To Stay Or Not To Stay?
When is it a good idea to stay in a church or para-church ministry, and when is it better to leave? This was the question that Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones addressed in 1966 at the National Assembly of Evangelicals conference in England. Lloyd-Jones was a very respected evangelical leader, and he used this opportunity to implore evangelicals to leave the Church of England because it was tolerating theologically liberal people and ideas in its ranks (He told evangelicals to join with another evangelical church).
Another respected leader named John Stott was at the meeting, and after Dr. Lloyd-Jones was finished, Stott approached the lectern and said to the audience, “I believe history is against what Dr. Lloyd-Jones has said… and I also believe that Scripture is against him.” Stott wanted evangelicals to stay within the Church of England to be a transforming influence.
So who, if either, is correct? When is it right to separate and leave a church or a denomination, and when should one stay and be salt and light within the church? Lloyd-Jones also said, “Ecumenical people put fellowship before doctrine. We, as Evangelicals, put doctrine before fellowship.” There is an issue here that arises however: Since no church has absolutely perfect doctrine, where is the doctrinal line drawn before one says, “this far and no further” regarding the teaching of the church?
Also, what if the question is not only one of doctrine but also practice? What if a church teaches essentially correct doctrine but its overall systematic practices go against its teaching? Lloyd-Jones had an issue with the Anglican Church because, while their doctrinal statement was basically solid, according to him, its practices across the board over time were not and so he advocated separation in that case.
What is the threshold for staying or leaving a ministry? Is there a line for the amount of doctrinal aberrance, personal abuse, or theological difference that determines staying or leaving? Or is it subjective, on a case by case basis?
For me and my wife, we decided to leave UBF because too many lines had been crossed for too long, without being able to see any glimmer of change within the ministry. I think we also felt powerless to do anything about it because whenever I broached the subject with my “shepherd,” I was very quickly shut down. Of course, now I do see that there are people who both want the ministry to change, and who have the position to do something about it. Nevertheless, if I had to make the same decision again, I would. I think that it was right for me and my wife to leave and I have never regretted it. We found another church and have been growing.
But what do you think about where the line should be drawn?
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Agreed on all counts. Thanks for sharing this. Oscar, you really should talk to my friend Gerardo R. I think you guys have a lot in common.
Perhaps someday in the future, people on this website will be able to say that UBF has “sent them out” and “empowered” them to follow a new leading of the Spirit in their lives so that they can be a blessing to the rest of the Body of Christ
For some of us, we can never “leave” UBF – it gets imprinted on our DNA over time :)
John, your last sentence is a bit troubling to me. But it does point to a key issue in UBF. UBF ideas and practices get embedded into the very fabric of your being.
That is why my wife and I are just now working on building our relationship (after 17 years of marriage) and why I am just now learning how to reach out to a community in need of love and hope (after 24 years of ignoring the community around me). And it is why my new mission statement for 2011 is: “Weave a new fabric of grace, truth, faith, hope and love for Jesus, dialogue by dialogue.”
Ya know John, I think it might be similar to Catholics who leave Catholicism. There is still usually some imprint from their upbringing.
It was a poorly conceived joke. I just meant that I’ve been influenced profoundly, as many of you all would note, by UBF in a deep way. That is all.
Actually, I agree with that. Even now, sometimes things don’t feel the same if they aren’t done in the UBF way, which they aren’t. Those are the habits that get ingrained in you when you are constantly doing something in a certain way.
If I may offer my two cents, I think that for some people, if they have only been a part of one church in their life, then it is harder to break with those habits because their ideas about church have been shaped by only one experience. Even for me, although I attended a number of different churches before UBF, I still found it difficult to accept and adopt the way things were done in UBF because my past experience shaped my entire concept of what church should be. For this reason I love working with people from other churches, and even visiting other churches on occasion, because it keeps things fresh and reminds me that my ideas about church are not the only ones in existence.
