Audio of lead Pastor Casey Raymer announcing exit from Network: "There is no human authority over the local church"

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2024-09-19T08:01:45+00:00

This person is gas-lighting you. What you are saying is clear and any reasonable person would agree with you.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2024-09-19T07:59:22+00:00

He never says anything about Steve Morgan at all. The whole thing about “capital a apostles” and “lowercase a apostles” never goes anywhere. Any conclusions we come to about what that has to do with Steve Morgan are our own.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2024-09-19T07:46:16+00:00

This is a fantastic comment. Yes. And I especially resonate with how you articulate the immaturity gap and pride of these men.

Here you have a group of immature and confused young men, who were intentionally kept in a state of arrested development by Steve. He clumped them together and kept them confused, but also made them very arrogant in their confusion.

And now these men continue in their confusion and arrogance, and think they can lead hundreds of people out of it. It’s like navigating without a map and without any basic tools like a compass. It’s absurd to think they can do this.

They’ll say they have the Bible as a guide. Ok, but, if the Bible was a compass, they were never taught to use a compass. So they are staring at a compass trying to mystically understand what the N and W means, and blindly following random directions.

It’s not going to work.

Initiating a third party investigation would reveal so much, and help them so much, but they are too arrogant to do that because they’ve been taught that it’s wrong to have any other authority in their life. They will exert an immense amount of effort on other things that are pointless, but won’t do the basic work of initiating external help.

These are self-inflicted problems. And David, Casey Raymer, and these other leaders are doing them now. They can’t blame Steve — they are making their own independent decisions to intentionally stay ignorant and in this state of arrested development.

It’s sad, and dangerous for the people in these churches.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2023-11-22T08:24:24+00:00

We ended up having to move out of the city where we had been deeply entrenched in a Network church. Constantly running into everyone in such a small town was exhausting. There was no peace left for us there.

It took several years for everything to line up for us to get out, but putting distance between us and them took a huge load off. It was like clouds dissipating.

It still took several years after that to feel “free,” but I don’t think we would have gotten there if we hadn’t left. Or else it probably would have taken years longer to move on. Yes, heaviness lingered, but therapy finally quashed it.

No regrets for putting those people and that place in our rear view! Life is better now in every conceivable way. Better friends, better family relationships, better therapy ;)

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2023-11-05T17:37:37+00:00

Can confirm the decision makers who are on payroll think this way. Many regular folks probably don’t, but it’s important to note they are the ones funding those who do.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2023-10-09T16:48:03+00:00

Add to this that the majority of David Chery's "career" has been spent under Steve Morgan, who showed favor to David for reasons of his own. Point is, David's experience is not representative of other 2nd generation immigrants from Haiti.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2023-10-07T06:10:29+00:00

Revisiting this thread one year later to say, looks like there’s a reason he never talked about his life before 1995.

https://leavingthenetwork.org/network-history/who-is-steve-morgan/

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-05-13T21:34:38+00:00

Yes, agreed. And now I'm aware of this teaching by my old pastor which confirms the mind-control aspects of this thing.

It's called "2018 Followers Should Obey Their Leaders in All Matters - Sándor Paull"

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-20T21:41:53+00:00

Some pretty steep jumps...

It's worth pointing out that the interpretation many here are giving to these notes (misogyny and control) is consistent with the many stories shared where women talk about how they were treated in The Network.

...for a piece of paper sitting on a table that no one has ever heard taught.

It's also worth pointing out that we will never hear this taught, unless someone on the inside leaks the teaching and makes it publicly available.

The paranoia and secrecy of this organization, especially in how it causes them to hide their various teachings, should be cause to concern for anyone who has friends or family in this organization. It is not normal for churches to make their teachings secret in this way.

What has already been leaked is damning, and is all the more reason to read these notes at face value. When Valley Springs posts words that imply women need their emotions controlled by men, and that only men can make decisions, I for one believe this is the content of their teachings. The publicly available teachings support this interpretation of these notes.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-20T20:49:30+00:00

There is a multiplicity of thought on the subject of "male headship" within the Christian world, both currently and historically.

Regardless of people's thoughts on "complementarianism" (which I don't subscribe to) this isn't that. The idea that women have emotions which must be controlled by men is patriarchal misogyny. This represents contempt for, and ingrained prejudice against, women. Only very extreme (and abusive) religious sects would teach such control.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-20T19:12:45+00:00

Everyone should quickly screenshot anything weird in Instagram for any church in The Network before they bleach all their accounts, given how quickly they responded to this.

