Addressing Tony Miano's Claims

But what I have a more serious problem with are the young earthers that want us to deny what we know from science and as a result

They want us to ignore scientists when they tell us things like take a vaccine for the pandemic

Science the science supported not getting the vaccine over six minutes later. We heard her say this

Now you don't want to even talk. So, you know It's because you've brought up a topic that I was not prepared for If I had known that this was going to be the topic

I would have brought facts and figures with me But I did not know that this topic would come up and so I did not bring any facts and figures with me and I'm not

Prepared to defend that position, but you brought these topics up. I didn't well, okay, you're right

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I never said I'd give an answer. That would be satisfactory to you I just said I can answer every question and I don't know as often the answer

I give so We have a guest backstage. We're gonna be as we said, we're going to be addressing a sermon from Tony Miano now a lot of people have asked for an update on The you know the church there in Iowa Yeah, I'm drawing a blank but my my guest will remind me

But But we've we did a series in the past about this church where I was not really sure

That it was a cult but by listening to many people I got thoroughly convinced and Kevin said grace fellowship

I was gonna say grace fellowship, but I wasn't sure if his grace fellowship church or just grace fellowship, but But there in Iowa, we we talked about This in the past.

We actually did I think like nine or ten episodes on this and a lot of people asked if we would give an update for four years now and We really didn't feel like doing an update.

We had this sermon. Oh I'll have to ask Kevin for two or three years.

We have talked about it and We we decided we would do it now.

We'll explain a little bit why let me first get to some other issues that we have

Let me I'll bring Kevin in so he can say hello Kevin Yance. How are you, sir? I am

Well, thank you. Appreciate Yeah, can you hear me? All right Yeah, I wonder if there's a delay but we'll see if there is it's gonna be interesting

So first thing I got to do is correct something from last week last week we had the

Roman Catholic and and I kept referring to the Council of Nicaea in 324 Having been the council that addressed the

Canon and I was incorrect. I was wrong about that I was thinking of the wrong

Council And so I was making an argument. That was well false so I just wanted to correct that for the record a couple things that we usually do in the news section before we get into the main subject and like Kevin jump in as well if he wants any of these things, but Just quickly.

I want to hit some of these where there's a another new school shooting at a Christian school

Wouldn't you know? we we have It seems that Clint conflicting reports the

Sheriff or you know or captain whoever was doing the reporting early on with the school shooting questions were asked whether the person was a transgender and he made the comment to say

That's not an issue that we want to discuss right now and that shouldn't that's not something we want to get into, you know

So it made it sound as if he was trying to cover up like all of the other times that you had a shooter in a

Christian school and it turn it was a transgender person doing it because Of Christians and so I did put out a post asking when will the media and law enforcement call this a hate crime?

Because they're clearly targeting Christian schools You know, it was interesting when they when a

Muslim shot up a Homosexual bar. They were quick to say it was a hate crime done by Christians and then they found out it was a

Muslim. Hmm in this case. What we have is some maybe questionable Information it's gonna be hard to know

We're getting reports now that it wasn't a transgender early on we did get reports that it was a

Transgender now we're getting reports that it was not it makes it hard to know who to believe because well

Who's gonna believe the media anymore? You know, so I don't know if that's the case yet.

It is interesting that this girl I I think had a plan to end her life

Because it seems that after the shooting she had a friend who released her manifesto maybe it is because the last shooter had a manifesto on her and It never got replaced to the public so That may be it.

I did not get a chance to read that manifesto. So Could not address that what else in the news?

I'd like actually Kevin anything you want to address with that or no Let's make sure

I'm working first Andrew, can you hear me? All right. Yep. Here you fine. Okay good

I don't really have anything I could say about it I've read a few things watched a few things, but I don't

I mean other than a horrible tragedy and I think one of the things that I saw was highlighted was a number of issues with the drugs that kids take and why so many of these suit suicides are happening

Which is a deeper issue probably that's the one thing they never want to look at and yet That's the the one thing that seems to always be in common that they have these

Mood -altering drugs to keep them calm in school, you know, yeah

Uh the other one I want to address. Uh Some may not even know this story

This is an 18 19 year old story, but there was a woman who made an accusation

At a dog. She was a stripper. She went to a party hosted I guess by the duke lacrosse team

She was on drugs at the time Had left the party early I guess there were complaints or people insulting her about her

Her dancing or whatever And so she made the claim That she had been gang raped by the duke lacrosse team the the only person

Three people got named in in a lawsuit. The only person she was able to identify Was a person that was not at the party

So he was he he had a solid alibi he was in another state Charges were dropped

Now almost 20 years later. She's finally come out and admitted that she lied about the whole thing Why bring this up andrew good question glad you asked

This was the story that got the media from being Like objective somewhat to to just Trying to convict people in the court of public opinion

This is the beginning of the me too movement. This is the beginning of of all the things that we we now see

So rampant in the media where they'll completely lie and all that Just to get a new story out

So that's why this one is so important because it is something that was the beginning of a lot of this stuff

It is something where uh, the it was a changing point in the media um and so uh

I think it's important to recognize that those who were on the right That that said this this was um you know

Something that was not true. It was The woman was making it up And if the folks who may be too young or don't know the story

Uh, they did do a rape kit on her that night. They did discover that she Uh had had sex with five men.

None of which are any of the duple lacrosse players so Uh, that's why they ended up throwing the case out

So, uh one last thing that everyone is asking me My thoughts on this and I think a lot of people are asking because of my background having worked for the federal government in the past um

You know the the I there's a lot of questions and about these drone sightings in new jersey

It it's like this phenomenon Let me go through this very briefly Give you my opinions what it could be

Uh, there's talk of is it our own government testing Uh testing things

That is possible I mean, that's what area 51 was all about but they usually try to do that.

Yes under the cover of night But usually they try to do that in places where no one's gonna see them and if they you know, they try to do it sparsely so that It's not every night um so That would lead me to believe it's probably not that you wouldn't usually do that in an

Heavily populated area because you don't want to be seen They would do it somewhere in the desert. Now.

Maybe they're doing some testing of something that would go over water So therefore it needs to go that way But that's not the direction people are seeing they're seeing them come across The center of the state not going out to the water

Uh, it could be foreign actors It's hard not to believe that when we had a chinese air balloon just Going across the country and no one wanted to do anything and it was admitted that yes

It was a chinese air balloon, but they don't want it to come down on on people So I I don't think it's that Uh with the number of them that are up there,

I think the government would have done something by now uh, so What could it be?

Well, let's get the more serious one we did have someone uh, a mayor in new jersey that said that there is a uh some stolen or missing uranium and uh

That these are he in his opinion um Drones from the governments that are looking for a uranium signal in fear of a

You know small bomb that could be Set off could that be the case?

Uh, well, it's plausible To an extent but I I find it hard to believe that there's missing uranium

That's not the sort of thing that goes just missing So what do

I think it is? Very simple. Here's what I think it is It is a distraction

Um No different than when they were talking about all the ufo stuff when they didn't want you knowing all the stuff that was going on in the government

I think this is just a distraction and the more people are paying attention to it the more they're not paying attention to all the things that are going on right now like the like 1 ,500 pardons more than 1 ,500 pardons is more

I think than any president has done in their entire You know administration he does that in a single day

He's pardoned. I think it's up to about 8 000 people He's doing a lot of things to make it a nuts not to be a smooth transition of power

But people aren't noticing it because they're so focused on drones So, I think that's a lot of um, what it is could

I be wrong sure but uh, I I I just think that's what it is

It's the media playing folks and and I think it's some people that are that were doing it And as a distraction and then more people jumped in and it's just a copycat so Uh, so let's look before we get into our topic guys i'll put this up jess, uh had a comment that uh

You have grown a serious beard Thank you uh, I still have it it'll be gone probably shortly, but uh

Um, so, um kevin for folks who may not have joined who have not been in involved in the past um

How about you introduce yourself a bit and let us know what what you've been up to?

Yeah, thanks andrew that's um, you know, we did I think you said nine shows

I didn't go back and count them, but we did a lot of shows on a former church that I've been was a part of first of all, um

My name is kevin yont I lived in davenport, iowa grew up in the quad cities for the most part

Moved away to albuquerque Explain to folks what the quad cities are because if you're not quad cities is uh

Uh, it's on the mississippi river halfway between des moines, iowa and chicago, illinois

Uh, there's two two cities in iowa Actually three cities in illinois, but they call it the quad cities anyway

So davenport, iowa bettendorf, iowa rock island, illinois and moline, illinois so I grew up there through high school moved to albuquerque, new mexico when

I was 18 and went to school in albuquerque the university of new mexico

Lived there met my wife. We got married in 1991 and moved back to davenport

Spent 28 years in davenport and um That's where we became involved with grace fellowship church, which is the topic of of our discussions

So jen and I my wife we became part of the church in 2008 ish 2009 ish

Were part of it for Uh nine years we left in february of 2018

And then we spent a year there, uh And Ended up moving back to new mexico.

So I live in albuquerque, new mexico Now we moved back here. My wife's family is from here. We kind of moved back here to Help, you know with her aging mother and that kind of a thing.

So here we are uh, we were We really didn't say anything about grace fellowship until A a good year and a half almost two years after we left

We came to realize that it was a spiritually abusive church That the pastors and elders are are of an authoritarian nature quite authoritarian and Uh, so I started writing a few blog articles about a book called churches that abused by ronald and m and roth

Didn't didn't say anything about gfc in that process, but just wrote a series on that book

It was a helpful book for me at the time. It still is a helpful book um in this

Interim we're trying to we're still communicating with them a little bit We had been excommunicated from the church about three or four days after we left uh, but mike kept reaching out to me even later on and wanting to try to figure out how to reconcile uh

You know, we I would ask some questions about what that meant and he wouldn't really answer me uh

And so basically we we never we never did they were Insistent that we would come back to the church

We weren't going to put ourselves back in that situation Uh grace fellowship

And it is called grace fellowship church Uh, but I I just call it gfc or grace fellowship.

I don't really like to attach church to them uh, and so we we began to I began to educate myself on what this meant because I really didn't know what we had been through I didn't really understand it when we first came out and I was ill ill prepared to actually deal with them uh in a way that I I think would be

Helpful For us and for them didn't want to put myself back in that situation And so the way we left was we left we wrote a letter said we were leaving

Wrote some letters back and forth. They excommunicated us We moved on Went to went to a couple different churches before we settled on one in in bettendorf

I wanted to grow in my understanding So I applied for seminary and was accepted to the reformed baptist seminary and um have been going to school, uh, i've

Graduated with a degree program and i'm pursuing another program And then basically we began to write

I began to write more articles naming them Because I thought it was important to talk about what was really happening at the church and You know seek to expose the abuses now

If this was just me if it was just my family Uh, I probably wouldn't have ever said anything but Everybody that leaves the church

That that is a member is always Almost without exception and I would say there might be one possibly two exceptions uh now

The one exception i'm thinking of was later excommunicated But they released him and then they said he was talking bad about them

So they came back and excommunicated them, but pretty much 100 % of the people are excommunicated if they leave

So I wrote an article called He left the church And yeah, then they excommunicated him when he's no longer part of the church

That is correct they they released this man and his family from membership

Did they when they excommunicated him did they start with? Talking to him one -on -one and then going with others or was it just Boom, you're excommunicated.

Yeah, they they came back and said, you know We've got all this evidence that said you've been divisive in your speech since you've left

Uh, we had released you on on good, you know in good standing

But then you started saying things about us and you started trying to encourage other people to leave and tell other stories about us

And so then they ended up writing him an excommunication All right. He wasn't a member anymore.

He was uh At the yeah, I mean he was a member when he left and they released him released him but you're saying this was and the only reason i'm bringing this up just is

Great Matthew 18 is kind of clear the the the steps It would be done within the church

But the reason this becomes important is if he has left that church And yet mike reed feels he could speak into this person to you know to Discipline him and excommunicate him from a church.

He already left I find it interesting because part of mike's argument is that none of us have that right to speak into his church

Yeah So would he have the right to speak into someone else's? It just it's interesting

Yeah, well, you know, I mean they kind of write their own rules a lot of times they'll base them on how they would look at a scripture verse so they try to justify it i'm sure somehow scripturally, but You know,

I think if you let a guy go I mean, do you have the right then to go back and excommunicate him later on?

