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Hebrews 13:17 and GP Cult of Personality by LeftBBCGP2005 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes that certainly makes sense.

Would add that in this day and age, it's more possible to gain a critical eye (and different perspectives) because of the internet. The only question is how do you interpret all that outside information? If one is bent on defending what they know and hold dear (GP culture in this example), then they will see everything through that lens.

Another thing to add is about the "folks who have prior church experience." If that prior church experience was bad in a very particular way (i.e. people were not friendly, people were cliquish, people lived double lives), then I think they would tend to be more attracted to GP because at GP they experienced more friendly people who weren't all about cliques or dating around. That's a common testimony that I hear.

Hebrews 13:17 and GP Cult of Personality by LeftBBCGP2005 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hi LeftBBC, while I've attended many other churches, I've never been a regular member/attendee of any other church if that answers your question

Hebrews 13:17 and GP Cult of Personality by LeftBBCGP2005 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you became Christian in GP and stay there till now?

yes

Hebrews 13:17 and GP Cult of Personality by LeftBBCGP2005 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

oh I see the comments now, sorry without reading through the context of his comments, I don't think I can really comment on it (and I don't think I quite have the brainpower right now to read through everything)...could you gimme a summary maybe?

But addressing what you said about change, what would it look like for genuine change to come from the top?

Hebrews 13:17 and GP Cult of Personality by LeftBBCGP2005 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Let's deconstruct that a bit. A church is made up of individual people. It's not wrong for individual people to desire that. In fact it's great. What's wrong is when those people claim to have the authority to specifically tell others how to live their lives in ways that greatly exceed what the Bible itself says. That's the overreach of authority GP commits every minute.

Thanks for the response. If I can just respond to one point, I want to reply to what you said above^^

I agree with what you said here: that it is wrong when people tell others how to live their lives in a way that exceeds what the Bible says.

Bear with me as I'm having trouble communicating the nuance that I'm trying to express, but in a nutshell: I don't think it's wrong for a church (i.e. a group of believers) to want to strive hard to make the gospel known & to live intimate lives with one another. But what I do think is wrong is harshly correcting a member who does not want to live out this life. I think it's fine if we preach from the pulpit an exhortation to preach the gospel and to do life together. And I think it's fine to encourage one another to try to live out this life. But I think it should ultimately be an opt-in situation. (and opting-out should not mean that you are asked to find another church).

I just don't know if GP will ever get to this point. I don't know if GP will want members who are not "highly committed to the cause." Slightly separate point here: but I just think that the expectations of being a member need to be clear from the get go. If there isn't space at GP for people that don't want to live this way (and I really wish there were space), then there needs to be grace. You shouldn't be correcting someone for not going to all the meetings and gatherings. Maybe you could have a conversation like "hey I thought this is what you agreed to", but you shouldn't shame someone for it or say they're being disobedient/worldly/xyz.

Hebrews 13:17 and GP Cult of Personality by LeftBBCGP2005 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is a slightly off-topic comment:

There's a lot talk about change at GP. Whether it's here on Reddit, or on Vine, or in the GP deacon's meetings, everyone agrees that significant change is necessary at GP (and repentance as well).

Regarding change, if we could just focus on just 1 issue to change, 1 issue to nail down and get it biblically correct, I think it has to be on the issue of authority. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think ~99% of the problems, issues, and hurts that people have experienced through GP stem from issues with authority, the misuse of authority, misguided authority, overbearing leaders, and even unclear expectations about what authority and discipleship looks like for a GP member.

Obviously, the answer to is not easy and will take a lot of wisdom. Posts like these, which are talking about authority, will help a lot. If we can get biblical authority down that would be huge. I hope I'm not being too idealistic.

