Dangerous Church Doctrines? You Decide!

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00:05

Mr. Smalley, do you believe that abortion is moral? Oh boy. I'm glad I'm debating him instead of you.

00:16

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

00:30

All right, well, welcome to another edition of Apologetics Live. Now, tonight we have something different.

00:35

Just so you know, we usually try to have a time of open Q &A where we take any of your questions.

00:41

However, this is something a little bit different and we're, for that reason, we're not going to do any open

00:46

Q &A. But on most Thursday nights, you can come to ApologeticsLive .com, join and participate, and therefore get your questions answered.

00:56

Now, before we get into the show, we're gonna be talking about some dangerous doctrines. Well, we'll let you decide if they're dangerous or not, but some possibly dangerous church doctrines that we've become aware of.

01:07

Now, I'm gonna end up having someone else running the show tonight, and he ended up getting a guest that came in to help him out, but we're gonna basically go through dealing with a specific church.

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Before we get to that, though, we want to give, well, we want to hear something from someone who has a message for us.

01:30

And so, let me start with a little guy and his doggie.

01:39

Ray, we would like to know... Hold on. I gotta make sure that the audio is going to the right place, but we're gonna want to hear what

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Ray has to say. Ray, take it away. Okay, so someone's gotta get

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Ray some driving lessons there if you didn't see. So, here is the conference he's referring to.

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Let's play this. Hey, this is Andrew from Striving for Eternity Ministries, and well, there's been, if you haven't noticed, this global pandemic, and everyone's shut at home.

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Well, that kind of affects being able to go out and do conferences and get some good teaching.

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I was talking with Justin Peters about this, and all of our schedule got cleared off.

02:46

What do we do? Well, we thought we would do something for you guys. We decided we would do the

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Snatch Them by the Flames seminar, but we're gonna do the home edition. That's right,

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May 30th. We're gonna come into your home, well, by way of the

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Internet, and give a conference to you, the Snatch Them from the Flames conference, the same seminar that we do, that we've done in the

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Philippines, elsewhere. We're gonna be coming to you for this conference. This conference is for anyone who wants to understand

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God's Word and how to use it to discern truth from error. We're gonna have the first session to start us off, 10 o 'clock

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Eastern Time on May 30th. It's gonna be Justin Peters. He's gonna start with the topic of the sufficiency of scriptures.

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Have you heard all these people that say they hear from God, some people that want to hear from God? He's gonna tell you how to hear from God, and whether the scriptures are actually sufficient for all of our needs as a

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Christian. Second session, I'm gonna give you a background in handling

03:52

God's Word. It's going to be interpreting the scriptures. So not only will we learn about the sufficiency of scripture, but we're also going to learn about the interpretation of scripture, give you guys some tools and principles on how to rightly handle

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God's Word. Then we'll take a lunch break. After lunch, we're gonna come back for two longer sessions. The first,

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Justin Peters will deal with the addressing of the issue of dealing with discerning false teachers.

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So you're gonna have people who are out there and how do we discern the truth from God's Word with what they're saying?

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Then after that, the fourth session, I will address the issue of identifying false teachers right from the book of Jude.

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We'll give you examples of how to identify if someone is a false teacher. And then afterwards, the fifth session, before we close out, we're gonna have a

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Q &A. So throughout the day on May 30th, we're gonna be taking your questions. As you have questions, you pipe them in to the comments.

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We're gonna take them and be able to get you the answers. Now, all of this is free of charge.

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We realize that many people are hurting and many people are not knowing how they're gonna handle things financially.

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Because this costs us nothing to travel, we decided why would we want to charge people for this?

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So we're doing it free of charge. May 30th, snatch them from the flames, home edition.

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Again, this conference is great for anyone who wants to understand God's Word and how to use it to discern truth from error.

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If that sounds like you, you're gonna want to make sure that you attend this conference because it sounds like the conference may be for you.

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May 30th, where do you get the details? The details can be found at striving4eternity .org.

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We'll have the details there. To register so that you can know when we're going live, how to hear about it.

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Tell your friends, share this on social media, so everyone knows about the snatch them from the flames home edition.

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Because this may be the only time that we do this free and in your home.

06:06

All right. Well, so with that, we want to encourage you because this is something we're gonna do.

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You could go to striving4eternity .org. The link is there. There's also a link for the

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Israel trip, but the Israel trip is full. We have sold out. However, we do anticipate there may be some people who cancel.

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So if you still want to do the Israel trip, you won't have to pay money now, but you can get on the waiting list.

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And so go to the link that's there. They'll take you to 2021israeltrip .com.

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You can register, but you'll end up being on a waiting list there.

06:43

So before I get to Dr. Silvestro, I'll bring him in now. But we just he's gonna be running the show tonight because he's the one that has done the research on the topics that is gonna be discussed.

06:55

However, there's a couple things. Anthony and I did a show last week. We referred to a blog article from a

07:03

Todd and I forget his last name. Wilhelm. Thank you. Thou art the man. Todd literally called

07:10

Anthony or what was it like 30 seconds after we went off air. So he he went to the website, got the number, called.

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He wanted to correct me in your well, not correct me. It was really to give me more information.

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We pointed out the fact that he said he made a comment and if you go back to last week's show on why

07:30

Matt Chandler, his failures are now Cedarville's problems. He wrote an article.

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He said that in his article, he said that he was asking the question why Cedarville didn't call

07:42

Dr. Moore a professor or faculty. He did not know at the time that he was not faculty.

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He was administered in the administrative role. So he said he may correct that on his blog.

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He also wanted to tell me that he's not a social justice warrior. So I asked him the question, what's your position on the women's role in the church?

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And he described himself as a soft complementarian. I quickly corrected him and said, no, you're a soft egalitarian.

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You see, the reality is if you're trying to say you're going soft on complementarianism, it's really you've already given into egalitarian.

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It's just how soft you are on that. So you don't go soft on complementarian. You could be a hard complementarian.

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You could take it to an extreme, but you can't go soft on that one. So with that,

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Anthony, I'm gonna hand the show over to you so you can, because you're the one, and for folks to realize the reason that I'm handing this over to Anthony is because he's been doing research into something that I have not.

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I'm not knowledgeable. There's been a couple things back and forth that have gone on this issue. I've read very little of it.

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And for that reason, well, this is gonna give him a big head. He's the expert.

09:02

Anthony, take it away. Wow, you know what? When I get a compliment from you,

09:08

I'm just gonna take it on with it. I guess I will, uh, I'll eat the comment

09:14

I was gonna make about the, uh, Hold on, there's something's with your mic. Uh -oh, something's with my mic now?

09:20

No, now you sound fine. Okay. Okay. All right, let's keep going. I don't know what it was. I just didn't want you to,

09:25

I guess, mention that you got complimented. Okay, that would be it. Yeah. Yeah, I was also going to mention that the best -looking person in those, uh, in those two promo videos was the dog.

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But, you know, that's okay. Most people would probably agree with that anyway. Uh, so, on a serious note, there's a reason why we are doing this show tonight and, um, in God's grace, and we're planning on doing several follow -ups as well.

09:54

And, uh, for those of you who have been following this, this has been an ongoing issue for about four and a half, somewhere five years now, um, give or take.

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And this is an issue that is in regards to a Pastor Mike Reid and Davenport Bible Fellowship.

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Um, so it's his church out in, in, uh, Davenport, Iowa. And in this church, there have been, there have been claims made about the church and about the

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Pastor Mike Reid in dangerous doctrines, Grace Fellowship Church. Thank you for, for that.

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I thought I said that backwards. So Grace Fellowship Church in Davenport, Iowa. And so there's, there's a number of claims out there.

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And this started about five years ago with a Pastor Chuck O 'Neill and, and there's been some blog articles written.

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There's basically been a lot of charges levied against, against Mike Reid and the way he practices doctrine in his church and the way that it comes out.

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So how did I get involved? Because I don't really like to get involved in things, um, so much.

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Well, this is what happened. Pastor Andrew and I do a lot of traveling, uh, speaking in churches, especially on evangelism.

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Once people find out that not only do we teach on evangelism and go out and do a lot of preaching, but that we also know right comfort, one of the first questions we get asked is,

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Oh, so do you know a certain street evangelist? And, and of course we do.

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And, and I will tell you with this, this street evangelist, he's, uh, every time

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I've interacted with him, he's been a, he's been a very standup guy, nice guy. And, you know, he, he made a call a couple of years ago out on Facebook to say that,

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Hey, if any, I want to write encouraging letters to brothers and sisters in the Lord, if anybody wants an encouraging letter, just PM me and I will,

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I will mail you one. And I said, who doesn't want an encouraging letter, right? And so I did,

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I sent him a PM and I had a beautifully worded, wonderful letter that was, uh, that was sent to me in the mail.

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And, uh, and I still have that letter to this day, a letter I really enjoyed reading and I've seen multiple times since.

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Um, a guy that certainly cares for, for the lost, cares for, for Christ's bride.

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And, um, and I've been, and so very nice guy, right? But I get asked this question, my pastor,

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Mike Reed, who has these dangerous doctrines, why is so -and -so famous evangelist going to his church?

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And this has been really the source of the blog articles that have been, and not the only source, but one of the sources, the blog articles being written, certainly by Pastor Chuck O 'Neill's blogs that have been, that have been written.

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And so this has been a situation out there. Now, what really has interested me in this, uh, is that we know a lot of mutual people, so I know a lot of the guys that made up the

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Herald Society, Jeremiah Cry Ministries, um, back in the day. I am forever thankful for some of those

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Herald Society conferences I went two years ago, and, uh, and thankful for a number of the friendships that have, have come out of those conferences.

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Um, Tony's probably the least, or one of the least in terms of guys that I've gotten to know over the years, but, um, but still have the utmost, uh, utmost respect for him.

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And so in terms of, of this, what I noticed is that all these street evangelists have, and not all of them, most of them have kind of distanced themselves from the street evangelist that goes to Mike Reed's church.

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And I thought that was kind of interesting. I had actually asked several of them why, and they said, it's because of the issues of these dangerous doctrines that are here.

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And they've, um, they felt that the, their friends kind of, their friend evangelist that goes to the church ignored some of these, uh, worries.

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And so, you know, some, it seems like some relationships, not all, some of the relationships have, have diminished, but one of them in particular has not.

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And that is of, um, a good friend of mine, another street evangelist who is also probably best friends with the street evangelist goes to Mike Reed's church.

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And so I approached him at G3 and I asked him a few questions about this whole situation.

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What is it about these dangerous doctrines that you're not seeing? Because everybody else seems to see them.

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To which he responded to me that, uh, that what's out there has been just lots of blatant lies.

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It's been cut and paste of phone conversations and YouTube videos. And so, so this person whom, whom

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I love, I mean, when my wife goes to G3 last couple of years, she beelines, I mean, that's his family is one of the first families she goes to, to say, hi, give her hugs and, and talk for awhile.

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This is a family that stayed in my house multiple times. Um, they're a wonderful family.

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So I was able to have this conversation with him and he had told me that he goes, look, brother,

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I'm not saying that what Mike Reed does is, is, is, is great.

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Um, he used the word actually weird distinctly. That was the word. I, one of the words I remembered, he said, look, some of this stuff is weird.

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I wouldn't bring my family to go to church there. Um, or wouldn't become members there, but you know,

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I can't say that it's sinful behavior. So basically saying that he, he acknowledges where his friend goes to church, that there's weird doctrines, um, weird practices as a result of the result of those doctrines, but he's not concerned enough because he says they're not sinful in and of themselves.

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So if his friend really wants to go there, his best friend really wants to go there, then his best friend can, can go there.

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And, and then he furthermore said, look, if you have any concern about this, because of how many times people ask you about Tony, then why don't you just go ask him yourself?

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Cause he's actually here at G3. And I just realized,

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I think for the second time I slipped up on the name. So I apologize for that. But, um, in terms of, why don't you just go talk to the pastor yourself?

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He's here. And I said, you know what, let me pray about this. Let me think about this. I'm not so sure I want to do it right off the bat, just from what

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I've heard. And, um, after, uh, praying about this, talking to a few people about this, talking to Bobby again about this,

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I said, sure, I'm willing to talk to him. So he set up the meeting between pastor Mike and I, and we met on Saturday morning and I will say, look,

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Mike was a very nice guy. We had a, had a overall, a nice, it was a respectful conversation, but it was a conversation that ended with, he asked me, you know, how do you, so what do you think, am

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I really the cult that everyone calls me to be the same thing that Bobby said, we shouldn't be calling people.

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So you're calling, calling his church. And so there you go. I think I slipped another name. I apologize again. But, um, in terms of, in terms of our conversation,

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I said, okay, look, I don't know, I have to know both sides to, to get a real understanding of what's going on at your church in terms of the doctrines and how they get played out.

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I can tell you just from what you are telling me here about how you are a close pastor, you admit to close pastoring or close shepherding techniques, which we're going to get into tonight.

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Um, I wouldn't bring my, my family to your church, you know, so I disagree with your doctrines and I'll take some time to actually look into these things to which, um, the evangelist who set up the meeting said, you need to look into this, which

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I not only did that day, but I've spent the last several months doing. And, uh, and pastor

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Mike Reed himself told me the same thing to look into these doctrines, um, do your research.

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And so as, as we had left, we had exchanged phone numbers and, and pastor

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Mike Reed had actually texted me his, his holy kissing sermon.

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So the infamous sermon that talks about holy kissing at the end of Romans 16 and his 20 minutes of, um, how he worked through that passage of scripture and what its practical application is in the church.

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So I listened to it. I, uh, I didn't agree with it.

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I didn't call him back right away. In fact, I didn't call him back for a few months. And, and the reason why is because I spent some time researching.

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And so, so this is what I have done is I have, I have literally taken at, at, at what

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I can count easily somewhere between 50 and 60 hours of research time. And so this means

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I have listened to all of the videos and phone recorded phone calls that are out there publicly.

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These are things that anybody here can go listen to. I have read all the blog articles that have been written.

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I have even furthermore gone to those blog articles and in, in, in, uh,

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Kevin Yant's second blog article of three written on the church, um, there is number of testimonies in there.

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I spoke personally with every one of those people behind those testimonies.

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So when it's been claimed by some people who have said they've done all the research that they can do and they found nothing wrong or whatever, and I'm not here to judge,

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I'm not here to, to make any inferences tonight, my job is literally to present information based off the research.

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Um, what I can tell you is that not one of those people that were anonymous received a phone call.

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Every one of them offered up their phone numbers offered to be called, expected to be called by the people that were doing the supposed research back in the fall.

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And, uh, they never received a phone call. The phone calls that they received from me over the last six to eight weeks were literally the first phone calls they have received.

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And so I spent, I spent over 13 hours on just six, six phone calls for the initial phone calls.

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I spent, um, at least 20 hours pouring through the videos and cataloging the videos for when things were said, where there's been an allegation that, that the videos are all cut and pasted and, and put together to make my creed look bad.

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That's not true. There are some that are cut and pasted to condense things so people can watch the dangerous doctrines in a short period of time or what are called dangerous doctrines.

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But the reality is, is that the full unedited versions of the phone call, as well as the, the sermon links and the other, and the other audios are all on pastor

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Chuck O 'Neill's website. You can listen to the full unedited audio for any one of those things. And so I did that multiple times.

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I've read all the blogs and, and I've conducted again, a lot of my own interviews. Um, and that's what's gone into literally 50 to 60 hours of research.

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Now people may also ask, why am I bringing this up? And, and here's, here's the bottom line with it.

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I mean, it's, this is not about me. This is not about Andrew in terms of getting asked questions. We're big boys.

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We can handle questions, right? When people ask us about, about a certain evangelist, we can just say, you know, nothing to say, whatever it is.

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You know, nice guy, good evangelist. We can say those things and we can just, um, you know, dismiss questions like that without getting into any type of gossip.

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Um, but here's the reality is that, um, two reasons.

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Number one, one of the things that we have noticed is that pastor Mike Reed has used the names of well -known pastors and the attendance at certain conferences, especially

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G3 and in the past shepherds conference to validate his ministry. So I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with his ministry per se right now.

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Right. All I'm saying is that, is that he defends his ministry because he would admit to you, as he asked to me in very respectful conversations that yes, some of his doctrines are, are uncomfortable for a lot of Christians that his close pastoring or close shepherding techniques are uncomfortable for a lot of Christians.

22:34

So, so no doubt. Um, but he does use those conferences and he also uses people by name.

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There's a number of pastors by name. Um, people like Voddie Bachman, Josh Bice, Phil Johnson, and others that I have heard recordings of, or know people who have heard firsthand that those names are used to validate his ministry.

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Again, not saying there's anything wrong with his ministry or not right now, but just that, that that's out there. Um, number two, on this evangelist's website, the, his funding changed from where it was previously being stored at to being under the auspices of his church.

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Now Pastor Mike reads Grace Fellowship Church. And so in this, in this, um, uh, post that he put out on Facebook, it says this, it has been written that any support given to one of his congregates, um, you're supporting

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Grace Fellowship Church and by proxy, it's dangerous doctrines and practices, um, for people who have added that back into it.

23:44

Basically what it's saying, the reason why we have gotten into, into this issue is because these doctrines, if they are true, if the, if the, if what is being levied, the charges being levied against Mike Reed and his church, if they're true and his elders, these would be dangerous doctrines, cult -like in behavior, um, or is it possible that, that people who have left the church have been very, um, they were spurned in some way.

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And these are people who just, uh, like, like the, the jaded or jilted, you know, a girlfriend or whatever.

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And, and they just leave and, uh, and have all kinds of bad things to say. Right. I mean, these are possibilities.

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So we have to look into what the actual truth is here. But the reality is, is that the ministry is literally being supported by, um, and, and, and, and validated by the people that he speaks about and the conferences that he speaks about and that anybody who donates money to this evangelist is literally supporting the doctrines of the church and the practices of the church.

24:56

And so when it comes to, when it comes to pastor Mike Reed, we're going to be getting us in the moment into, into this in a moment, he is a, he's a pastor in Davenport, Iowa, who has a number of, of, um, close shepherding techniques in terms of the type of, um, control that they have over the congregation in terms of the meeting with women alone.

25:22

So married women alone as part of the shepherding process. Um, we talked about the issue of Holy kissing earlier.

25:29

So these are all things that are out there. Um, and as we get into this,

25:34

I realized that everybody here knows who Mike Reed is, but it's going to come out here over the rest of the show, because again, if you don't know who he is now, you will, because there is a very famous evangelist that goes to his church.

25:49

And so having, having said all that, we, we have done the research.

25:55

I have done the research and I know from Proverbs 18, 17, the one who states this case first seems right until the other comes and examines him.

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Most of what I had read out there and have witnessed has been from the other side.

26:08

So the side that is opposing pastor Mike Reed and his dangerous doctrines. And so I reached out to multiple people, you already know, people that I talked to.

26:21

I also reached out to pastor Mike Reed to come on the show. And specifically for the last month,

26:26

I have asked him to come on this, to the show at some point, um, all along,

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I had planned this week to, to do it. And, uh, and I let him know this morning as, as he for a month has had a lot going on.

26:40

I get it. Um, hasn't wanted to come on. I let him know this morning that I'm planning on doing a show tonight anyway, and that I've got a number of them lined up.

26:48

So I would love for you to be on. I'd love for you to be able to have the first opportunity to come on and speak about these dangerous or, you know, what people call dangerous doctrines.

26:55

Um, and if not, I'm going to proceed with the show anyway. And, um, I'll try to, you know, try to find another guest, which

27:01

I actually did. Um, towards the last minute, I have going to have another guest on somebody I was planning already on having in a few weeks is now going to be on tonight since Mike decided not to.

27:13

Um, I do, I do pray that Mike decides to come on and, and give his side of it.

27:18

Otherwise, um, we're going to continue to proceed with what is already out there based off of what

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Mike has already said in podcasts, um, sermon, audio, phone calls, and everything else.

27:31

And so on that note, um, I would like us to bring in our guest tonight.

27:38

And so our guest is, is Kevin Yons. And so, Kevin, I, first of all, want to say thank you for coming on tonight.