I don't even think they have the right to excommunicate somebody if they if they say

We have a disagreement here We don't like how you do church and we're going to leave and we want to be released from membership

That's never good enough. That always ends in excommunication and so So I thought it was important to write about that to say

I think they're abusing this this doctrine That's that is a biblical doctrine

You know excommunication, you know is the final step of matthew 18 as you kind of pointed out which is

Tell it to the church if they don't repent treat them as a heathen and a tax collector And so, you know, what does that mean exactly?

Well, I think it means they're there's someone that you would then be willing to still continue to discuss and have conversations with and try to You know minister to the gospel you're you're assuming then that they're unbelievers

So, but they don't they shun you it's it's much like you know, perhaps mormonism would shun somebody or You know the the amish would shun people so, you know most people when you leave and you've been excommunicated you are

Uh, you know persona non grata you're you're They want nothing to do with you they will barely talk to you if they'll talk to you at all you know and and the case in point in dealing with with tony as I saw him at the starbucks that we both used to go to after we had left after we had exhausted our conversations and tony was sitting there and I walked in to get my coffee and he wouldn't look at me and I walked up to him and said tony

I've been coming to this starbucks a lot longer than you have And I don't care if you come in here or not

But don't act like you've never seen me before And he sort of sheepishly looked up at me and he

Stuck his hand out to shake my hand and grunted at me and I walked out the door So, you know, that's how you're treated.

And so I thought it was important to Start talking about these things and then I did a series three articles one on people's testimonies you know one on you know

Looking forward to what what can we do about the future and stuff like that? But i've continued to highlight them through the years

For folks that don't know where what's the blog site for folks? Yeah, the blog site is called uncommon faith dot org and i've been

Uh writing on that blog since uh, 2012, I guess so, you know 12 plus years and uh, interestingly enough,

I was at gfc at the time and asked mike permission to start a blog and you know, he

I think he liked it at the time because i'd run my articles past him and he'd always approve them and And you know now he's probably not a big fan, but you know the blog

You know, it's never really it's not a big deal right it's just me sort of putting down stuff that I think about uh, it's become more of a sounding board to Highlight abuses at gfc when

I hear of more stuff going on there. I I If I if I think it's important enough to write about it.

I'll write about it like Like the man that committed suicide at gfc Um, I thought it was important to write about that and give him

Uh give his family and friends some sort of a better understanding of his life than what they

Talked about at his funeral. It was a really disturbing and disgusting um way to give a funeral

So I I wanted to tell people listen man. This guy was loved. I mean I we ran into him after we had been excommunicated at a grocery store and he talked to me and he had his daughter and he

He he He was friendly and then he told them that we were there and he got a beat down for it um

I'm sure he felt helpless. I don't know the full nature of his suicide. I don't Want to try to You know make speculations or anything like that He was a he was a wonderful man and and it was a shame

What has happened to him and in his family and i'm told his wife has left and moved out of state now

Which I praise the lord for that but That's a that's a that's an overview

Andrew You you know, it's a long story and we could spend a lot of time talking about it But well, we spent many many hours or uh, we have this in fact

What I want to do is i'm gonna i'm gonna so folks could know some of some of what you have written

Uh on striving for eternity. I want to bring up the the article uh, the main article for folks to be able to to find because the the reason

I want to do this is If folks want to get all the background, this is the one place to get it

If you go to strivingforeternity .org Just do a search for dangerous doctrines

You'll find a couple of articles that kevin has written that's at striving for eternity And this one is is the really the detailed one.

It's the dangerous doctrines of grace fellowship church Um, and what you'll see in this as i'm just going to scroll up is these are all the episodes that we covered

So you could watch either the video or listen to the audio and this episode we're doing right now will be on it

Um, and and so anthony had started this um This is where really we dealt with the issues of um, oh, where was it?

Is it was it earlier than that? Yeah, I think it was all the way at It it was in part six

Before we really started bringing up where I kind of came in and we compared

What tony and I and others did when talking about the church of wells

Which tony recognized as a cult and we compared it Uh, and and kevin you were very helpful with that to show the church

He's currently in was fitting some of those same things that tony previously had criticized And it's great.

It's pretty shocking really the comparisons Um all the things I mean that was a three -hour video that he did with Some other men,

I don't remember who that was, but it doesn't matter at this point. Yeah, it was it was myself.

Uh, kevin, uh Ken cook and john speed. Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah, we're on Okay, so here we have we did nine episodes here um

And so and then this article will explain some of the the details But I want to start with the way we started every one of these others and and I just want for the record

Um, you know, we invited tony in here um You know, it's something where I I did not want to just um make claims

Uh, you're you're gonna hear I'm gonna play a video clip of tony that I sent to him uh

You know because I want him to be here. I would rather him or mike reed. They've always had the invitation here to join us uh

And so I would rather them come in and we have the discussion truthfully I'd rather we have the discussion behind the scenes having a fair discussion

You know and we could do that in private, but unfortunately, that's not the way Uh, they have behaved.

I actually did one of the those episodes. I I went back and forth with the emails that uh, mike reed was sending me and um

It was just kind of It was just kind of sad to see uh that behavior, but these are the things that we had asked each week um 12 questions

That that we had and since I didn't have memorized I figured i'd bring this up and you guys can read read this

Um, it is kind of interesting. You know that I I did go and do a search for tony miyano um just to see um, because as you and I were talking kevin and prep for this

I I was trying to find some some stuff That we had from the past And I was trying to find something from tony's own website and Striving fraternity was coming up on the first page unlike every search engine

Um when you search for tony miyano So, I mean that is the the advantage of having a website that is gets a lot of traffic um, and so As we read this, um, here's here's what the questions that we asked

Uh, and this is the questions we asked every week for for those of gfc mike reed if they could answer

Because these were the concerns that we had and this is exactly what tony and I and matt slick did with the church of wells

We came up with questions. We wanted them to answer just yes or no type of questions very

Simple things that can be answered Um, so so the questions to mike were do you meet with women alone on a regular basis?

I mean, that's a yes or no Do you ask for details about spousal intimacy?

That's yes or no Have you ever said quote to trust the elders

Unquote is to quote to trust god unquote Number four have you ever said whatever the elders would counsel you

Uh for your life is perfect Number five. Have you ever said that gfc is the only true church in quad cities?

That's a yes or no one And that's going to become very interesting Uh later in this episode.

So remember that question whether they claim to be the only true church Tony's going to have some words about that But not what you might think

Number six, do you believe the elders have a Air quotes nearly, um

Unlimited authority in the lives of their congregants number seven have you or some Have you said if someone owns a gun?

Uh is in the military or police they have premeditated murder in their hearts

Number eight Do you share details about counseling? This is number eight Do you share details about counseling sessions with other members?

number nine Do you ever imply? That men and women should be able to kiss someone on the lips.

That is not his or her own spouse number 10 have you ever shared details of your own sexual intimacy with Any of the people in your counseling sessions with members of the opposite sex number 11

Do you believe you are infallible against sexual immorality and number 12?

By name what specific pastors theologians and or teachers have condoned the practice of meeting with women alone in counseling sessions now last one obviously is not something that is um

It is a yes or no but With that I just figured we should start asking the same questions we asked the last several the last nine episodes and the reason being is

You can see from these questions the seriousness of the accusations even if this is the first time that you are hearing about this

Some of the issues that we saw throughout with many people that came in publicly and gave testimony, but also privately

Uh is that mike reed the pastor there would meet regularly with women alone He would ask them about their their sexual intimacy with their husbands how often they they have sex

What positions things like this and if they're not comfortable he would start sharing what he and his wife do um

It you know, they're they were known because they they believed in kissing on the lips Uh, that's weird.

And this is what most people say about the church Those that know tony they go the church he goes to is weird but not necessarily sinful

I agreed with that. I mean I that was my position before anthony did this investigation And if you go back and listen anthony called it a cult and I went whoa

Because anthony didn't run it by me with everything. He was doing he asked whether he and kevin could do some discussion on this and It was like wait a minute

Like as as anthony started bringing in people I started realizing no they do have the control over people

And they're asking things that no pastor should be asking of anyone now I want to say up front

I I I used to have a good relationship with tony We were friends

I I valued that friendship one thing that if you talk to anyone who who knows tony

Uh every single person that I know that knows tony has has pretty much said to me the same thing

That tony miyano was their best friend That should make you wonder how could

I mean dozens and dozens of people Have said that to me And I felt it too and that is the type of person tony miyano is

He makes you feel like you are his best friend Um, even though we have not spoken in years i'm sure that's still his his personality he's a very lovable person he is someone who

Uh, just really has a lot To is as far as encouraging people

And when when I first met tony at the shepherd's conference in 2015 I mean it was just as you said andrew.

I mean he was so kind to me and so engaging and um

You know a lot of times if you have conversations with people and you're in a crowd You'll see them looking away at other people

At what's going on. Tony would not do that Yeah, he would look at you and he would give you his full attention.

That's a an admirable quality And he brought me a book that he had written.

I told him my dad was a police officer He brought me a book. He autographed it. He signed it I I mean you're you're spot on and that's why tony is

Is is beloved by by so many Yeah, now

Melissa's saying this, uh, it sounds like grooming. No, I I don't think so. Um I don't think that I I I understand why she would think that but Yeah, obviously

I don't know tony's heart, but I don't think it was any I don't think look tony had really strong convictions about the barriers between men and women

So I would find it hard to believe that he would have grooming technique grooming is usually um

To gain favor, you know to hold control over people one of the things tony's kind of you know, like He'll think of him as this bulldog as a as a leader and he and he has some of those qualities

But tony has always been someone who has submitted unto others When I met him he was at living waters um

He he submitted to the authority of living waters very much um

To the point where he wouldn't talk publicly about some of his views Uh, specifically his calvinistic views.

He wouldn't speak about that because that was not what living waters wanted And and even in private he would not do that because he he respected that authority

Uh when he went and started working after he left living waters he worked for karma for a bit it was the same thing uh, then he started working with uh, jeff rose and and now he's in this in this church, so Where a lot of people think of tony as a as a leader.

He has those qualities, but tony's not the guy that Is out in front Tony is always the guy that is under somebody which and it's admirable

He's under somebody and then you're leading that way. So yeah, if if and if you listen to that sermon that we're going to discuss you will see the obvious love and admiration for mike reed and for his

Eldership for his pastors now, that's a misplaced love um you know, it's bordered on it is cultish and and He's he's so far over the top on that by what he says it's it's crazy to me, but You're you're you're exactly right andrew yeah, and i'm trying to see if I can grab let me

I want to grab some of the comments that people are putting because I look we're going to say some negative things and I don't want it to be all negative because You know, tony has really touched a lot of people's lives.

Yeah And I mean we wish he would come out of this church. We think it's bad. I know he look

I I know people who have contacted tony trying to reach out to him after we did that series and and People came back to me and told me just mentioning.

My name was enough for him to just block them He canceled them just delete all relations even people who were very close to him.

Yeah so, uh, but um I mean,

I think that's a significant sign that you are in a cult when you will just cancel people

Because they'll bring any sort of A question about what you're doing and what you're involved in Yeah, so so, um

You know trying to look for some okay, so here's here's one uh He is saying

I met I met Tony in person at the ambassador academy several years ago. He He took my photo when uh,

I did my first ever open air sermon uh while on the third street promenade um

Let's see Melissa said I never met him in person, but he was doing the bible reading on chat on youtube

Which is you know, he's been doing that. I believe I think he's still doing that. So that's going on for like probably seven eight

Years, I think Jesse says here. I remember tony gave out his personal phone number to everyone at the ambassador's academy

Yeah, that's who he was there is uh and then um

This was d said Tony miyano went to gfc. I had a lot of respect for tony, especially with his boldness in evangelism critiques of nar and seeker sensitive stuff in the broad church, so I want to I wanted to put positive things up so people would see

Tony Was and is well loved um

Oh, i'm, sorry Melissa said I met my pastor not tony. So maybe I Pulled that one out.

All right so Um, and it's going to be hard without drew here to keep up with all the comments i'm going to try

So if you guys keep seeing me looking over that way, that's why um so You know what you end up seeing, you know, like steven is saying here steven was backstage

But he is just watching he said tony has blocked most of the evangelicals here in iowa

Yeah, a few of them in illinois and this is the behavior and so i'm just saying that to say

Folks are going to go. Well, I want to go reach out to him. Well, if you do this is, you know Expect to be blocked.

Yeah, so let me quick add in, you know, steve Johnson is a friend of mine. He's still back in the quad cities.

