issue regarding modesty is how guys dress. Is this ever a topic of conferences? Has there ever been a “Modesty Checklist for Men” passed out by leadership before an event? There should be. Young women (especially given the over emphasis on courtship and marriage and all that entails) are not exempt from lustful thoughts.
5. Parenting: More emphasis is placed on having good manners in SGM than anything else. If your child looks someone in the eye and says hello, or shakes hands with an adult, then you are an excellent parent, SGM style! Never mind what your child does behind closed doors when no one is looking… if they can put on a show when it really matters (meaning, in front of leadership), then you’ve done a good job… your child is probably even being considered for the pc. But seriously, why is this more important than godliness? Why is having good manners, an outgoing, charming personality, and blind obedience to the authorities over you more important than your doctrinal convictions and your ability to hear and follow God for yourself?
6. Gossip/Slander Issues: According to SGM, it is never okay to question or voice concerns you may have about SGM teachings to anyone… even leadership. You will be labeled as subversive, discontent, disloyal, a gossiper and a slanderer. And your loyalty and your very membership to your church will come into question. There is one caveat… if you are new to the church, looking to plug in, you can ask all the general questions you want without any repercussions. Your questions will be answered in a general sort of way. But as you plug in, and become a member and become more involved in church life, the more unwelcome your observations, concerns, and questions become.
Now, this is not an all-inclusive list… there are many more examples of SGM’s authoritarian leadership style. These may not even be the most important ones. But they do give us just a taste of how SGM and its family of churches keep the membership “under it’s thumb.”
I do want to say that I believe we are to respect the leaders God has placed in our lives, and even be on board with their beliefs, their doctrine. But only if it’s biblical. And, if it is biblical, and you don’t agree, you should move on to a church where your beliefs line up more.
But if the church you are a part of is practicing, and forcing, unbiblical or extra-biblical rules and regulations on it’s members, you have the right (at least, you should), even the responsibility, to go to these leaders and be heard. In SGM, instead of being heard and dialoguing about your concerns, you are promptly placed in the “disgruntled” and/or “disloyal” category, the “dialogue” quickly turns into a spotlighting session, where your sins are addressed instead of the issues at hand, and you (and your concerns) are brushed off as not important. This is not humility, they do not have an attitude of “I could be wrong, let’s take a look at this and pray and seek God…”… No, their attitude is “We will not listen to any criticism.” Humble? I think not. This is the epitome of arrogance, pride, and power seeking/control.
The complete and total submission to leadership that is expected of you in SGM is over the top. It is wrong. To be controlled by leadership in even the most minute details of your life… which care group you go to, what areas you serve in (gifted or not), your parenting style, and many other areas, is wrong. This style of leadership comes from their own insecurities, their own lack of trusting God to work in you and through you, wanting their own kingdom here on earth.
We have been given the freedom to love God and hear Him for ourselves, because of what Christ did for us. The finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross guaranteed us a personal, real relationship with Him… to walk with Him, to talk with Him, to be lead by him. We don’t need men… men that are just as human and prone to sin as we are, to become a mediator for us. They cannot fill those shoes, no matter how hard they may try.
We are not dumb sheep, to follow these leaders blindly, to jump through their man-made hoops, that we can show them just how loyal and committed we are to them… they are men. Just like us. Our loyalty, our commitment, our blind obedience should only be given over to the Holy One Himself. And to be encouraged and expected to pledge allegiance to these leaders, these fallible men, is causing an idolatrous lifestyle, wrong by biblical standards.
What do you think? Comments? Additions? The floor is all yours… ☺
Now if I can just get that song “Under my Thumb” by the Stone’s out of my head… ☺
Hey Carole!
Great post. Nothing nebulous or unclear here. Anyone from SGM who really wants to hear and respond has plenty of opportunity with this post. The sad part is that each of us could list personal examples to substantiate all of your points.
I would add the devaluing of women to the list, although this may not be true across all of SGM. In our experience and from others’ stories on the blogs, in at least some SGM churches, women’s roles are narrowly defined and those who don’t fit the mold of stay-at-home, homeschooling wife and mom do not always find meaningful fellowship and can become lonely. Women are encouraged and expected to serve their husbands, children and church to the exclusion of almost anything else. In addition, the “encouragement” women receive to service their husbands sexually can get downright offensive, IMO. We are human beings, for goodness sake!