27:44

I know I was very long winded in this opening, but I wanted to really try to be careful in how I laid everything out.

27:50

Um, you know, as I told you, and as I told others that my goal is to make this show as a show that is, uh, is me asking you questions and you giving your answers.

28:01

Right. I'm not giving biased opinions. Um, I just want you to kind of lay it out on this.

28:07

Yeah. So thank you, Anthony. Appreciate you having me on. It's a pleasure to be able to do this.

28:13

Um, I, you know, I know that you wanted to ask questions and if you want me to start and give some, give some opinions on some things

28:22

I can, uh, if you just want to jump into questions, I mean, this is your show. You tell me what you would like me to do.

28:29

So, so let me, let me walk into just some questions with you. Okay. And in these, in these questions, um, you've seen these ahead of time.

28:37

I actually also sent Mike the questions I would ask him ahead of time as well. And so I do pray that he comes on, um, in this show.

28:45

So, you know, I, I have invited him as well, Kevin. So I'm going to jump right into this. So Kevin, what, what is your brief testimony?

28:53

You know, I know in, in speaking with me, you had told me you were, you and your wife were both false converts.

28:59

And, um, and so what, what happened there and, and the teaching that, that you had heard to, that you,

29:07

God finally used to open your eyes. Yeah. Well, so the church in question, Grace Fellowship Church in Davenport, Iowa, my wife and I were members there for nine years, starting in, um, 2009 is when we became members.

29:21

We left the church in February of 2018. I served as a deacon there for four plus years.

29:28

And, uh, we came to salvation in 2019, uh, in or around July for me, my wife, a little bit earlier.

29:36

Did you wait, did you say 2019? I thought it was 2000. Okay. I apologize. 2009, 2009 through 2018 is when we were at Grace Fellowship.

29:45

We were saved around 2009. July is the year for me or the month and the year.

29:53

So we were at this place from the very beginning, uh, when the church first started there, it was part of a church plant from a

30:02

United Methodist church that began around 2007 and, um, never quite got off the ground, right.

30:09

And then, uh, I think it was around 2008, uh, Mike Reed became the pastor there.

30:17

Okay. And so, uh, what years did you actually attend Grace Fellowship church?

30:24

Yeah, we were there, uh, from the very beginning of the plant, which I want to say was around the summer of 2007.

30:32

So, uh, we, and, and a number of families initially planted the church, if you will, in 2007.

30:40

And, uh, so we were there all that time until 2018 when we left.

30:48

Okay. And then, so, so you had said Mike Reed was not there as the planting pastor, right, but he had come on, it was that early in the process of you guys in this church plant?

31:02

Yeah. What happened was, um, the, the, the gentleman that was originally planting the church, there became, there were some personal problems in his life.

31:11

He never became the pastor, ended up resigning. And, um, you know, the church kind of floundered for a little while, not really sure what to do.

31:22

Eventually there became an interim pastor and then there became fairly quickly. The need was recognized to, to actually have a permanent pastor.

31:33

And so they, uh, tried out for two different men, uh, and, uh,

31:38

Mike ended up getting the job around, I think it was around the summer of 2008. So it didn't, you know, it didn't go on too long without a permanent pastor.

31:47

And Mike became that permanent pastor and has been there ever since. Okay. And now, okay.

31:54

So I'm going to turn the corner a little bit, right? So this is your background, but the reason why

31:59

I'm having on this show is I'm sure you know, you've got a trio of blogs that, that you've, you and others that you've quoted in there have made a lot of allegations against, against this church that,

32:14

I mean, let's, by the way, it sounds you faithfully attended for a long time. Right. And then you left.

32:21

Yeah. So I guess I'll ask you the question first, like what's, what took you so long? I mean, again, lots of allegations over a long period of time.

32:29

Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a, a good and a legitimate question to say, why would you be there so long?

32:35

And now you're speaking out against it or writing about this place, talking with others about it.

32:42

What would, why would you do that? You know, number one, we, you know, we were, we be, we were infant

32:50

Christians at this time in 2009, we were just newly saved, or we had come to deeper knowledge of salvation, if I can, in a reformed group, if I can say it that way.

33:03

But let's just say, you know, my wife and I would attest to be saved in around at the time at this church.

33:10

So what would possibly, you know, what would happen? Well, again, we were infants in Christ.

33:17

We didn't have deep doctrinal understandings. We didn't really understand what was going on.

33:23

Everything that was taught there, we believed. We, we thought that things that were being done was, was normal in terms of orthodoxy, we thought that the things that the elders presented were, were correct.

33:41

We had no reason to really doubt that kind of a thing. So we continued on at that church for a long time, believing that what we were doing was the right thing.

33:52

We were trying to be sincere and to grow in knowledge of the Lord and to serve

33:59

Him with pure hearts. But what, you know, began to happen for us, you know, it began with my wife and there are some reasons why

34:10

I was a little slow to catch on, if you will. I think, but what happened is my wife began to recognize some things or to ask some questions and be concerned about some of the teaching and stuff like that.

34:24

And, you know, so in, in some of the women's Bible studies there was always a, a big emphasis placed upon, you know, wives submission to the husbands, submission to the authority of the church.

34:38

And it was never really, asking questions was never really a thing that was encouraged very much.

34:45

They would say we would encourage questions, but they were often, you know, kind of put down.

34:51

So my wife began to, you know, have these, you know, concerns, but one of the things that she will testify to is that she didn't want to give them, you know, sort of try to make a direct influence on me.

35:08

She wanted me to come to knowledge on my own. So she just, you know, lived with it, if you will, for a year and a half or so before I kind of started seeing some of these things that were happening for myself, you know, maybe these were sort of legitimate desires to be involved in church leadership and to grow in terms of that kind of a thing.

35:33

I was serving as a deacon, as I said earlier. But I began to have some concerns.

35:41

I started, I was reading some books that kind of got my head spinning a little bit.

35:47

I traveled a lot for my business. So I would go to other churches. I would see the conduct of other pastors and how they were doing things.

35:57

And then one of a couple of real big things happened was I had a friend that some friends that came to the church and they didn't stick around.

36:03

And it really started making me wonder what is going on? What am I, what are these guys seeing that I'm not seeing?

36:10

So that's kind of where it all began. And it was just really a process of the Lord sort of beginning to open my eyes to that, although it sort of looks orthodox on the surface, you know, there, there are some, some practices that are concerning.

36:28

So that's, that's kind of the short end, the short version of it, if you will. Okay. So, and we're going to get into some of those topics.

36:37

We're going to get into all those topics here tonight. So now I'm going to ask you a point blank question.

36:44

Is there anything that is not truthful in, in, in terms of what you spoke about, about the church and your blog or to buy people, um, by phone or in person?

36:55

Um, because that's, that's an accusation that's out there against you and your wife. Yeah. Yeah.

37:02

That that's an accusation I've heard. It's been repeated by more than one person. I've caught wind of that more than once.

37:09

I mean, listen, you know, I'm a Christian. I strive and I desire to serve the

37:15

Lord with a pure heart, with integrity and with honesty. Um, I would not intentionally tell lies.

37:23

Uh, I wouldn't intentionally tell lies about my worst enemy. These are people that we were with for nine years.

37:30

They're our friends. They're people we love, used to love, still love. Now they don't view it the same way that we do.

37:37

But, um, for me to intentionally distort, to tell truths, uh, half truths or partial truths or tell lies or whatever.

37:46

No, I have no desire to do that. It's, um, yeah, again, it's certainly an accusation, but, um,

37:54

I, I mean, I am willing to look at anything. If somebody says, Kevin, that's not true.

38:00

Okay. Show it to me. I I'm, I'm more than happy to review that and to talk about that, but intentionally to, to lie about this place or the people that are there.

38:09

I would not do that. Okay. So now I will say, you know,

38:14

I, I have spoken to each one of the families that that are in your blog article.

38:21

I think, I think I spoke to every one of them and, and, uh, every one of their stories seems to be in line with what you wrote.

38:29

So from my firsthand knowledge and again, from what they told me,

38:35

I'm the only person who actually had contacted them, um, their side. So, so yeah, what

38:41

I heard certainly jives with it, but you know, again, it's a question I have to ask you and, and have record of, right?

38:48

Yeah. I want you to ask me those things. I mean, I, I, you know, if anything would come out in this, it's a desire for us to know the truth.

38:55

And I, I believe that, um, you know, that, that is, that is our job as Christians is to be truth tellers, but to be true seekers and, um, you know,

39:05

I commend you for the desire to actually dig into this thing it's been talked about, like you said, for a long time, but nobody's actually ever desired to, you know,

39:14

I don't think really, really dig in. I mean, Chuck O 'Neill has done that.

39:20

Um, you know, he's been, he's been excoriated for it, but, uh, you know,

39:25

Chuck was the first one to really dive in. And at that point in time, I was a defender of Mike as may come up later.

39:32

Um, you know, I I've come to, you know, uh, sort of be, I'm not trying to be

39:37

Mike's accuser. I mean, Mike was a close friend and my pastor and a man that I respected, admired and loved for many years.

39:45

But, but, uh, you know, my, my desire to be on this show is to call him to turn from these, these things that he's doing.

39:55

I, I mean, that's, that's my hope. Yeah. Okay. So did you try to take your issues to the church while you were there?

40:06

Yeah, that, that's a really good question. And that's another thing that has been presented before us as a criticism, you know, and in or at Grace Fellowship Church, um, you know, it's kind of like if you watch one of these

40:22

YouTube videos or something where they show different reporters and they all kind of show different videos and they're all saying the same things,

40:32

Grace Fellowship notoriously has talking points and one of the talking points, and I heard it from quite a few people and I've heard it since is take it to the church,

40:46

Kevin, why didn't, or why isn't it, why didn't you take it to the church? For one, I don't even really know what they mean by that.

40:53

Do they want me to stand up in front of the assembly and bring charges as I believe it's first Timothy five tells us to do well, the first thing is

41:03

I, what I want people to know is I didn't really know what the real issues were at the time.

41:09

I just knew there were some things wrong. And in that time, from, from the time that we left to where we are today,

41:17

I have educated myself on churches like this. So I know a lot more now than I did then.

41:23

I didn't really know. We just knew that we, there was, there was issues that we didn't think were right.

41:31

They were causing, um, there was problems. There was definitely problems.

41:37

And so to take it to the church would be extremely divisive if we were to stand up and start saying, you know, what you guys are doing is wrong.

41:46

So I think the answer to that is I don't think I was, I would have been right to do that.

41:54

I think what, because then if I had done that, what I would have been told is why don't you go to the elders?

42:00

Well, what I did is I went to the elders. I went to Mike himself and, um,

42:06

I went to him on four separate occasions to speak with him about the same topic. And, and for the starting point on this discussion, we're going to call that legalism and authoritarianism.

42:16

Two terms that get bantied about quite easily. Um, I didn't really fully grasp the full concept of either of those at the time.

42:25

I have a much better understanding of it now, but those are the two terms that I used in my discussion points with Mike, primarily legalism and, you know, and then it came up one time at an elder deacon meeting, uh,

42:40

Mike asked the question, you know, why, what's going on in the church, he's asking the deacons. Why is there seemingly to be a lack of joy, uh, that this was, had been brought up previously before by other people.

42:53

And, you know, I felt like it was kind of a setup of a question to really get it because I had already met with Mike a couple of times.

43:00

So, you know, I, I said, I think the problem is legalism and, you know, one of the other elders asked me, well, can you define that?

43:09

And I, I gave it my best definition at that time. I'd never really thought that legalism is taught at the church where I would literally have to do works in addition to, uh, you know, receive my salvation.

43:24

It really isn't that there's a whole different type of legalism spoke about by Sinclair Ferguson and the whole

43:31

Christ that describes it's more of a culture of the church, or it's more of a, you know, it's a traditions and it's, it's, it's a lot of the kind of stuff that's talked about in Colossians two or Romans 14.

43:44

It's just like, like life is better. If you, if you're a woman and you wear a dress or a skirt, you're, you're, you're perceived as more holy in the, in the church kind of holds you up to that standard.

43:57

So, um, you know, multiple conversations with Mike followed up with him on an email following one of my, one of my meetings intentionally purpose that email to go to him a couple hours before the elder meeting so that he could bring it up with the elders.

44:14

And I might also add that after I brought that discussion point up in our elder deacon meeting, uh, the elders dismissed the deacons and they stayed and they talked about it for another, at least 45 minutes to an hour after we left.

44:28

So, you know, they all sort of knew that. Um, I mean, not sort of,

44:34

I mean, Mike knew that there was some unrest between me specifically and my family.

44:40

So, you know, there's, there's a lot of ways that we could talk about that.

44:45

Um, you know, part of it maybe was, uh, some naivete on my part. Uh, not sure what

44:52

I would not really knowing what was wrong truthfully at that point in time, but I've grown.

44:58

Early now, but, um, you know, going to the church, there were, there was no proper grounds for that.

45:04

I was not bringing charges against him at that time. So that would have been an inappropriate application of that scripture.

45:12

Okay. Fair, fair enough. So you already, the next question I was going to ask you, you kind of wrapped it in there, but bring it to the elders.

45:19

Oh, okay. Um, and so let me ask this before we get into these doctrines, which is coming up next is what is your goal?

45:27

Like what was your goal in the blog articles, your goal in coming on tonight?

45:32

I mean, my goal is, is that I, I wish to see reconciliation between people and I wish to see repentance for those that are, that are wrong.

45:41

And, uh, and so what, what are your goals here? Yeah, that's, that's really something that I've had to examine in my own heart since we left and in particular, um, you know,

45:56

I, I want people to realize we left the church February 5th of 2018, this is over two years ago.

46:05

Now, I think, I don't remember the exact date. I wrote the first article that I actually named them by name, but it was probably, it might've been last summer, maybe

46:15

August. Um, we wrestled with this thing for a long time with how to, should we do this or should we not?

46:25

I had written around the topic. Okay. One of the, one of the things that began to really open my mind after we left was a, was a book called churches that abuse.

46:36

And this was just, this blew my mind. Um, you know, so many of the things, in fact, you know, all of the items that are the top 10 list on these things that describe churches that abuse, uh, grace fellowship fits right into these categories.

46:52

So I wrote a series of articles on churches that abuse, but not naming them. Uh, we wrestled with, should we, should we do that?

47:01

Should we, uh, actually name them? Should we actually take this to this next level?

47:08

So, you know, what my goal, my goal is truth. Uh, my goal is to see people, you know, if, if the people that are members or attenders of grace fellowship church, and they're perfectly happy there, that's your business.

47:28

I have no issue with you wanting to stay there. If you want to be under that type of leadership, you're free to do so.

47:35

My goal is that people that might wander in there, like I'll give an example.

47:41

One, a well -respected man reached out to me after I released one of my articles. And he said,

47:46

I've sent people to that church. He said, are these articles true? I think

47:52

I'd release the second article. He said, are these things true? I said, you can find out for yourself, but I tell you they are true.

47:59

And, um, I don't, and he said, I've sent people that church, uh, man, I'm going to have to dig into this.

48:05

I don't know if he's dug into it or not, but the opportunity for people to actually examine these things is out there.

48:12

And I want people to know that. Um, I don't want people to go to that place without any knowledge.

48:19

If they choose to go there after reading my articles and decide that that's the place for them, knock yourself out.

48:26

That's your business. But our concern is for people that would be armed with no information and the children that might possibly have to grow up in this environment where there's a heavy dose of, you know, legalism and, and authoritarian leadership.

48:45

So my goal is to, to, to show the truth of what happens there.

48:51

And, and, you know, again, we love these people, but love is just, you know, is, has to speak the truth.

49:00

And, and as I've come to further knowledge of all this kind of stuff, that's what, that's what we're going to do.

49:06

Okay. Thank you. So we're going to, we're going to work through a number of topics tonight and, and so right, we're going to start getting into them right now.

49:15

Um, first topic is, is excommunication. And so it was, it was written that that's, uh, there's only three or four ways you can leave the church biblically, right?

49:29

This was taught there in, in quick summary. What are those ways? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting because I wrote that based on Mike's words.

49:42

He went on a podcast. I, I want to say rem and radio might be the name of it.

49:48

I could be wrong about that. It's, it's in, it's in the article on excommunication that I wrote and it links to him in his own words saying there's only three or four ways to leave a church.

49:59

And, uh, that is mutual agreement, sending death or excommunication.

50:07

And then I think he even sort of waffled on one of them and said, you know, maybe three.

50:12

And so I don't remember if it was mutual agreement or sending that got kind of booted out.

50:19

I'm going to say it was probably a mutual agreement because really the theology of grace fellowship church is that you don't leave the church you, you know, you are, uh, it's, it's like a marriage arrangement or a, you know, a marriage where it's a covenant between you and that local assembly and there is no way to leave that church.

50:38

And, you know, of, of, I don't really know of anybody that they've reached mutual agreement on, uh, to leave.

50:48

Uh, I also don't know of anybody that's been sent.

50:55

So that really only leaves two options. Death. There was one death in the church and, uh, excommunication.

51:05

So, uh, my family excommunicated me, my wife, our race were members.

51:11

We were excommunicated. And then I think final families left in the preceding year and a half after us, and they were all excommunicated.

51:20

And, you know, the, the whole article focuses in on what is the doctrine of excommunication.

51:27

Um, you know, so I've run this past a number of, of people, uh, trusted people that I love and honor and respect pastors, um, non pastors, lay leaders, uh, asking them to view my article before I posted it.

51:42

And, uh, nobody took issue with my understanding of excommunication. So my excommunication links around two verses,

51:51

Matthew 18, uh, first Corinthians five are the two primary verses that people deal with.

51:57

Excommunication always deals with unrepentant sin on the person that is being excommunicated.

52:05

That was not the case for us, nor was it the case for anybody that left after us.

52:10

So, um, you know, my question becomes if somebody is, is, um, claiming fidelity to the scriptures and you're clearly distorting and not being what the scriptures call you to do, you're twisting scripture.

52:30

Uh, why would you continue to do that? I think that that's a question that has to be answered.

52:35

Why would you do that? So, I mean, for, so as a short answer, like. You guys were excommunicated, other families were excommunicated.

52:44

Was this used as a way to punish or to, um, get people to not acknowledge anything you had to say after you left the church?

52:53

Like, is that the reason for it? Yeah, I think the excommunication is whether it be punishment or retribution for leaving.

53:01

Uh, yes, that's, that is in my opinion, the designed, uh, the purpose behind it.

53:07

I mean, you know, they'll, they'll say, you know, you didn't strive for unity. You didn't, you know, you were, you spoke to other people and you were divisive.

53:16

Uh, you spoke to them and not to us. You didn't come back in to speak with us. I mean, there's a lot of things that are told why you deserved excommunication.

53:27

Uh, but you know, excommunication clearly is that somebody is in sin, a sin like adultery and they won't turn it and they're confronted and then they, and then they're, they're put out of the church for the purpose of reconciliation.

53:44

No, I mean, absolutely. Yes. And I think the article that I wrote, uh, you know, highlights all of those, all of the real purposes and the designs behind excommunication.

53:55

Yeah. So, so let me ask you, you said there was only a couple of reasons that there could leave the church.

54:02

It was somebody died. Yeah. They were sent, they were excommunicated.

54:10

Or mutual agreement was the fourth one. Which nobody has seen mutual agreement from what

54:15

I understand. So not to my knowledge, one person, maybe you could kind of say that, but he got, he was a foreigner and he had to leave the country anyway.

54:24

So it was sort of a, just a different thing. So were people accepted into membership from other churches, they left their church, come to Mike Reed's church.

54:35

Did they come to it without having what, what Mike Reed would call an actual biblical way to leave a church?

54:43

Yeah. So they had a standard that was different for the people that left versus the people they accepted into membership.

54:50

Yeah. I think the, the guy that you talked about at the very beginning was the very, was, was clearly one that, you know, his pastors didn't even really want him to leave, but he came anyway.

55:03

And, you know, there's clearly a double standard there. Yeah. So you're talking about the, the well -known evangelist that I was talking about earlier.