He encounters tony and gfc at A community college called black hawk.

It's over in rock island, illinois and um You know

And at another college augustana, they can't stand tony over there um, and it's gotten a lot of traction, but one of the comments we're going to hear in the in one of the audio clips is

Tony talking about the people being across the street and not having the courage. Let's get into it.

Let's play because we've we've done a pretty good amount of setup and Um, so I want to get to some of these clips

So let's let's start what I want to do is you had three longer clips And then

I had uh some shorter ones. So that some of them are in yours. So i'm going to play the the first clip is um

Two two almost two and a half minutes So this is a longer clip, but i'm gonna i'm gonna play it in its entirety and then let you comment

I'll you know through the three clips So here we go For six years now

My church and and i'm going to pull it. Let me stop this again. I should mention from the beginning Uh, you're going to hear poor audio quality on this and I had no control over that I did try to boost it as much as I could uh,

I believe just my guess is that he is speaking at a church with a mic that is stationary and he's turning his head

Because you're going to hear the volume his volume going up and down up and down. I'm, sorry about that I had tried to equalize it as best

I could and increase the volume as best I could so Yeah, and we may also mention andrew that this was done

I think in 2022 This was so this was done really in uh, 2022.

Uh, I believe this was in response to um So so what happened was he went out to california

I believe was the case he went to he was going to a church They wanted to do some outreach with with grace community church

But grace community church had concerns after we did, you know, anthony started doing a podcast series and They just made the decision not to have him out with them on their evangelism team

And uh, they did a response video. Of course. It was a response video that they sent only to specific people

Responding to us now, uh, you you were able to get that response video. We did watch it

We've talked about whether to respond to the response video But the reality is the response video didn't deal with any of the accusations that were made

On this shelf. No, so we decided there was no reason to to respond So, all right, so let's let's play it

Here we go For six years now my church

Me and my family Have been reviled By a group of wolves who named the name of christ called themselves christians

Who would even probably dare to have the word churchman come out of their mouth that they are, you know

They're cowards Right to a man and to a woman They're cowards

They have Publicly excoriated me and my church and my pastor all under the offices of the love of christ and the love of the church

While doing everything in their limited power and limited reach Try and destroy

But when these people have intended for evil God is used for such great

The evil that would Call my daughter here in california at work

To never having met my daughter knowing nothing about my daughter knowing nothing about her own Spiritual condition or walks with christ knowing nothing about a relationship to her father

And would call her at work and say your dad's fault in a cult The evil

The evil that after I was Second time unfortunately in iowa having desperate need of legal

The evil that would track down who my attorney was share videos and blog posts and articles with them and convince that attorney to drop

For the glory of christ, of course No, right for the love of the church of course

They will know we are christians by our love for one another right the

The evil that would take my own wife's

Okay, so that that was the clip And we're going to get into more detail With that.

I just want to give a quick overview on on three points Before you get into this, um, and we're going to have to keep it

Somewhat short with these because there's a lot there. We're going to break it up into smaller sections later But so we won't say everything now, but uh, first off you can go back and look at what tony did with the church of wells uh, the very things that we've done,

I mean I and and kevin you could testify to this that when

This whole thing started and anthony started talking about it and we had a meeting and I said well If we're going to do this,

I want it to follow the same pattern we did with church wells. I want questions You know you you come up with clear accusations

Here's some questions that must be answered And and that's the 12 questions we read Uh, so tony's calling us wolves for doing behavior.

He had done in the past. Yeah, the other thing is Uh, and I asked this of you and I asked this of anthony because he's saying the wolves that do this podcast um, have you ever called uh

You know tony's daughter or his lawyer or any churches No, i've never done that I asked it of anthony, so let me read exactly what anthony said so that I I You know get him verbatim

Uh with with what he had said, so I I asked him the same question. I asked him Uh, have you ever?

uh Called any of the churches warning them about tony or called his lawyer or his daughter.

He said not once I did have one church reach out to me

After watching the videos. It was a church that had hosted tony one or two times uh in prior prior years

Uh, the pastor had already heard about mike reed and tony miyano's involvement in the church

And had also watched the videos. He called me After getting my number, uh from i'm just gonna a friend i'm gonna leave that name out

Uh to just verify the information that we gave in the videos So it wasn't that anthony called any of these people

One one church called him. Okay, so I I just want to put that in for the record when he said that He's he's attributing it to the podcasters

And yet none of us did that Yeah, I I can't say that. I know who called those people.

I'm sure probably somebody did I don't think he'd lie about it Oh, I don't think so. But yeah

I mean, I wouldn't do that. I i've been very clear very open in my criticisms

Um, i've given uh, you know, we've given opportunities for response to those things

But their response is a private video. Not a not a public video.

So, you know We could critique that video because I do have a copy of it now, but you know

Not necessary as you pointed out, but I you know, why would I why would I need to do that?

I don't I don't Yeah and and so I just wanted it clear that you know, we want to be accurate and like look folks

I when we put this up I I think I you know last week or very very early this week if it was sunday at the latest

I think Um, I I sent an email to both tony and the church Letting them know we're going to do this and ask him to come on And I sent him a clip that i'll i'll play later.

Uh, anthony did want one thing for me to mention Um, he he he said this he said, uh, we merely reported findings and had guests on That confirmed them when we when when you address these things you can remind people that we have

Tony and mike reed, uh, we we have Uh, I think he meant given tony and mike reed opportunities to come on the show.

I offered to even pull uh uh wait I I offered to even pull a liberal media slash karma stunt to give them all a

Uh questions ahead of time Um, so oh that I know what that's that's referring He was gonna he was going to give them all the questions.

He would ask up front so they'd have time to look at them And and he would he anthony agreed that he wouldn't ask anything outside the questions.

He would send them Uh, so continue with what anthony said Mike agreed to let me have access to tony which he uh reneged on and he also initially agreed to coming on apologetics live and then also, uh reneged

And blamed it on uh his other elders um, so that was that's what just anthony wanted that for the record and so so yeah, so um

Let me let me play this second clip Unless you had anything you wanted to add on as just to know as a high level overview

No, we'll dive into some of the specifics i'm sure as we go. So Okay, so this is this is a second clip from that same sermon.

This is about a minute and a half And twist it

And Make it something it wasn't on a podcast in other conversations

And trampled under foot the blood of christ at the expense of my bride's testimony

Medieval that would Be out handing out facts at a uh Fourth of july parade and see a lady who's a member of my church and accuser of being a

Member of a cult and warning people up and down the parade path that don't take their tracks.

They're a cult Seeing me across the street, but lacking the spine to come across and talk to me

That kind of evil The evil that would Abandon the so -called brotherly arms

You know fell a soldier out down the street And abandoning to not say a word to him for six years

But fear i'm sure for some of getting a little bit of the mud on them That kind of evil

That kind of evil that brother paul God has used

A man in my life Convincing me all the more

Of the evangelist biblical responsibility Okay, so in that with that um

You know, he calls it evil for the twisting of his wife's testimony was the main part I think he wanted that is there anything else you wanted?

I mean, we'll get into some of this he plays the victim of how these people mistreated him not spoke to him

Mind you tony has had ample opportunity to speak to me And has yet to do that.

He knows my number. He knows my email Um, I know for a fact what he says about me

Because what he doesn't know is someone called me up while on speakerphone with him

As he was berating someone about me So I know what was said

And it's interesting because those are things he never said to me Okay, so we'll get that in more detail, but I did want to put this up for you kevin um

This is I I had to find this on an archive and I was glad that I finally found this But this was the important announcement of him going to the church there okay, and this is the article where he says, you know people were twisting and and you know the evil of You know twisting his wife's testimony well

I'll challenge folks to go back and look at what what we said, you know, it's it's in this article everything that we said so um

He he ends up saying that his wife questioned her salvation um Let me see if I could find it

I should have just had it right up um But You know, this is the article where he said that his wife who had been saved for many years

Started questioning her salvation Which is what we said So I it's hard to know how we twisted his own words now the fact that this on the website was edited

Well that that's not on us and the reason I couldn't I didn't have this article years ago um

Just for people to understand there was an article on the website. I know many people had sent me the article they uh people were like Um, you know concerned because they saw this article

Uh, and the article was talking about his wife questioning her salvation um and so um

Maybe this is the maybe this is the wrong article. Hold on. Well, I'm gonna just say something real quick.

I'm sorry Yeah, that's that's the right one. But back to the previous one. You don't have to go back there, but it mentioned

What we're gonna language the what the language that he uses referring to his pastors and elders and how their help

They wanted to help him mature um You know all this kind of language that he uses in this is the same stuff.

He's saying today And that's that's that's the emphasis of what I want this show to be on Is just what you just said and that's why

I had this one up and I just had it in the wrong order So let me let me do this one So this is where he talks about that he and his his wife returned he and his wife returned home

Uh from grace fellowship church, right? He talks about that. They had a week of intimate fellowship, right?

It was it was a good week. He'll talk about the fact that he he recognized. Um, you know

While he was there some some sin in his life, uh, and and this gets into uh, why we brought this up like why why are we discussing this now a part of it is because Uh, he was on he's got a new book out and he was on a video here

With with your calvinist podcast a friend of mine. Um, and so, uh,

Talking about that that brought it back up to light some of the things show that there may he had admitted to and it's just this isn't

Slander, he had admitted to it on your calvinist and and I guess in his book that he had an addiction to prescription drugs

Maybe that's what was the sin. I don't know. I don't know that the full timeline But in here he talks about right here his wife maria's reaction to their time at gfc um, and she struggled with thoughts and This is the reason we talked about her testimony is because here is where He starts to talk about that.

He says here at the bottom I believe her confession was brought about by a week of being confronted by holiness.

What confession? That that she may not have been saved for 27 years Oh my gosh,

I mean i've read this before okay, but If you scroll Up just a touch andrew.

Um, I want to read that one paragraph about legalism it says Maria's reaction to our time with the gfc family was more intense

Maria struggled with thoughts about gfc which included thoughts of legalism while she was blessed each day

Yada, yada. Yada. She struggled with the thoughts that something was wrong Um wasn't right

Legal legalism um Well, and then you know, here's the thing, right?

Women are far more in tune to this type of stuff than men are for someone like tony and I will include myself in that in that thing

You know if we have a good connection with another guy and we think you know This is a a guy that I wouldn't mind

You know, I could be friends with I could hang out with we have similar interests stuff like that I'm sure tony was enamored with with mike right off the bat

You know what maria had it, right? Her initial instinct was spot on and what happened is it got it got twisted

And this is what mike is so good at doing and he is so clever and he will have to get you unsaved

And he can do it by digging up past sins by By prying into your life and and exposing things in you that you may not even even thought about for a long time

He just knows how to Question people and get into them and then he'll get them unsaved so he can

Resave them and He's done that with so many people And it's oh, it's it's a repeating repeating pattern and Listen, I don't

I don't know maria very well I I couldn't tell you for With beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was saved or unsaved or whatever.

I don't know But what I know is that's a pattern and and when she identified it from the get -go

Something's off with this place Boom, she nailed it and she and and if tony would have been wise and this is the lesson that i've learned for my own life

With my wife is she sees things differently than I do and you know what? We're one flesh

And rather than me having to be above her We need to be together and we need to be working together for a common cause which is the good

Of our family and the love of the lord and I need to trust her instincts in that area

And that's what they are so good at tearing apart in men and women Is this authority umbrella this nonsense that came out of bill gothard?

You know, I I won't mention other names that that use this kind of stuff, but it's very fundamentalist very cultish very holiness movement very intense shepherding movement

All this kind of garbage and you know what maria saw it so they had to expose her as being unsaved

In order to get her saved Well, this is the exact thing that tony criticized with church of wells.

This is the same pattern they did Is that they would go into people's homes that you know as they would travel around doing open air

Stay in people's homes and what they their pattern was to try to isolate one of the either one of the children or even a spouse

And what they would do is they had this pattern of occupying the family while one person was being separated

That person that was being separated was being caused to doubt their salvation and question their salvation until They talk to these guys at the church wells and then they get saved and oh you should really be at wells

Where we're really doing things holy and doing things right and and that's what they would do So yeah, that pattern is there which is which is why?

They got tony to back off of wells Yeah, why don't you tell that Yeah, so we discussed it on that wells

Podcast I think we did two or three parts of it because it was a long three -hour video I remember clearly that one young man that was exposed and and they they did all that, you know, they did that to these families but Long story short at the time tony started coming to to davenport

He was still hot on the trail of church of wells like he was going to go there.