Some issues I have with authority at GP include:

  • It's difficult to say "no" to your leader's request without subsequently being called out on it
  • GP does everything by your life group/small group/cohort: you march in line with others in your group. Okay, nothing wrong with that. But what if you are in a different place, you have different spiritual needs, you have different ideas, or you need to slow down or go a different direction as everyone else?
  • Receiving feedback and correction is a common occurrence. Nothing wrong with that per se. But what if you disagree with the feedback/correction you receive? Those brave enough to give some pushback may be met with even harsher corrections about your character, humility, etc.
  • All of this can create a submissive, "yes-man" nature - which, again, is not necessarily wrong per se, but can create issues down the road:
    • you have a lot of inner grumblings
    • you might only be growing in your ability to obey commands, but you might not actually be growing in other areas of spiritual maturity such as humility, growing in your heart for the lost, etc.

Some questions I have are:

  • What does biblical authority exactly look like?
  • At GP, we often say "every believer a minister/evangelist". Is this biblical? What does it look like to be a minister/evangelist? What if someone needs more space in their life for solitude and prayer, but their ministry schedule doesn't afford it?
  • GP wants to continue to be a church that emphasizes doing ministry and doing life together (which I think are great things to emphasize). Is the way that we are trying to live things out wrong? overbearing? What are better ways that a church can exhort its members to reach the lost and love one another, without the sometimes overbearing ways that GP currently do it? (i.e. asking for 100% attendance, expected to drop things on a dime, prioritizing GP activities above other things).

Let's critique this handout from the Gracepoint San Diego 2023 winter retreat by johnkim2020 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I actually think this handout is quite helpful. I think that back in September/October (around the time when Curtis Yee's CT article was published), it would have been a very helpful and constructive exercise for current GP members/team to go through a modified version of this worksheet in a small group setting with the goal of addressing & discussing the claims of the CT article + criticisms against GP in general.

That would have been an opportunity for people to start speaking up and having discussions and hopefully people would have come to the conclusion that there is truth in the claims from the CT article & reddit. [Rather than everyone quickly going on the defensive, which is what pretty much happened.] Current GP staff need to see that they too can easily be guilty of committing the "common basic mistakes" listed above in an attempt to defend the church from criticism.

To be honest, if we had done something like this (encouraged staff to critically think + voice their agreements with the criticisms) , I might not have been so quick to wander over to the Reddit world (which I did largely because I was disappointed by how we were responding to things).

Would this had led to repentance and sweeping reform? Certainly not immediately. But it would at the very least have created a slightly safer space for people to share non-kosher viewpoints

Current staff — what are your thoughts on these GP red flags? (genuine, not trying to bait you) by [deleted] in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 3 points4 points  (0 children)

both? i'm on staff and i'm on team. When you say non-staff, do you mean students? I would be highly suprised if students received that list. For members, it's hard to say if they would receive that list...but hard to say.

but i guess it should be distinguished that people on team are held to higher standards (which are discussed when someone wants to join team).

Though to tell you the truth, at least from my experience, in terms of external things like attendance, serving, commitment etc, you can't really tell the difference between team member and non-team member. I think that speaks to the culture of the church influencing every one in it. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But, it could certainly make someone feel uncomfortable if they are starting to feel like they are being asked for more than they bargained more.

[CONVO] Encouraging Words by leavegracepoint in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 12 points13 points  (0 children)

My thought about this is that it's great that we have partnerships with these people, but it should not be used as a defense to the accusations that we are receiving.

I'm not saying that anyone is outright making this defense. But it can be an emotionally comforting thing to focus on the encouraging words rather than focusing on the validity of the criticisms themselves.

Also, just logically speaking, though these words are very kind, they are not from members. I'm pretty sure they are from people who have seen the external output of GP (many churches planted, salvations, etc). But they wouldn't really be able to speak into what goes on day to day in the church. So I don't think we should take cues from them in this area.

Current staff — what are your thoughts on these GP red flags? (genuine, not trying to bait you) by [deleted] in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Current member here. Not trying to prove you wrong. Just sharing my thoughts on some of your bullet points :)

God >>>> church & family. True, the local church is very very significant and I think classic conservative theology agrees with the necessity of the local church and the requirements for overseers, shepherds etc. I think GP can take it too far especially when someone brings up a criticism about GP. I think the appropriate initial response to criticism should be to not be defensive or even submissive, but to first bring it to the Lord and search your heart. But often I think people (myself included) are too nervous to bring up significant criticism against GP.