55:10

Yeah. Yep. Okay. So now I know you also make some serious, uh, you have some serious concerns about cultish behaviors, which now the rest of the show, this is what we're gonna be talking about.

55:20

I know people have been anxious waiting for what I see on the, on the YouTube comments, but I want to be very fair and deliberate in how we are laying this out, because I want to be completely fair to you on a, be completely fair to Mike.

55:31

And, um, and I want you to be able to talk the same way I'm going to give Mike the opportunity to, should he, should he desire to, uh, to take me up on that offer.

55:39

Um, so you, you wrote out a number of serious concerns, uh, control oriented leadership, spiritual elite, elitism, manipulation of members, perceived persecution, lifestyle, rigidity, emphasis on experience, suppression of dissent, harsh discipline of members, denunciation of other churches and a painful exit process.

56:01

So you you've thrown these out and, and I think those things are going to, is what we're going to be talking through in these points, because I know a lot of people have made the case that this is cultish behavior, if not a full blown cult that has somehow gone underneath the radar for a while.

56:17

And so the first thing we're going to really talk about is, is the authority as Bible interpreters.

56:23

So you and several other people that I've spoken with personally have made the claim that pastor

56:30

Mike and his elders assert themselves at the top authority in congregants lives.

56:36

And that starts with the interpretation of the Bible. So the first testimony that I read stated we had even been told before that we ought not to be listening to sermons from other pastors, but that rather we should go back and listen to previous sermons from our own pastor.

56:50

Now I had that actually confirmed over the phone with me too. So it wasn't just from your blog. Um, I did speak to that person.

56:56

Um, and then, uh, and then it says, I have heard that acts 2028 also, um, gets used to help and push their concept of their authoritarian control over, over people in the doctrines in their church is, um, they use acts 2028, which says pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the

57:16

Holy spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God. So how did this play out,

57:23

Kevin? How, how is this and other verses used in terms of their ability to have total control, which is really the basis of the close shepherding we're going to be walking into real soon.

57:37

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that these things are accurate. I want to clarify that the 10 items that you listed in terms of control oriented leadership and that kind of stuff, those came out of the book, churches that abused by, uh,

57:53

Ronald and Roth. Uh, that is an excellent book. And I commend that, uh, for everybody to read that they would identify, uh, these kind of characteristics in churches that are heavy authoritarian, uh, in terms of the, you know, the, uh, commending, commending, uh, to go back and to listen to sermons,

58:16

I would say, and you know, I would expect, unless you have my sermons memorized, you're going back and listening to them again.

58:23

He encouraged people constantly to, uh, go back and, uh, listen to his old sermons.

58:31

So, um, you know, in, in terms of biblical authority, Acts 20, 28, uh, certainly

58:38

Hebrews 13, 17 was, was, was a big, you know, I I've been in, in, in churches we've been in, uh, after we left

58:47

Grace Fellowship, we, we tried three churches, we ended up joining one. And, um, and then now that we've moved to Albuquerque last summer, we are now in a, in a, in a chair and I have never outside of the context of actually preaching through the book of Hebrews, I have never heard a pastor once bring up Hebrews 13, 17.

59:11

Now that doesn't mean that they don't know about Hebrews 13, 17. They obviously do. And we respect

59:17

Hebrews 13, 17. But let me hold you, hold you right there for a moment, because this, this kind of gets into the next topic as well.

59:25

And so I want to, um, we'll bring that up here in just a moment, but in terms of the authority,

59:32

I mean, they, they set themselves up as the sole authority, right. For Bible interpretation. I want to make that clear.

59:38

And that's a point that you have said, as well as others have said this to me in person, um, is that an accurate statement?

59:47

Yeah. Well, ultimately it would go something like this. Now let's suppose, um, somebody has a question, uh, about, uh, interpretation text and someone goes to Mike to have a discussion about it and suppose they would bring, uh, the

01:00:03

MacArthur commentaries for instance, well, you know, MacArthur says this, uh,

01:00:09

Mike would say, well, you know, we disagree with MacArthur in that area and we're your pastors. You know, we think that you need to obey us.

01:00:19

We think that, uh, that's good for you as Hebrews 13, 17 says. And, um, you know, you're a member of this church.

01:00:27

So we believe that your calling is to, you know, submit yourselves to your elders.

01:00:33

And, uh, so at the end of the day, the final authority in a local church rests upon the leadership of that church.

01:00:42

And I'm not even saying that's necessarily wrong. I think that that is correct because there's a tendency to swing it to the other side where I have an internet pastor and I don't have to really listen to you because I get my better teaching from them.

01:00:59

So there's a, there's a balance there, but you know, ultimately I think that was used a little heavy handed yet.

01:01:06

Uh, often. So for those who don't know this verse on top of their head, Hebrews 13, 17

01:01:12

States, this obey your leaders and submit to them for their keeping watch over your souls as those who will have give as those who will have to give an account, let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you.

01:01:26

So the, the first couple that you referenced in your blog that I spoke to said, um, the elders taught that there's no limits to an elder's authority in believing members lives.

01:01:39

While I am referencing the teaching of this specifically regarding the confession statement, this was taught throughout our entire time.

01:01:45

They're using Hebrews 13, 17 as their basis, often admonishing members that lack of obedience to their requests or expectations would be unprofitable.

01:01:55

So it seemed like it went beyond what just interpretation of the text was, but it went into details in their lives.

01:02:02

And I think we're going to see later today that there's some of those details were more close than what a lot, a lot of people would be comfortable with.

01:02:09

Yeah. So no doubt about it. I'm sorry. Did you have a question? I mean, I jump in.

01:02:15

Oh yeah. So several of the testimonies that I read made the claim that all interpretation had to be approved by the elders in terms of the

01:02:22

Bible. And so then I know that, that they had made that the claim is out there.

01:02:27

Um, again, by several of the testimonies that they were told that GFC grace. Um, fellowship church was the only true church in the quad cities area and that other churches were regularly spoken against.

01:02:40

So, you know, putting themselves more on a pedestal is what is what I seem to be getting from the testimonies.

01:02:46

Um, so Kevin, did the elders of GFC place themselves as the top teachers.

01:02:53

Around, um, essentially that nobody can interpret the Bible as well as they do. Yeah. I think that there's definitely that, that vibe, uh, you know, it's, you know,

01:03:05

I don't even remember when this whole concept of a true or a false church came up, it might've been,

01:03:11

I know that Grudem talks about that in systematic theology and the purity of a church and that kind of a thing.

01:03:18

So it's such a weird kind of statement to me because, you know, I mean, there's, there's local churches, there's universal, the universal church.

01:03:27

There's, uh, you know, true believers in all kinds of different types of churches. I would,

01:03:33

I would, uh, believe and contend. Um, so the concept of a true church was kind of a strange discussion looking back on it now, but that was a big topic of discussion for a long time that, you know,

01:03:47

GFC really was, you know, a pinnacle type church and, and it kind of goes into Enroth's book, which is, you know, sort of, it's, it's, it's a higher level, right?

01:03:59

It's a green beret type, uh, ministry. Uh, you know, we're not just your average church.

01:04:07

We strive harder. We work harder. We, you know, maybe work harder is the wrong term and it works out that way, but, you know, we are seeking a higher, uh, level of holiness.

01:04:20

So there's a few things that are constantly pushed. And I know we're going to talk, probably talk about this later, but holiness, submission, and, um, uh, there's one other thing

01:04:32

I'm, I'm, I'm blanking on it right now, but you know, there, there's a number of those items that are pushed on, on a consistent basis.

01:04:40

Holiness of life is, is constant sin. Sin is the other one.

01:04:45

Sin, holiness of life and, uh, submission to authority and to leadership, especially those are the hot button items that GFC that, that are constantly being, being worked on.

01:04:57

Yeah. And I think we're gonna get into some of that in a little bit. Um, so let me ask you this in your estimation, did the elders, starting with Mike, cause there's two other elders there, right?

01:05:06

There's Nick Roland and Tyler Bolkema. Uh, they believe that Hebrews 13, 17 was giving them the ability to be the unchecked authority in, in congregants lives.

01:05:19

Yeah. I think the reality of it is I don't know if they would come out and they would actually declare that.

01:05:27

Okay. So I don't think that they put a public face to saying that, but I think like so many other things in churches like this is the practical reality of the way it works out is that the elders have, uh, a huge influence on almost everything that goes on in the lives of the people.

01:05:52

Now, if I'm good with money, they're probably going to leave me alone on my money, right?

01:05:59

But if there's ever been any issue in my life with my marriage or with the raising of my children, that might get pushed on real heavily.

01:06:08

Uh, it just, it just kind of depends. And then sometimes, you know, there's sort of different sets of rules for different people, right?

01:06:15

If you're, if you're one type of a person in the church that is perhaps, you know, a big donator, you might get a pass on some things.

01:06:25

Um, you know, there, there's often a kind of a shifting standard. Yeah. That's interesting.

01:06:31

So this actually leads me now into the next set of questions is, is topic number three, and this is, this is a, a big one.

01:06:39

And I'm reading a comment here, Chuck O 'Neill, um, looks like he commented on the YouTube page said, uh, that Mike Reed likens pastors to slave masters and a congregation of slaves on a plantation in a video.

01:06:51

So there's a video link on that for anybody who wants to go see, um, that actually being said,

01:06:58

I think that might be that it's possible. That's, that's that remnant radio interview where he talks about the four ways, three or four ways to leave a church.

01:07:07

I think he talks about that there, which, which, um, he, he definitely does that.

01:07:12

I mean, you know, that's, that's pretty, uh, that's pretty intense, uh, teaching. Yeah.

01:07:17

And so that now leads me to the next thing, because this is where, this is where I think a lot of people's alarm bells have gone off.

01:07:25

Right. And this is where there are some things that I would say, yeah,

01:07:31

Mike, kind of weird, you know, there's some things I'd say, ah, that's not smart to do.

01:07:37

And I think we're getting into one of those right now. Um, and, and, and honestly,

01:07:42

I mean, this would be something that I would, I would never go to a church and subject my own family to this, um, what we've heard so far personally, right.

01:07:51

Not saying it's sinful. I'm not giving any biases. I'm just saying that, but this is what it can lead to.

01:07:57

Right. And so this is topic number three, and this has been the big, one of the big ones that's talked about is meeting with women alone.

01:08:04

So there's a charge of, of what I would call a stranger, weird practice that Mike would meet alone with women.

01:08:11

Sometimes this was done at his home, I guess, early on in the ministry. And, uh, and he did this in his own home where there were glass doors on his office.

01:08:18

So a lot of times he had his wife around or other people in the house there. Um, sometimes he didn't, but, but there was at least some transparency.

01:08:28

Um, but then it ended up transferring to being done in the basement of his church, where, as it was described to me by one person, that it was, as you go down the stairs in the basement, this was way in the other side of the basement, away from the only way out of the basement, right.

01:08:48

Um, but that there was that there were a number of, of, uh, shepherding sessions that continued to occur with, with women alone in this basement.

01:08:58

We're not just the basement was alone, not just the room itself was alone, but nobody in even the church at all, but for the pastor and somebody else's wife.

01:09:08

And so my first question is, is, was this all the elders that did this?

01:09:14

Or was it just Mike that had these meetings with women alone? Well, that is, that is a really good question.

01:09:22

I mean, you know, if I would say in my experience, um, you know, uh, one of the other elders would come to my house to meet with my wife.

01:09:37

And, um, I was either home or, you know, going to work. We had kids around the house.

01:09:42

They would sit out on our three season porch, given the right time of year and have discussions.

01:09:48

You know, yes, they're technically meeting alone, but, um, you know, it's, it's.

01:09:56

I don't think that there's any real concerns in that regard necessarily. Right.

01:10:01

But the problem I think, even with that standard is that, you know, physical attractions can, can blossom.

01:10:12

Um, well, yeah. And we're, and we're going to get into that Kevin here in a few minutes. I'm going to ask questions. I guess my main thing is just to establish some of this is that was, was, so it wasn't just Mike was, but other elders did this as well in meeting with women alone.

01:10:28

Yeah. The, um, you know, Nick did. Uh, I don't know about Tyler. I don't know if, you know, he was fairly new.

01:10:35

He was a new, I mean, I've known Tyler a long time, but he was a new elder. Uh, he was an elder maybe six months before we left.

01:10:42

So I don't know what, what his practice is. The primary bulk of that would fall on Mike.

01:10:48

He would be the main one, but if, you know, if he's the only one really meeting with women alone, then

01:10:54

I might really ask, well, why is that? I mean, if you consider this a credible part of your shepherding ministry, why are you the only one that's doing this?

01:11:04

Uh, again, I S I just got done saying that Nick did, but I don't know if that's, I don't know if there's,

01:11:10

I don't have knowledge of there being a lot of other people that the other elders would meet with, but Mike has, has, and probably continues to meet with nearly every woman in the church on some level.

01:11:22

So that was my next question is that is, is his model or design of pastoral ministry?

01:11:27

Um, it, was it the intention to counsel with all married couples at GFC or was it just with women alone?

01:11:35

Yeah. Anybody. Okay. Yeah. Anybody and everybody. Yes. What if they didn't request it?

01:11:41

And, and the women, right. Women that he would meet alone. It, what if they didn't specifically request it?

01:11:49

Like, yeah, I think he would request to meet with them at some point in time. Um, I, I think that, uh, you know,

01:11:57

X 20, 28, right. Shepherd the flock. Well, that doesn't give any distinction that I'm arguing from Mike's side.

01:12:04

Okay. X 20, 28 does not give a distinction between, uh, a man or a woman in the flock.

01:12:12

So he would argue that, that, that gives him the authority to shepherd anybody that's in the flock.

01:12:21

And, and then it may be evangelistic if they're, if they're unbelievers, he had requested to meet with one of my daughters that is an unbeliever.

01:12:30

And how old was she when he requested those? Probably 15 or 16. So teenage girl and he requested her alone.

01:12:40

Yeah. Um, I don't, I honestly, I don't remember, but you know, yeah, he would meet with her alone.

01:12:48

Okay. So, so I, just to make sure that, that I have this, that I have,

01:12:53

I'm getting hit by the sun here, but it's okay. At least you have it there. Cause we don't have much. Um, so just to make sure

01:13:04

I have this clear, it was you, it was Mike's intention to meet with women alone.

01:13:10

As part of the ministry. And that included married women, single women, teenage girls.

01:13:18

But it's tension was to meet with everybody. Is that yes, that's accurate. Yes. Accurate.

01:13:23

Okay. And then how long does this typically last? Is this, is this just like an ongoing practice or is this a,

01:13:31

Oh, we're going to meet two times to be done? Um, yeah, I mean, I think it's an ongoing practice, but that might, you know, that might change.

01:13:41

I mean, some may out of the rotation perhaps, or, uh, whatever the case may be, um, you know, with my wife, we just, she stopped meeting and we decided that she would not continue to meet with them.

01:13:57

And so, um, we stopped the PR we stopped the process when our, when we sort of became more understood what was going on and choose that kind of cropped up out of this, uh, you know, we decided just to stop doing that.

01:14:15

Yeah. But how long, I mean, indefinitely, I mean, there's, there's women in the church that have been there a long time and he still continues to meet with them.

01:14:22

And I don't, I don't understand why I think, you know, why would you have to continue to have, uh, why would you continue to have to have counseling sessions, even with, with, um, couples that aren't really requesting marriage counseling, why do you have to continue to have counseling with them?

01:14:43

I mean, that was, that was kind of a, an odd thing for us. It was, you know, I know we may talk about this a little bit later on, but there was a, there was a watershed moment for me when this marriage, marriage counseling, uh, you know, whether, you know,

01:15:00

Mike realizes it or not. I mean, he will, if he watches, which I'm sure he will. Um, you know, that was one of the things that, that kicked us over the edge.

01:15:09

Yeah. So now to probe a little bit more right now, it's again, your testimony is consistent with what

01:15:20

I have heard personally from the other witnesses that nobody else bothered to actually ask the people who have said their research on this, never asked these people that you have written about in the blogs

01:15:31

I did. And every one of them, it would have a consistent answer.

01:15:36

And what I found fascinating was that each one of the females I spoke to, by the way, the husband was on the phone at the same time.

01:15:43

And I spoke to their wives because I would not even be on the phone, um, let alone in, in person. But so when

01:15:50

I spoke with the wives and, uh, and asked him some of these questions, every one of them was uncomfortable with this to some degree.

01:15:58

What I was fascinated by is why most of them did it anyway. I was just,

01:16:04

I was shocked by that. Right. So I think that it goes back to, because they all made the same mention, right?

01:16:11

That what we had just talked about earlier, um, in terms of, of the Hebrews passage and the acts passages is that they have total control of your lives.

01:16:19

They put themselves in that position. They are going to give an account for you. So therefore they use that as a basis for these closed shepherding techniques.

01:16:28

Okay. So they it's Mike meets with women alone. Um, it's been private many times in the basement of the church and other areas that were private.

01:16:40

Sometimes it wasn't, but many times it was. And from what I understand, most of the last part of the last four to five, six years, those have all been private meetings where the early or almost all private meetings where the earlier ones tended to not be as private.

01:16:52

So there's a progression, but I've, what I've seen, but it's what happens in that is to me more disturbing according to the accounts that are out there.

01:17:05

So one of the couples that you wrote about, right, said, um, and this is the first testimony.

01:17:11

It was common for individual private meetings between pastor Mike Reid and women to include discussions of intimacy with their husbands up to, and including a prescribed frequency in at least one case.

01:17:27

So, you know, topic three meeting with one alone goes into topic four here, which is the intimate questions that were being asked of congregants, just specifically women, um, in these, in these meetings.

01:17:39

So how often, um, are you aware of, of these intimate questions occurring?

01:17:46

Was it, was it asked of a hundred percent of the women? It was at 50 % of them.

01:17:53

Was it 75, you know, just ballpark what this is.

01:17:59

Yeah. Right. Yeah. We, um, you know, this is, this is like one of those things where when you come outside of this stuff, you go,

01:18:10

I, you know, for people watching this thing, they'll go, why in the world would you do that?

01:18:16

Or why would you allow this to happen? And, you know, it seems so bizarre looking, looking from the outside in.

01:18:26

And, you know, I, I want to, again, reference, uh, Enroth's book, Churches That Abuse.

01:18:33

And Enroth will say, and I'm not trying to defend myself in this. Okay. I, it's like, you know, it's part of my life.

01:18:39

Um, you know, we were there, we participated in this, uh, we were, you know, we're not victims of it.

01:18:46

We were just, you know, we were just ignorant to it. But Enroth says, you know, don't think you can't be sucked into stuff like this.

01:18:54

Anybody can. And, um, the reality of it is that we just sort of grew up into it.

01:19:00

And it's, it's, I guess it's as good an analogy as any, but it's the frog that gets put in the pot and the heat gets turned up and eventually the frog gets boiled, it's just like, you know, you at, at a certain point in time, your defenses go down because you're trusting these people.

01:19:20

You know, they're supposed to be your elders and your pastors and you're, you're supposed to have this trust and they continue to, to teach these things about trust and about submission and about authority.

01:19:30

And so eventually that's kind of the direction that, that you go.

01:19:35

And, and, you know, so you don't want to, you try not to kick up a big stir. You try not, you know, you, you try to be a team player to some degree.

01:19:45

But, um, you know, this stuff just kind of happens. So, um, and, but you said it happened.

01:19:51

It, this occurred often, right? I mean, this is a regular occurrence with females that you're aware of.

01:19:57

Yeah. Yeah. And, and the question about, you know, uh, your, uh, a married couple's sexual intimacy is, um, is a very frequent question.

01:20:09

It's to the, to my knowledge, it's asked of everybody that's a married couple. And I mean,

01:20:16

I, you know, I really, you know, now that I, that I look back on it, I think, you know, how dumb to really on my part, right.

01:20:25

How dumb to even really want to talk about that kind of stuff. Um, because, you know,

01:20:31

I was, I was pretty guarded in what I would say. My wife was incredibly guarded in what she would say, because it just kind of gave her, you know, the spider crawl, kind of the creep, creepy factor, just a little bit.