He was going to confront them He was going to do all this stuff. He was writing articles about them. Imagine that he was doing youtube videos about them

He was Adamant about bringing down maybe church of wells

Well, he moves to davenport. I'm having lunch with him Mike reed tyler bolkema, who's one of the other elders there.

They call them pastors now. They used to call them elders now. They're pastors so We're sitting around we're talking we're having lunch

Tyler wasn't an elder at the time Uh, so kind of me and tyler are kind of the guys that are being mentored by mike along the path and Tony was there and somehow this topic comes up and mike says something to tony like, you know

We could be We have a lot of similarities of wells. We could be accused of being the same as being church of wells

And after that lunch meeting, I never heard a thing again about church of wells And I have no proof of it.

I have no evidence of anything other than the fact that boom man Tony all of a sudden stopped talking about wells and You know if I know mike reed and I know mike reed fairly well

Um, they had that conversation. He's like, I think you should back off and no evidence of that But other than the fact that you never heard a thing again again about it from tony.

Yeah, and and I The little I know of her I agree with kevin mcdonald says kev

She was a model of humility in our study in 2015 a model of christian maturity.

I believe it She's a kind and sweet woman. I'm sure I I have no doubts chuck.

Chuck. O 'neill is saying that's right Kevin mcdonald she she was a godly sweet christian woman and a member of grace community church until she met mike reed and so Uh, I I mean

I can't speak to maria because I I met her I think only once or twice I didn't know her.

Well, she came off very sweet, but You know, I have no reason to question that so let me play the last of the three longer clips

This one is over two and a half minutes and then we're going to dig dig a little bit deeper into them

So that was the little elephant in the room And i'm not going to spend any more time talking about it

I hope and pray that some of those wolves don't survive Some of those men and women who named the name of christ while hating segments of his bride

I hope you'll hear this message today. I'm sure they will Because they troll my pages they contact every church that asks me to preach and discourage the pastor for daring to Ask me to come with sending them videos and blogs and podcasts

Brother paul has experienced that other churches have experienced that All that kind of evil god has used for good

And part of that good was to remove me in many ways from this so -called

Community a band of nomads

Who may or may not have some tacit connections to the local church no connection at all

God has set me free And he's used these last six years

Under the love and care and shepherding of my pastor

Church family Show me in my own life Show me how much

I exist So what i'm about to present to you is far less a sermon than it is

And I hope it ministers to someone I hope it administers to churchmen

I hope it ministers to those who think they're churchmen and are not And I hope it ministers to those who loud say i'm not a churchman

Now considering the topic i've been assigned the evangelist responsibility of the church Topic i've addressed many times in different formats.

I thought the best service I could bring to you today If you see yourself as an evangelist Is to consider almost two decades of mistakes that I've made

So that's the longer clip, uh, by the way that he said a topic he has addressed many times

I think the first time he addressed that topic Might have been at jersey fire An event that striving fraternity hosted

And the term nomad, although he he he takes credit for the term being created by him

And and to an extent he's right. We were specifically Tony and I discussing at the time people that didn't have a church home traveled around Preaching on streets and not going to church

And tony and I were discussing that and and I said we need to come up with some sort of name that describes them

And he called me back and said I have the name nomad So he takes he takes credit for it and he came up with the name.

I agree but he makes it sound like it was something he did all on his own and that yeah, not exactly but um

So he says that about people calling up churches now We've already addressed that kevin myself and anthony who did the podcast that he calls us the wolves.

We did not call up churches But kevin, do you know who actually did call up some churches?

His name is tony miyano Yeah, yes tony miyano When he left living waters was working for Carm writing articles about mark cahill

Who was what again a friend? He at the time he has he just has gone kind of off the rails on calvinism

He actually is a calvinist. He just doesn't know it because he has a wrong definition of calvinism

Um, and he is was blasting tony Uh for tony's views on calvinism when tony went to carm

He wrote many articles that are still up on karma, I believe on Cal on mark cahill and calvinism

He then went and called every church that that that mark had on his website

Contacted them and said that they should remove him Because he's a problem Tony did that Tony did that to me as well

For folks who don't know the history we you know, it's been several years since we did the first episodes but the reason

I started going to shepherds conference is because tony was uh, tony and this is how You know chuck o 'neill and I got to meet

Um, basically what happened was tony was was saying things about me uh

He was not really wanting to talk to me about it But talk about it to others.

Uh, he was calling churches in different places when he where I had Uh events and he was contacting them to get me uninvited and he succeeded in some

One that I had was a long -standing thing and the super bowl outreach. I used to lead teams there all the time

And so I went out there and we we went out. I I went there for the purpose of reconciliation

So he wasn't responding to phone mail phone calls emails So I flew across the country so that I could see him face to face

It took me three days to finally find him. I said, hey brother, can we meet? He he agreed he wanted to have chuck o 'neill as his accountability, uh pastor, uh, or he had an accountability group, uh, chuck was on that and I said fine i'll bring anthony and so the four of us met the reality is

Um chuck ended up apologizing to me for for siding with his friend at first Because he ended up realizing that the things

I said were right. He actually in the meeting had had admitted That tony was wrong uh with with judging my motives and You know and then at that point tony kind of switched gears, but tony had done these very things

But he accused the three of us of doing it and we did not do that. But that is tony's behavior So Happened or not.

I don't know but I could picture it being something where tony is expecting it to happen yeah, what what is interesting about all of that is, you know, you practice matthew 18 and and it was

Successful to some degree, um You know and what Gfc has accused us of is not practicing matthew 18 not going to them not talking about these things not reconciling with the church

Which I do want to address which is just not true Yeah, let's address that because I mean we have a bit right we've we've invited both

You know mike reed and tony miyano on From from the anthony did it on the very first episode

Yeah, we did it through several times throughout we and I think every episode Either anthony or I would do a public appeal for them to come

I did I sent an email, you know, that's because I told you ahead of time. I sent tony and the church an email

Inviting them on and i'm inviting them on now If you would if you want to address these things,

I would love to get answers to the 12 questions That anthony and and kevin came up with yeah, it's it's easy for them to Take cover under the fact that you know, we did it wrong.

We sent him a letter and scurried out the door And uh and never talked at all about anything that was going on but you know,

I I had four separate meetings with mike person one -on -one with him and And those meetings were about What I perceived at the time

I called it legalism. I didn't know what else to call it. I I've um

You know i've matured a lot in my understanding of this kind of a situation I've educated myself and So I didn't know

We wanted we wanted to try to be respectful because we were still members in good standing at the time

I still considered mike my pastor my friend my mentor on on many levels

Um, so I wanted to approach it in a respectful way. We always ended with some kind of an agreement about things it was always jen and I's hope that that the church would change and Move change directions, but we could see that after the fourth meeting

And then I sent a follow -up email on some certain things and we had a discussion in an elder meeting

Because I was a deacon at the time Um, we had you know, mike knew things were stirring and going on inside of us

And so we had also observed how people had left in the past and it never went very well

It never went well at all. In fact, it not only not went well it went it went terrible it went poorly it meant it it was

You know slash and burn it was always destructive. And so We knew from past experiences the only really way to leave an authoritarian

Environment, which is what now we understand it to be um Is to leave and just leave and don't look back and we've received that counsel from from so many people that are

That are trusted men have godly ministries been in ministry a long time Uh, just leave and and that's what we chose to do.

So they will they will try to try to Uh say that we didn't do that.

We didn't practice these things, but but it's not true Yeah, and you know, let me play the specific clip that You know shorter segment of that.

This is the one that I sent to tony in the email Because I figured maybe if he hears him in himself in his own words

He would come on here for the discussion And and here it is the evil that would

Be out handing out facts at a uh fourth of july parade and see a lady who's a member of my church and accuser of being a

Member of a cult and warning people up and down the trade path that don't take their tracks They're a cult seeing me across the street, but lacking the spine to come across and talk to me

Exactly so he says twice that that is an evil he he considers that an evil Well, the challenge is out for tony.

Miano Do you lack the spine? To call me up Do you lack the spine to come on here and and defend your church's positions?

If the church isn't doing I mean those questions that were asked were yes or no Tony you if you're watching you you know

What we chose to do with having yes, no questions for church of wells so that there wasn't any way where they could do their their games of of using the the the

The twisting of words and and long talking and red herrings and never getting to the topic We that's why we wanted and I think it was matt slick's idea.

They had to be yes or no questions We did the same thing here. I I that was the thing I said to get now granted

There's one or two that aren't yes or no But I had said the same thing. There's there's got to be yes.

No questions. Not something that needs explanation Just yes, we did this or no, we didn't Do you lack the spine to come on here?

These are your own words. Tony you call it evil To lack the spine for someone to to not come and talk to you

When they're willing to talk to others about your church Tony miyano has been willing to speak about me.

I know for a fact because I heard it with my own ears and yet Does he lack the spine?

to come on here And to talk directly to me I flew across the country to for reconciliation

But he won't even pick up a phone Yeah, I mean they do the same thing with me

I mean In this in the private video i'm the chief reviler and in slander and and you know, and And i've had conversations with other people that have left long after we left and they they talk about you all the time and like i'm sure they do and I That doesn't offend me in the least bit because I know

I have I have been The the the leading voice in making noise about them um, it's been effective to some degree because I I know it's caused trouble for them and In certain ministries that they were doing in africa.

I know it's caused some trouble at g3. I know it's it's caused Trouble with other areas, you know one one thing that we have done that that is if we see comments

About the church on google reviews or whatever My wife has contacted some of those people and we've had a lot of conversations with people that Stopped going or took their comments down because They have no idea what they're talking about, you know

They went one time and were love bombed and they think it's the world's greatest place so, you know, we haven't been shy about our our

Criticism of them and I think that that's a biblical thing to do well, and tony thought it was a biblical thing to do, uh as well with with others and You know, we're

I want to get into some of the the you know We talked about his church loving him and exposing some sin and and things like that but First let me you know,

I want to stick with this because so You know, he talked about lacking the spine. He he also said this in that sermon

That would abandon the so -called brother in arms, you know fellow soldier out there on the streets

And abandoning did not say a word to him for six years The fear i'm sure for some of getting a little bit of the mud on them

That kind of evil so that kind of evil well Tony, it's probably been close to a decade

That you haven't reached out to me uh, stephen johnson says It's pretty pretty tough talk to tony at a parade when he's blocked everyone and and you know

So he talks about it being evil to not talk to him and yet his response

Is to block people immediately to unfriend people right and So i'm just you know,

I just look have some consistency You know if you're gonna call it evil

Then then recognize that the behavior you're calling evil is behavior you do tony

It's uh, and and he's been doing it for a long time and far before Uh, I think

I know who that was at that parade You know tony's been doing it long before that ever happened and and what

I Like if tony would does watch this and he listens to this and and he hears me speaking right now

You know what I would ask tony is has it been worth? the cost

That you've paid to be a part of this Great community that you're a part of that this pastor that loves you so much that Is able to point out sin in your life?

um Tony how many friends have you lost? That you would have called um

That you would have called your best friends chuck o 'neill the the first guy to sound the alarm bell.

Thank you. Chuck Yes You know and and and how many others? Countless can you even begin to count all the friends that you've lost?

all the all the people that were loved and respected you I mean

What in the world and and then now that not only that what about the people that have left gfc

Since you've been there. Okay, I One of my very best friends from gfc at the time we were there

They left a few years after we did and somehow,

I don't know how I saw it found it or whatever it was this Maybe an instagram or facebook post of tony and this guy on the street my dear brother

Joe, his name isn't joe doing ministry sidewalk ministry a few days later the guy leaves

And boom that post is gone like that and I'm betting tony has never oh, wait a minute.

I'll bet you tony's never said another word to that guy again although When the man's wife drives by him

He yells at her from the street And Bullies and intimidates her as she's driving up and down the street

You know, I I mean the hypocrisy I mean the I mean talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees.