In my PDI time, never was I asked by my senior pastor or his wife what was important to me, what goals or vision I held in my heart for serving the Lord. We were homegroup leaders directly “under” their care, ones whom they were supposed to be investing in. If anyone was going to ask, wouldn’t it have been them? I guess it was assumed that my vision or goal was serving my children and supporting my husband as he served the local church. Honestly, for the season of time when my children were little, that was my goal. But there are other worthwhile things in life and in His Kingdom that women can do. As it turns out, I have an evangelistic bent. I ended up (long after leaving PDI) getting involved in adult literacy to meet people outside of church and homeschooling, to provide help for them where they desparately needed it, and to look for opportunities to share the Lord. I feel confident that PDI as it was in my day would not have approved of my “parachurch” service.
Hey all,
I felt it was important to say, after my “PDI was a men’s club” comment, that the men who post here and on the survivors site are nothing like the pastor and leaders in my old PDI church. I would be mortified if Jim or Musicman or any of the other kind men on these sites were wounded by that statement!
Gracie-
No offense taken-I actually thought the same things at times-and I was one of the guys. But it did strike me as odd that we didn’t have the same type of ministries for the women (made the mistake of mentioning this one time and had our care group leader tell us that women gossip too much when they have their own groups-gosh-talk about stereotyping ….:(
At the risk of offending (:9) I agree with Gracie’s assessment.
The only things I did at PDI was nursery and taking meals to people that had a baby (although I wasn’t permitted to offer breastfeeding advice.)
Now, I’m an usher and people are casually directed to me for breastfeeding advice and to find out, for example, if they’re *really* in labor. I get asked random Biology questions as well, Genetics seems to be the most popular topic.
Of course, they also want me to opine about that darn Mary and Carole and Gracie. Can you believe she wore the same dress to church two weeks in a row……..
Carole,
Great post! Something has been bothering me lately. What is it all about when SGM leaders call those of us who want to follow and hear from the Lord ourselves, Mystics? And they don’t mean it in a good way. Didn’t the Lord give us His Holy Spirit to us to comfort and be with us while He isn’t here on earth? I’m confused. I can’t imagine a relationship with God that wasn’t give and take, where he never spoke to me in my spirit.
That bothers me, too, Canary. Just another way to discredit Christians who don’t want a junior holy spirit, I guess. :/
Good point. It reminds me of the way Joan of Ark was treated by the British Catholics (or was it C of E by then?). Even Jesus was asked by the Pharasees to say by whose authority he did his works. I think it is insulting and belittling, like they try to make us out to be crazy fanatics. Sheesh…it’s just another way they control and manipulate.
Survey results so far.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.....KIzJFV4_3d
I’m finding the survey very interesting. There have been 33 respondents–although two didn’t answer any questions except to offer these two critiques, saying
“I think the questions themselves are loaded. They obviously come from someone who has a biased view of the church, therefore will lead answers to agree with the questioner. Also, what is the point of this survey? You can see it all on the website.”
and
“I’m not sure what your goal was for this survey, but I don’t think it’s going to prove much, other than give you some demographic information on your readers. I say that because of the leading nature of the questions. If you ask the right questions to the right group of people, you’re going to get certain results. You could have pretty much already known what these results were going to be before the survey, I guess is what I’m saying.”
So, in response, the point of the survey is to answer some questions about the length and extent of posters involvement with SGM (to counter in part the competing claims that the posters either were part of a long-past PDI or that they never were really involved or had just heard things about it or were just fringe participants). I could tell that from reading but it helps to see the data not just to go from my sense of things.
I was also interested in the number of folks who are primarily interested in Reformed Theology and Charismatic Practice, in different forms of church government, and in the different cultural markers of SGM.
Crafting questions is very difficult–and that’s why I asked the question about the fairness of my descriptions. I tried to use language from my 20+ years in SGM, to be as neutral as possible while not letting the words hide the true meaning. This last can be a source of debate.