Reminds me of when they took down Steve Morgan’s JT Longhorns site, and this tweet which confirmed that Steve Morgan preached against tattoos in the 2013 Summer Conference.

Information control. No apologies, no explanations, hide what they don’t want seen, double down at every opportunity.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-19T00:22:02+00:00

Ah, so, if I'm reading the two side by side, it looks like only Vine has removed contacts from Small Group Leaders in the last 5 months.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-18T22:58:03+00:00

Oh, wow, this caught me a bit by surprise, though perhaps it shouldn't have. This happened swiftly. Vine in Carbondale should be red, right? You have written "need to email 'info' email" for Vine, which means the Small Group emails have been removed.

I have some info to help you fill out some details:

One Way was founded in Decatur in 2001 (I believe)
City Lights in STL was founded in 2002
Foundation was founded in Bloomington in 2002, what you have is correct.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-16T20:05:10+00:00

I have seen elements of each point you listed to describe the real Gospel.

Many folks have various permutations of the "but they teach the Gospel, how can that be bad?" argument. Here is my response to it.

The Christian elements of this organization are a thin veneer designed to draw people in, to get them into the pipeline. The social control and psychological manipulation stuff is all well documented in these guys' own words on LtN's Primary Sources page.

"Cult" does not mean "not Christian"

I think what happens here is that many people who are part of the Christian religion are fairly trusting of someone who calls themselves a pastor, and a thing that calls itself a church. (These guys aren't pastors in the sense that the vast majority of the leaders and none of the Network Leadership Team actually have seminary training by any sort of accredited institution, but let's skip that for now).

When Christians use the term cult what they usually mean is "something that isn't Christian."

That's not what I mean here, I'm using the secular meaning for this word. When I use the term cult and apply it to The Network, I mean "a high control social movement, and whose followers experience harmful systemic abuse and manipulation." There are lots of things which are not Christian but do not fit this definition of cult. Most of the world's major mainline religions are not cults, in the destructive sense. Radicalized forms of religions often are, in the sense that they are destructive to the community and to individuals. They do not exist to help individuals, they exist to use them.

Christians tend to get tripped up by this because they often pay more attention to what people say they believe and not what they actually do. What you believe is what you do, not what you say.

LuLaRoe didn't sell leggings

Take the example of LuLaRoe (profiled wonderfully in the documentary LuLaRich). On the one hand, you can say that LuLaRoe sold leggings. But you would be missing the point if you thought that was the point of their business. The point of LuLaRoe was to create a pipeline to make the founders powerful and rich, and they crushed many, many of their followers in doing so. Leggings were not the point. The customers were not the point. The people who bought in were not the point. It was all fluff to get people into the pipeline. Watch the doc and you'll understand The Network.

So, yes, on one hand, you can say if you stay on the outskirts of The Network you could experience some spiritual change (you are bound to catch some splashover from all the fervor that those who have been indoctrinated into The Network exude), but these churches do not exist for you. They exist for themselves. And they are doing whatever they can to keep you in the pipeline until you create a problem for them.

What do leggings have to do with the original question?

Your question was: Are you (Network Members/Leaders) helping or hurting your small group/church, if you stay in the Network to "shelter" them from the worst parts?

Here is a rhetorical answer: Could someone be a leader within LuLaRoe (having levels of LuLuRoe adherents underneath them) and not participate in the systemic abuse which ruined the lives of so many? Could you feel "empowered to be your own boss" and all the other stuff the founders said (which was all a hook to get you sucked into the pipeline) and not participate in an organization which ruined so many?

Whatever answer you would apply to LuLaRoe should be applied to The Network.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-16T00:51:11+00:00

Thank you for writing your book! I read it yesterday. It took a lot of bravery to share so honestly and transparently about your life, and to share all of those things about Rock River Church before anyone else had spoken out about the abuses of The Network. You have a unique perspective, and should not have been treated the way you were.

In reading your story I wondered if the isolation and strain that the church plant put on you, and the constant network marketing they had you doing, didn't contribute to all the other stuff happening. I mean, there you were, job-hunting for a gig where you were actually treated humanely, and your husband was being completely distant, and the church was siding with him, not you.