Darren, I would say your “two cents” is worth about “$2 million”! Unfortunately, I obeyed the direction given in UBF to ignore Christian doctrine, to blame Christian churches and to propagate invented ideas as if they were “something new under the sun”. I am finding that my one-church experience for 24 years is severely crippling as I attempt to build real friendships. I feel like a sponge now, soaking up 2,000+ years of Christian history!
Dear Brian, I don’t know where you get your information from but in my 30 years experience in UBF and still going strong I never heard the UBF order to ignore Christian doctrine or blame Christian churches and propagate invented ideas as if they were “something new under the sun.” Like John Y commented, I too was moved to commit my life to God through the ministry of UBF. I am thankful for this ministry. I am thankful to you and all the people I met in this ministry. We should not just criticize other churches including UBF because of all their failings. We are all sinners forgiven by the blood of Jesus. We are one body in Christ whether we are Catholics, Baptist, Orthodox or in UBF. It is God who will judge us in the end. Luvya Maria
Hi Maria, where did I get my information? From messenger training. Did you ever experience messenger training? I did, for 20+ years. If anyone wants to see the “dark side” of UBF, volunteer for messenger training! That is where much of the spiritual and physical abuse happens in UBF. I won’t stand for it any longer.
If you don’t believe I was told ”ignore Christian doctrine, to blame Christian churches and to propagate invented ideas”, then try this: show up at a UBF messenger meeting as a conference messenger with 10 commentaries and a Greek lexicon. The number of invented ideas for a messenger in UBF is endless.
In recent years, UBF directors may have backed off of this hardline stance somewhat in various chapters, especially as people like me make these things known. But it did (and does) happen, and not just in the 80′s, but also in the 90′s and in the 2000′s. The problem is no one wants to discuss such things. But I believe these are the very things people like Scott Moreau wants UBF to discuss publicly.
And yes, I will say it publicly: I do know one instance in the past where things crossed the line into sexual abuse. If UBF were Penn State University or the Catholic Church, we would not be reading such things on a blog but on the news.
- Messenger training in UBF had it’s strengths and also many weak points. I have written about 20 or so messages for conferences and for Sunday worship services. While I learned from these experiences and was encouraged many times, there was a certain amount of life taking experiences (not life giving). Telling a messenger they should stay up all night and re-write the entire draft, or change the entire theme and main points one day before hand, or to spend 3 weeks working with one messenger servant and then be asked the day before you give the message by your Pastor, “What exactly have you been doing the past three weeks? We need to start all over.” This does not build up messengers, but only tears them down and make them dependent on the Pastor or main messenger “trainer”. They break you until you succomb to their ideas. Gradually toward the end of my time in UBF I would write a message after receiving the main points and theme and my Pastor would just work with what I had by changing the Introduction and Conclusion to make sure his main point was included in the passage. UBF messenger training is training someone to speak someone else’s message. The last 5 times I delivered a message I did not practice my message over and over again, but rather prayed for the Holy Spirit for many hours before delivering my message. I would make sure I was familiar with my message, but when one’s message gets changed so many times, especially before delivery all one can do (and should do) is depend on the Holy Spirit when delivering. This is one aspect of message prep and especially message delivery that is lacking in ubf messages, praying for and depending on the power of the Holy Spirit. Somehow, the Holy Spirit turned what I prepared and in most cases, what was prepared for me, into something heart moving because the Holy Spirit began to work. UBF would make messengers practice their messages over and over again and even memorize their messages (which can be good at times), but by doing this the messenger ends up depending on themselves, their own abilities, and depending on the suggestions of their trainer. Messengers need to prepare, that is true of all messengers in all ministries, but one thing UBF messenger trainers need to teach/preach, is the dependence on the Holy Spirit for preparation and especailly delivery, not dependence on a messenger trainer.