01:20:44

And she, you know, she was asked some questions that, um, she was just like, uh, you know,

01:20:52

I'm, I'm not answering that question. Yeah. So we're going to get into that here in a moment. Um, I, cause I re

01:20:57

I recall that from, from what you had written, but before we get to it, you know, I do want to say this, like in your blogs and things that I have confirmed again, you're getting people, everyone, everyone listening, you're going to hear me.

01:21:08

It says over and over again, because as far as I know, I'm the only person who has been an outsider that has looked into this and has, has, um, investigated.

01:21:16

And I don't say that to boast. I say that because other people claim to have investigated this and have not actually investigated this the way that you're supposed to.

01:21:25

Um, so having said that you're, you're the second couple now that left that, that you wrote about, um, this is what they said.

01:21:34

So the last draw for the second couple as to why they were leaving the church Mike's insistence meeting alone with women.

01:21:41

Even after I said, I'm not okay with that specifically as it related to my wife, Mike told me that if he could not meet with her alone, then

01:21:48

I was asking them to sin by not allowing the pastor to shepherd the flock, which led to him.

01:21:55

Discussing our marital intimacy without my presence, giving her instructions about helping her feel closer to me.

01:22:04

Third couple, their testimony reads this. I was asked regularly about how many times a week

01:22:11

I had intimacy with my wife. So this is now he's asking the husband on this, um, in a different part, this third couple said

01:22:17

I was continually told confidential information that another member revealed in closed sessions with the past, he justified sharing it to make a point with me about my life.

01:22:29

And so, and so there, it seems to be that there is a pattern with, with this type of behavior of, of asking about these intimacy questions with, with their husbands.

01:22:41

So Kevin, you also write about the topic yourself and, uh, and how it affected you and your wife.

01:22:47

And so in blog three, um, from January 14th, 2020 on your site, you stated, he also meets with women of the church alone with no accountability to anybody, but God.

01:22:59

And, and so I asked you already, was this every woman or just a percentage of them? You said it was the expectation for everybody.

01:23:05

He ended up meeting with most of them, but I want to know specifically what happened to you personally, because you did write about a meeting with you two together and, and, and you had already alluded to this a little bit, but were there any other times this happened with, with just your wife, because you wrote about your wife being in the car with Mike and another member of the church.

01:23:29

What was asked of her? Yeah. So the, the second part that you asked about was my wife being in the car.

01:23:39

Um, she had gone to Iowa city, which is a hour drive from Davenport to be part.

01:23:46

We, we had an active abortion ministry, praise God for that. Um, that there's, you know, you know, pleading for the lives of children, but, you know,

01:23:55

Jen rode up with, with Mike and another guy, and then on the way back, she was asked the question,

01:24:02

Jen, are your parts still working? Um, so, you know,

01:24:08

Jen had, my wife had just had two miscarriages within the past, probably three or four months within that time period.

01:24:17

So I think that Mike was the way I look at it. He had a couple of goals in mind.

01:24:23

Number one, the other guy in the car was, was fairly new to the congregation. So I think, you know, he was sort of maybe just showing off a little bit, right?

01:24:33

Like I have this kind of relationship with all of these people that I can absolutely ask them inappropriate and absurd things and, and it will be okay.

01:24:47

Um, the person in the car was visibly shaken.

01:24:53

Um, and he said, Jen, I'm driving as fast as I can.

01:25:00

In other words, he knew that it was, it was wrong. I mean, uh, number one, the qualifications of an elder call for sound speech.

01:25:09

This is not sound speech. It's it's I've just watched some of these, um, things that pop up here.

01:25:17

Disgusting. Yeah. Disgusting. Inappropriate. Yep. Inappropriate. Um, vulgar.

01:25:23

Yes. Uh, boorish. Yes. It's just wrong.

01:25:30

You don't do that. So it has the effect of showing off a little bit and then also breaking down this other guy, what might my pastor ask me now, or what might my pastor ask my wife?

01:25:46

Um, you know, so it's, it's, it's kind of, it's like, it's grooming, you know?

01:25:52

And so, yeah. So on that, I mean, you said this, right? You wrote that Mike, and I started to cut you off, but, um, no,

01:26:00

Mike consistently digs into the intimate relationship between husbands and wives, right? I think that's what you're getting at.

01:26:06

He would tell of his relationship with his wife in completely inappropriate ways, soften the blow for a wife to share details of her marriage bed.

01:26:15

So what you wrote in this blog, and one other person told me this as well, is that, that when the wife who's meeting with him alone is uncomfortable with the questions or uncomfortable sharing the details that he has readily given up his own details of his own sex life with his wife positions, um, number of times a week and such in order to get the wife, somebody else's wife that he's meeting with, right, to talk about this and to share their own details with her husband.

01:26:53

Um, so I know some of the questions were things like how often does she and her husband have relations?

01:27:00

What types of techniques do they use positions? Um, and that there's no boundaries permitted.

01:27:06

No information is off limits to pastor Mike. Yeah. So is there anything else you want to explain in regards to that?

01:27:13

Sorry again, sorry for cutting you off. I wanted to kind of read that as, as the backdrop of what you were explaining here.

01:27:20

Yeah, I think I, I, I'm watching these question or these comments that come in and these people are a hundred percent, right?

01:27:27

I hope this shocks people. I hope it, I hope that if, if members from grace fellowship are watching this, that they will say that this stuff is wrong.

01:27:38

It's inappropriate. It's wacky. It's cultish.

01:27:45

It's, uh, it, it's disturbing. And the one guy said it's a defilement of the marriage bed because I don't know the purpose behind all this.

01:27:55

Is this really a shepherd? Is this really a shepherding issue? Um, that, you know, listen, if, if I am having marriage difficulties and I go to my pastor and I say, uh, me and my wife want to meet with you.

01:28:10

We're having marriage difficulties. Now we've walked into this to, to seek help, to seek some counsel.

01:28:17

Um, but the, the going into this stuff without really asking.

01:28:22

And it's a, it's as you found out, I don't even have to tell you this myself. You have found it out by interviewing these people.

01:28:29

Everybody said it, right? I mean, there was nobody that didn't talk about this type of thing.

01:28:34

So, uh, this, this is, this is truly what's going on that people need to be aware of that, that these are inappropriate things.

01:28:44

This is, this is not biblical shepherding. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong as I, as I told

01:28:51

Mike in our, in our very respectful conversation with each other that I, I don't, it is, there's no way

01:28:59

I would go to church like this. It's weird. It's strange. I think it's wrong. Um, but, uh, but having said all that, uh, how many women reported that Mike shared his own details with them in order to get them to feel more comfortable sharing their own details?

01:29:16

Were there a number of women that talked about this? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question because I didn't ask people this specifically in terms of writing my article.

01:29:27

Um, I didn't, I asked them, the people in the second blog on the test called testimonies and the truths they tell.

01:29:36

I asked them to tell their stories. I didn't seek out the in, in, for information like that.

01:29:43

Um, I see this question. I think this deserves answering. How can you be a part of a church like that? That's pure wickedness.

01:29:49

Yes, it is pure wickedness. How can you be a part of a church like that? I don't know. I wish I knew, but this happens, people grow up.

01:29:57

And like I tried to explain earlier on in this, that, um, you know, we were, we came to salvation and it's the best analogy is being a frog in the pot.

01:30:09

You just, you kind of grow to learn this sort of stuff. And, you know, while I, while it was easy for me to step to stand on the outside and, and say, man, y 'all are a bunch of idiots and, you know, maybe that's true, but, um, you know,

01:30:26

I think that there's, there is so much here that goes on in a day -to -day life that you just, you can't put it all together.

01:30:34

There's so much time involved here. So anyway, I digress back to the topic. Oh, and no, I understand.

01:30:40

And, and I'm, I'm just trying to get a feel for, for what knowledge you have. Cause you were a deacon for several years at the church before you left.

01:30:47

Um, I, you know, obviously I heard this from multiple testimonies myself firsthand. So I had heard this from several people already.

01:30:58

I'm sure that there's people that want to ask you this question again, before I get to the next one, like I understand

01:31:06

Kevin, you were a false convert. You got saved there, I think under Mike Reed.

01:31:11

Right. And so, you know, you maybe didn't know any better. You kind of grew up and it was slowly brought around along.

01:31:19

And what it seems like is that doctrines have gotten worse over time and not, not less. Um, and so the

01:31:27

Lord opened your eyes at some point here later in the process. But, um, when did it, when did meeting with women alone start to make you say what's going on here?

01:31:42

I mean, especially with, I mean, with your own wife, right. I, I guess for me, I would be completely alarmed about this, but you know,

01:31:50

I, I, I understand we're all different. I mean, what, what, what did it? Did you see pain? Did you see like what happens in this?

01:31:57

Yeah. Yeah. Really? I mean, one of the questions you asked, I didn't answer it exactly because we just got sort of sidetracked on one of the things, but you had asked about the marriage counseling and that one of the big linchpins for me was when we had been called in to have marriage counseling.

01:32:17

And we sat in the downstairs office that you've already described. It was me and my wife sitting here,

01:32:27

Mike across from us behind his desk, Nick on one side, Tyler on the other side.

01:32:33

And, um, Mike was almost like he was bent on intentionally provoking my wife to sort of see if he could, if he could get under her skin and, um, you know, this the, the, the, we had had some previous issues that we had met with the elders over things because my, my wife, you know, would ask some questions about some things that bothered her.

01:33:03

And it really, it almost like it was like the elders took it personally. Like she was attacking their credibility and she really wasn't.

01:33:11

She was just wanting to find out some answers to some questions. So this became something that Mike wanted to go back and root back out and bring back up something that we thought had been settled and bring it back up and ask, well, how is that going now?

01:33:24

And it almost was like it was intentionally provoking. And so we got further along into the conversation and she was, she needed to go pick up our daughter and she wanted to leave and she said,

01:33:37

I need to leave. I need to leave. And he's like, you can leave anytime you can, you can go anytime you want to. And so every time she'd try to walk out, he would ask her another question.

01:33:47

It was rapid fire question. Boom, boom, boom. And it was intentional provocation in my mind.

01:33:53

And, um, she said, I want to be respectful. And she's crying at this point in time.

01:33:59

Um, I want to be respectful, but I have to leave. I don't want to disrespect you.

01:34:05

You can leave anytime, Jen. And it was like, it was, it was crazy. And, um, you know,

01:34:12

I, I think that at this point in time, um, you know, knowing what

01:34:17

I know now, it might, it might not have gone the way it did, which was me just sitting there taking it.

01:34:26

Um, you know, and, and so I'm not promoting violence, but, but it would not have gone the same way given what

01:34:33

I know now, so Jen finally, uh, finally left and, um,

01:34:39

I continue to stay there and have more discussion with them. Okay. My wife just piped in and said it was only

01:34:45

Mike and Nick. Okay. So, um, so Mike, um, came to the point where he said,

01:34:53

I'm doing your job. Um, I'm doing your job,

01:34:59

Kevin. In other words, I need to control your wife because you can't. And, uh, this was, you know, again, looking back on it, this, this really was, this was really one of the things that sent me over the edge.

01:35:16

I had to take some time to think about it. It took me a while to try to understand, um, what was going on because, you know, here

01:35:24

I'm in leadership, I'm trying to be, uh, you know, do the right thing. I'm trying to be a decent guy, right.

01:35:32

I'm trying to fall, be a good follower of the ministry. Um, but this, this did it, you know, and, you know,

01:35:40

I, I saw the authoritarianism. I saw, you know, one of the books I mentioned,

01:35:46

I didn't mention, but read was a book called a pastor sketches by Ichabod Spencer, the difference between the way

01:35:53

Spencer dealt with people in comparison to the way Mike deals with people was such a, was such a night and day difference for me.

01:36:02

It really struck me. These are the things that the Lord began to open my eyes to.

01:36:08

And, um, you know, show me that this is not what we thought it was.

01:36:14

And so, you know, this is, these are the things, right. This is just my story. I'm not, um, you know,

01:36:22

I'm not mad at them per se, but I want them to stop doing this kind of stuff.

01:36:27

And, and I, and I will say later on, if you ask me the question, you know, I believe

01:36:34

Mike is disqualified. Sound speech is one, uh, above reproach is another.

01:36:40

There's so many issues there that elders are qualified for that. I believe him to be disqualified.

01:36:45

So I'm going to stop rambling. And, and we're going to, we're going to get into some of that later. And just for everybody, um,

01:36:52

I know that normally we end apologetics live around 10 o 'clock tonight. It's going to be a super show. We, uh, we probably going to go till 11 o 'clock

01:37:00

Eastern is, is my suspicion. Um, you know, this is so important. I don't want to break it up into two shows.

01:37:06

I want us to kind of run through and we'll probably break it up ourselves. Um, we'll see what happens when

01:37:12

I'd let Anthony run the show. He always goes over time, just like, just like when you put me on a box and you're the one up next,

01:37:19

Andrew. Yeah. I'll be up there all night for open air preachers. You know what, what the box means.

01:37:25

Okay. So, so Kevin, um, okay. Me too. The woman alone asks intimate sexual questions.

01:37:32

He has a practice of doing this, at least with the intention of being with every female in the church, whether they're married, single teenager.

01:37:40

But I think one of the most alarming things, and this is, again, this is, this in general is really alarming, but what amplifies this even more is, is, is

01:37:52

Mike sin past, right? And, um, I, I don't, I'm not going to say anything that is not already public knowledge.

01:38:00

Um, Kevin, you can say whatever, whatever you wish. Um, but, but in, in, in, in this issue,

01:38:09

Mike has, has readily talked about his previous adultery, previous errors.

01:38:18

But, and he would say that those were before he was converted. So that since he's been truly saved, truly converted that he, he has not committed adultery.

01:38:28

So that's, that's what he would say, right? That's what's been out there. Yeah. Um, but I, I want to read this here.

01:38:35

So while meeting with women alone and sharing sexual details about their marriage, this would be unacceptable to nearly every pastor in America.

01:38:45

Um, one of the testimonies and a few audio recordings that appear on Chuck O 'Neill's YouTube page gives some more concern over these practices.

01:38:56

And so the fifth testimony that you quoted in their blog wrote this, they told me as testimony about his wife's affairs and his affairs against his wife.

01:39:05

These have since been taken down from sermon audio. He seemed to brag about how he had done the deed rather than simply looking at women and there seemed to be no remorse in his voice, pastor

01:39:18

Chuck O 'Neill elaborated on, on Mike's previous adultery said, um, he said even more regarding regarding this, um, that the multiple adulterous affairs of Mike read and that there was a lack of wisdom in meeting with women alone.

01:39:33

So, so Chuck really brought out this issue of, you know, there's a lack of wisdom with meeting with women alone in general, married, single teenager, whatever, like that's something you don't do, but then on top of it all, there's a testimony beyond that, that Mike, like the sin, one of the sins that he had an issue with a major issue with was adultery, right?

01:39:57

And so when we put those two together, now how smart is it to meet with, with women alone, so in a work for, in a recorded phone call located on the

01:40:07

Beaverton grace, Bible church, YouTube page, I think some people have been asking for that. So, um, pastor

01:40:12

Andrew, I don't know if you want to put that up there, Beaverton grace, Bible church, YouTube page. This is

01:40:17

Chuck O 'Neill's YouTube page. So audio, um, phone calls, the stuff that's recorded that I listened to as part of my research is up.

01:40:28

Anybody can go listen to these things and, and listen to it for yourself directly out of Mike's mouth and directly out of Chuck's mouth.

01:40:36

Um, things that were said, but so in, in the video, number six on the

01:40:42

YouTube page between pastor Chuck, pastor Mike Reed and others,

01:40:49

Mike admitted on this phone call to his previous multiple adulterous affairs.

01:40:55

And so, so my next set of questions now is going to deal with this issue.

01:41:00

Is so Kevin, how did the church view this practice of meeting with women alone, especially in light of his past?

01:41:12

Yeah. I mean, again, these are just, these are just great questions to ask.

01:41:19

Um, you know, how, how is it that, listen,

01:41:24

I, I'm, I'm not saying grace fellowship is Jonestown. Okay. Don't misunderstand me. The comparison is how does

01:41:31

Jim Jones get people to drink Kool -Aid a thousand people to drink Kool -Aid?

01:41:36

How does David Koresh get people to move to Waco, Texas? And be living in a compound and all the crazy stuff.

01:41:45

How do a charismatic persuasive men get people to follow them and do things that even maybe goes against their conscience for a period of time, the reality is

01:41:58

I don't know people allow it, uh, is, is the answer. And that's why it was important for me to speak out is as we have come to the knowledge of the truth on these things, we have, we can't keep quiet any longer.

01:42:14

Um, and so how I D I can't tell you, I don't know, because you grow to trust these men, they've, they've spoken into your life.

01:42:24

You've appreciated their sermons. Maybe you've spent time with them.

01:42:29

You've lived your life with them. You've done all these things together. They've been become your friends and the people that you love.

01:42:36

And so you, you begin to sort of, uh, lose your

01:42:42

Berean instincts of searching the scriptures daily to find out if these things are true, you, you begin to sort of drop your defenses after a while in, in, in many cases.

01:42:53

So that's the best answer I had. So did, did he ever admit this to the church of his previous adultery in sermons?

01:43:04

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. He talked about it. Frequently, you know, that it might've been in teaching times.

01:43:11

It might've been, uh, you know, I'm sure in sermons. Uh, but yeah, I mean, everybody knew he talked about it openly.

01:43:19

There wasn't really issues. Now there's, you know, there's different men look at, look at the husband of one wife part differently.

01:43:29

You know, some believe that before conversion, uh, it happened. It's, it's a part of the salvation process still can mean a man is qualified for ministry.

01:43:39

Uh, you know, I'm not here to debate that item of it, but, you know, everybody knew.

01:43:46

And, you know, it was interesting because I think at one point in time, I don't remember how he told me about it.

01:43:53

I don't know who else he told, but he said at one point in time, he prayed for a period of however many days, uh, that, that the

01:44:00

Lord would take away any sort of sexual desire for anybody other than his wife.

01:44:07

And then after a period of time, what do you know that was gone?

01:44:14

Um, can I, can I call out, call that one out?

01:44:19

I don't know. I mean, you know, that is a convenient thing to have happen, right?

01:44:25

If you're, if there's, if there's really nefarious things at the, at the root of your, of your thinking.

01:44:32

Yeah. So from my understanding, um, he did speak about this in sermons as well as in teachings, but from what my also understanding is that the sermons have been pulled down off of sermon audio.

01:44:46

Um, well, I can't answer that for certain. I know, I'm sure some sermons have been pulled from sermon audio.

01:44:54

I know the, the program we did together called ask a pastor. A lot of those have been pulled down and that might've been a topic of discussion on there.

01:45:02

I don't really recall. Okay. And then was, was his, his, so for you as a, as a founding family of the church, as a deacon, were you or anybody else concerned about his past in relationship to him and his desire to meet with women alone for shepherding?

01:45:31

Was that connection ever made by people as, as a concern? Cause I, I gotta be honest.

01:45:36

I mean, that's the light bulbs, right? I mean, those are the ding, ding, ding that goes off for me for a lot of,

01:45:42

I would say this, I mean, as, as, as we, as we walk through this, where it seems like you can't get any worse, well, now all of a sudden add just another layer to this, um, it, it seems, it seems obvious, doesn't it?

01:45:57

I mean, that's what you're telling me. And that's what most people that are watching this program will say.

01:46:04

That's obvious. I mean, that's like Christianity 101. Yeah, exactly. Well, I, again,

01:46:11

I, you know, if you're in this thing, it's just, you know, you kind of grow into it,

01:46:17

I guess you kind of, you know, over time you drop your defenses or, you know, here, here's an interesting thing is because I think that everybody that came into the church that may have tried it, that had maturity that had, um, had a mature

01:46:34

Christian background, they spotted this kind of stuff right away and they didn't stick around very long.

