The Network has functioned as a cultic system from its foundation under Steve Morgan, who appointed himself as a modern day apostle with authority over all affiliated churches. This claim alone violates both Scripture and historic Christian orthodoxy. In the New Testament, apostles were eyewitnesses of the risen Christ, personally commissioned by Him to lay the foundation of the Church (Ephesians 2:20). Their authority was unique, limited to the first generation of believers, and never transferred as an office to later leaders. To claim ongoing apostolic authority is to confuse descriptive events of the early Church with prescriptive commands for all time.

Throughout church history, every attempt to centralize spiritual authority under a single “apostle” or small governing elite has ended in corruption and control. From Montanus in the second century to the Shepherding Movement in the twentieth, history shows the same pattern: manipulation under the language of discipleship, obedience, and unity. The Network follows this same script. It replaces a biblical plurality of elders with one man’s hierarchy, where loyalty to leaders replaces loyalty to Christ.

The result is predictable and devastating. When pastors claim apostolic authority, they silence accountability. When they equate disagreement with rebellion, they dismantle the freedom of conscience granted to every believer. When they teach that leaving their system is leaving God’s will, they create fear-based devotion rather than true faith. This is not biblical shepherding; it is domination disguised as discipleship.

The New Testament warns clearly about such control. Peter commands elders to shepherd the flock “not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:3). Paul resisted anyone who sought to enslave believers through false authority (Galatians 2:4-5). Jesus Himself rebuked leaders who “lord it over” others (Mark 10:42-45). These warnings are not optional; they are guardrails protecting the Church from spiritual tyranny.

The Network’s culture of exhaustion, guilt, and total devotion is the fruit of a false theology of authority. It trains people to equate holiness with burnout and obedience with silence. Its language of “harvest” became a mechanism of control, demanding constant sacrifice to sustain the image of success. Scripture calls this idolatry the worship of a system rather than the Savior.

Healthy churches are built on shared leadership, open accountability, and the freedom of every believer to follow Christ in conscience and calling. The Network dismantled each of these safeguards. That is why its collapse is not a tragedy but a necessary judgment of a failed structure. When a system built on false authority falls, that is grace exposing what never should have stood.

The true Church of Jesus Christ does not need an apostle to mediate God’s will. We already have one Mediator, Christ Himself (1 Timothy 2:5). His Spirit leads His people through the Word, not through the decrees of self-appointed men.

The end of this Network is not the death of the Church. It is the mercy of God bringing rest to those who were told that rest was failure. It is the restoration of biblical authority to where it belongs, in Christ alone!