Tony. I mean, are you serious? Well, you you talk about friends lost let me do this so I went to the wayback machine

I wish I I wish I had uh gotten the dates on this, but let me share uh This is

I should make this larger uh, this were was the Folks that were had endorsed tony when he had his website um and so um, let me shut the banner off so you'll be able to see all the names so I I want you to be able to see that At the at the current time when he still had endorsements that his endorsements are removed altogether

Okay uh The ones that were still on there that we were

At the time the last time was todd freo side ten brook and kate. Uh, jeff kirkland george lawson uh, we

We were told what had asked for his name to be removed and same with martha mac Emilio ramos

I don't know if the others asked for them to be removed. I know the page is down But before we started doing the episodes

You know 10 people had had asked for to be removed from tony's endorsements people who endorsed tony

That removed their endorsements much of it because he had gone to gfc and and views he he had

A couple of them are his views with women preaching but phil johnson ray comfort emile's wayne uh mike andrews um paul

Yatrit, I don't know how probably not pronouncing it right bill adams now That's an important one because tony's ministry was under bill when he started

So you have you have phil johnson his pastor removing this is before we even did the episode so you can't blame us phil johnson

His his previous pastor at you know, who he was under over there grace community church

Ray comfort and ez the guys he worked for at living waters for years bill adams the guy that he had um

You know who had you know, his ministry was under him uh grant corner

Mark, spence again someone from living waters that he he worked with Uh for years and then david tomlin.

So I I don't know, you know, it is kind of interesting. Um, I don't see um

I don't see, uh, uh, chuck o 'neill's name on here. So I you know, I know chuck is watching

So i'll throw this out to chuck. Did you ever endorse him and and it just never got on there or what?

Because I i'm surprised that chuck would not have written an endorsement to him um so Let's see.

Chuck says I just see him putting something up. He said. Oh, oh he says martha mack graciously And biblically addressed tony and exhorted him to leave gfc's cultic ministry tony didn't engage at all just blocked

Yeah, that's the pattern, isn't it? He's chuck o 'neill said phil johnson has called mike reed's ministry cultic uh and morally dangerous actually,

I I don't have the quote up but I actually have Had a quote that phil johnson sent when anthony started doing this um

You know, so, all right, let's let's get let's move on to some of these others This is where he talks about nomads because what we're going to start getting into is this pattern that you referred to Tony talks about how he came to gfc

And as you hear that as you we already heard it. This is a pattern he has with every church

Tony has had a pattern Uh when he left the first church that I I don't know the name of it

It was where when I first met him he was attending there and then he went to faith community church

When he went to faith community church, he said the same things He he he left the church that the other church wasn't really doing evangelism

This church was going to let him do do the evangelism they exposed, you know There were some things that they that it was a great community there was sin in his life exposed

And he just he really felt community there. Uh, they end up there's going to be some question with this

Uh, they end up um Basically, they they vote him in as an evangelist of the church

We're going to hear later in some clips where he kind of denies some of that a bit um but I have clips where he says that so, um, and so They make him evangelist.

He then lay leaves that church because they weren't comfortable with his open -air preaching And yet Then he goes to grace community church and there he felt the real community the holiness

He leaves there Goes to gfc And it's the same story it's the same thing four times over and I mean

If you listen a couple people listen to the full sermon and and people commented about how it's all victim playing the victim card

There is a lot of that that you hear throughout his testimony, but here's what he talks about the nomads now

When he speaks of nomads, i'm just going to say this was these were a group of people it includes mark kahill um, in fact, i'll just say publicly i've never said this before publicly, but The reason that I refuse to go out and speak every single week or even most weeks.

I we have as a ministry I none of our speakers can be out of their local church for more than half the year

Why Because when I met mark kahill I remember asking what church are you a member of he goes

He goes whatever one i'm at that week to preach at He had no church and there were a lot of the sinless perfectionist guys.

They had no church And they were going around just you know, there was there was I mean, I remember, you know a guy like jeff rose who started a you know now he started a um a church, uh network, but when he was in jersey

He he left a a sound church And and he was just on the streets in camden, new jersey, and he was calling it church doing open air

And he called it church. That's not church um, no, I don't think tony had

You know, uh, jeff rose in mind with this but at the time because he was kind of working with jeff rose at the time

But he's that when he talks about nomads, that's what he's talking about The way he uses in this sermon though Is is not the same thing he's using the term nomads now to refer to people that are in churches

Yeah And are under their church's authority So, I mean just just give a listen

Part of that good was to remove me In many ways from this so -called community

A band of nomads who may or may not have some tacit connection to the local church or no connection at all

God has set me free From so much. Amen And he's used these last six years

Under the love and care and shepherding of my pastors and church family

To show me sin in my own life Show me how much

I sin So So Remember, I mean kevin he's he's referring

Well to his his old church the people he went out with remember he's saying that He that grace community grace, uh fellowship church

Got him out of these nomads That he was with before who was he with before grace community church.

That's who he was doing with before So So so when we we hear him say this

Let me let me look let's play him in his own words. Here he is Um, this was an important announcement that he had back in 2014

February 24th of 2014 an important announcement that he and his family uh

He says when he and his family began attending faith community church on on september 11th of 2011

Uh, they we knew After the first sunday we had found a new church home

In a month's time the five of us completed the membership process and were recognized and affirmed as members

So this was when he left the church the first church that I had known he was attending. I don't know that name

This is the one before grace community church He he says here. I immediately began serving the church

Um as the lord presented opportunities I served the church security team assisted with the church's outreach events

So so he got involved in awana did all these things um He says here

Okay about 18 months ago. I began the process with my elders the goal in which uh was to have my elders commissioned me through the laying on of hands to serve faith community church as an

Evangelist in keeping with the role of the evangelist delineated in ephesians 4 11 to 14 The process includes meeting with the elders a close examination of my present ministry uh as an evangelist and equally closely examined

Examination of my character and gifting and the writing and rewriting my ministry proposal the process also included an examination of my financial accountability

And ministry related funds which in part resulted in cross encounters ministry receiving an ecfa accreditation

Under the umbrella of revival usa revival usa is the ministry that does the sports fan outreach

And that is bill adams So you see there was a lot of accountability In his life.

Yeah in churches what he's saying. This is why he liked it so much And and they they eventually make him a an evangelist he says here

I greatly I I benefited greatly from the this process Uh with my elders and learned how seriously thoughtful and prayerfully my elders make important decisions

I mean, does this sound familiar? to what It we heard in the sermon The the elders extended to me a great deal of love patience grace and friendship including uh the process with one of the

Elders taking time personally helped me to rewrite my ministry proposal The elders were also very helpful by pointing out areas of my life and ministry that needed maturing

They were always very quick to encourage quick to listen and to and never afraid to offer their collective and Individual wisdom discernment and when warranted correction so We end up seeing that Okay, so we see that pattern the same thing we heard with gfc then he says, uh

The process drew to a close in in, uh, december of 2013 in the end of my elders affirmed

They believed that my god's call in my life was to serve him as an evangelist at the same time.

They found aspects of my life of my evangelistic gifting and ministry namely open -air preaching

Philosophically incompatible with the evangelistic direction of the elders have set forth for faith community church faith community church family

That being the case the elders determined that I couldn't They could not lay hands on me in the commission of faith community church as an evangelist

Then he talks about how he went from there to grace community church. Now. I want you to note something in this article

That he's writing after he has left faith community church He claims they never laid hands on him

As an evangelist we'll have audio evidence to the contrary from jersey fire

Where he said the opposite where he said that he they did lay hands I didn't do the time there is probably an article where he

I I know there was an article where he wrote about it And he said that they laid hands on him. So if anyone wants

Uh, go go back. It's going to be between the time frame of what 2011 and 2023

Um those years that he did that, okay, he comes to grace community church and he and basically

He's and i'll put for the audio podcast. I'll put the links in the audio podcast but if for folks that don't know you can

Apologize live is an audio podcast. You can follow and get it every week downloaded to you But he basically is going to say the same things here

You know how he he goes to grace community church and and he had meetings with two of the pastors here if you see this line um, you know during which they discuss the life and ministry and the these things, um, and under their their um, the leadership

Uh, you know and after counseling with his his wife and his daughters and prayer they came to to come to grace community church

Okay, so so it's a similar thing that we end up seeing um, and and I'm just i'm belaboring this to say

When he makes these claims it's nothing new It's just there's nothing new there

Yeah, your thoughts on that Well, yeah, man. I I mean what

I what I find fascinating and We hear it in this In these audio clips.

He talks so much about this sin in his life and he says it in those In those articles all this sin in his life that's being pointed out

I got sin in my life. I'm sure you got sin in your life andrew. I don't I don't dwell on it like Am I saved or not?

Well, if i'm saved my sin is forgiven right past future present everything is covered it is finished and This is a tactic of grace fellowship church

Like I talked about earlier about they got to unsave you so they can re -save you the focus on sin and holiness and Beating that drum non -stop

It it leaves a person With a severe lack of assurance of their salvation

It leaves in a joyless society It leaves you Constantly navel -gazing

Examining your life, you know, I I mean Again, I sin

I am a sinner. I will continue to sin but simultaneously i'm a saint i've been forgiven

I repent of my sins when when I know about them, but I don't spend this massive amount of time

Being focused on my sin that our church Here in albuquerque

They preach about sin, but they don't beat you over the head about your sin day in and day out and that was the the destructive tendencies and and now you you factor in this shepherding movement the close shepherding and even in that Even in that sermon he talks about the close shepherding that he has always desired um

You know, it's just like you need a you need a You not only need the holy spirit and you need the common

Ordinary means of grace. You also need mike reed to be on your shoulder Telling you where you're wrong and what you're doing wrong and constantly berating you on your sin man just like this is taking my mind back to all these things and it's

It's triggering, you know, it really is well, I mean, you know I'm gonna play put this one up.

Uh, steven steven johnson says how can you leave john mcarthur's church to move to iowa and join? Mick reeds who is scary and the leader of an abusive cult?

You can't make this stuff up. But you know kofi says something that I want to address and more more more to the point

Kofi from deep dive discipleship, which was a great podcast when he was doing it. Kofi. Why don't you continue?

All right, i'll get off that soapbox. I missed that podcast Um, he said kofi says the irony of calling out nomads when you bounce

From church to church looking for someone to recognize you That's not healthy and honestly that seems to be a thing in some street preaching circles

And that is one of the issues that I have real concern with and i'm going to play clips of tony or a clip of tony um, the fact is

You're you saw that he said he left He left, uh faith

Well, uh faith, I forgot the name of the church now Faith community or faith bible church or something like that To go to grace community church because they didn't accept his style of evangelism

And then he's he's going out To to this church now where he can do his style of evangelism

He was he was doing open air preaching before at grace community church. He was he was I think he was even leading some teams but He will say later we'll play the clip where he says you shouldn't leave for those reasons

Um, you should never leave for those reasons But here here's he's going to talk about and and I you know, you talked about his sin

Let me just play the opening and folks if it first off if you're not following your calvinist podcast,

I encourage you Keith, foskey we actually follow the podcast but also follow the youtube channel because he puts stuff on youtube.

He doesn't do on um That he doesn't put on to uh the the podcast but um

This this is the beginning of his interview with tony and you can hear the whole thing where tony talks about stuff

But let's just play this beginning I thought I was never going to be able to uh open air preach again

Uh, it wasn't it was not only my ministry, but it was the way I supported my family as well and I I panicked

I went I mean it was Yep And that's why you should download them most so we don't have commercials.

All right, I will I'm just gonna stop that because I don't want to play someone's commercial.

So, um, but yeah, so he Panicked he talked he talks about the sin where he panicked he he was he was uh on uh prescription drugs for anxiety

Um, he had I guess it was mike reed that got him off of that and that is a good thing Okay, it seems he went on them or went off him when

I'm on him or off him Um, it is kind of I will say this one thing. Um the one issue

I have with that that clip we that Uh, he started out saying he was afraid for his ministry.

Uh, the the thing I find interesting with it is um You know, let me just give you some what what got me with tony, uh

For people that supported tony tony would regularly at the end of the month You could expect to see a message when tony was still in california going.

Hey, I need bait, you know, like 1500 for basic living His wife was done homeschooling the girls she went out and got a job the wife was the the earner of the family

Tony's ministry was doing some evangelism and begging people online for money. That's why

I wouldn't have I didn't donate to him Okay, so when he talks about a fear of his his, you know, this is his livelihood, um, it was his wife who was his livelihood

His wife was the one who who earned the money um, you know, she had she was the one that went out to work so it's like, you know, um, but it's just he's he he's

He's gonna say he you know, these are his sins. So he was on you know, and this is what

I guess His latest book is about and so he wants us to learn from his mistakes He's going to say that in this clip

Now considering the topic i've been assigned the evangelist responsibility to the church topic i've addressed many times in different formats,

I Thought the best service I can bring to you today if you see yourself as an evangelist

Is to consider almost two decades of mistakes that I've made And encourage you.