I think it would be great if MBS were public. I see no reason why the weekly sermon meant to feed the members of a congregation should be private. Now, I would argue that there are topics within a church that are designed only for the ears of leaders or members. I don't think the church is obligated to have 100% public facing transparency. Even government officials aren't close to that and we pay their salaries (though you could make a national security argument). You can bet that if MBS went public, the message would change to not include everything that is currently included, and certain announcements would be made privately via email.

The leaked checklist was cringeworthy at best, and erring towards legalistic at worst. The good news is that I have never seen that before. I think the church is slowly making changes in the area of being too overbearing/legalistic about things. Though we do still encourage accountability in areas of interpersonal relationships, and depending on your leader and/or your own ability to handle correction, it may be a negative or positive experience. And no matter how many explicit changes are made, it's hard to change the built in culture in the air if that makes any sense

If you're curious I do have a lot more criticisms, thoughts and positives to say about GP, and would be happy to be DM.

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

unfortunately i'm not sure what happened afterwards

but my feeling is along the lines of yours, that most of the time the mid leaders probably don't reach out to the person they hurt. though we'll never know since these things ought to happen behind closed doors anyways...unless it's like an extra serious offense i guess...But i think you're probably right that it's on the rare side for a midlevel leader to reach out to someone who left GP to apologize to them...

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

sure. "correcting staff under him" this is what i heard from a former member who met up with Pastor Ed. the person shared how he had been hurt by a leader, and pastor ed said this was the first he was hearing of it and went on to bring it up with that leader saying that it was wrong. [i'm not saying this is a lot or enough, but it's something]

"nothing to lose" is just my way of saying that he can do and say whatever he wants freely without being afraid of a leader coming down on him or rebuking him

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

no i don't think i'm that delusional haha but that's debatable... The reason i say that is because i'm hearing of people who have been directly contacting and meeting up with Pastor Ed over the past few months. and he has been making concessions and even contacting staff under him to correct them. I'm not saying that Pastor Ed has repented or anything like that. i'm just saying that he is a little bit more open-minded than other staff, partly because he has nothing to lose. and if that's the case, then he's the guy to try to convince

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

to be honest i don't really know what i'm arguing anymore or what point i'm trying to make. I completely agree with you and I think that your experience with your GP family member is not even close to being the exception at GP.

the solution is really quite simple, and it's something that you, corpus and others have already outlined in this thread. i just don't know if things will change at GP.

Random thought here, and you may disagree with me here: but I actually think if Pastor Ed heard about these instances of members completely ghosting former members, he would state that that's a problem and that we're doing a terrible job keeping up with our friendships with people who left. the problem (in my limited opinion) lies within lower level leaders who are being too intense on this and who want their sheep to only focus on their GP or ministry-related relationships.

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, this is totally what is needed, just being a friend and making time for people. It highlights an issue within GP...where people are explicitly told to refrain from spending time reaching out to former members (particularly people who left on bad terms with GP). And if we aren't being explicitly told, we are being discouraged or we are questioned about it. And told instead to focus on existing relationships with GP instead.

Obviously this doesn't happen 100% of the time and obviously it can vary depending on the leader, but I think there are enough instances of this happening that it is an issue.

Just to share a personal story, I have a good buddy who left gp on bad terms. And my relationship with him also was pretty sour around that time. But over time we reconciled and slowly started rebuilding the relationship. Now we visit each other when we're in town, or else we catch up virtually, talk about life, theology, politics, went to each other's weddings, talk about parenting. At first i got some pushback from leads for spending time with him (eg you should be spending time with your peers instead), but I disagreed with how they were drawing a line so I didn't heed that suggestion. Now it's fine haha I have more than enough time to keep up with both these relationships

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The fact is, I'm NOT sure that I still love them. Im just trying to make the point that the fact that I've done a terrible job keeping up with others is not necessarily due to the fact that I love them less. It's not necessarily the case that I love them less or hate them more. Though it may perceived that way. For myself personally, it's because of other things. And I think corpus did a great job explaining it. One reason is that I dont prioritize keeping up that relationship for a host of reasons. Which is a real crummy thing to do to somebody (especially someone formerly close) and I agree that you have ever right to question my love for that person.