01:46:43

Um, you know, we had, we had a friend, um, you know, that I didn't even know them.

01:46:50

We had already, we had left the church and they came and they, they were there, he, he, he is in ministry himself and he, he identified this stuff and he was out the door pretty fast.

01:47:02

So, you know, the people that have some maturity, they don't stick around. It was the people that, you know, were newly converted that kind of grew up and they accepted this as the teaching because, you know, uh, you know,

01:47:15

Mike can be a persuasive guy, he can have, uh, you know, he's charismatic in many ways, but he can have, um, not a lot persuasive.

01:47:27

Yeah. Yeah. Not, not theologically charismatic. His personality is a very correct. In a bowl charismatic personality.

01:47:36

So, okay. So that brings us then into, into the next topic, because this was a major concern of pastor

01:47:45

Chuck O 'Neill, right? His original blog that, that blogs blog that came out, um, and, and concerns had to do with, with, um, the ramifications, because if, if my understanding is correct on this and Kevin, you can, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but he seemed to say that, and this is on, by the way,

01:48:09

Beaverton Grace Bible Church, YouTube page. So Chuck O 'Neill's YouTube page. Um, Mike was asked about meeting with one alone and his justification in, in light of his past, his adulterous past, he said this, he defended it by saying that he was not saved at that time.

01:48:26

And now that he was truly saved, he could no longer fall into that same type of sin ever again.

01:48:33

And so this was given in that phone call. And then it was also repeated in that same phone call.

01:48:39

Um, or I'm saying a different phone call mentioned a little bit ago. So this was mentioned multiple times by him that he can no longer fall into that same type of, of sin.

01:48:54

Um, so, so let me ask this. I mean, was, was this a teaching within the church that, that, because this would seem like sinless, um, perfectionism, right?

01:49:06

I mean, if you can't fall back into sin, I guess

01:49:13

I'm, I'm, I'm failing to understand this, does this have to do with the prayer that you said earlier that Mike said he prayed about this will for adultery with women that he prayed it away and now we can't have particular sin, but I guess

01:49:26

I'm confused. Can you help us out with this? Yeah. So I think, you know, a practical application, uh, a practical application of Mike's teaching is, you know, they'll, they'll put it under the banner striving for holiness, um, that you're measured by external fashions of holiness, uh, they use terms like victory over your sin.

01:49:53

Um, you know, things, things of this nature, um, you know, the reality of how it sort of lives out is that, you know, you will have victory over your sin, uh, and, and then really it's, it's, it kind of becomes almost a sinless perfectionism, uh, and that, uh, you know, that's, and that's just kind of how you're measured in the church.

01:50:21

Yeah. And we're going to get into the holiness a little bit later. So. I guess, I guess what

01:50:26

I'm driving at. So I want to make sure I clarify my statement from just a moment ago, because you mentioned the ask a pastor series.

01:50:34

When you, when you were at the church before, um, the person that took it over from you came to the church, you used to do this, ask the pastor series with Mike Reed, where you'd ask him questions in a, in a way and in a.

01:50:47

You know, comfortable area. Right. And he would answer those questions. And then when, when the street evangelist came to the church, he took over for you right away.

01:50:58

And so I guess what I'm referencing is that on, on one of those episodes, and that's the number seven video on, um, on the

01:51:06

Beaverton grace Bible church, you do page that this question was asked of Mike and he candidly answered how he can no longer fall into that sin.

01:51:14

Um, this was also repeated in the phone call that. Pastor Chuck had with Mike and two other people as witnesses at that recorded phone call.

01:51:25

But what was interesting to me in listening to this is that, is that as I often like to do, and I know

01:51:32

Andrew likes to do this, take things to its logical conclusion to try to, um, to test things while this was obviously done here and, and in this ask the pastor series and in this specific episode, the person, the evangelist asked

01:51:52

Mike this question in regards to a theoretical child molester getting saved, right?

01:52:00

So he just gets done asking the questions regarding Mike's adultery.

01:52:05

Mike claiming he can no longer fall into the same sin again. And, uh, now that he's truly saved.

01:52:11

So therefore there's no problem with meeting with women alone. And then it's taken to its logical extreme now that if a theoretical child molester walked into the church and now gets truly converted, gets truly saved, that pastor

01:52:28

Mike concludes that a repentant child molester could meet with children alone in the church.

01:52:36

Yeah, I was, I was extremely alarmed. And that again, it's, it's a recording. Anybody can go listen to that for themselves.

01:52:42

Number seven on, on Chuck's, uh, Beaverton YouTube page. So I guess what bugs me about this?

01:52:53

I mean, I'm bugged by a lot of things, obviously, right? If all these things are absolutely true and most of these are recorded right out of his own mouth that he acknowledged though.

01:53:05

So on one hand, he says he can no longer fall into the sin, right? So there's going to be no issues with him meeting with women alone, a theoretical child molester who's now saved can also can meet with children alone because they're not going to fall into that same sin, except that he later on in the same ask a pastor, um, clip acknowledged that that person who is now truly, who was truly saved as a child molester could actually prove to be a false convert later and cause problems, right?

01:53:35

I mean, it's really confusing in terms of what this doctrine actually is, you know, sinless perfectionism, but with an idea that you can still somehow sin anyway, it's really, it's really odd to me.

01:53:46

So what, what did the congregation think about this teaching as you try to put these things together?

01:53:53

Well, I, you know, uh, my wife and I talked about this go, um, about this concept as to, in terms of the child molester part,

01:54:03

I don't ever remember him, um, teaching specifically what you just said.

01:54:10

Now I know he has said that. So in his thinking, yeah,

01:54:16

I understand that. I didn't personally hear it. So in other words, he, he, he used it there, but that was not a, like a standby.

01:54:24

He's got a lot of standby things that he'll go to. And that was not, that was not one of them.

01:54:30

However, the part of his boast being in Christ, I cannot fall into sin because of Christ and the spirit in me, um, you know, all that kind of stuff, you know, he, he boasted quite frequently that he could not fall into an adulterous affair.

01:54:50

Well, that's in direct con contrast, even to his confession of faith, the 1689 that says believers can fall into sin and even egregious sin for a period of time.

01:55:01

Now, obviously that would disqualify him from, from ministry, but, um, you know, he, he would boast without any trouble that he could not fall into sexual immorality.

01:55:15

So, you know, the congregation took that, took that at his word, I guess, is the answer to that.

01:55:21

Uh, I think, you know, it's, it's absurd, especially looking back at it now.

01:55:27

I'm just like, who would even say that? I mean, why would you say that?

01:55:33

Why even set yourself up for such a thing? And really at the bottom, you know, you asked me what my goal was.

01:55:40

I would have asked, what is the goal behind such a statement that it's, you know, obviously the people that are watching that are probably thinking that's gotta be one of the dumbest things

01:55:51

I've ever heard. And I, I concur it is. Yeah. And so I know that for people who go to look for the ask the pastor shows, they've all actually since been deleted, right.

01:56:03

That contained this teaching and others, even though we have a copy of, of it saved, um, of his word saved on, on, uh,

01:56:11

Chuck's website website, um, they've all been deleted and, and actually I was able to go to the page,

01:56:17

I was able to find it and you could see on YouTube where they're just deleted videos with no reason. So, you know, they, they have been deleted.

01:56:24

And, um, um, you know, I remember because at that time

01:56:30

I was serving as a deacon when we were doing the ask a pastor shows and, um, you know, they

01:56:38

Chuck O 'Neill started, uh, bringing his concerns and doing his posts and stuff like that.

01:56:44

And it was sort of discussed, you know, what should we do? Should we leave them up? Should we take them down?

01:56:50

And it was decided to take them down. And I don't, you know, at least from, from my perspective, um, uh, this, this comment by Matt Logsdon, it should be, um, considered because Matt and his wife,

01:57:04

Rhonda were at the church nearly as long as we were, but, um, uh, yeah.

01:57:09

So, you know, it was at least on my part, it wasn't, there wasn't sort of a malice read the comments of people.

01:57:17

So, um, who is a, so Matt Logsdon, who is a member of the church, he and his wife, right.

01:57:24

As long as almost as long as you were Kevin. Yes. Is that right? Rhonda was there from the very beginning, just as we were with you.

01:57:32

Right. So, so her husband says to explain as Christians, we are not knowingly intentionally willfully sin, which is what an adulterous relationship would be.

01:57:43

Okay. So, you know, again, you could ask the question, um, if you got angry or you, uh, didn't have a family

01:57:53

Bible study that night, did you intentionally and willfully do that? You know,

01:57:59

I think you could argue that, that any sin you do is intentional and willful, and so where's the dividing line?

01:58:06

Because, you know, that was a, that was a big issue in, um, this friend of mine that I told you that left the church when, when

01:58:15

Mike was preaching through, I think, I want to say Hebrews 10, it could have been Hebrews six or whatever, talking about the falling away and that kind of stuff.

01:58:23

I mean, you know, Mike teaches this stuff that you are, you know, that these things.

01:58:31

While, you know, you might be a reformed Baptist or a five point Calvinist, you know, you might believe in the perseverance of the saints, you have sort of this, uh, exegetical issue as to whether, uh,

01:58:44

Hebrews 10 means that a believer can fall away because they willfully sin, and this is sort of what

01:58:49

Mike, Mike preached and my friend called him out on it and said, you know, that's not what the passage means.

01:58:55

And so here you have these, these kinds of issues that don't always fit Mike's framework of preaching, um, of holiness and sin, sinless perfectionism and all this kind of stuff.

01:59:07

And so he always kind of inserts his framework into his preaching, uh, which is really against what he would verbally say he's against, which is allowing the scriptures just to preach, but he's consistently putting his interpretation or his desire into the text.

01:59:27

Um, but anyway, I got off track. I'm sorry. Oh, that's, that's okay. So, okay. So we, we walk through all of these, these doctrines, right?

01:59:35

Which have been confirmed by people I've spoken with, you know, people, firsthand testimonies spoken with you, um, listen to Mike's own words on, on YouTube videos.

01:59:48

And so the next topic I want to walk into is, is another huge topic is holy kissing topic number seven, right?

01:59:59

And so Mike has a, has a sermon online regarding holy kissing. It's not sermon audio and it's from March, 2015.

02:00:09

This is the sermon that, that pastor Mike texted to me to listen to after he and I met back in January at G3, when

02:00:17

I first met with him and, uh, and understood a little bit about, um, what his, his side of the story is.

02:00:24

And again, I'm still hoping that he's going to come on as well. And, uh, and be able to explain some of these things that are out there, explain some of his words that have already been recorded and put out there.

02:00:35

And the testimonies that, uh, that I have listened to that,

02:00:41

I think a number of them are going to be coming forward and speaking now in public. Um, so when it talks about holy kissing, same sermon

02:00:50

I listened to early on and anybody can go listen to this sermon right now, it's also the same recording that pastor

02:00:57

Chuck O 'Neill has on his YouTube page again, under Beaverton grace Bible church. So in it from minutes 55 to one

02:01:05

Oh two, especially he speaks of what I would consider several strange things. Here's some quotes.

02:01:11

Christians are convinced by the devil that we can't do those things. Holy kissing, because we may arouse ourselves.

02:01:19

Um, another quote, holy kissing, even on the lips. Now, granted we, there's some stuff extracted the middle of that, but this is the context of that, that sentence.

02:01:27

Um, another sentence I want us to grow in God's grace of embracing and loving one another with physical touch, with an outward sign of our love for one another.

02:01:38

Um, another quote, he is vulnerable. He might want to give you a kiss. Um, Mike wanted to challenge the congregation.

02:01:46

You know, he said he wanted to challenge the congregation. And so in one quote in its entirety would be this.

02:01:53

We are so sinful in this culture that we have been convinced by the devil that we can't do these things because, because we might arouse something in ourselves, really that's who

02:02:05

Christ is, that I can't hug my sister and not be aroused that I can't hug my sister, that she not be confused, that I can't give my sister a kiss on the cheek, even on the lips, but that gets to be a little too much for our society.

02:02:21

So that was, that was a direct quote that he said in this holy kissing sermon that you can still go listen to either on Sermon Audio or on Chuck's YouTube page.

02:02:30

Now I want to ask you this because from my understanding in talking to people that he had taught on this in multiple applications, now maybe not necessarily from the pulpit, that's what

02:02:40

I'm going to be asking you, but did he teach, teach on this in other areas? Was it in other sermons or did he teach in it in Bible studies?

02:02:49

Did he talk about it in the counseling he was doing with couples or with wives alone?

02:02:55

Where else did this teaching possibly permeate from? Yeah. So the, the, you know,

02:03:03

Mike preached through Romans. I don't remember exactly what year it was. It might've been 14, 15, 16, somewhere.

02:03:10

When it was, at least it was on Sermon Audio, so. Okay. So obviously at the end of Romans in chapter 16 is that kind of bizarre little statement by Paul, you know, greet each other with a, with a holy kiss.

02:03:23

I mean, if you understand it in context, right, I agree, but in the context of what we're talking about, it's a bizarre statement right now.

02:03:33

You know, I, I really don't know what was in Mike's mind and what the purpose behind this teaching was, but what is distinctively clear is he wanted people to do this.

02:03:50

You asked how else he taught about it. He, he preached on it on the Sunday morning sermon.

02:03:56

And I think at that time we were either like having lunch after service and then we would meet and then have a discussion on the sermon.

02:04:05

So whenever you had to, you know, post sermon discussions, obviously there was a lot of discussion about it.

02:04:13

So I even think that stuff is up there. And, you know, so people were clearly uncomfortable with this.

02:04:21

I mean, there was a lot of people in the church that didn't even like, you know, a lot of them were huggy, like they would like to hug, some of them weren't huggy, they didn't even, you know, really like people, certain people

02:04:32

I'm thinking of, you know? So, I mean, it was just, it was mind blowing, but what's, what's really mind blowing to me is that I believe

02:04:44

Mike really wanted this to happen. Like, and I, and I don't understand why, as I think back on it,

02:04:51

I try to understand what is, what is really the purpose behind that? I mean, are we really going to walk around and kiss each other like this?

02:04:58

I mean, it's just, it's so strange. So let me be clear, like the intention was in your estimation and other people's obviously

02:05:06

I've talked to, but the estimation was that it was meant to be able to feel comfortable enough to kiss each other, even on the lips.

02:05:17

That's his words, not mine, but yes, I agree. And that's what I'm saying. So, and these teachings were not just in this one sermon, one isolated teaching.

02:05:25

Correct. These came out in multiple times, multiple ways.

02:05:33

Right. My wife just said, we thought it was dumb and that's true. We did think it was dumb.

02:05:39

I'm just like, I don't get this. I mean, I'm okay with hugging people. I like to hug people, my friends, my brothers, my, you know, whoever it might be,

02:05:47

I like to hug people just fine. A man just as, just as well as my wife, um, you know, in a, in a manly embrace.

02:05:55

I would hope you hug your wife. You'd like some people aren't that way, but, but I, I'm okay with that.

02:06:04

But you know, I never really bought into the whole, uh, you know, kissing a man thing.

02:06:10

I mean, I think the whole context, I mean, you know, if you look at, you know, I watched the tour de France sometimes.

02:06:15

And so you see them and they win and they, you know, kiss on, you know, but they don't even really touch each other. So, uh, you know, it's the same way.

02:06:22

It's more like your cheeks kind of pass by one another and you make it right. I mean, it's the old school Italian, you know, things.

02:06:29

Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's, it is, it might've been a common way of doing it at that, at that time, a cultural issue for sure.

02:06:39

And, um, you know, we can shake hands, we can even hug, but, um, I just think the whole kissing thing is, is really just sort of weird.

02:06:48

It's just like, like Mike had to kind of, it seemed like his desire was to sort of take his teaching to extremes all the time.

02:06:57

And, you know, I, he even said, he would say, I would swing the teaching way over to the, to the extreme and hopes that the pendulum would come kind of back, back to the middle somewhere.

02:07:10

And I don't understand that. I think, I think the role of a pastor is to teach the Bible, let the

02:07:15

Holy spirit convict people, uh, let, let the word of God convict people.

02:07:20

And, you know, you direct people in the truth. Right. So apparently there is the, the street evangelist when he, um, before he ended up becoming, coming to the church, moving out to Iowa and, and becoming a, a member there, this person was so shocked that Mike planted a

02:07:43

Holy kiss on him. That's according to video number eight, that's still up on Beaverton church's

02:07:48

YouTube channel. Did you notice this being a, a, uh, a normal reaction for first timers, so to speak, like, like we're first timers in the church being greeted this way, or just the first time somebody received a

02:08:03

Holy kiss, what were they reacting? Well, you can imagine, right? I mean, I mean,

02:08:08

I'd imagine if it was my wife, right. Right. I mean, that's, that's just, it would be shocking and you'd probably be so shocked.

02:08:17

You, you wouldn't know exactly how to react to it. Uh, so I, I think the time in question you're talking about was at the shepherd's conference in 2015.

02:08:28

And, um, you know, I think Chuck O 'Neill would say the same thing happened to him there.

02:08:33

Uh, you know, it's just, it's really crazy. I don't get it of all the things to, to teach on, uh, of all the beautiful doctrines and applications that scripture contains, why that I don't get it.

02:08:50

The only thing I can think of, right. Is, is, is grooming. I mean, is it grooming?

02:08:56

I have to ask that question, preparing people. If these absurd things can, can fly, how much further can you push the absurdity?

02:09:06

So grooming as to what, I mean, do you believe that this is a long -term grooming pattern based on his past?

02:09:13

I'm only, I am only asking the question. Uh, I, I don't know.

02:09:20

Yeah. You know, I don't know. Yeah. Fair enough. Just for the record, I just got to state if I went to Mike's church and he tried to kiss my wife on the lips, he'd wake up from the floor after I choke him unconscious.

02:09:34

I'm just dying. Yeah. I think that's the, that's the, that's, that's a logical reaction to it.

02:09:42

I mean, it's just like, you know, people, um, you know, yeah. So did, did, did

02:09:48

Mike or the elders themselves plant kisses on women on the lips that were not their wives?

02:09:56

I'm not ever aware of that. Aware of that. Okay. No. Um, did this cause anyone in the congregation to stumble by kissing another man or woman in the church?

02:10:08

Well, that, that is the, um, you know, that's the natural outflow of it.

02:10:14

Wouldn't you think that, you know, and there is a, there is, uh, one, one incident that I know of that a man, um, you know, kissed, uh, one of the other women in the congregation, sort of not, you know, not on the lips, but, you know, kind of like on the side or the cheek or perhaps something like that.

02:10:34

And he confessed that, that this aroused him, uh, to some degree.

02:10:42

And so, um, you know, it, and this man had to come back and, you know, confess to his wife and maybe her, and I don't,

02:10:54

I don't remember exactly all the context of it, it's been a long time ago, but, um, you know, it, it definitely happened.

02:11:01

And it, it, a natural outflowing of that is that you, uh, you know, you may develop some feelings that it, uh, oh, okay.

02:11:11

Jen's trying to correct me on that. It was a woman that kissed this man on the cheek. I keep getting that, getting that turned around, but either way, this is it.

02:11:21

Yeah. It's, it's a dangerous doctrine that, that has, that could potentially have disastrous outcomes, right?

02:11:27

I mean, that definitely, definitely. Yeah. So unless you're, unless you're a

02:11:33

Christian perfectionist, which I think, you know, ultimately is kind of the desire and the design behind the teaching is that, you know, you are measured, um, you're measured by your growth and holiness in this place.

02:11:46

You are measured by your growth and holiness. Yeah. Yeah. I obviously, I mean, and yeah,

02:11:52

I I'm still, I mean, I've been through this. I've poured through this for so many hours and so many weeks and I am blown away by some of this stuff.

02:12:01

Okay. So in, in regards to Holy kissing still, cause we're probably gonna be on the topic for a little bit. I heard about another evangelist who

02:12:10

I'm not going to name by my name, although I I'm suspecting it might be the same person that I'm seeing in the

02:12:16

YouTube comments here, but, uh, and if that's the case, I don't know who this person is, but there is an, a, an evangelist whose wife was kissed by Mike.