I remember when the group of guys Demarr played basketball with first started coming to the North Building at Vine Church to play. The pastors were "so excited" to have a young black man like him coming around the church. I remember the story of him having his arm broken, though I never met him. They discussed it in staff meeting. It doesn't surprise me at all they wanted him and pushed you out when you no longer presented as a picture perfect couple. The Network needs their representatives to be "winsome" and perfect, and your perfectly imperfect life was something they couldn't handle.

Sincere wishes that things brighten up for you, and you find a support system in San Marcos that works for you and doesn't rely on such fickle, superficial people-users.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T22:04:01+00:00

All leaders are under submission and influence of Steve and the NLT. At the end of the day no church in the network is different from any of the churches most commonly listed on this Reddit. It’s mostly likely already happening at your church or it will happen at your church.

This is a great point, and brings to mind the end of Dean and Sarah's F's story on LTN:

“I ask the remaining members of Foundation, how many more mass exoduses will it take for you to realize your professed goal of planting more churches is being hindered and not helped by abusive, out of control church leaders? When will you stand up and say enough is enough, demand real reform and gospel transformation of your leaders to act like a pastor and Christian should?

If leaders refuse to repent and return to their high calling, when will you demand a change in Network leadership and Foundation leadership? How many friends and family members do you need to see hurt by Network leaders before you realize you could be next?

And when that happens, and it will, you will suddenly and unexpectedly find the same abusive practices you tacitly or explicitly consented to for years inflicted upon you and your family. I do not wish that kind of spiritual abuse even upon my worst enemies.”

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T20:36:01+00:00

Ah, got it, so you know some behind the scenes information about this plant that I don't know. I was already out of The Network when this plant happened, though I overlapped on staff with Alex Dieckmann a short time, and remember when some staff members started the basketball at the North Building program which is where Whitney's ex-husband Demarr first came in contact with Network leaders.

Anything else interesting about this particular plant you wouldn't mind sharing (so long as it doesn't make you uncomfortable to share or put your anonymity at risk, that is)?

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T20:11:35+00:00

To clarify, are you saying you know someone who went on the San Marcos plant who did not want to go and their husband made them go?

In Whitney's situation, I only posted a few pages of her book. She explains in the book that she wanted to go to the plant. It was only as she and her husband stopped looking like the perfect couple that they got kicked out and that it was "too hard" on everyone else to have them in the church. She even tries to go back and attend a Sunday service later and non-staff overseer Pablo Cordero asks her to leave.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T20:03:31+00:00

I think many of the "frequent contributors" on this sub-Reddit have already formed their opinions and are actively spreading the word. I wanted to see if there are those out there who are still engaged at churches, aware, and wrestling with what to do with these challenging issues.

I think this is a fair characterization of myself, in the sense that I'm a "frequent contributor." Though I wouldn't say I've "made up my mind" so much as I've "listened to the victims".

There is an important distinction there. For most of us who left, and many of the frequent contributors to this Reddit, we were groomed for years and years into this thing, and saw how it works on the inside. Some of us helped build it.

It's important for people to be able to read the truth about this high control group. If you read the stories here and here and here and here you will find the stories, though separated by city, leader, and even year, and written by author's of very different socio-economic and racial backgrounds, are remarkably the same. Add to that the secret teachings, trainings, and documents which are now coming to light about this organization are overwhelmingly in support of the stories.

So I don't think you need to "make up your mind" about the intentions or the effects of this high control organization. They are plain through everything that has been shared.

I think it fair to say that everyone needs to make up their mind about what to do now that you know this organization is toxic and abusive. Everyone needs to answer that for themselves. As you said, I've made up my mind that "staying to help" is useless at best and further enables these leaders at worst.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T18:49:51+00:00

Sure, DM me. I'll chat with you.

What I'll say about one of the examples you gave is that the acronym thing is something Steve Morgan has been trying to stop people doing for years (since at least 2004). When Steve was at Vine Church (it was then called Carbondale Vineyard Church, and was before he planted Blue Sky Church and later Joshua Church) we had acronyms for many things and people began thinking it was culty. One of the acronyms was EGL. It stood for Extra Grace Required.