I also wanted to get at the bittersweet, wheat and weeds, nature of so many of our experiences. The Lord in his mercy allows both to grow up together until harvest lest any of the wheat be torn up. In church on Sunday, the reverend shared that our own character traits are the same. My tenacity in getting a difficult job done can also have a flip side in my stubbornness to see my own error, to see that I’m heading in the wrong direction.
I guess this would be a comment (it is certainly not an addition) sorry for the length.
I was recently introduced to this site and this is my first time here, but in the course of reading the first few posts I have come across, this is one I feel I need to respond to. While I will admit some of the other posts address what I believe may be legitimate issues I have not experienced much of what this person is describing. Just so there is not confusion I have been in a SGM church since I was 12, and I am now 21 I have been a part of this group for 11 years and so I grew up in SGM. Some of you may stop reading now since you have already decided that I am nothing more than a purebred-yes-man. However, if that were the case would I even be here? I guess I will just start by taking each of the points and responding to them. I would like to say that I can understand where you would get each of these complaints. Some I even almost agree with, just not to the extent with which they have been presented.
1. Complete and Total Submission to Leadership:
I understand where this complaint is coming from, many times the requests given of members are quite strong and I can see how they can be mistaken for commands. I however have seen many people chose not to obey these requests and have not suffered any of the aforementioned stigmas. Due to the vagueness of the original post though I can’t give any counter examples since there were not examples to begin with.
2. Serving:
I have a few things to say about this; yes people are asked to serve outside their gifting at times, and in many cases I have seen this grow their gifting, but that is beside the point. In every case a serving need has arisen I have seen volunteers requested first. It is only after volunteers have run out that recruitment occurs. At this point it may be perfectly reasonable to assume that everyone who is gifted, and desires to serve in that area has already volunteered and more personnel are needed. It is also reasonable to assume that you may not be asked to serve in the area you would like to simply because it is not a need. If the children’s ministry already has enough people serving and the setup crew is lacking it is probable that people will be asked to join the setup crew regardless of how good they are with kids.
3. Care Groups:
Many of my above comments in section1 apply here but again if a church is in need of x number of CGLs and say x-2 is the number of church members exceptionally gifted in the position then it would make sense to put the two people most qualified into the position and also ask two more qualified people to join those groups in an assistant type capacity. However I have seen people decide to go to a group other than the one suggested to them, but also don’t expect that to necessarily be the end of the conversation you may be asked more than once or the situation may be explained further, but I don’t feel that the care group placement requests are commands.
4. Modesty:
The only proper answer to this complaint is that it is unfounded. I can only assume that you are a woman and as a man I can assure you that the topic of lust is not foreign to SGMs male members. Most of these messages are given at men only sessions so that we can discus many of these things more completely than would be appropriate in mixed company. On the other side as a man I was, and still am mostly ignorant in regards to the kinds of things taught the women about modesty. It was a long while after the fact that I even heard that the modesty checklist even existed. So just to set the record straight as a male growing up in SGM I was under the impression that modesty was promoted among the girls but that the majority of talks about lust were to the men about the sin issues in their lives. While it is not discussed in detail or at length male modesty is also mentioned and encouraged.
5. Parenting:
I am not a parent, I am not even married, so I cannot answer this argument from direct experience but I do observe things. It seems to me that this is an issue that is found everywhere and just because it can also be found in SGM is it being used as a reason to attack it. Similar to the argument against Christians for hypocrisy despite the fact that hypocrites can be found in universities, atheist groups, the library, the local bar, and on the highway. First off if your child walks around bad mouthing all the adults and hitting the other children we should not expect the reaction to be: “But they are really nice at home when no one is looking so its ok.” On the other had I agree that what children (or anyone) for that mater does when they are by themselves is important. However I think it should be pointed out that these are things that are done “when no one is looking.” In other words when a child smiles and greets them politely (things children should do by the way) we cannot expect people to have a word of knowledge telling them that this child is actually really mean to his sister at home and disobedient to his parents. When a child acts well in public parents are complimented. This is just as true in the grocery store by complete strangers as in the church. I can also say that even though outward obedience is the only thing other people can see and it is the only thing we can expect them to know, based on my experience in SGM the definition of good parenting has little to do with the way a child behaves in public. It has much more to do with the parent’s faithfulness to guide their children Biblically. A pronouncement of successful parenting based on child behavior (public or private) is wrong.