02:12:31

And as, are you aware of this story where, where Mike went to go kiss her and she was able to turn the last second and he caught her on the cheek, but, and the side of the lip or something like that.

02:12:43

Um, yeah, yeah, exactly. And he has testified to that.

02:12:48

Um, I don't believe I was there at that point in time. I mean, we were there, I was not there on the day that he is talking about.

02:12:57

So I didn't observe that myself personally. I mean, YouTube comment put up right now. It says the second and last time we went there,

02:13:04

Mike tried this wifey on the lips and she turned just in time to get it on the cheek and I did not believe her.

02:13:11

Come on. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So, you know, I, I know the man that just wrote that comment.

02:13:18

Uh, he's, you know, he's a friend of mine and we have had many conversations since we've left, uh, about this situation.

02:13:26

And I have no doubt, no reason to doubt his testimony, but I didn't see it and I can't verify that, but I might have no reason to say he's a liar.

02:13:35

Yeah. And obviously you've at least seen one person that, that admitted to being aroused by a kiss on the cheek.

02:13:44

So he's not in danger there, let alone who knows how many other times this has. Happened.

02:13:50

Right. Yeah. So, so pastor Chuck detailed some more quotes directly from Mike Reid regarding holy kissing and meeting with other men's wives, again, all posted on the

02:14:01

Beaverton grace Bible church YouTube page. And you know, I think for, for anybody who's listening right now, um, my intention is to have pastor

02:14:12

Chuck on himself and to be able to speak through these things from his own perspective as well.

02:14:18

Um, I, I'm planning on doing a series of shows on this over the next month or two. And so, so pastor

02:14:24

Chuck is going to have an opportunity to come on and, and also speak to these things. I'm going to ask him some hard questions as well.

02:14:30

Right. I think I've asked you a couple, a couple of, maybe you square them a little bit, Kevin, but, um, because I mean, there's a lot of things being thrown out here.

02:14:38

Right. And so, so pastor, um, Chuck wrote this out as well.

02:14:43

And, uh, here's, here's more quotes. All I know is now this is Mike speaking, right?

02:14:49

These are all Mike's quotes. All I know is I'm vulnerable. I'm me and I love you and I want to embrace you and I might even want to give you a kiss.

02:14:59

Now, granted, this could be taken out of context, right? I just, the thing I fail to see with a quote like this is

02:15:06

I don't know any context I can put that into to make it sound good, but that's me personally.

02:15:13

Right. Um, here's the next one. Really? That's who Christ is that I can't hug my sister and not be aroused that I can't hug my sister, that she cannot be confused that I can't give my sister a kiss on the cheek, even on the lips, but that gets a little too much for a society.

02:15:26

That's the one I read a little bit earlier. Um, here's another one.

02:15:31

Look, we aren't going to have an affair. It ain't going to happen. And I do not boast in me because I'm a man who's done it.

02:15:37

I boast in Christ. Um, another quote, we don't meet naked in regards to private meetings with, with women alone.

02:15:46

Um, look, I can kiss you and have it be holy. The devil lies to us and says there's something wrong with that.

02:15:54

I mean, these are all direct quotes that anybody can go listen to right now, going to be written, um,

02:16:01

YouTube page. So is there anything you have to say about this,

02:16:08

Kevin? I mean, these are all quotes that were given in the sermon in 2015, right?

02:16:13

That you were present at that out of a 40, 45 minutes sermon on the end of Romans 16, that 20 ish minutes was spent literally just on holy kissing and unpacking that doctrine, which

02:16:28

I don't even know, was that the first time it was taught in the church? Or was that like the most prominent time it was taught?

02:16:35

Yeah. Well, I don't know if it's been taught on since I'm, I'm betting probably not.

02:16:40

Uh, there's two, maybe three places that the holy kisses mentioned in the new

02:16:47

Testament. Romans is one, and maybe, maybe one of the pastoral letters. Oh, I don't remember.

02:16:53

I think for Mike though, was that his first time? Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I'm, what I'm trying to say is that he,

02:17:01

Romans would have been the first opportunity to preach on that. So I think he had preached through Philippians previous to that, but Philippians does not talk about the holy kiss.

02:17:11

So yes, the answer to that is yes. It was the first time he taught on it, but I don't understand, you know, again, um, of all the different things you can teach on, on Romans 16 and, and, and apply it, why do you focus in on that?

02:17:27

I would want to know what is the goal behind this? Uh, what is the stated goal?

02:17:32

And then is there some sort of a underlying goal? I don't, it's just so weird.

02:17:38

I mean, everybody, obviously that's commenting here just can't understand it. Uh, and I, I can't looking back on it now either, but obviously we sat through it.

02:17:48

Right. Okay. So we're gonna, we're gonna lighten the mood a little bit now and go to some other, uh, some other things.

02:17:57

I know this has been really heavy and, and, and I, and again, Kevin, I thank you for being on because I know you've been through a lot.

02:18:03

Your wife has been through a lot. I know that. Um, I have spent in those 13 hours plus in speaking that not with you, right?

02:18:12

We've spent many hours talking, uh, but 13 hours with the other six people who were the witnesses that nobody else bothered to actually call that said they did the research, right?

02:18:23

I spent time with them and a lot of time was actually giving them biblical counsel and setting them up a friend of mine who is a certified biblical counselor, because, um, you know, you could tell that there was still some, some pain that has been going on since they left the church.

02:18:40

Yeah. Um, but so, so taking a slide now into topic, the next topic, what

02:18:47

I have is topic number eight, the stressing of personal holiness, and, and maybe this would have been better to bring out earlier rather than later after going through all this stuff, but, um, personal holiness is, is a noble thing, right?

02:19:01

I mean, this is something we all should be striving for in our sanctification. No, no doubt about it. Um, and so a pastor stressing holiness to his congregation, you would think, amen, this is, this is wonderful.

02:19:14

It's the holiness talked about much at all anymore in, in, in churches, not even in what we would call solid churches today, we're not getting this idea of personal holiness preached.

02:19:27

So I'm going to read a couple of the testimonies, and these are again, testimonies that you wrote about in your second blog article and testimonies of people that I have personally spoken to and have, um, been able to ask these specific questions to, and, uh, and, uh, and them to tell me, yes, this is actually what they witnessed or saw.

02:19:45

So one of the testimonies testimony said this, there is a constant emphasis on sin.

02:19:51

The entire church was instructed to actively look for other sins and call them out. So call out from one another, right?

02:19:58

Things like not being joyful was a sin of a bad heart. Once I had another member follow me into a small janitor's closet, closed the door and asked me if I was chewing tobacco.

02:20:13

He was two inches from my face. That's one of the testimonies. Yeah. And, uh, and from, and I'll let you answer this in a moment.

02:20:20

From what I understand, I think somebody got removed in the church as an elder because of a similar issue.

02:20:26

Right. But we'll get to that moment here. Um, fourth testimony stated this. We asked about church membership and were handed application questionnaires asking about our past, our sin history, the circumstances around our salvation.

02:20:41

I completed the application and waited to have a meeting scheduled because Mike was traveling outside the country.

02:20:48

So this was a person who was asked. And again, this person told me the story in person and I got a lot more detail as well, which

02:20:55

I'm not going to share here, um, but that it wasn't just like your immediate past unrepentant sin.

02:21:05

This was when you went into a membership meeting, this was, you were asked to give a sin history in your life to literally lay it all out on the table.

02:21:18

So, cause I'm trying to, I'm trying to get the audience to understand what we mean by personal holiness, right? Cause it's different than what we would, when we listen to, to the greats like John MacArthur talk about personal holiness, that's not what we're talking about here, right?

02:21:31

We're talking about stuff that is above and beyond in terms of a legalism type stuff and maybe even beyond that.

02:21:41

Um, so here's the third testimony is the fit while the third I'm reading, but the fifth testimony on your blog, a meeting to discuss my membership with the church was scheduled and I was told that my husband was not allowed to attend.

02:21:53

So her husband was not allowed to attend. It was held in the basement office, three men and me, no women present.

02:22:01

I was uncomfortable with that and mentioned it to Mike. He brushed off my concerns as unreasonable and unnecessary.

02:22:08

During that meeting, the validity of my faith was questioned and my military service berated as sinful.

02:22:16

And so these are, these are three of the testimonies. And, and, and when

02:22:23

I interviewed again, this, this one person in particular where she gave a lot of detail is that her entire life of sins was supposed to be presented.

02:22:32

She literally spent time writing these out on a piece of paper and got tired and she eventually just started writing, um, just categories of sins that she had committed over, over her life, right.

02:22:46

To present to the elders to which she said that that paper, she never got back.

02:22:52

That was kept into who knows where. And so I got to ask you this,

02:22:59

Kevin. I mean, there's, there's a couple of issues here that I'm, that I'm bringing up right, right in a row. I mean, the first one's going to be, what can you speak to in terms of the legalism that this seems to be portraying?

02:23:12

I mean, was this really a pursuit of holiness or was this a pursuit of, of, of going, um, of going after the, well, being legalistic to go after people for different purposes.

02:23:29

Um, I, I don't know if I'm stating that right for you, but what else is behind this?

02:23:38

Yeah, that is, I mean, it's a really good question in terms of what is behind it. I, I really don't know.

02:23:44

I mean, I guess it's if, uh, well this, I don't know who humbled clay is, but this person has been spot on on so many of their comments, power trip, you know,

02:23:55

I would say, I would say this comes down to, uh, the very, one of the very first things that, um, the churches that abuse book discusses is control oriented leadership.

02:24:10

When a leader controls the congregation, he has power over them. And, you know,

02:24:16

I, I think that all of these things are ways to sort of control the people that if you, if you are seen as the guy who is really on a scale, on the holiness scale, if you're a lot further down the road than the rest of the people, you know, you kind of sort of become the, the go -to guy, you become the guy that is, it's necessary to really have help in your life in, you know, just getting along in general, but you know, in, in growing in grace and all that kind of stuff.

02:24:48

And, you know, I'm not the only one that knows this.

02:24:54

Other people have heard this, but, you know, Mike has even stated that, um, you know, he doesn't, uh, you know, he doesn't even completely trust the, the

02:25:08

Holy Spirit's work that he has would say, I would rather be proactive.

02:25:14

I would rather get out ahead of it. And, you know, there's a well -known quote by John Newton that says something like, uh, it's about growing an

02:25:23

Oak tree and that there are seasons when the Oak tree doesn't grow very fast, but it grows stronger. And, you know, if anybody knows anything about grace and holiness, it's

02:25:34

John Newton. And, um, by the way, his works have been one of the things that have, have, have actually renovated my life in terms of getting me back on sort of, uh, some level of normalcy and some level of, uh, an understanding of the relationship between grace and sin and holiness and all this kind of stuff.

02:25:55

Um, but you know, what's behind it all. I really don't know. I think it must be just control.

02:26:00

It must be power. It must be, it must be becoming the, the, the go -to guy, uh, you know, that kind of a thing, uh, you know, that, that's my best guess, but, you know, it is a big emphasis in the church striving for holiness.

02:26:14

Yeah. And that's what I gathered from the people I talked to that this was about is it was more about control rather than really holiness guys of holiness, but it really was about control.

02:26:26

I mean, okay. So is it true that, that an elder was removed because of smoking cigarettes?

02:26:35

Yeah, that, that is true. He, um, uh, the, the issue wasn't smoking.

02:26:47

Thank you, Marcy. I appreciate that. Um, the issue wasn't per se smoking, although they believe that any, any form of tobacco use is sinful because it creates idolatry that you cannot, you kind of like food and stuff like that.

02:27:08

You know, you can't be without food. That might be idolatry too. I don't know. But coffee, like people who drank coffee every day, it was considered idolatry, right?

02:27:16

Well, yeah. I mean, that was a theme at one point in time, uh, something to push in on, you know, uh,

02:27:23

I'll be honest, I like coffee, but, um, the whole, the, the whole cigarette smoking issue, this man was an elder at the time and, um, he had counseled other tobacco users against the sin of it.

02:27:40

Well, then he was, he was using not on a consistent basis, but I think, you know, at times, right.

02:27:47

And so he was found out and it was exposed and he was called to repentance and he was brought up in front of the church to rebuke a sitting elder.

02:27:56

And he was removed from eldership, uh, at the time, I think it was, you know, given it wasn't about tobacco use per se, it was more about hypocrisy.

02:28:07

And, you know, I think it was the right move at the time, given, you know, the way the teaching is, uh, you know, and that kind of stuff and, and his, you know, the elders signed an agreement not to use tobacco or alcohol.

02:28:21

So if he signed an agreement not to do that, well, he's, he's broken the note and, you know, there's all kinds of stuff that we could, we could look at there, but, um, you know, yeah.

02:28:31

Okay. So let me ask you this question. And before we move on to the next topic is, are you aware of, of the knowledge of people's sin ever used against them in the church?

02:28:47

Yes, absolutely. How I would, I would say, um, you know, there's a couple things that I'm deeply ashamed of.

02:28:58

Um, you know, one is, is my failure to protect my wife, which by the way, many, the majority of the men that leave

02:29:06

GFC will say that, that their biggest moment of shame is their, their lack of protecting their wives.

02:29:14

So, you know, I own that, um, you know, my wife and I have discussed it.

02:29:20

I've, you know, apologized and sought her forgiveness for it. Uh, we have, you know, restored, uh, uh, our marriage to a degree that we have a wonderful marriage.

02:29:31

Uh, and so that's, that's one big area. The other, the other area, um, you know, is that there was a woman that was put out of the church.

02:29:43

She was quote unquote, Matthew 18 out of the church. And she was put out of the church for the very serious offense of not loving the body.

02:29:56

Uh, there might've been one other ancillary, ancillary charge added onto that, so I, you know, but it wasn't, but, but the, the main charge was not loving the body.

02:30:08

Now, I don't know where it says in the new Testament, thou shalt, you know,

02:30:15

I mean, I know that we're to love the body, we're to love people, we're to love, you know, our fellow members and we're to love our enemies, but, um,

02:30:24

I didn't know where that was listed as, as like this egregious sin because it's so subjective.

02:30:30

And, uh, you know, how do you possibly put all this stuff together and say, you know, this person truly didn't love the body well, um,

02:30:41

GFC, I don't think they really do it anymore, not in the same way that they used to do it, but they used to do a public confession of sin where people would get up on a

02:30:50

Sunday night. And, um, he would, uh, you would go up and you would confess sins, uh, you know, under the, you know, he confesses his sin, you know, receives healing and that kind of thing, there's a passage in James, there's also one in Proverbs.

02:31:05

And so that was the idea behind it. Well, the people would write down people's names and what their sins were so that they could pray for them.

02:31:16

Uh, you know, I would do that and I would pray for people and other people I would assume for pray for people.

02:31:22

But during this woman's trial, when she was up for being put out of the church, one of the women, um, went back through her notes and she got up in this woman's trial and she read all these times where this lady confessed not to love the body.

02:31:41

And it is the very example of your sins, you know, being held against you or, you know, your, you know, keeping a record of wrongs.

02:31:52

I mean, literally this person was put out of the church because of these testimonies of, of keeping a record of wrong.

02:31:59

And, you know, my wife had gone to Mike and I had asked Mike, why would this, why would they do this?

02:32:05

This just seems wrong. And Mike, Mike encouraged her to do that. So, you know, here we have these sins that are supposed to be forgiven.

02:32:16

If you're, if you're a believer, you know, your sins are cast as far the

02:32:22

East from the West. God does not remember them. He's not hold them to your account anymore.

02:32:28

They've been forgiven at the cross. They've been paid for. But why does this church get to remember them and use it against them and put somebody out of the church for it?

02:32:37

But thank God she got put out of the church. She's doing so much better now. Well, amen to that.

02:32:44

So, okay. So let me ask this even a little bit more now. Can you hear me, Kevin? Yes, I can.

02:32:49

Yeah. So did, did people, was there a culture that was created there to just really, again, there's a difference between pursuing holiness, right?

02:33:00

If you see your brother watching porn on his phone, you were going to pull him, talk to him, right? I mean, you should, you need to, we're called to do this, but, but it seems like that there are a number of sins that aren't really sins and people would really press into one another things at church.

02:33:19

I mean, is, is this a culture that was created for the legalism and control issues and I don't know if you can report to that.

02:33:26

Yes. That that's a perfect way to describe it. A culture is, is how I would describe it is that, you know, you know, do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, consider one another, stir, spur one another on to love and good works.

02:33:42

Right. And I can quote what Mike used to quote. The spurring is like a rider riding a horse where he digs his heels into the side of the horse.

02:33:50

Iron sharpens iron, metal is rubbing together, sparks are flying. So the concept behind going to your brother or your sister is that,

02:33:59

Hey man, we got to really be watching out for one another. In fact, I think it was the, our last

02:34:05

Sunday there, it was almost like it was taught by, by, not by Mike from the pulpit, but it was

02:34:11

Tyler that, you know, I mean, Satan is behind you with a shovel and we're to really be watching out for our brothers and he might smack you upside the head and you might really, it was almost like you might lose your salvation if we're really not watching out for one another and we're really not, you know, just constantly pushing into one another and, you know, stirring one another on to the deceitfulness of sin.

02:34:37

I mean, it was just pounded into you over and over and over again. And, you know,

02:34:42

I ask you and I ask the audience, can you imagine this being a place that was full of joy when all you're concerned about is

02:34:52

I got to watch my back because somebody might be coming to me. My wife asked a woman out to coffee one day.

02:35:00

I just want to go to coffee with you and find out what's going on. She said, Jen, have I done something?

02:35:06

Have I, have I, did I do something? So, you know, the first reaction is what did

02:35:14

I do? What are you going to talk to me about? What are you going to confront to confront me about? We can't just go, we can't just go and, you know, hang out together.

02:35:27

We can't go have coffee without it turning into a spiritual conversation where somebody, where somebody would be just hanging out as a brother in Christ.

02:35:40

You know, Anthony, if we didn't live across the country, I'd, I'd take you for coffee and we would just go and we'd probably have a nice time.

02:35:49

I wouldn't have to feel like I have to challenge you on any sort of sin in your life. You know, again, like you said it well, if you see me looking at porn, please call it out.

02:35:59

I don't, you know, I don't do that. I don't want to do that. I desire to live a holy life.

02:36:07

It's just, it's just like everything else. It's over the top.

02:36:13

Okay. So we're going to bring that now into the next topic.

02:36:19

Topic number nine. Um, one of the charges of levied has been, and I think it's under this guise of holiness and fruit, um, convincing people that they aren't saved and then they get saved under his ministry.

02:36:35

And so here's a number of testimonies that you post on your blog. Um, most of which

02:36:40

I was able to personally verify through phone conversations. Uh, first couple said that the result of the ministry caused the family to slowly lose the love of Christ until the day they left.

02:36:52

The person who wrote this said that the family, the family left after the elder council and pastor called me in and stated that they determined I was unsaved based on my inability to attend the weekly

02:37:04

Bible study. This came directly out of one of the people, right? Fourth couple said this, my salvation was uncertain because I couldn't name the date and time that it had occurred.

02:37:18

They also said my husband had some besetting sins he was working through and therefore, because his life wasn't completely sinless or at least sanctified enough, his salvation wasn't real.

02:37:30

And then that person continued on that. We were basically taught to doubt our salvation.

02:37:36

That assurance was not given. This constant message caused my husband to doubt his faith. The more we attended and listened to the teaching, the more depressed he became.

02:37:46

He was continually told he wasn't saved and the methods used to convince him of that seemed intended to drive a wedge between us.

02:37:55

I began to believe what they said about him and our marriage began to suffer. Sixth testimony said this, they also wanted me to dismiss my coming to faith in Jesus 15 years prior as a false conversion.

02:38:09

I just could not do that. They were asking me to deny a change in me that I could only contribute to the work of the

02:38:16

Holy Spirit and attribute it to something else. That seemed like blasphemy to me and I wouldn't do it.

02:38:22

I still, to this day, question my understanding of what salvation is and looks like, not only for myself, but others as well.