- One other point about message training in ubf. I use to attend plenty of messenger meetings or trainings, even when I was not the messenger. We would meet to supposedly pray for the messenger and offer an exchange of ideas, but one thing I learned was that most of the Korean attendees were too afraid to speak their own unique mind when it came time to answering questions about the passage. They were always too afraid that if they answered wrong then the pastor or lead messenger trainer would rebuke them for having their own opinion. So the meetings would become mostly one sided, eerily quiet, boring, and stale.
-Have I learned from my messenger training days in UBF of course. What I learned the most is this, God is faithful, He can speak through anyone He wants to if they are willing to stand and speak and wait on the Holy Spirit. God will send the Holy Spirit to make our garbelded up words into something beautiful and meaninful. It’s amazing that God uses sinners to deliver His message of love and truth! It is exciting, and wonderful, and humbling. All Christians are messengers of God’s word. We all preach the gospel. This is not only done in the pulpit, or on Sundays or at conferences, but in the conversations we have about our faith and about our awesome God and loving Lord Jesus Christ. Whether we have an audience of one or an audience of many, the spirit is waiting, willing and ready to speak through us God’s words of love and truth. Thanks for your time!
I think that’s why attendance is generally low..Because the speakers don’t have any authentic passion in what they’re preaching. The new generation are looking for authenticity, they see right through this stuff.
Recently,
Thanks for sharing. I too share your experiences with messenger meetings. Unfortunately, not only did I put up with such things when I was a messenger, I also started to propagate such things during my brief time as one of the messenger helpers.
Your statement above captures a fundamental problem that is true of not only Koreans, but Americans, Russians, and many others: “They were always too afraid that if they answered wrong then the pastor or lead messenger trainer would rebuke them for having their own opinion. So the meetings would become mostly one sided, eerily quiet, boring, and stale.”
As I look back and get rid of my denial, I see that the messenger meetings were never really about giving the word of God to people. It was all about the director keeping control and an exercise in authority. I am thankful that the earlier messenger training methods used in the ’70′s and ’80′s were (mostly) given up on by UBF (one time a messenger became so upset with “training” that he threw the podium.)
I would add another adjective: burdensome. In my chapter, I was required to be there at the messenger meeting every Saturday night starting at 9:00 pm. The 3 hours of one-sided discussion that ensued was very burdensome. I always got the feeling that we were not really there to heplp the messenger. We were there to prove our obedience and loyalty to mission more than family. It was especially burdensome if you were the lucky one chosen to stay up until 2:00 am (or all night) to “help” further.
On a side note, it is very intriguing to hear you use the term “Pastor”. The correct UBF term is “director” or “missionary”. A new trend is that directors are being granted pastor status and shepherds are being called elders, i.e. Elder Jim. The only qualifications I can find are length of service and approval by the general director. Does anyone know how directors are becoming pastors in UBF? I think UBF members have a right to know.
Thanks so much for sharing “Recently”, your experience is the universal one I think. All of us who ever delivered a message at a conference know exactly what you are talking about and probably went through very similar “training.” at least that is the way it was when I was a member. Just confirms to me the extreme authoritarian nature and controlling disposition of UBF as a whole. Once I was forced to deliver a message that was not my own at a conference. I had invited some Christian friends from a different church to come, and after the first night was finished they implored me to leave what they thought was a cult because of the bizarre inflection of everyone’s voice (including my own) and the very strange things that I had read in my message. Your post brings back some bad memories! But I am very glad that God delivered me and you from an unhealthy situation!
P. S. (this is not just to make 300 comments either!) your name says that you are struggling, may I ask with what? Are you struggling with whether or not to go back? If so remember the Israelites in the wilderness of Zin! and remember the words of Keith Green “So ya wanna go back to Egypt, where it’s warm and secure, are you sorry you bought a one way ticket when you thought you were sure? You wanted to live in the land of Promise, but now its getting so hard, are you sorry youre out here in the desert ‘stead of your own back yard?” just know my friend that they had to go through the desert to get to the promised land, but God sustained them with Manna and He will sustain you too.