I want to help you With love for you With love for those who have abided me and my church for my family

I want to help you avoid telling yourself and others The lies

I told myself and others for years So He he this is the reason

I play that clip is because this is the same thing he said with why he came to You know his church before grace community church why he came to grace community church.

It's the same pattern over and over again Um phil is asking this question.

He says is keith foskey still supports tony So I don't know if he ever supported him financially but he

He uh, he supports he at least supported him enough to write an endorsement on the book

Uh have him on the podcast. So Uh, I did I talked to him just to say, you know, are you aware of any of the issues with his church?

uh You know And he he basically said he doesn't have time. He knows that there's some strange things.

He's heard. That's what everyone says. It's just weird He heard some weird things but he

People want to separate that from tony because they love tony and I get that I just want to say something about that because I think this is a good time to interject it

One of the things tony does is he calls us wolves and he calls us cowards um you know i've

Written an article or two on the topic of wolves What is a wolf?

you know we have Two primary texts in the new testament that deal with wolves

Which is acts 20 where paul is exhorting the ephesian elders that after my departure savage wolves will come in Not sparing this the flock

And they'll rise up from within your own ranks, right? The other primary text is matthew 7 where jesus says beware of false prophets inwardly, they are wolves dressed in sheep's clothing and you know, and they will

You will recognize them by their fruits. Okay, so when when we're called wolves first of all

Like we don't really meet that biblical definition of not being like the pastor of a church

Which is what paul is talking about, but if you want to make an application that we've done damage to them

They might consider that being a wolf But what a wolf actually is is a person Who's a teacher or a pastor in a church that is doing damage to the flock of god

And if mike reed doesn't fit that definition of a wolf, I don't know who on god's green earth does

Because we lined up a cloud of witnesses On this program alone talking about the damage that they've done

There's there's At least a hundred that I tried to put a name to on a piece of paper

Of the people that have left and been damaged in one way shape or form or another mike has scattered the flock

He's done spiritual irreparable harm to countless many people and he fits he is a total biblical definition of what a wolf is

And so Tony can refer to me and you and anthony or whoever he wants to as a wolf

But the reality is that his pastor is the one who who fits that definition Yeah, and I mean look

I think guys like keith foskey myself before anthony started this.

Um I just said okay. He's having people kiss on the lips weird

You know Not my thing, uh meeting with women alone

On a regular basis not advisable But I I I wasn't willing to say they were a cult.

I wasn't willing to say they were You know that the church was bad. Why because you know me like many others just didn't have time to investigate it

Right. It was only because you and anthony came on this show and well because it's my show I was I was you know,

I was you know, either watching, you know The weeks I couldn't be there or or I was here and realized wow, there's a lot here.

This is really bad yeah, and it got and I think it was the episode when We had all those

Six or seven people come in and one after another talking about the controlling behavior that I realized no This this is a cult and and I ended up, you know, kind of apologizing to anthony there

Because he was right and I was wrong. I I said hey, well I wasn't not that I was wrong I just said he you know, you got to be careful calling it a cult unless it really fits the definition but you didn't have a full -orbed understanding at that time and and i'm so thankful for anthony and and I mean the hundred hours or so or whatever he put in to Examine this, you know, that's unbelievable that he would do that And i'm so thankful for it that it it was able to expose something and bring it to light now

You know hey You know repent and go back and clean up your mess mike.

I wish you would do that. Yeah, um, you know I don't know whether you're right with god

I'm not in the business of calling people telling people whether they're saved or not he is But i'm not

I mean we we will examine people by their fruit and if we examine mike's fruit He appears to me to to fit the definition that jesus gave of of a false prophet

Yeah I mean so so this is and we're going to go a little bit longer tonight just so we can get through this but um,

Let me play this clip because I want we're going to get into where he talks about the importance of church um for an evangelist

So allow me to cut to the chase If you are not a churchman You are not an evangelist in any biblical sense of the term

If you are not a churchman You are not doing the work of evangelists

You might be engaging in evangelism, but you are not an evangelist You have a responsibility to the local church

If you are not called and sent out by the local church if you are not serving the local church, then you are not an evangelist

Here I see okay. So there he stands um now

He says, you know, he went to gfc because there he got that he he was under their authority

That's that was the whole thing, right? He's under their authority. Yeah And and that's when like this is as if this is the first time he was under the authority of his of a church

When he was doing open air And and so let me just play something else and I didn't send this to you kevin

But let me just play this this is was done by marcus pitman many many years ago 12 years ago

That he put this together tony miyano profile open air preacher profile of tony miyano

All right, where he says every evangelist should belong to a church Listen how he begins his open air and this is how he always would he'd start his open air.

Listen Oh My name is tony miyano and i'm an evangelist

I am a member of a church I am under the biblical authority of pastors and elders

And i'm not even if i'm standing on a box all by myself I'm not out here alone. I have the coverage of my church family more and more.

I am seeing Men and women out on the streets under the auspices of being evangelists for the lord.

Jesus christ Who are out there as nomads? They're not under the authority of any local church

They do not submit themselves to the authority of pastors or elders They are not held accountable by older more mature men in the faith

I see so many street preachers and I applaud the fact that god seems to be raising street preachers

But some of them I wish they would quit and work at loans or home depot They're just angry people

Who want to hurt other people and call their names and film themselves while they're doing it so they can put it on youtube

How I would give To just walk around a corner and see a street preacher who was just telling people about how glorious christ is the lord the messiah

Lion of the tribe of judah Who once came as a baby Humble in a stable, but when he returns my friend

He will not return as a meek and mild lamb to be punished by his creation

No, he will return as the lion of the tribe of judah to judge both the living and the dead

God is holy. God is righteous. God is just god is good and god will punish sin

But god is also not instead of He is also loving merciful gracious and kind Provided one way and only one way for you to escape the just and holy wrath of almighty god

My prince muhammad cannot save you Muhammad is dead Buddha is dead

Jesus christ alone is god. Jesus christ is risen Jesus christ and I worship a living god.

We worship a living savior And the only god who can save you is the only god who is alive

And that is jesus christ the lord when people think of the street preacher.

They think of someone who is very angry They're yelling and screaming people are calling people names. They're so great.

There's no love and more often And sadly there is that kind of street preaching more often than not it's by Heretics a group of people that I refer to as nomads.

They're out on the streets basically a law Unto themselves and sadly i'm seeing more and more of these groups

Turn to heresies of long ago full -on Pelagianism denying the imputed righteousness of christ denying original sin believing in sinless

Perfectionism and more often than not these men and women are out on the streets not bringing the good news of jesus christ

But only bringing the condemnation of god's law My friends I am going to heaven not because of the bible not because I go to church not because I'm less sinful than the next person

I'm going to heaven Entirely on the basis of what jesus christ did on the cross.

It is jesus christ and jesus christ alone There is no name given among men under heaven by which we must be saved

And it is jesus christ the lord So I wanted to play that that full clip because I you know, it was some good preaching there and and yeah

Chuck says, uh, excellent compare and contrast andrew exposing tony's deception with his own words that that's what we're trying to do here

Sorry, I put let's see. Oh Stephen says funny how he he was a nomad at the same time.

He's railing against nomads well, he was a member of a church, but I I Wanted that clip just for the sake of I want you to see the consistent pattern when he says he came to gfc and everything

Was different right No, no, I mean You know

We you know, we're focusing on tony because tony is the one that preached the sermon That we we had, you know, he wanted us to hear it.

He said Uh, we actually I think we heard it. We finally found it like a year after he preached it, but He's probably shocked and it's two and a half years later that we're finally doing something about it

Um, and and the only reason we are is because he's still he's still playing the same victim status

Oh, woe is me, you know, look but this church is so good. It saved me Well, they didn't save me not but saved him from his his his drug addiction um you know so so as we look at it,

I mean, it's just We're gonna i'm gonna I had the clip of his resume but that's like 45 seconds of or sorry two minutes and 45 seconds of him just giving his

All the things he's done. Let me play this clip Where he talks about pastors and support uh, because this is where I now want to get into not from that sermon, but from the sermon that he gave at our event jersey fire

Because here you see you see He was he was an evangelist of the church now in that blog article, he said that They never laid hands on him and because of that that is why he went to grace community church

However, they did lay hands on him. He was an evangelist And and they did all this investigation

But he said that they didn't like the open air But they knew he did open air But let's let's give a listen

But while it took my pastor a while to get on board my pastor never discouraged me From hitting the streets and now my pastor is one of uh, my biggest advocates one of the biggest advocates.

I know as far as pastors um Regarding biblical evangelism He exhorts our church on a regular basis

To step out of their comfort zone and to reach a loss with the gospel and he faithfully proclaims the law in the gospel from his

Pulpit and not long ago the elders of our church laid hands on me and called me to the office of evangelists in our church which is

Is something that a lot of churches don't do so I am in a very good place Did you hear his own words?

I could bring the article up again here and and we could we could read his own words and see if they agree um

In his in his blog article after he left and remember that sermon That is from jersey fire is before he was at grace community church.

He was at um at this church faith community church Where he says in this article they did not lay hands on him

If I can find it, but on that is you heard him say At the time that he preached it.

They had laid hands on him And they knew he did open air.

They endorsed the open air And his pastor Not only fully knew it was encouraging him

All along right so it says here uh That his pastors didn't ask him to stop.

I want you to i'm going to replay that clip But this is the paragraph. I want you to look at that I highlighted the elders assured me that they would not ask me to stop open air preaching

They assured me that my family and I were welcome to continue to be members of the church Um of faith community church for the rest of our lives

They were repeatedly reassured their love and care for uh and support for the uh of the maiano family

However, the elders collectively determined the best thing for me and my ministry to which they affirm

God had called me to do would be to find another church where the elders Uh, and I would be in a same philosophical on the same page, right?

so Why why did they do that? Well because of the fact that you know, he had said previously they didn't lay hands on him

It's the sentence right above your highlighted one. Yeah, and that that being the case it says

The elders determined they could not lay hands on me So now I want to replay this clip

With the question that I have for you as I replay it Does this sound like while he was at faith community church?

Does it sound like he didn't that he was the nomad? He said he was does it sound like he was someone who was had

Well, let me i'll bring up the words that that he has said throughout Uh at different times he said it in that sermon at one point he said he had his own he says

This is a quote from him Uh, it was my ideas my desires. I went

Wherever I wanted to go. I did whatever I wanted to do unquote And elsewhere he had said this quote.

I answered to no one Not in any real appreciative way

So I formed and quote advisory board unquote Groups of well well -intentioned christian men

Who had no real actual authority over my life or over the ministries they advised?

I had to make it at least look like I had some accountability These men were not

Yes men Most of them were pastors slash elders

But they weren't my pastors slash elders They could give me advice but they could

Simply take it But I could simply take it or leave it unquote Now i'm that's a quote that he says when he comes to why he came to gfc

He came there because he was going to get all this accountability Uh, I know chuck o 'neill was on his board his accountability board um

I think phil johnson is or was I mean, uh chuck You're you could put it in the chat and we could see if that's true.

I thought he was And phil johnson was his pastor uh at the time, uh, but chuck o 'neill has testified on the on previous episodes here that He did give counsel and advice to tony and he was the one that just decided to leave it

So there if there was no accountability, it wasn't the accountabilities board They did try to speak into his life But I want to play that clip again

And and you tell me after hearing this clip if it sounds like tony's saying he did have accountability in his life.

He was uh laid hands on as an evangelist in the church of Of faith community church prior to grace community church

Let's listen again But while it took my pastor a while to get on board my pastor never discouraged me from hitting the streets and now my pastor is one of My biggest advocates one of the biggest advocates

I know as far as pastors um regarding biblical evangelism He exhorts our church on a regular basis

To step out of their comfort zone and to reach the lost with the gospel and he faithfully proclaims the law in the gospel from his

Pulpit and not long ago The elders of our church laid hands on me and called me to the office of evangelists in our church

Which is is something that a lot of churches don't do so I am in a very good place

He is in a very good place The same thing he said with when he went to grace community church the same thing.

He said when he went to gfc It's a regular pattern. Uh chuck said this he said tony met with phil regularly for accountability

Both phil and I exhorted tony not to subject his family to the ministry uh beneath mike reed and and so Phil was his pastor at the time

Uh phil had said that he he he encouraged tony to go out there and check it out But then after finding out more about mike reed he told tony not to go but Tony had already made the decision um so um

I mean kevin does does it sound like from that clip? That he did at our event at jersey fire.