02:38:32

I, I mean, my heart went out to people because I, I mean, I'm talking again, nobody else actually bothered to call these people who are willing to take the phone calls from anybody who'd be willing to investigate this and these, these couples,

02:38:51

I mean, I was hearing heartbreaking stories, people who are still damaged from the time they were at grace fellowship church.

02:39:01

And so we have in, in one spot here that there is that, that there is an, a wedge driven between the husband and the wife.

02:39:13

I've heard this a couple of times. So I guess my first question to you in light of this topic here,

02:39:20

Kevin is, is did you often see a wedge driven in between husband and wife?

02:39:26

And if, was there a purpose for that that you noticed or knew or?

02:39:32

I mean, it certainly happened in my own life. There was a, there became a wedge between my wife and I, it became, um, you know, really,

02:39:41

I think the goal, ultimately the goal is that the wife really almost just needs to be like children of the old days.

02:39:52

She should be seen and not heard. She should just be, uh, you know, she does whatever the husband tells her.

02:40:00

She should have no input really in, in the reality of life. Um, you know, it's just, you know, this is not truly, um, you know, honoring your wife as a, as a weaker vessel.

02:40:14

This is not loving your wife as Christ loved the church. It, it, it created division. It can created conflicts between husband and wives that were completely unnecessary.

02:40:26

Um, it's, it's, it's, it's heartbreaking. And you, you know, you heard the testimonies yourself, you know, what has happened and there's, you know,

02:40:36

I mean, you know, I, I had what five, six, seven testimonies on there.

02:40:42

Uh, uh, yeah, I'm just reading Mason's Mason's comment.

02:40:49

Okay. Yeah. Remind me of that later because that is an important element. Um, yeah, there's, there's, um, you know, it is, it is a big chronic problem.

02:41:02

This is a place that professes to really care about marriages. But I, I think the fruit of this ministry is that they've done more damage to minute to marriages than they've done good.

02:41:13

And, um, you know, my marriage was, was, was really being, um, really being torn apart because, you know, my wife was, was being gaslighted.

02:41:26

Uh, I write about that in one of the blog articles that, you know, she was, she was made to think she was going crazy.

02:41:32

I mean, and, and it really, it really was hurting us. And when I finally, you know,

02:41:39

I, I got my head on, right. I, I could begin to see that and I could really begin to listen to her for what she, uh, what, what she did.

02:41:49

Um, you know, so it's, it's really, um, yeah, it, it, it really is that the reality of it, uh,

02:42:00

Anthony is that marriages suffer. I mean, the people that are still there will tell you their marriages are better than ever.

02:42:07

But I think the reality of it is the women that have surrendered complete control, they don't really have much of a say in the lives of, of what goes on.

02:42:17

And, and they lack joy. We saw it. We saw the lack of joy because really what they're supposed to do is shut up, have as many kids as they can homeschool every single one of them.

02:42:28

And, and they're all, and they're overwhelmed. I mean, they're just, they're just burdened with the reality of what is, is the expectation of the church on their lives.

02:42:40

Yeah. Yeah. Heartbreaking for me to hear some of, some of the stories. So, okay.

02:42:46

So let me ask you this. How often were people's testimonies questioned? Because what it seems to me is that there was a pattern of people who were deemed to not be saved and then re saved under his ministry.

02:43:03

And, and, and, and actually it's now been deleted, but there's a number of people who have read the blogs by this, by the, um, famous street evangelist, again, who

02:43:16

I would consider a nice guy that I've had pleasant conversations with the few times we have.

02:43:22

Um, but from what I understand, his wife was one of them that he wrote about this in his personal blog, that his wife was convinced that she was not saved and then saved under Mike's ministry.

02:43:36

Sort of endearing both he and his wife to, um, to Mike and the ministry.

02:43:42

And that this seemed to be a pretty, this seems to be a pretty regular occurrence at the church.

02:43:49

Yes. It's a, it's a very regular occurrence. It's, it's actually, you know,

02:43:55

I mean, it's part of the playbook. Uh, that's the first thing that you do is examine. Now this well -known evangelist,

02:44:01

I seriously doubt his testimony was ever, was ever questioned, but certainly the daughters and the wife were questioned and she had concerns.

02:44:11

I mean, I don't think she joined the church. I think she's a member now, but I don't think she ever joined the church for three years after he's been there.

02:44:19

Um, you know, but that's, that's, that, that is a, uh, standard operating procedure is to dig in and really make people examine their testimonies.

02:44:30

Now have false converts. I'm sure there have been have people truly been false converts that became saved?

02:44:37

Probably so. I believe, you know, I believe my wife and I were as false converts, but I don't believe we were saved because of Mike per se, if we were saved, we were saved by the power of God through his word.

02:44:48

That's my testimony is the word of God. Not, not Mike Reed or his ministry.

02:44:55

It was God using whatever, you know, even the, even the crooked stick type thing, you know, he can strike that straight line.

02:45:01

So, but that is standard operating procedure. Yeah. And of course, in all fairness, right. I've heard this from a number of people that, that, and maybe this is what makes it dangerous is that Mike Reed is a, seems to be a good theologian.

02:45:16

He, he seems to understand reform doctrine. Well, he understands, um, you know, he's got a 1689 is not the

02:45:25

Bible, but, you know, he has a good framework, at least in terms of some type of systematic there.

02:45:34

Um, I've heard from a number of people that Mike is, is, is a good theologian, but then when you, but you take that part of being a theologian and people trust him for that, and then you mix in all of these dangerous doctrines, it seems like that you can sneak those dangerous doctrines in a whole lot easier because you can't just pick them off real, real easy.

02:45:53

It's not like it's Kenneth Copeland, that's teaching these doctrines, right?

02:45:58

I mean, he seems to have some good knowledge, some good biblical foundation. Yeah. That's, that's worthy of addressing because I think that one of the books that I read coming out of the, out of this place was, uh, the whole

02:46:12

Christ by Sinclair Ferguson, it was recommended to a friend of mine. He said, you should read this once a year.

02:46:19

And I don't know if you've read that Anthony or any of the, you know, the viewers have read it. A whole

02:46:25

Christ deals with, uh, reformed churches in the 1500, 1600, somewhere in that range that sort of, uh, fell off onto two divergent paths, legalism or antinomianism and the concept behind all of this kind of stuff.

02:46:40

So, um, you know, I think it was a real watershed book at the time for me.

02:46:45

It really helped me see how some of these seemingly Orthodox churches have so many things that are wrong.

02:46:54

Um, you know, Grace Fellowship says that the 1689 is their confession of faith, but yet they throw out a lot of it.

02:47:04

They throw out stuff about, you know, a civil government, you know, civic government and the ability, you know, for men to be in civil work, they throw out anything about, um, you know, having to do with taking up arms, um, you know, as Chuck O 'Neill has said, they're, they're very passive pacifistic, if that's the right word, um, so, you know, they, they, they use the 1689, uh, when it's convenient, but, you know, if, if it's not convenient, you know, they sort of ignore it, but, you know, on many levels,

02:47:40

Mike will appear Orthodox. He will appear that he has some good understanding of things. Um, he's a gifted enough communicator that he can, he can talk the talk, but what

02:47:51

I've come to recognize, uh, and, and this is not because I'm smart or any smarter than anybody else, it's just that God has, has, uh, been gracious, gracious to me.

02:48:03

After leaving GFC, uh, I started, uh, attending seminary at the

02:48:09

Reformed Baptist Seminary, I'm a, I'm a third semester student at RBS. It's a wonderful school.

02:48:14

I'm learning a lot. The teaching is exceptional, but one of the things that I have come to recognize is how many things he actually misses.

02:48:24

And I think that a lot of this would not be an issue if he had any sort of formal training for one, formal training, or two, he had, um, a vetting process.

02:48:37

He had time under, uh, a ministry. He had time under a real legitimate pastoral ministry in order to, to kind of guide him in the right direction.

02:48:49

I, I, I put him, I've said in one of my blogs that I put him under the category of, of a new convert receiving a pastoral ministry where he worked out a lot of that stuff kind of as he was going along, he didn't, he didn't understand things.

02:49:06

And so he has learned a lot of theology via, you know,

02:49:11

YouTube or reading, you know, or watching, listening to their sermons, you know, going back to the whole salvation thing, a friend of mine actually visited the church of Wells in Texas, not too terribly long ago.

02:49:30

And one of the things that happened to him is a lot of the children would come up to him and say, has my daddy said you're saved?

02:49:37

And my friend said to them, your daddy doesn't determine if I'm saved. God determines if I'm saved.

02:49:43

But see one of the most notorious reformed cults, church of Wells operates, you know,

02:49:52

GFC operates in similar manner where they determine sort of in effect, whether a person is, is really saved or not.

02:50:00

It, it, you have to pass the mustard. You have to meet their criteria for what a saved person looks like.

02:50:06

And that means, you know, there has to be a certain mourning and, and wailing and, and, you know, being really concerned over your sin.

02:50:16

I mean Mike really agrees that there's sort of this prescribed way that people come to salvation and, um,

02:50:24

Newton even writes that it's not the same for everybody. So, you know, again, I've kind of wandered, I wanted to get some of these things in.

02:50:31

Uh, Kevin, I just, I want clarification here. Sorry for butting in Anthony, Mike Reed.

02:50:38

Are you saying he has no formal training, no seminary training, no seminary training.

02:50:46

Um, he was, uh, his salvation story says that he was saved in the Methodist church, a

02:50:52

Methodist type church, more of a evangelical type, kind of a big box church, free will type deal.

02:51:00

And I think he began going into some sort of leadership training or, I mean, he has some kind of, uh, training, but I don't think it went on for very long, but no, no real actual legitimate training in reformed in any kind of a reformed school.

02:51:21

Okay. And you mentioning the cult of wells, by the way, I don't call it the church because it's not understand.

02:51:29

That's greatly concerning to me. I've done a lot of research on them. I've actually known some of them personally.

02:51:36

And unfortunately, when, before I realized what they were about supported them, you making that connection is scaring me even more, but Anthony, I'll give it back over to you.

02:51:47

Yeah. Wow. Andrew supported a cult. Interesting. So, uh, Hey, that was before they went nutso.

02:51:58

Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, I think the connection here is legitimate because, you know, there's a time when that looks like an

02:52:07

Orthodox church, but, um, you know, at best we would say heterodox, their teachings are outside of Orthodoxy and they're strange and they're cult ick for sure.

02:52:21

Now is, you know, is GFC a full blown cult?

02:52:27

I'm going to co you know, I've made my opinion, but the viewers here can make their own opinions and, uh, you know, we can address that later if you want.

02:52:37

Yeah, we certainly can. Um, so I guess to finish up this, this part of the topic is that, you know, people get convinced that they're not saved usually one or the other in the, in the couple, right.

02:52:51

In the married couple. And then, uh, from my understanding that does

02:52:58

Mike insert himself as the spiritual head or spiritual leader of the, of that family?

02:53:05

Because it seems like most of the time in, at least in the people I've talked to, that it's the man that is deemed unsaved most of the time.

02:53:13

Right. And, and then so Mike swoops in and is the leader of the family.

02:53:19

Is that accurate? Yeah, I, I don't know if I could put a percentage on it.

02:53:25

I've seen it that way. I've seen it other ways. Um, but in terms of, let's say the man is not saved or deemed not saved, uh, then.

02:53:35

The, uh, you know, will Mike assume the spiritual leadership in the home?

02:53:41

Hmm. I mean, maybe in some occasions that would be the case. I think what has happened that might be a disturbing that I had this conversation with this gentleman that I'm speaking of.

02:53:55

I told him of my concerns before we left, because we actually, we actually met shortly before we were going to leave.

02:54:02

And I expressed a lot of my concerns to him without telling him that we were leaving, but, um, you know, his wife meets with Mike on a regular basis and she's kind of, she's kind of one who has his ear.

02:54:13

And, um, you know, she kind of, she likes her position that she is, you know, she's been dubbed the female

02:54:22

Mike Reed. Uh, she counsels women, other women in the church sometimes, and she's pretty hard on them.

02:54:29

And, um, she likes her time with Mike, I believe. And this guy, this, who was a very, one of my best friends in the church before we left, um, he is, you know, he's, can

02:54:45

I say this? He's kind of been castrated, uh, because, you know, he's, uh, historically not been a strong leader of his household.

02:54:54

His wife is a strong woman and, uh, you know, he gets it from both sides.

02:55:00

He'll get it from her. And if she isn't, if the results aren't happening for her, she'll let

02:55:06

Mike know. And Mike then will, may come after him. And really in the, in the effect, what happens is his, his authority has completely been pulled out from underneath him.

02:55:17

He has no authority in this house whatsoever. And, um, you know, he, he's been undercut and, uh, it's, this is, this was predicted.

02:55:30

Uh, it, it has come true in this situation for sure. There may be others, but you know, he has, he has taken over, he has usurped the authority of that home.

02:55:41

Yeah. So, okay. So he's in, in this topic, you know, convinced people that are not saved, they get sent under his ministry and a lot of them do anyway, and endears them and the spouse, but it also drives a wedge between a lot of couples.

02:55:58

Yeah. Now there was one other testimony that really stood out to me and I actually spent a lot of time on the phone with this person.

02:56:06

So your fit, the fifth testimony in your, in your second blog said this, I told him my testimony and a brief synopsis of my addiction to pornography.

02:56:15

Mike asked me more about my sex life. He kept on prodding and justified it by saying he wanted to know everything so he could help.

02:56:25

So was this a normal practice that, that, uh, he would ask people about their sex lives in general?

02:56:32

I mean, we already established that this happened with females in private, um, shepherding sessions, but was this normal practice?

02:56:41

Um, and was it done to actually help people if it was, or was it done for different reasons? Well, I, you know,

02:56:48

I don't, I can't get into, into Mike's mind and know what he thinks about it.

02:56:54

I think that he would believe, or at least has convinced himself that his intentions are honorable.

02:57:00

Uh, this young man in particular is a single young man. And, uh, he came to the church because he had heard about this well -known evangelist.

02:57:10

Well, I mean, the elders began to, you know, kind of take this kid in and, and, you know, try to have some influence on his life and, and, uh, but they had to find out if he was saved.

02:57:25

And so if, if you ever had a testimony like this of any kind of sin that has been in your life or, or whatever, man,

02:57:34

I mean, they're just going to use that as a launching pad to dig into this guy's life and, and I mean, the reality of what happened with this one particular case is, is grievous sin came out of this.

02:57:48

This kid questioned his salvation, claimed he wasn't saved, uh, really went off on, on some things that, that were really, um, you know, awful.

02:58:00

And he would, he admits that and he knows it. And, and by the grace of God, a friend of his, his brought him back in, reigned him back in, but, you know,

02:58:09

I, I can't help, but think of the. The scripture where Jesus says, you know, if you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it'd be better that a millstone be placed around your neck.

02:58:19

He's not just talking about little children. He's talking about children of the King. He's talking about believers.

02:58:26

So if this guy is a believer and really Mike's interrogation techniques cause this kid to question his salvation and to go off into egregious sin.

02:58:38

I fear for Mike having to answer for those someday. I don't know what his intent was behind that.

02:58:45

I can't read his mind, but the outworking of the fruit was, was really bad stuff.

02:58:53

Well, and, and in this particular case, I mean, this person in their testimony, which again, I spoke with him at length about, about this situation.

02:59:01

Um, he said on April 24th, 2016, I asked Nick about becoming a member of GFC. They told me to sit down at any of the tables after service.

02:59:09

I remember them coming over to me with very stern looks on their faces. They sat down and asked me why

02:59:14

I would like to become a member. Mike proceeded to bring up my sex life and willful sin. Again, he told me that if anyone loves

02:59:22

God, they will keep his commandments. He asked me if I'd been keeping the commandments. And I said, no, I was broken. I began to cry like a baby.

02:59:28

Mike asked me where I deserve to be for looking at women with lust. And I cried out in the deepest, darkest pit of hell.

02:59:35

Mike and Nick seemed surprised by my, by my seemed surprised by my reply. Mike then asked me if elder

02:59:43

Nick's wife was naked in the other room, would you have sex with her? This was literally asked of this person.

02:59:53

And I think you're aware of that, right? Cause this was in your blog post. Um, and, and, and so when you referenced this, this particular, particular brother, um, that he spiraled out of control, uh, in large part because of the way that he was approached and having a question like that, that was asked of him.

03:00:14

I mean, that's a, I don't, I just don't understand how a question like that proves anything whatsoever, literally asking if, if the elder's wife was naked in the next room, would you go have sex with her?

03:00:28

I it's ludicrous. Again, what is the goal of a question like that?

03:00:33

What in the world are you trying to root out? I mean, it's man, this is a nice kid.

03:00:42

I'm telling you. I mean, he, um, you know, I felt like in some degree

03:00:48

I, I played a role now. Listen, I, I, I, I didn't do that kind of thing to people, uh, to some degree

03:00:56

I was in leadership at the time. And, and, you know, and I, I believed that the, you know, the church message to some, you know, for the most part.

03:01:06

And, and, and, you know, I've gone back to this, this man and sought his forgiveness and, and, you know, asked him to forgive me for any kind of a role

03:01:17

I may have played in any sort of a deception that he might have, or, you know, how that might be, um, he has, you know, he literally, uh,

03:01:26

I don't know, maybe it was December or so he came out to New Mexico to visit us. I mean, he stayed in our home and we had a great time and, and, you know, it's, we've, we've cleaned this up, but this stuff,

03:01:39

I don't really even know what the, what the desire or the goal was behind this, is this to prove this guy is unsaved?

03:01:46

I mean, it's just like, where are we going with this? Um, it, it pushed this kid over the edge literally is what happened.

03:01:53

And, um, you know, it, it's just, it's awful. It's just so awful. Yeah. And so, you know, as we're ready to close, to close out, we had one more topic, but we kind of talked about that already in the body of everything else.

03:02:09

Um, and so this won't be my normal 30 minute closing for those of you who are wondering, but, uh, you know,

03:02:17

I, I do have a couple of final small questions to ask for those who don't know the 30 minute closing is when

03:02:24

Anthony says one more minute, one more minute, one more minute, one more minute, one more minute, one more, and it's like 30 minutes.

03:02:31

Long time. I say it 30 times that I'm being accurate, right? So, uh, okay.

03:02:38

In all, in all seriousness, I don't want to make light of, of, of any of this. I mean, these are, these are really hard, um, things that we have talked about tonight over the last several hours.

03:02:50

And, and, uh, and certainly if there's truth to these at all, right.

03:02:55

Look, I, I'm not the final arbiter of truth. Alls I can do is present to the audience here that we've listened to your testimony,

03:03:04

Kevin, who is, who is there longer at the church than anybody else other than the other family, junior wife, both, you were a deacon for several years while you were there.

03:03:15

And, and you witnessed many of these things. Um, you've also spoken with people.

03:03:21

I know one person brought up the comments earlier tonight that, um, that there was a picnic,

03:03:26

I think for when you and your wife were leaving town, right. And it turned out that a lot of people showed up to this, but a lot of people from grace fellowship church that actually had left the church were there.

03:03:38

And you guys had like 60 some people in attendance that were all there. And it turned out to be in part of celebration for you guys and moving right.

03:03:48

And, and a goodbye in that way, but also it turned out to be a lot of people sharing stories and literally counseling one another through this.

03:03:58

Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was meant to be a, um, reaching back out. One of the things my wife and I sought to do after we left was to go back to people because, you know, we've been excommunicated, we've been cut off from the lives of these people.

03:04:13

They will not talk to us. They will not speak to us. You know, that's par for the course.

03:04:18

You know, we are heathens and tax collectors, even though, you know, I know Mike doesn't, I know

03:04:24

Mike believes me to be saved because he sent me a message after we had left saying that he was thinking about the manifestations of my election and that he missed me and these sorts of things.

03:04:35

And we've, you know, we've, I've continued to try to, you know, stay, stay connected whenever he reaches out and offer opportunities for us to talk.