Admin note: Every once in a while our WordPress installation goes haywire and all articles get marked as “do not allow comments”. I just turned comments back on. We are working on this technical difficulty.
Thanks dave and jae…
May change name to seeing the light?
I think it is more like “maturing in Christ”. UBF disciplines have a tremendous value for young people. But at some point, those people need to be allowed to mature in Christ. You see, most of us former members are not “weak victims who lost godliness”, we are “growing in our faith”.
Thanks for your comments Recently. Comments like yours and my own observations are exactly why I avoided participating in training. I wonder what it is you’re stuggling with. I too have recently left UBF and have a bit of a struggle too. It’s kind of hard to articulate though. I talked to my pastor at my new ministry and he told me that because of what I experienced I may exhibit signs of distress because I’m in a new ministry. The good thing about UBF is that it’s very bible intensive. Unfortunately, I sometimes find myself looking down on others because they don’t study the bible as much as I did. Lord have mercy on me, but I think this is one of the things I’ve taken away from my experiences at UBF. I don’t want to feel this way about others though! Have you found another ministry to go to? or have you talked to others about what you’re stuggling with?
I have a sad feeling like UBFriends is dying. It has become very ingrown and only a few of the same people are always saying the same things, mostly grievances (myself included). This made me consider a question: How is UBFriends different from the old RSQUBF website? I see some differences in these ways: 1) Names are not used here of specific people who did bad things usually, whereas at RSQUBF they would call out individuals by name and it seemed very slanderous usually. 2) There is at least some semblance of trying to find a conciliatory note here, whereas at the other there was definitely none. 3) There are still some members who still attend UBF on this site whereas at RSQUBF it was entirely former members with alot of anger, some of it very justified.
So why do I feel this way? I had great hopes that this site would be the spark for a radical Reformation within UBF along the lines of the 16th century, with certain members being like Luther, Calvin and Zwingli but alas, nowadays, all there is it seems is the same old thing…complaining without power. I am reminded of the Pilgrims Progress, where Christian walks past the Pope and all he can do is snarl. Dont get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we are like the Catholics (except perhaps one of us haha) but I am asking the question, are we only snarling on here? is that the purpose for this site? If not, what is, and have we left it?
David L: In my observation, website communities, just like companies and organizations and churches, go through periods of inactivity. It’s because we are human beings, who don’t stay the same but live out various seasons. Sometimes we are “in season” sometimes we are “out of season”. Regardless, ubfriends has been and continues to be a critical part of what God is doing. A small number have posted and commented here, but many thousands more have read with interest.
Perhaps your expectation was a bit high? I don’t think we are on par with what Luther or the others did :) Since I was not part of the original purpose in creating this website (mainly I’m just a technical admin, believe it or not), I will leave purpose-related questions to Joe. I can say that I’ve observed a change in purpose. This website somehow became a “landing point” for some long-time UBF members after they left.
The other issue I see that came up through this site is that several former members (including me) no longer see reform possible in UBF. In fact, this seems to be the case with some current UBF members. Many of us feel that God wants to build something new out of UBF. I won’t share details (and don’t know too many anyways) but I can assure you and our readers that new movements are indeed growing within UBF and supported by leaders. I am convinced that as long as there is some distraction from the main UBF hardcore, traditional, iron fist methods, the Spirit of Christ can do wonders.
So I am confident that God has, can and will use this website and UBF for His purpose.
Hi David. I will give my position. By this website I was encouraged to ask questions and to look for the answers. I loved UBF, I saw it’s problems and my own problems within the ministry. So it was very excinig to raise up issues and look for some alternative ideas.Though while time was going something changed. First, when I again met with UBF reality it’s became clear that for me it is really difficult to stay in UBF core context with such atittude. Second, seems people around don’t want me to bother them. Third, I’m not sure if it is really my job to bother them and I really tied from this opposition. So I became much less interested in UBF reforming or things like this. Fourth, I became much less interested in UBF at all, as once I start question things which I was taught and hold to for a decade, it became clear that all my Christianity is under the question. So for me it is much more important and interesting to learn what is the Christian religion really about, not UBF or UBF reform. I don’t claim that this is right atittude, but this how I feel now.