Does it sound like he was? Unaccountable That he was just doing his own thing.

He was a nomad as he he said he was before he went to gfc I mean, it doesn't take a lot of discernment to hear that You know the language is similar that he

Is very proud of the fact that he's got pastors that are accountable and to him hold him accountable that you know

It is it's the same language that he's heard now, you know, i'm i'm sure it's off the charts accountability at gfc uh, you know, it's it'll it'll be a higher level of that and and what he appears to be pushing for in that 2022 sermon is the fact that every open -air preacher

Needs that level of accountability. You can't just be in a church

The pastors are okay with you going out in open -air preaching No, you can't, you know, they have to be beating you up every week in order for it to be good shepherding

Apparently from what tony's perspective is now Yeah Yeah So so the question is what was he in a good church?

Well, let's hear him in his own words but back to club frustration misery truly loves company

And I found that the more time I spent on the streets the more time I spent with other christians whose frustration

I shared The less time I spent with my church family And over time

I found it easy to justify the mindset because of the eternal importance of reaching the lost

With the gospel no one's going to argue with that at least no christian should And I began to see my fellowship with other evangelists on the streets as in some ways a substitute

For my fellowship with my brothers and sisters in christ in my church Before long

I was leading a team of evangelists and the work of evangelism became all -consuming

And I was becoming a nomad Some of us talk about forming our own church

One that would emphasize biblical evangelism in ways that other churches don't And we would grow the church from those who we saw receive christ from our street evangelism

Efforts we were going to reinvent the wheel In southern california, we were going to show other churches how it's done

Well, fortunately by god's grace All of us realized that we were either already in god glorifying christ -centered churches

Or there were such churches nearby we could Could attend I cut it off too soon so what you end up hearing from there is

He acknowledges this is when he's at faith community church He he said that prior, you know, he was he was struggling with I guess whatever church he came to faith from Where he was he was right, but does that sound familiar to what he said?

I mean like why he came to gfc It's the same Yeah, and I think it's the same with grace community church,

I mean he clearly said that in that Article that he wrote and I remember

Kind of hearing about that. I didn't know tony then but him going there and maybe he was going to be

You know going to the master's seminary I don't remember all the stuff that he was doing but he might have been In a bible study leading a bible study, but he was fully plugged in, you know

But that's nothing like what he experiences now according to him

You see and that's the whole thing is I that's why i'm trying to I And we only have about three more clips.

They're short. I I it's I You know, but it's like why beat the dead horse? Well, because I want you to see that this is nothing new with him um

You know, so when he goes out and he writes a book saying he's had these struggles And this is why this church is it made such a difference he said that with every church he's gone to Right, I hope he'll do it one more time.

Yeah He actually would be leaving a bad church, um, so here's tony talking about what was was tony a novice

Those who've all prayed to the lure of nobanism are often young men who by outward appearances seem to grow very quickly

In their faith they devour scripture. They're voracious readers and students They often show great promise and seemingly leave older christians in the dust

When it comes to their ability to retain information and when it comes to their zeal and ability to serve to preach and to teach but before long

The pride and arrogance of the old creature begins to affect the growth of the new creature

They begin to see themselves as better equipped and more gifted than the older men around them and that may very well be true

But when the novice starts to think about such things even dwell on such things They sometimes begin to brood about being held back

By other leaders older leaders in their mind. They're not being given leadership responsibility

Fast enough and eventually the frustration can lead to the novice setting out on his own with all too often a few bridges left behind I did that Many many years ago.

I did that to a church Because I was a novice who was put in leadership too soon Okay, so the church he's referring to is the one before faith community church

Right and so he's saying that he left faith The one before faith community church and came to faith community church

He was a novice before he caused this problem, right? So so what we see is he left

It seems he left the church before faith community church comes to faith community church because of the issue of evangelism

He leaves faith community church to go to grace community church the issue being evangelism specifically the open air

He leaves grace community church. And as we we played earlier He comes to gfc saying that you know, he again claiming he was a novice.

He did what he wanted He he had no accountability Uh, even though in each of these churches, he's when he gets the new one.

He says he's got all this great accountability um I want to play the clip of what he says about a reason for leaving the church because i'm going to ask you

He said he left the church And specifically he in his own words. He wrote he left because of the open air evangelism

They would not make him an evangelist. They would not endorse his open air evangelism, which

You take those words in writing and you take his own sermon while he was still at the church I I don't know how else to reconcile it but You there's no third option

I could think of as the church did not lay hands on him or the church did lay hands on him

There is no third option So one of those That's to be false

And since he was publicly stating at the time that he was Ordained as an evangelist and they knew about his open air ministry

I find it hard to believe that The later one where he's explaining why he came to grace community church

Was because they didn't lay hands on him and they didn't approve of it Because you heard him say they did approve of it

They did lay hands on him and and so You know, I think it's more he's he's

Twisting things to explain why he went to grace community church, but even so It's about the evangelism.

Should we leave a church because of their evangelism? Let's ask tony Well, there's no way

I can I can anticipate all the arguments against the position I put forward I can anticipate at least a couple of them one is

This i'm not part of a church because I can't find a church that supports or practices biblical evangelism

Maybe that's some of you here And again, if your church is not preaching the biblical gospel, then it's not a church

It's nothing more than a social club for professing christians both genuine and professing and if your

Church is not preaching the gospel. You are obligated because of your love for christ to leave You're obligated to leave

If you're in a church where the gospel is not being preached you are practicing idolatry

Because you're hearing something other than the gospel And you're affirming and supporting that false gospel by staying

You have to leave however If your church is preaching the biblical gospel

Then the fact that your church does not presently support biblical evangelism in the manner you prefer

Is not a sufficient or biblical reason to leave the church It's not

And tony admits to leaving two churches for that reason I've got some interesting thoughts regarding all of this because One when when we left

Tony wanted to meet with me We met I spent probably a couple hours with him could have been an hour and a half might have been two hours

I don't remember might have even been longer But one of the things that he really stressed to me is that he had left churches

The wrong way and he didn't want to see me do that and one of You know, well, how did you leave grace community church to come to gfc?

It didn't fall under the parameter of Mike reed's standards being sent mutual consent um

Sending death or excommunication He didn't

That wasn't He just left he just decided this is where i'm going to go now So he made the decision all on his own

But I find it incredibly interesting that he said If they're not preaching a biblical gospel you

You absolutely should leave So our contention And it wasn't as clear at the time that we left gfc, but it's very clear now is they're not preaching the biblical gospel

They're preaching Now people there know it to some degree But the emphasis is on the law

It's it's it's flat out legalism in its many different forms

And it's a performance -based society based upon how they view your sanctification that's how you're judged in this in the church is what's your level of sanctification and that's why mike maintains control over people by by Examining their sin all the time and that's why he's he's probably got his hooks into tony in one way or another about Some kind of sin in his life that he needs old pastor mike to keep him on the straight and narrow And and I mean i'm hesitant

Just because you're Some of your your comments are judging motives.

I understand you you have lots of history and know You know, i'm just I we want to be cautious with it though right, but You you have a lot of history that you've seen so you've seen a pattern over and over again

Yes, and that's that's what you're really addressing. Is that pattern? Yes um, yeah, it's it's it's personal experience and I think if you

If you polled everybody that's been on this show That is a gfc survivor uh, they would affirm 100 what i'm saying

Yeah now, you know you can we can call it opinion we can call it and they'll probably say, you know, you're this and that and Whatever, but you know, that is my experience.

That is what we determined Especially later on why it was such a drudgery of a place to be

So let me let me just uh Put this up. We're talking about accountability and then we have one more clip that we'll

We'll have this is from his his website. Okay about accountability

And so he says tony is a member in good standing of grace grace fellowship church davenport, iowa grace encounters ministry is overseen by the elders of grace fellowship church mike reed nick roland and uh tyler bachema

These men are actively and regularly engaged in shepherding tony providing counsel overseeing in his local ministry his travel schedules monitoring his social media presence reviewing his blog articles digital recordings and video prior to posting and Participating with him in various forms of street evangelism

Now I I just put that up to show you This is what he has said every time

There's nothing new there. So what was different with this accountability they didn't have before I mean because if he if he thought he had the accountability before and it was rock solid, but now he realized it wasn't could he

Realize that the rock solid Counseling he's getting from mike reed is not so rock solid

Yeah Like the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked who can understand it can we actually understand our own hearts and what we're sometimes being exposed to and Where we thought that this was really good and then we learned later on that it wasn't

I mean Is that what tony would say? Oh, I never realized I thought it was good at the time

But looking back on it now Compared to what I have now that was that was terrible.

I mean those guys weren't accountable to me these guys watch all my videos they

You know, I have breakfast with pastor mike every wednesday and he beats me up and you know, we're all good, you know, and and and I I I know that program.

I mean, you know, I I wrote about it, uh in one of the articles regarding the shepherding movement of the 1970s,

I mean the it's You know, even the the guys that started that movement came to realize how damaging is

I mean mike has to know your business He has to be intimately and closely involved in your life and And apparently tony was was looking for that Yeah, well tony always has that kind of relationship.

Tony always like I said, he puts himself under someone else Um, that that's just that's who tony is um

You know the thing that really shocked me when you're talking about the controlling of gfc Was the the one woman who said that because she wasn't married mike had said that he was

Uh, and she didn't have a father that he was her spiritual father. So Her paycheck went into a bank account that he controlled

They monitor it all and they set up budgets and they help them control their money. And I mean

Well, they say it's your money, but here this woman wants to spend her own money on new furniture And he didn't think it appropriate

And she had said she realized that when she left the church She was gonna have to lose all her savings because he had control she can't like she couldn't get her own money that she worked for that's controlling and that's that's what a cult does but you know, let me ask kevin would it be nice if if um,

Tony talked to us back at back long before gfc days if he told us like warned us about cults

Yeah, that it would be good to know what cults are like wouldn't it for people this is again back in in jersey fire

Um, so this is back, you know, he's probably thinking church of wells because that's what we're dealing with at the time.

Let's hear If the drift continues unabated the nomad may begin to deny essential christian doctrines and we've seen this

We've seen this from men who once faithfully proclaimed the one true gospel, but now they are denying

Doctrines like the penal substitutionary atonement of christ or the imputed righteousness of the lord jesus christ

Evangelists that take this unfortunate and unbiblical step toward nomadism run the risk of becoming isolationists

The kind of isolationism may also lead the nomad to wrongly judge other christians and assign other christians to hell

Because they don't believe exactly as the nomad believes regarding certain points of doctrine and if such behavior remains

Unchecked this could lead to the formation of cults Like personality cults or what

I call we're the only true church cult Cults such as these are are typically led by one or more charismatic

Leaders who convince their followers that they alone rightly divide understand and communicate the word of god

And every other teacher is therefore in their mind a false teacher And remember two hours ago.

I said this was going to come up but one of those questions Did mike reed say they were the only true church in the the quad city areas and and The the reason that came up is

I and you remember this more than I but I know it came up on one of the episodes You and anthony did Uh that mike reed said there were only a handful of true churches uh

You know, I think in the world One being the one they're planting in africa their church grace community church, which

I think was removed from that list of true churches um So this was long before I mean what tony is referring to is people who who are the sinless perfectionists

But I wanted to you know hear in his own words what he says about churches that claim. They're the only true church

He referred to it as a cult Yeah Now you didn't know that clip because I don't think

I said that that sermon to you I saw your eyes when you heard that you went. Oh Your thoughts that's

That's exactly what he's involved in I mean it is it just fits it to a t.

I mean, you know, those are the things I mean There's a distortion of the gospel. It's a law gospel distinction that that Is weighted toward the law and not the gospel.

They they crush people's Joy in their salvation. They crush their security in their salvation.

They pound home sin they talk about authority, uh as if it's

You know, it's it's it's all we know. It's all we know to talk about sin authority submission it's constant all these things and and they are the the authority of the church they

You know, I don't know they certainly wouldn't wouldn't say it today because enough of this has been exposed but they've said it

And they and they surely believe it that they are the only Game in town that they're the only ones that truly

Know the gospel that they're the only ones that are doing it, right? um, you know, it's just like that that clip

Oh, man, that is amazing And if could could tony hear it now, could he receive it?

Could he understand that he's in that that he is part of that what he spoke against?