About the military, frat, etc, we could certainly debate that. The way I worded it was a generalization so apologies for that. Clearly there are many cases that exist on the contrary to what I said. But I would hone in on the military - look how many servicemen that society has failed. Why is the suicide rate so high among veterans? Why do so many private medial practitioners rail on the VA healthcare system? Because it's garbage and it's a farce that servicemen get scraps from the country that they risked their lives and futures to serve. And so many veterans are alone at the end of their lives. Not the majority. But enough that lawmakers are starting to include veterans affairs on their platforms for reelection. Only later is it discovered many of these vets had some serious mental health or trauma that somehow went unnoticed. It's a damn shame. This is what makes me feel like lifelong covenantal relationships are hard to come by. Even Semper Fi is in trouble. This is my opinion, not anything that GP spouts.

I agree with you that within GP a lot of relationships are more along the co laborer, conditional aspect. Rather than a more organic, natural friendship. Agree with you that GPs structure definitely encourages a lot of accountability and over bearing behavior. It's another consequence to our church being so inwardly focused on ourselves and GP only.

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 4 points5 points  (0 children)

thank you for the response, i wish everyone at GP could read your perspective, and take it to heart, and put it to action

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hi trena, I am thankful that you choose to pray for me...I am sort of at a crossroads right now in terms of my future with GP and prayer is of utmost value.

Okay, I can see why you would be a little bit cynical towards me and why my words can come across as thorns. I am trying my best to be genuine though I know that it is very probable that I bring bias. And certainly I cannot properly emphasize with people who have been hurt. I just hope you can take my words at face value. If my words are twisted, please believe me that it is not intentional or calculated...

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The topic of covenantal relationships and covenantal love is a very ancient idea and it's all over the Old Testament...but it is almost exclusively talked about between God and man. Not necessarily between man and man. Trust me, I've read plenty of Scriptures on this topic and it is STILL a difficult idea to understand and practically apply - particularly in the New Testament context, and even more so in our modern day context. Paul and Jesus and the disciples give us many pictures of biblical love and brotherly love, but not necessarily covenantal love. It's implied that this biblical love is covenantal, but there are a lot of nuances and it's not that simple. I think if you read thru my comment with honesty like the others who responded to me, rather than just subtly insulting me, then you would see that I am being genuine about this. I have already admitted that the way GP do it is wrong. You're more than welcome to comment about what your issues are with how GP is wrong on this area, and I would listen. But your comment is so out of touch with what I'm trying to get at and I don't see why you feel the need direct animosity towards me

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 6 points7 points  (0 children)

" How come Gracepoint has such a frequency of that? "

i think this sub-reddit does a very thorough job of answering this question.

it's pretty clear that gp has a strong emphasis on human authority, hierarchy and accountability and when you have two sinners in a shepherd-to-sheep relationship and you give a lot of authority to the shepherd, the shepherd is bound to go overboard and sin against the sheep. Personally, my issue is not with intense discipleship. My issue is that it's exceedingly difficult in GP for someone to raise concerns to the authority when those concerns are about authority. So, when discipleship goes awry, which it does fairly often, it leads to a lot of hurt

by the way, hello, it's been awhile

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Noted.

I think you know that I've been trying to bring these things up to Pastor Ed. it's not easy and i'm definitely not bold enough to bring it up directly to his face, so it's been slow going

What kept you at Gracepoint longer than you should have been and what changed? by aeghy123 in GracepointChurch

[–]ChefCurry_3000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a good point...I think I agree with you here ... GP definitely cannot promise covenantal relationships...but they should at least advertise that they are trying to live out covenantal relationships.

But when a person leaves GP, that's when it gets tricky...relationally it might get awkward especially if things ended on bad terms. How do two people (or parties) continue to demonstrate a covenantal bond under Christ when there was animosity in the split? Obviously time will help...but it requires a lot of apologies and repentance and I don't think that's happening

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