#Beware of CCM

[plaintalkchristianministries]

The Dark Side Of The Music Industry: Rock, Country, CCM-Contemporary Christian Music.

The History of Satanic Music: Ezekiel 28:13 “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.” This combined with other verses tells…

[woodlandchristianchurchexposed]

Beware of Woodland Christian Church in Woodland, WA. I am a former member who attended from 2016 to 2023.

Dispensational baptist church with a Gothardism hangover that also pays lip service to Quiverfull and patriarchy movement.

Eldership is a "good-ol boys club" with long track record of spiritual abuse. Several "dynasty families" pull the strings in the background and act as sycophants and excusers for the elders.

Their counseling program is law-centered, not gospel-centered, and serves as a platform for puffing themselves up or projecting their own marital frustrations on counselees.

Promotes Catholic view of marriage (marriage permanence): any and all divorce is condemned.

A highly-convenient location is how they keep a steady flow of parishioners despite their high turnover rate.

On a positive note, the worship team is skilled and offers a mix of modern and old hymns rather than just CCM pablum.

Note: A LARGE number of the five-star reviews for this church are not written by congregants. They're just puff reviews sourced through Scott Lapierre's book ministry and speaking events.

Full review: This church has the highest turnover rate of any church I've ever been to in my life, and I've been to many over the decades. Countless people have been burned here. I was one of them. Will you be next?

This is a church where grace is preached in the pulpits but scolded in the pews. A church where your confession will be used as an opportunity to hold you down, chide you, judge you, compare you, and control you. If you protest, you will be labeled as "lacking zeal" in your repentance. If you're open about your struggles, you will be told that your honesty is merely a "mask for credibility". Meanwhile, the elders' and deacons' own fleshly habits don't reach their man-made threshold of "serious sin", so they get a pass.

This is a church highly concerned about whether you've sufficiently suffered for your sin, or what they perceive to be your sin. How tempted I am to produce the numerous messages I received from the elders and deacons along these lines: the bizarre pronouncements that God is "pouring out" his consequences on me and how "irretrievably broken" my children will be as a result of me wanting to move on from a painful marriage and divorce.

With the approval of the elders, one of the deacons, angered that I resisted his months-long pharisaical badgering, defamed me in front of the congregation AFTER I PEACEABLY LEFT THE CHURCH. Up to this point, not once had the eldership made an accusation against me or implied that I ought to be disciplined. When I resigned, no accusation was made. See below image. In fact, Nathan Richardson, months earlier, had acknowledged that the church would accept my resignation!

(Note: Scott's email response to me is disingenuous. Almost eight months prior, I had sent a lengthy email criticizing Nathan Richardson's ill-attempt at counseling and they never responded at all other than to say they received the email and had privately discussed it. Yet Scott acts as though I'm stomping off because I'm "offended".)

Several congregants familiar with my divorce knew of the absurdity of the leadership's attempt to publicly shame me, but made little or no effort to confront them. This is a church of milquetoast men who shrug their shoulders at spiritual abuse since it is their childhood church and because such incidents are par for the course with this eldership.

I am not writing this review to vindicate myself. The eldership can continue to slander me and twist the story of my divorce all they want. My reputation at WCC is of no consequence. Moreover, this account of spiritual abuse is not just my personal opinion. At least three other pastors, knowing this church's theology and counseling practices, encouraged me to leave WCC a year before I actually did. Perhaps I should have, but now God has used what I have gone through so that I can warn others.

I believe that all four elders are disqualified for ministry per Titus 1:7. The unnamed deacon is a slanderer, backbiter, and is self-condemned per Titus 3:10-11. None of these men, including their wives, have any business offering counseling. It is my opinion that all of these men should step down from ministry and receive counseling until sufficient repentance and self-reflection has taken place. Best of providence to them.

"My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment." (James 3:1)

[aequitas-tears]

hometown prophet

I never fully understood what Jesus meant -- that following him would mean that I would lose friends, family, home. Growing up in self-proclaimed Christian conclaves, I heard the repeated siren: beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing! And so I joined the guard, militantly watching the borders for the outsider that dare try to sneak in. “The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy.” But, I never looked inside the borders.

As I have grown closer to my Lord and sought to follow Him more fully, I have grown in horror to the world from which I have come. The simplicity and allure of that world is still tempting -- whitewashed facades of happiness, endless CCM on repeat, dazzling lights and hopeful words of the world to come. But beneath it all, the good news sold salvation that allowed for exploitative consumerism, fear of the other, the death of innocents by drone strike or police brutality or murderers with unfettered access to weapons of mass casualties. To be sure, not all of it was fake; but then, neither is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

I had a sense from early on that I was called to be a prophet, yet it was unclear to whom I was to speak. Now, more abundantly than ever, I see that it is within the self-declared borders that I am calling for repentance. “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.”

My brothers and sisters whom I so dearly love. Turn yourself wholly to our self-giving, all-loving triune God, I beg of you. I pray for you.