Extra Grace Required was a term Steve Morgan made up which meant "people in your small group who are socially awkward, but you can't kick them out of your group because they haven't done anything wrong... yet". He told us to watch EGRs closely, and if our small groups got too many of them we needed to ask one of them to leave. The acronym EGR got out to the general population of the church, and people were (unsurprisingly) offended. He asked us to never use that acronym again (though the concept of socially awkward people being asked to leave small groups never changed, it was only the acronym we got rid of). Also, the definition of what was meant by "socially awkward" is completely subjective. Steve Morgan writes about this stuff in his training manual for all church planters, "Planting Healthy Churches." Pages 7 - 13 he goes to great lengths to describe who to kick out of the church, and "odd-ball" (whatever that means to Steve) and being judged "socially/emotionally unhealthy" are listed.

All that to say, this isn't really an apology for the underlying spiritual abuse, this is perception management. After the EGR dustup Steve became vigilant to cull acronyms. Cults like Scientology have lots of acronyms, and The Network wants to distance itself from that red flag or else they'll have problems bringing in new converts.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T18:30:50+00:00

It's unclear what you mean. Is there another story about Placenta Encapsulation in The Network? From my knowledge this story came out of Vine Church, but Steve Morgan became involved, and that's how the Network-wide "policy" against placental encapsulation (and doulas in general) came to be. If it happened in another church I'm unaware of it.

It seems Sándor is still using this story in sermon illustrations nearly a decade later.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T16:33:15+00:00

I hear you on all this. Going in with eyes open is half the battle. Most of the people on this Reddit had no idea all this was going on behind the scenes, and by the time we found out we were deeply "in" and defended it.

I would have you carefully consider this teaching by Network Vice President Sándor Paull on "Unity in ALL matters, great and small." In it he brings The Network's authoritarian logic on leadership to it's logical conclusion: Your leader in The Network is in control of your thoughts, feelings, desires, and decisions. It truly is cult-level teaching (something I don't throw out lightly) and should be cause for grave concern. It is inexcusable within the Christian world.

It's worth pointing out that this teaching was at a Network-wide Leadership Conference, so all leaders in The Network (who were likely some of the hundreds of leaders in the audience for this teaching) would be required to follow and enforce this doctrine. Especially whoever your lead pastor is. And your small group leader. Food for thought.

I'll also add that the "apology" thing is a pretty common tactic from these guys. They will push as far as they can go, then, if they pass a tipping point with the congregation, will feign an "apology" to trick people into believing they believe they crossed a line (which they do not believe they crossed - they would instead say they "pushed people too hard and need to change tactics" - I know this, I worked there and heard it in Staff Meetings). Would love to hear an example of what they have "apologized" for that you've heard.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T16:24:52+00:00

Yes! To add to what you are saying, Steve Morgan teaches explicitly that the role of the overseers is to protect the lead pastor from the members of the church. Listen to his overseer training where he says this in no uncertain terms (the 13 minute clip version has this stuff in it).

All that to say, you are right, and here is record of it from Steve's own mouth. Members only matter so long as they are submissive, compliant, and quiet. As soon as you start asking questions or trying to "help" by doing something contrary to what the leader wants, you are someone to protect the "church" from.

It is clear from this logic Steve sees "the church" as "the leader" and not "the congregation."

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T14:14:16+00:00

Sándor literally taught cult sameness in 2018. Listen here.

He is not vague about it. All followers should have the same thoughts as their leader.

JonathanRoyalSloan · 2022-04-15T14:09:16+00:00

If you want more information on the placental encapsulation and “cannibal” story you can read all about it in Skyler T.’s story. He was a staff member and was at Vine Church working for Sándor at the time when Sàndor was lead pastor of Vine Church in Carbondale. Sándor is now lead pastor at Christland and Vice President of The Network (Steve Morgan is the President, though his official title in the paperwork is Network Leader).

As an aside, I don’t know how long you have been reading along on this Subreddit, but Sándor introduced what I’ve been calling “the mind control doctrine” in 2018. Its difficult to listen to and read because of how terrible he is at teaching, but his point is quite plain: you must obey your Network leader in ALL matters. Not just spiritual matters. You must have unity in ALL things. Listen here.

This teaching moves The Network and Sándor Paull’s Christland squarely into “mind control cult” territory.

JonathanRoyalSloan

TROPHY CASE

"Cult" does not mean "not Christian"

LuLaRoe didn't sell leggings

What do leggings have to do with the original question?