6. Gossip/Slander Issues:
I have on more than one occasion voiced my disagreement with a pastors teaching on a given topic or sub topic, or on the way a topic was presented. Some times even in care group! ::gasp:: And I have never been shunned for it, I have been disagreed with and argued against (and I mean a real argument not a shouting match) which I think are good responses. And as was said before I am not new here, after 11 years I have found myself more vocal about my disagreements now that I am older.
If you want to criticize SMGs church government model in the form a biblically based argument I do not have a problem with that. I may not agree with you but I still consider a disagreement in doctrine a legitimate reason to seek another place of worship. But when your disagreement becomes “examples” of what you take to be a bad leadership model that are more reductio ad absurdum than valid arguing points I have issue with that.
I would like to comment on points 4 and 5 from StillanSGMmember’s post.
As far as #4 goes, we have linked to the leadership’s own blogs with regard to, “modest checks.” The men do teach on what girls should wear.
Regarding #5, my issue with SGM’s parenting teaching was not addressed in your response. In fact, I found your point #5 to be rather confusing. I have a problem with the legalistic approach to parenting children. This starts with their advocacy (at least at one point in time,) of the Ezzo’s. Ezzo classes were actively taught and promoted in our church. In fact, we were dismembered over this issue. Parents were supposed to put their newborn babies on strict feeding schedules that contradict standard pediatric advice. Parents were taught (in spite of developmental incapacities,) to expect immediate obedience.
Parents were taught to use spanking as a primary method of correction. A family in my old church was commanded not to share their non-spanking stance with other members.
Think of the materials that have occupied space on the book tables of SGM churches. Ezzo stuff, “The Obedient Child,” Ted Tripp’s book, even Roy Lessin’s books a long time ago. These are radical draconian books. This teaching is entrenched in SG churches and that is beyond the scope of my opinion.
But, with all that said, I welcome you here and hope you stay and share your perspective. Just be prepared to defend your words.
Still/member,
First off, I’m glad you’re here!
I host this blog, and my wife Carole wrote the post you’ve referenced.
Please understand that Carole is speaking from personal experience, backed up by 100′s of posted stories, email conversations, and phone conversations.
I’m very glad that you haven’t experienced or witnessed what we have. I sincerely mean that.
If you’ve spent any time here, you know that we were in leadership, and have a unique view from “behind the curtain”. Everything Carole described were things that she has seen with her own eyes, verified by the above mentioned “witnesses”. The fact that you have not seen or experienced the same things does not make her “wrong”. It simply means that you aren’t aware of them.
Perhaps your SGC is quite different than the many SGC’s represented by the above named witnesses. I hope that is the case, and I’m very happy for you if it is.
RE your last paragraph, it’s very easy to argue against SGM’s polity from Scripture. The majority of their polity statement does not rely on Scripture to make it’s case. And please understand that we agree with many SGM distinctives, but are greatly opposed to it’s polity. It’s the main song we sing here. (“we” meaning Jim & Carole-commenters are our guests and can sing whatever they like).
What Carole was describing was the functional effects of their polity. We do a lot of that here. I would point out that your response was based on your experience-not on the Biblically based argument you expected from my wife.
Again, I’m sincerely glad that you are here, and would look forward to further dialog. I would ask that you save phrases such as reductio ad absurdum for interactions with me. We have very few rules here, but I’m sure you understand that the number one rule here is don’t insult my wife.
So-please hang around, and let us reason.
Grace,
Jim
Hi Still an sgm member… welcome to The Refuge!
As the author of this post, I want to respond to your comments and expand on my original thoughts and observations to help clarify for you the “what’s” and the “why’s” and maybe even the “how’s” of my post.
I want to give this the time and attention it deserves, so it will be tomorrow before I have the time to address it. So stay tuned! 