03:04:46

Um, under certain guidelines, but we, we organized sort of, we went back and we sought forgiveness for anybody that we had treated the same way we've been treated.

03:04:56

The way the church is accustomed to treating people when they desire to leave or they leave excommunication or, you know, whatever.

03:05:06

And so then you, all of a sudden you're out of these people's lives. So we went back to these people that had left before and we, we told them we left and we told them, you know, we sought their forgiveness for any role that we had played in, in all of these kinds of things.

03:05:20

And forgiveness was quickly granted. And so we, when we knew that we were moving to New Mexico, we organized a picnic to get as many people, former

03:05:31

GFC people back together. And we had 60 some people there and we had probably 20 or 30 people say that they couldn't come.

03:05:40

I mean, it was a huge, uh, it was a huge gathering and it wasn't a complaint session.

03:05:46

No, you know, everybody there was happy that they were no longer a part of this place and I've never experienced any, anything.

03:05:56

Yeah. My wife says we were shown much grace, you know, the very, the very name of the church, Grace, um, you know, it was kind of a, a laughing joke among some of our friends that they would say, you know, the place is called

03:06:09

Grace, but they, they show no grace toward anybody. It's very hard edged. It's very hardcore.

03:06:15

And so we were given grace by people. And so we wanted to extend that to people that would come out after us.

03:06:21

And, and people came out after us, praise God, you know, many families left six families, five, six families left after us that we were able to reunite with and have formed great relationships with.

03:06:34

And I could say so much more. And, you know,

03:06:39

I wrote three blogs. I could write more blogs. I don't want to write more blogs.

03:06:45

I don't want to expose more error. There's more error to expose. I could be a lot more forthright than what

03:06:52

I am on some of these things that, um, you know, people would find incredibly disturbing.

03:07:00

I could talk about more, but I don't want to. I want people to know that we, that are still there, that we love and care for them in that if they could only really actually experience the joy of their salvation that we have, we've been given, um, we've been given an opportunity.

03:07:19

And so, you know, as now I kind of pursue pastoral or in Christian ministry, wherever the

03:07:25

Lord leaves me, leads me in that, um, I have a whole new perspective on that. And, um, you know,

03:07:33

I, I would rather fall on the side of grace, mercy, compassion. Uh, you know, then be this hard edged, uh, guy to have to, you know, make sure that everybody's saved that I come in contact with.

03:07:46

Uh, so, you know, there's so much more to talk about brother, but you know, I don't want to keep rambling. So, you know, and certainly we can do another show at some point.

03:07:55

Um, I mean, leaving the time slot open next week, it will not be as long of a show, um, but we're going to have either another guest on, or maybe if you come back, but we're going to figure this out.

03:08:05

Um, I'm going to decide what, what the next step is. My goal, my hope is that pastor

03:08:10

Mike Reed does come on and has an opportunity to explain, um, some of this stuff because I do.

03:08:17

I hope he does too. Yeah. And ultimately my issue in all this is that I want to see reconciliation and obviously repentance because somebody, somebody's wrong here.

03:08:26

The things have not gone right. I mean, either, either people are, lots of people are lying about Mike Reed.

03:08:35

Hundreds, hundreds. Yeah. Or Mike Reed has some really dangerous doctrines that, that, that warrants repentance.

03:08:44

Um, some people think that he should step down from, from pastoral ministry in general, um, because of this stuff.

03:08:51

I know you're, you're one of them. And, and there's other people that believe that too, based on not just let alone what we heard today, but all the other things that haven't even been exposed to this point.

03:09:03

Um, you know, we want to make sure we focused on most of the stuff that, that art is easily verified through the recordings that are already out there.

03:09:12

Right. So, and, and here's the reality for the listeners is we're closing here next couple of minutes.

03:09:17

I do mean that, um, is why did we do this show? Um, and why are we going to do several of these shows over the next month or two?

03:09:25

Well, it's, it's because of, of this thing is, is we desire to see reconciliation, repentance.

03:09:33

We desire to see healing of the people who have left the church, who many of which I talked to that are not healed, that they are suffering from their times.

03:09:43

Some, some have been gone as long as eight or eight or nine years, I think is the one who left the longest, uh, ago.

03:09:50

And, and I know the English wasn't right there, but, but, but. But there's people that are still suffering after all these years.

03:09:59

And that's, that was what was heartbreaking for me. Um, on top of that, as this famous evangelist, this famous evangelist wrote in his blog that is still up and out there.

03:10:12

Um, when he moved his, he, all the financial support he receives was put into a different organization and then it would be sent to him for his ministry needs.

03:10:24

That relationship was cut off last fall. Um, from my understanding, it's because of all this stuff and because of the church, um, is what

03:10:32

I had heard from some people, although I have not verified that piece of information yet. But that what was written here, and I'm going to read this again, that any support given to this, to give it to given to this ministry for this specific street evangelist is supporting not just the street evangelist, they are supporting

03:10:56

Grace Fellowship Church. And as we talked about for the last several hours tonight is that you're supporting not only the church, but also it's dangerous doctors and practices, however severe they may be.

03:11:12

And so, you know, I know that that's come up a lot on the, on the YouTube here about people's concerns for, for this, but that is the reality, right?

03:11:20

This is right out of, right out of his blog that you're not only supporting him, but you're supporting his church through any financial means given.

03:11:28

And of course, you know, the other thing we desire in this is repentance and reconciliation, healing for those who have, who have, uh, already left or damaged, we, we desire for people to understand who they're supporting when they're giving support to the evangelist, but also, um, one last one, which is the people who are in the church currently that we desire that their eyes get opened to dangerous doctrines and practices and can also receive the counseling and help that they need for the damage that's been causing them that they aren't even aware of yet, because it seems like that there is two to three times the amount of people who have left the church members who've left the church and some were not members, but long time people going there for a period of time, but there's two, three times people that left versus who's actually members today.

03:12:26

Um, so I mean, it should give people, it should give our listeners an idea of, and an understanding of kind of what has been going on over the years in this ministry.

03:12:35

Um, now I'm going to ask you this, did

03:12:41

Mike Reed, to your knowledge, use the names of other pastors or of conferences to validate his ministry?

03:12:49

Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, are they, if you don't mind saying, yeah, sure. I think that, you know, he would align himself in a very, um, orthodox reformed type crowd,

03:13:03

G3 is a big, uh, is a big deal conference for Grace Fellowship Church. They would, they would go with, uh, 12 to 20 people every year have been there every single year in force.

03:13:17

And I think part of that is, is, um, showing that they're a part of this crowd and, you know, they used to meet in the hotel lobby after the sessions and sit around in big groups and garner attention.

03:13:34

Um, you know, Mike, Mike would say, would say Vodie Bachum and him are friends and, you know,

03:13:41

Vodie would give him a hug when they see him at G3. Well, you know, we all went on a, we all went to Israel with Vodie Bachum, me and my wife and Mike and his wife.

03:13:49

We, we got to know Vodie. And I think, you know, a little bit, I don't know, you know, he wouldn't know who

03:13:54

I was unless he would recognize me if he saw me, but he wouldn't know me by name. But, you know,

03:13:59

Mike has worked his way into that kind of stuff. I think probably the intent was Shepherd's Conference as well, but that's a bigger conference.

03:14:07

And then, you know, Chuck was, uh, O 'Neal was pretty hot and heavy. And that's my, that'd be a dumb way to say it.

03:14:15

Chuck was consistent attender of, of, uh, the Shepherd's Conference. So Mike was not going to go back to Shepherd's Conference after that.

03:14:23

So, you know, he might use, throw the name of MacArthur, Sproul, Washer, you know, these, these types of guys out there.

03:14:30

Are you aware of him? Cause there's a, from what I understand, according to one of the recordings is that he mentioned

03:14:40

Phil Johnson's name as somebody that he, he, you, he spoke of his doctrines, right?

03:14:46

The, the, what we would call dangerous or perverse doctrines, what Chuck O 'Neill would call dangerously perverse doctrines, right?

03:14:54

But, but I mean, I honestly would call them the same thing. I'm trying to be unbiased here tonight, but so for a period, okay.

03:15:04

So in, in explaining his doctrines of meeting with women alone, especially that he has gotten the okay from different pastors to say, well, you know, it's not sinful,

03:15:16

I'm not sure it's wise, but it's not sinful. Are you aware of him connecting

03:15:21

Phil Johnson or any other names to that? Because that's the one I'm aware of.

03:15:28

Well, I think when the church started, I think Mike sent maybe an email or a letter or something to Grace, whether it was

03:15:37

GTY or, you know, Grace Community Church, sort of trying to understand, you know, about counseling people individually like this in terms of, you know, men with women separately.

03:15:56

And I think they said, you know, it wasn't necessarily right or wrong. I don't know specifically about Phil Johnson.

03:16:03

I don't recall anything of that nature, but, you know, other people might know better.

03:16:10

I just don't, I just don't really remember it for certain. That's fair. But in general, he did use.

03:16:16

Oh, absolutely. He used names and everything to try to validate. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

03:16:21

Like, yeah, like there was one thing that went on not terribly long ago. I don't even remember what the situation was, but, you know,

03:16:28

I, I happened to listen to something and I say, you know, he would say, well, we disagree with MacArthur in this area, you know, so, you know, that even in effect kind of steals credibility saying, you know, we're a little, we're a little sharper than MacArthur in this area.

03:16:45

Yeah. Well, as we, as we close here, I have two final questions to ask.

03:16:51

Okay. And, uh, these may be please more than anything, but the first is going to be this, if you could say anything to the people who have already left

03:17:00

GFC Davenport, Iowa, Pastor Mike Reed's church, what would that be to them?

03:17:08

Yeah, we love you. We really do. I know that, um, people are,

03:17:15

I'm sure are upset and anger that I've come out and named names and said the things that I've said, but, um, it is not because, uh,

03:17:24

I'm trying to hurt anybody in particular. I want this stuff to, to the gospel is a precious gift.

03:17:30

One of the women commented on here, give a gospel presentation to close this out. The gospel is a precious gift and I think it's being distorted.

03:17:38

Grace is, is a free gift of God. It doesn't need to be earned. It doesn't need to be, it doesn't need to be proven through the way you live.

03:17:49

Um, you know, it, you know, my contention always was that there was a distortion of the gospel, which is why we were leaving.

03:17:57

It was so precious. We're willing to fight and die for it. And, um, if we, if I can say something to them that, uh, my wife is putting a comment there that would be worthy of, of understanding that, but if, we could say anything to you, you don't have to, there are good teaching churches in the quad cities.

03:18:18

Uh, there are excellent churches there. We found some of them and you can experience the joy of your salvation without having to have this heavy hand of authority on you and this constant intrusion into your life.

03:18:32

You can enjoy being a Christian. You can enjoy being married and you don't have to, you don't have to wrangle over this whole authority issue all the time.

03:18:42

You can read your Bible and you can, you can just bask in the glory of God's salvation for your life.

03:18:48

That's what I want people to know. There is peace, freedom, joy, and contentment on the other side.

03:18:58

Thank you. And, um, okay. If you could say anything to people who are still present now at the ministry at GFC Davenport, where Mike is still pastor, what would that be?

03:19:09

Uh, I would say almost exactly the same thing. I don't know what else to tell people. Uh, we have, we haven't left there to hurt anybody.

03:19:18

My, my desire was just, was to bring the issues to Mike that, that concerned me.

03:19:25

Uh, we, I did that. Um, it became evident to me that he wasn't, uh, agreeing with me or, you know, in so many different ways.

03:19:35

And so then we sought to, we have a difference of opinion here. We need to leave the church. Uh, and so, but that, that doesn't happen there as we talked about in the very first part of it.

03:19:47

You don't just leave grace fellowship. You, you get excommunicated and that's what happened to us.

03:19:54

And we, we didn't, uh, set out to do all this kind of stuff that it just seemed like the

03:20:02

Lord just kept us in this, in this thing. Uh, I wanted to be done with this and Jen wanted to be done with this a long time ago, we didn't want to do these blogs.

03:20:11

We didn't want to continue on this stuff. In fact, it was a year ago. I listened to this recording.

03:20:19

Um, the cult of Wells, as Andrew calls it, it was a three hour interview with people from that place and people that had been associated with people from their three hour interview and this guy named

03:20:31

Andrew Rappaport. And I'm like, who is this guy? Man, you know, maybe if we could figure out who this guy is and maybe have him talk about grace fellowship, that would be really cool.

03:20:43

We didn't know who either of you guys were. And here we are a year later and we're, I'm on your program.

03:20:49

I mean, the hand of God has been behind this all along the way. I never wanted this fight.

03:20:55

I never wanted to be in this. I just wanted to go my way, live our life and never think about it again.

03:21:00

But, but that didn't happen. And, and we'll continue to fight for the freedom of the gospel for people that are there, people that have left people that might come there.

03:21:11

We, we mean you no harm in the truest sense. We care for you and we care for your children and we care for the safety and the concerns that we have, uh, regarding that kind of stuff that I have chose not to speak out about yet.

03:21:27

Wow. Thank you for that, Kevin. And thank you for your time tonight. That was, uh, um, unbelievable testimony and, uh, you know, it's, it's a, it's a long show, long as we've probably done, but I think it was needed to, to be done.

03:21:46

And so I'm glad, I'm thankful that, that you're on this and, uh, and I do pray for, again, repentance, reconciliation.

03:21:55

Um, and that if any, and if, if even 10 % of this is true, right. That, that Mike steps down from ministry and that people go and seek a church where they can be fed and be given the love and grace of God.

03:22:14

And, um, you know, as we, as we do close out with, with the gospel, you know, we, you know, we talk about sin tonight.

03:22:22

We talk about holiness. And the reality is every one of us fall short, every single person fall short of the holiness of God.

03:22:29

Every one of us fall short of the standard that God has set for us. And, um, we've, we sin continuously in our lives, right.

03:22:38

And we, and we recognize this and, uh, and those sins are, are literally us breaking the law, breaking

03:22:45

God's law, continuous in our lives. And that, and that's, uh, that law that we continue to break has a consequence for it.

03:22:52

And because we've sinned against a holy, righteous, and just judge God himself, um, who is eternal, our punishment deservedly.

03:23:00

So should be eternal punishment, which would be in hell for eternity. And yet in God's grace, the son, um,

03:23:07

Jesus Christ came to earth, took on flesh, fully man, fully God with the perfect life.

03:23:12

None of us are capable of, and went to the cross to die and do his death, burial, resurrection, literally paid the penalty for sin for those who'd repent and believe, repent and trust in his sacrifice and that cross in full.

03:23:25

It's not about doing works. It's not about adding works. We can't do anything to bribe God to gain entrance into heaven.

03:23:33

Um, it is strictly on, on God's grace and trusting in the sacrifice and, and his payment for our sin and that in that not only is our sin taken and paid for on that cross, but we're, we're given the righteousness of Christ computed onto us.

03:23:54

I mean, what a, what a beautiful, um, gospel for us to, to believe. And so for anybody who who's listening, who is confused, maybe there's people who are listening, who either are not saved yourself, a false convert, or maybe people at GFC right now, and you haven't actually heard the true gospel.

03:24:12

I pray that, that you can rest in God's grace. You understand your sin.

03:24:19

You understand it, the brokenness that causes you, you understand the, the wrath of God as a result of your law breaking, and yet you can rest in God's grace.

03:24:31

And so, so I pray that for anybody here listening tonight. And, uh, and on that again,

03:24:37

Kevin, I thank you so much. We're going to bring Andrew back in and, uh, and, uh, let Andrew close this out here.

03:24:43

We will be doing a show next week. I have not decided who yet or what the open invitation is for Mike Reed to come on.

03:24:52

And if he does not come on, I will have somebody else on this show. You know, let me just say,

03:25:00

Kevin, um, yeah, obviously Anthony's done more research than I have, but the comment as is being shown there.

03:25:10

Funny how the quote famous street preacher unquote writes a blog railing against the church of wells, and then joins one just like it.

03:25:21

That is concerning to me. Um, as you may know, um,

03:25:29

I've, I've written a book. What do they believe I define what a cult is. There's five elements to a cult one that they're authoritative.

03:25:40

You, you mentioned that in the beginning of the program, which scared me, the fact that they claim to be the ultimate authority that can interpret scripture.

03:25:48

And then therefore, when they do that, they put themselves above scripture, scripture, twisting that they, they twist the scriptures to, to argue for points.

03:26:00

They want isolationism that they, they claim that, well, actually before that would be exclusivity that they claim they alone have the truth.

03:26:10

There was a comment that I saw fly by earlier in the show that someone who is in the area said that if you, they claim there, if you're not going to their church, not going to real church, that leads to isolationism where they isolate everyone from being communicating with anyone outside and then harm, whether that's spiritual, physical, or emotional harm.

03:26:36

And I think you've shared that as well. I do hope,

03:26:43

I don't know Mike Reed at all. I think I've met him once in a very short conversation.

03:26:48

Uh, I believe with the famous evangelist that Anthony's referred to, um, which that actually, that meeting concerned me because I saw this individual and just wanted to introduce him to someone.

03:27:05

And he actually looked to Mike Reed for permit. He introduced me to Mike and then looked for Mike to Mike for permission to go and meet another person.

03:27:13

That is like scary to me. Um, but I didn't think much of it as much until I really hear some of the things that you've been sharing.

03:27:26

Um, I hope that Mike comes on to, to give answers. I hope that, um, you know,

03:27:33

Pastor Chuck O 'Neill says many thanks to Anthony and Andrew for hosting Kevin and dealing with this difficult situation with grace and truth.

03:27:41

You know, I, I, I do want to say, Oh, this is going to be hard. I do want to say Anthony did a good job.

03:27:48

I was in the same day from you.

03:27:55

Um, but in seriousness, the things

03:28:01

I heard tonight are very concerning. And I, I would like to believe they're not true.

03:28:10

Um, but I I'd like to hear, you know, Mike to come on and, and answer this.

03:28:17

Um, Anthony, I know you, you requested to do a couple of shows and I gave you that. And I hope that Mike does come on.

03:28:25

I know you, you had contacted me and told me that Mike was, the plan was to have Mike on and that fell through.

03:28:32

And that you kind of asked Kevin to come on sort of last minute. Um, I hope that Michael come on to, to answer these things.

03:28:42

I think there needs to be clarity, but what we heard tonight is very concerning, but it is a good, and so let me, may thank

03:28:50

Anthony for hosting this, Kevin, for you coming on. Um, it's not easy to do something like that.

03:28:59

Um, to come on to, to a show like this and do this, but it does, um, seem at least to work in very well to an event we have coming up and, and that is on August, uh, sorry,

03:29:15

May 30th. We have the snatch them from the flames home edition, and I'd like to invite you go to striving for eternity .org

03:29:26

on the homepage. You have a link to go to the, to register for this.

03:29:32

One of the things, if you've been listening, that concerns me is I'm going to go through the book of Jude and deal with false teachers.

03:29:40

Let me just give you some of the things that I heard tonight that concern me.

03:29:46

And I sure hope that Mike would come on to explain these things. But, um, in Jude, it has,

03:29:53

I have 28 characteristics of a false teacher that I'll be teaching through. Some of them, they creep into the church unannounced.

03:30:03

They're ungodly. They pervert the grace of God into sensuality.

03:30:10

They indulge in sexual immorality. They perv, they pursue unnatural desires, defile the flesh.

03:30:21

They feed themselves. These are just some of the characteristics that I'll deal with on May 30th.

03:30:30

Justin and I are going to be doing this conference called snatch them from the flames. We've done this before, but this will be the home edition where it is absolutely free.

03:30:42

Just go to striving for eternity .org sign up for it there. And you will be able to register, attend the event.

03:30:52

I hope to see you there. It is going to be a very edifying event. Again, Justin will deal with the topic of the sufficiency of scriptures.

03:31:03

I'll deal with the interpretation of scriptures afterwards. Justin will deal with how to discern false teachers.

03:31:09

I will deal with how to identify false teachers, and then we will do a

03:31:14

Q and A. I hope you're there. March 30th, striving for eternity .org. We'll see you there until next week.