But as I see this site is still very readable by many. And it can have future.
“So for me it is much more important and interesting to learn what is the Christian religion really about, not UBF or UBF reform.”
David B: This has become my thinking as well. I am very much interested in learning about basic Christian doctrine and soaking up more than 2,000 years of history!
For me, it was painful to know that some of those who were most influential in my spiritual life now consider me to have an evil spirit and think I am a poisonous false teacher (note to all those who proved to be my friends: I know you don’t think this way, but a few have.) Five UBF members have de-friended me on Facebook. My former chapter has moved on and is focusing on raising up new students. I don’t blame them; a few years ago I probably would have done the same. The thing is, I don’t want to “agree to disagree” and politely move on without bringing certain things into public light (most of which I’ve done already).
Although I do see some of my comments and others here and on my own blog have been rather strong and even crossed the line at times, my thoughts and attitudes have been rather tame compared to the prior Voy discussions and websites. There are times when I want to have those bitter, angry attitudes; somehow God is indeed doing something different during this year’s exodus of leaders.
I see three movements this time: the independence movement (those leaving), the reform movement (those trying to change things) and the rebuilding movement (those building something new from within). I’m not sure how any of this will turn out, but it is clear that UBF will never be the same. It is also clear that UBF has some serious self-examination to do in order to root out the cultish behavior.
What is more, according to the blue book, I am a man with a form of godliness that has no power, now that I have left UBF. The blue book direction is to “Have nothing to do with them.” based on 2 Timothy 3:1-16. In light of this passage, the words of former members and this website are even seen as a kind of “badge of honor”, a type of persecution that justifies what has been done.
Those kinds of attitudes are at least one explanation of why ubfriends has fizzled out.
Yup, Brian. I think I undestand what you are talking about and appreciate your efforts.
UBF needs UBFriends, even if UBF does not realize it (yet); even if for no other reason than because it is a place where current and former members can dialogue in a civilized manner with one another, which was rarely possible in the past. This is a huge step forward, and one that we should not quickly dismiss.
As for me, I am not trying to reform or even rebuild UBF. That would involve changing people’s hearts, and that is not something that has been apportioned to me. I have been married for five years now (by God’s grace), and if my wife and I have learned anything it is that neither of us has the power to change the other person.
However, I will say this. As I have concentrated more on my own relationship with God and others, and really strived to love God and love my neighbor as myself, I have seen a change in my own heart, a change which I can only attribute to the Holy Spirit. And this has been quite liberating.
Amen to this.
I have been in ubf for more than 20years, 10 years in Korea and 10 years in America. I have been praying for this church and about what I ought to do as a person who has been called to serve Him in this church.(even though I am not a person who can make a decision at all though) But I found this place and became so thankful to God for many thoughts, concerns and prayers of yours that are so precious to change people’s heart to come close to the light of the gospel so that we may grow mature and healthy children of Him. Please keep up your good works!
Hello Crystal P, and welcome. We welcome your thoughts, concerns and prayers as well!
Wait…another Brian Karcher?
Both usernames have hyperlinks attached to them, but each one leads to a different site.
Forgive me if I am jumping to conclusions, but it almost seems deceiving of you to create a username with the exact same spelling, and hyperlink.
Never mind.
Just realized that it is indeed the same person, just different links.
Anon, I am multiplying.. :)
No, not really. I always link to my new blog now, which is tied to my family internet website. I used to link to priestlynation.com, but some here felt there was too much UBF bashing, so I changed the link.
Anon, just so there is no confusion and no deception…
I have three long-term blogging projects. I sometimes alter the link in my name to point to one of the three websites, but I only and always post on ubfriends as my full name. I recently changed my login to “http://www.odnimslovom.org” (“one word” in Russian).