Ellie

SGM Does seem to put a lot of emphasis on Pauline teachings as they pertain more to the church, while the gospels are focused on the individual.

They are building Gods church, not Ambassadors.

Interestingly, when dealing with individuals, it is from Paul where they usually stay in scripture when quoting or for application as well.

Welcome to the site, and thanks for your comment.

I think I’m going to put up your comment on the message board, if that’s OK. You may get some additional feedback, besides what people will write here.

Your question is very interesting. My own “take” on it is that Paul would be astonished that such a rigid system could have developed, supposedly based upon his writings. Considering what Paul had to say about grace and freedom, I don’t see that he would have been very happy with a lot of SGM’s oddities.

That’s my take on things – does anyone else have anything to add?

sorry if this is the wrong place to say this.

It then occurred to me that perhaps the simple truth is that CJ Mahaney is an incredibly magnetic personality. Like, take away all the “God” stuff about him. Make him some non-Christian. And I bet he’d still have a following of some sort, whether it would be as a financial guru, or a diet advisor, or a CEO. There are those types of people who just exude warmth, charm, trustworthiness, and good humor. I mean, even before CJ was considered a “Reformed Big Dog” or even before he had a church of thousands, he still was able to gather around him several hundred young people for Bible studies. So his charm has little to do with his “advances” in his theology.

It’s my guess that the secret to the Teflon quality of CJ – why nobody seems capable of placing the blame for their spiritual abuse squarely at his doorstep – is because of his endearing personality.

I know this post is “old” (posted two days ago) ;-) but thought I would say that I agree with you Kris.

He has that emotional selling presence

It certainly isn’t he biblical teaching that attracts people to him and what he says. When he speaks he rarely teaches from the scripture. In the majority of cases he may read one passage of Scripture are the beginning and then speak the rest of the time exhorting . If he was in seminary he would have been given an “F” for his “exegesis” on the message about “sovereign grace that he gave but “A” for the emotional appeal he sold it with.

As has been said before, it does shock me that a group so relies on a person who rarely if ever has an original thought and seems to be a reader of books rather than one who reads and studies the bible.

As others have said before, a lot of bad leaders including dictators have had this type of charisma that have enabled them to be in power for so long.

You said:

“Most of us mention how loved and welcomed we felt on first attendance but not so much after we were officially tied to the church!”
I totally agree -I would say this was my very First red flag! I remember calling friends who weren’t totally satisfied in their churches and telling them “You gotta come check out this church.” I can’t sit there 5 minutes without someone coming up and introducing themselves to me”, which occurred for about the first 2 months or so.. And the first few weeks we were invited to lunch to a couple of people’s homes, but those dates didn’t work out and they didn’t bother reschedule with us, nor did they ever invite us again. I later found out that was their JOB in the church – their ministry of welcoming newcomers. Like I said, after about two, maybe three months, people stopped coming up to us/me and introducing themselves – and there were still lots of people I didn’t know. And I remember sitting there thinking, it’s not really different here than anywhere else, as far as the friendship thing goes. Everyone’s talking to people they know; everyone who was going to be friendly enough to introduce themselves and welcome unfamiliar faces, already has, and now I’m invisible. We’ve had many families over to our home and very few have invited us. But I do have to say that this is very common in the area that I live and it was the same in the last church we were at for many years.

“I continued to attend for some time after the day when my membership ceremony should have taken place based on my birthday (that’s another thing…do most legitimate churches practice membership ceremonies??) and was treated with a mingled sense of pity and condescension from my peers thereafter….

Are you serious?! A membership ceremony? That’s probably done just so those who don’t join feel less loved and less valuable (as was mentioned on one of the other threads) and therefore feel the pressure to become a member. (You don’t want to be an outsider, do you?) Just another form of coercion.

I agree with you additional assessments of a cult. And I thought of something else.
Uh Oh. I just got an important call, I gotta go. I don’t know when I can return.

Not pretty. I then found a PCA and only over the past two years dip my toes into a quasi healthy charismatic church every three months or so.

Next stops will be AOG, if I kind find a good one or Evangelical Free or Christian Missionary Alliance. It is doubtful I will ever really join a church again. I will attend and tithe and be involved but I know too much now. I hate to let go of healthy charismatic teaching but I may have too. Sound pentecostal schloarship is hard to find.

You’re right. It was DC Talk she quoted, not Newsboys.

But the line was made a part of our collective national consciousness by MLK jr., and it’s sad that this girl did not know that. That was my point.