I mean That's good preaching. That is good preaching, you know Yeah, um

Stephen johnson said wow from mike reed's mouth. He told me that his church Was one of only five in the united states.

That was true Yeah, how does he know that I wonder does he better them all? so Let's let's

I mean Let's go to some of the questions that we had before we do, uh,

We we should give a word to our sponsors that had that sponsor the show Uh, and then we'll get to we got about a dozen questions that or comments that you guys have have brought up uh, first of our our

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Let me go through these We'll try to get through these quickly just the ones that I had starred I know

I missed a ton of them because we have a very active chat Um, and drew's not here to catch them all so d had said early on i'm wondering how tony's close friends are doing

If they're still defending him That is an excellent question and I know a couple of them come to mind, but I mean,

I think they've at least one guy I know he has Sort of I I I think

I don't talk to him hardly ever I think he's kind of tried to distance himself, but He won't call him out.

I think he wants to keep the friendship, you know If if they want to keep this friendship, they can't they can't say anything about it

And they know that i've i've spoken to Like a half dozen people that contacted me um

At least half dozen that contacted me And told me that they knew if they uh, if they

Uh talked to him about his church They knew they'd lose the friendship and the friendship was more to them

Than getting him out of a cult One of those people actually endorsed his his newest book So the recognize the sin told me like this is absolutely

You know, he absolutely needs to leave that church that church is is you're right. It's a cult He absolutely has to leave it but he endorses the book because The friendship is more now when you get to that point i'm just going to ask for for all the evangelists who are against friendship evangelism

What's this friendship sanctification like we're just want to be friends with you rather than help you sanctify

I don't do this because I I have any grudges against tony I I I do this because a lot of people ask for an update.

We had this we we decided we we just Okay, we'll we'll do an update and and just lay things out, but we do it because we want tony to come to repentance

We want mike reed to come to repentance And and just stop the the controlling behavior that this church has

Stop hurting people and and go back to the ones you've hurt and apologize to them and seek their forgiveness and and You know,

I he shouldn't be a pastor. That's the bottom line I don't I don't see any hope for that for the future If I think he really needs to repent and he needs to get out of the pulpit because he can't help himself

It's his it's his personality um, but you know, he he's

He has done so much damage to so many people and and as i've been listening to another popular podcast right now uh dealing with spiritual abuse and damages um

You know that it just goes so deep and I don't know how People justify their ministries when they've been when they've been hurt that bad and hurt that many people

And then you know you have this whole deconstruction Of the faith because of of this kind of stuff man listen,

I We're still in the faith We love the lord. We love the local church.

We believe in it. I'm a seminary student I I love the word of god I love reform theology even though I think a lot of people in reform theology need some reformation in terms of Of how they deal with people.

Um But I I understand why people deconstruct They've been just they've been destroyed by the church kofi agrees with you he says the sad things about churches like gfc is that the

That actual pastoral authority becomes viewed in the same way And that's the problem.

So let's let's do these maybe rapid fire. Uh, a bunch of these are chuck o 'neill, um, which

I was surprised he didn't come in but um, you know, Uh, let's try to see if we could wrap this up quickly because I know we're a little over time

This one I was confused with jeremy had said I i'm glad tony is here. I love Him and very grateful for his ministry.

There are several things. I am in agreement with him on i'm not sure about his church But people don't submit to to a biblical church

I think he was confused when maybe when I said that I had a guest backstage. He thought it was tony and not you I gave that impression.

I'm, sorry We did invite tony on and I said that in the in the description we invited tony on I prayed that he would come on I was really hoping that he would

I didn't think he would but I prayed that he would I really was Asking that god would do so in his heart to come in Uh, so we could dialogue and and i'll just make this i'm saying this publicly tony,

I I know you're listening because you know that because the church will probably respond to it in a private video and but Listen, you or mike reed can give me a call anytime

I will pick up the phone. You you won't pick up the phone from me for all these years.

It's been over six years I will pick up the phone unless of course i'm busy and then i'll call you back You know my number

Let's talk I would be happy to talk to us if there's things that I have said or on any of these episodes

That anyone has said that is not accurate We will correct it

Yeah, how did I start the show correcting something? I got wrong in last week's show We have a history of doing that here

I will correct the record If there's something We have 12 questions for for mike reed

They're simple. Yes. No questions They can be easily be answered I would love to get the answers to those questions

All right. So chuck o 'neill asks these and and I think some of these are not really Requiring an answer.

I think they're more. Um, I think the question gives the answer chuck o 'neill says does it make you a wolf to say

A pastor should shouldn't meet alone with women to give explicit sexual counsel

Um Does it make you a wolf? To say no safe or sane pastor puts a teenage a teen girl up in front of men and boys of the church and give her uh porn use and masturbation testimony and then

Uh put it online with her name So I I I think

I I missed I think some I think tony had uh, chuck had some others of you know, uh

Does it call you wolf? But I think I think the answer is yeah. No, that that's that's not what a wolf would be um

Chuck had said this he said tony tony met with phil regularly. Oh, I I put this one up already

Uh, so we'll go to the last comment that we have is from steve stephen. Johnson. I listened to tony Rail on about nomads at the super bowl outreach in 2012

Long before he ended up at grace community church So yeah, it's it's been a regular theme of his for a long time um and so You know kevin,

I want to let you wrap up. Is there you know? Are there any since we've done the episodes?

Um, is there any other updates that that you have with? uh with the church I mean you you've

I know when we talked you kind of were like you were like me, you know Just kind of staying out of it. Um, I really don't you know, i'm sure tony and and Mike reed don't believe this but I really don't follow much of what they do

Uh, we've been asked for years to give an update uh to do another show we

We said no for years in fact, I I I actually told anthony enough like no more gfc

Uh, and he wanted to do one. I'm like no no uh And I said that for years.

Um I I guess because he was with his new book A lot of people started coming to me asking me and I just reached out to you and said hey

Maybe we should just deal do deal with the sermon that he he said that that he had preached and and see if there's any updates, so Any updates that you can have for the audience

Yeah, so we've been We've been out of there since february of 2018

So, you know 15, what is that? It'll be eight years or something like that coming up in february so, you know

We don't sit around and obsess about them and talk about them and think about them hardly ever anymore when things come up when

People reach out and contact me and ask me questions or whatever. I I want to do my best to to love on them and show them support for Understanding their plight or understanding what it's like to be in an abusive church

Um, we've been recently connected with a couple in our church here that has been an authoritarian

Fundamentalist type churches and we had dinner with them and it was very nice So the lord has used our experience

There to minister to others and we're very grateful for that opportunity Um, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about them, but on occasion i'll still write an article about them when something comes up um, probably the thing

The the most recent thing that I can mention is I think it's been about a year ago Now is is a man there a friend of mine.

That was a friend at the time uh committed suicide there was a lot of Allegations of sin in his life from them at the

Funeral sermon they preached About this guy's sin that I thought was just awful um, so I wanted to write some articles on that, you know, and So that was like the biggest thing and i've i've heard a lot of things but I can't substantiate anything

So I won't even say it but but you know, I I know more about it than I probably should or even want to um

But you know, there's there's that I know they've added a new elder, uh, you know, and you know,

I don't know I don't pay a lot of attention but but people leave and when they leave they usually reach out and We usually rekindle a friendship if that was the case when we were there or we certainly talk about what's going on and You know, there's a lot of people

I know that left When we like right at about our time frame

And then there's some people that left afterwards and I know that they're still going through Challenges relating to try to understand what the heck happened to them.

Um It's a form of ptsd because it's spiritual abuse and so, um, you know, we're not

You know Oh, this is just my opinion, okay, i'm not against new fetic counseling per per se but I I think that there's

You know certified people that are counselors that can offer Therapy to people that have suffered under these things is a good thing and i'm not against i'm not against secular therapy

Especially for people that understand trauma. This is trauma, but Um, I know not everybody agrees with me and that's okay.

You don't have to agree with me. This is my opinion And um, so I I think I want to see people get help and I want to see people to understand what what a

What a growing issue. This is okay. It's a it's a huge concern We're seeing a lot more of it.

We've seen um Amazing men like dr. Michael kruger write a book called the bully pulpit on spiritual abuse

Where he's a new testament scholar. Why is he wasting his time writing about a topic like this?

Well, he's he says because He's hearing so much about it So we want to expose that uh, tony calls this a

What did he call it? Uh circus or something a clown or clown circus

Yeah, whatever but you know a podcast or a blog post. Well, you know what? What's he does that?

Why is it wrong for me to do that? You know, so that that's There's a lot of good stuff going on andrew but um

Let's praise god every day that we're no longer there We praise god that we're in a good church with good preaching and nice people and and not somebody that's asking me about my sin all the time

And you've been there for a while. I mean look I will admit, you know, it seemed I could be wrong

But this seems like it's as long as tony's been in a church. So that that Would normally be a good thing.

Um Right so It's hard to get out of that place. I can tell you that we were there nine years

Yeah, so folks be praying for tony be praying for mike reed. Um, you know

They have a look that this show is open if you want to you want to confront me publicly

I'm here thursday nights 8 10 eastern time apologetics live .com. Anyone can come in ask any questions

Um, you know if we have a guest we usually give the first hour to the guest But you know, look if if they come in i'm i'm gonna give them the time to speak

If they can correct the record go for it. Um, but you know That was the struggle

I had was that you know that first episode They were blasting anthony and mike reed was and and saying, you know

Like I I as the authority of the ministry needed to do something, but he couldn't tell me what anthony did wrong

He he was anthony was slandering him and said but what what did he say that was false and he wouldn't answer

Yeah, I want to I want to um Say that kind of that along that same line andrew

There's i've written a lot of articles, right? There's a lot out there that I have done I've been on your show a bunch of times i've been on a couple other shows talking about this topic um if I if if you can show me something that i've written that is

Uh False is not true. Um, I I please show me

I have no desire In my being to lie about them

I don't need to lie or embellish the truth because the truth is stranger than fiction, you know, so again,

I stand by every word i've ever said about them or You know, that doesn't mean that everything i've said is perfect and it's according to my memory but I would gladly correct something if it's if it's slanderous and as we know slander has to have the intent of Knowing that it's wrong behind it

In in an attempt to damage somebody i've never done that to them Yeah And and we do know that they have corrected some of their articles and things

Because they've either removed them. Uh, chuck o 'neill has as documentation on that showing things where they've removed it um, you know, and so Yeah, I mean they they they edit the stuff after it gets

You know pointed out in the public. So I hope that that's it. I hope we never bring up this church again

So so, um you know, I just I You know, I don't like doing these things.

I know um, you know, we have someone else that has a church that went through similar things as you went through and You know, he's talked about you know, maybe having us do like an expose like we did with gfc with that church

I don't really care to do that because that's really not what apologetics live should be it should be about apologetics

But in a way this is about apologetics Yeah, I want you to see you know, how did

I handle these things that the accusations tony made against us? I played him in his own words

That's what I did You know, I let him speak in and show him in what he has written what he has said

That's a good thing to do in apologetics When you're accused Yeah, so and we are to defend the faith

Once and for all given to the saints and we have tried to do that and tried to defend against a church

That is doing damage to people I stand by the fact that mike reed is a wolf because of the fact that he hurts so many people

So I stand behind that and apologetics is defending my position against them on that topic

Yes, so Thank you for coming on um You're always an encouragement.

I I love talking with you Um, thank you For folks just as a program note, we will not have a show for the next two weeks

Uh, we'll be back on january 9th 2025 uh

New year, so we will be we'll be back. Uh, I think the topic for then is uh immigration uh fun topic

We got a bunch of people that were in a signal group that i'm in and they were all debating it and I said Hey, you guys want to just Let's let's do this

Uh, so now i'm going to go back to the signal and find Which group that was? um on the 18th

We're going to be having a debate on ghosts Whether ghosts are demonic or not

So that will be a formal debate that we'll do Uh, and then on the 23rd

I'm gonna have uh, greg moore from dead man walking podcast. Come on He recently had a debate on his channel and with someone that I actually used to go to church with um, and so He will be on And we're going to talk about that debate.

So I think that'll be good. So Uh, kevin, thanks for coming on again. It's always

Having you on you're always welcome to come back anytime. Thank you And so my my last encouragement is folks be praying

For tony be praying for mike reed um And and and i'll do the open appeal again to them if you think we we

Mischaracterized you that we said something that's wrong Please reach out to me You know how to get a hold of me both you both, you know my email you've used it you have my my number um i'm, not hard to you know to find so, uh