At Christ Church Kirkland I learned, “I’ll love you as long as…”
For years at Christ Church Kirkland, my life decisions were heavily influenced by my mentors. Mentors or as we called them, “discipler’s”, were those more spiritual than me that I was mandated to choose within Christ Church Kirkland. I was required to meet weekly with my discipler and to share about everything going on in my life – my job, my relationships, my sins, my dreams, my questions, my life decisions. My disciplers would then report to their disciplers. Their disciplers would then report to their disciplers, and so on and so on until the head pastors of our church, Norman & Marcy Willis knew everyone’s secrets. Nothing shared was confidential, nothing shared was sacred.
Christ Church Kirkland, was birthed out of the Shepherding Movement in the 70’s.
“At the zenith of the pseudo-movement, “They had a national network of followers who formed pyramids of sheep and shepherds. Down through the pyramid went the orders, it was alleged, while up the same pyramid went the tithes.” (H.D. Hunter, Shepherding Movement).
You could be a christian, going to another church, but according to Christ Church Kirkland (CCK), if you weren’t attending our church (CCK), you weren’t as spiritual as us and you weren’t a good influence on us. Life there was “us” and “them”. “Them” being anyone not attending our church. Could be other christians or the ungodly people.
In 2004, I moved back to Washington state after living in Switzerland for two years. Myself and four other young people were chosen from CCK to start the Master’s Commission program at the JAHU church in Biel. I moved in with my mom, who is a life-long christian and has many years experience in being a church leader, and pastor’s wife. She had been living alone for quite some time and was excited to have her middle daughter sharing life together. Her and I lived just a few minutes from CCK.
One night I had a dream with my mom in it. I don’t remember any details other than there was a sense of darkness in my dream. It wasn’t a happy dream and I woke up pretty shaken by the dream. I wasn’t sure what the dream meant, but at the time at CCK, dreams were very significant, and something we shared with our disciplers. Congregants would speak from the mic on occasion during praise & worship, about their dreams and the connections they had to CCK’s future or direction.
The morning after that dream, Easter Sunday, I headed to church. I remember feeling so distraught about the dream. I was sure there was a deeper meaning. I decided to go to pre-service prayer, to get “prayed-up”, in hopes that I could understand my dream.
[Pre-service prayer. This is where people gather in a small room and spend an hour praying (pleading) that God and the Holy Spirit would ascend upon the church service in a powerful way. Typically between 20-50 people would voluntarily come an hour before the service to summon God. There was an appointed leader who gave direction of what we were to the pray for. People would gather in small groups and pray fervently until the leader would direct us to the next prayer point. From the pulpit, us congregants were urged to be at every prayer meeting in order to be the best christian we could be. I always felt a lot of pressure to attend every pre-service prayer meeting.]
Pre-service prayer ended and as I left the room, I happened to walk out next to Marcy Willis, the head pastor’s wife. (Today, some have referred to her as a “Jezebel“). She hugged me and I figured that I needed to share my dream with her. We stopped in the foyer of our church and I shared the vague details of the dream. I used words like “demonic presence” to describe the darkness that scared me. Immediately, Marcy told me that I needed to get out of my mom’s apartment as soon as possible…today. She said that “we” need to find you a place to live so you can be out of that demonic presence. She quoted a Bible verse to me and said that my dream was a clear sign that I should no longer be living with my mom…
“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,” Psalm 1:1
She indicated that my mom was a scoffer/mocker. She referred to my mom as wicked and I needed to remove myself from her. Marcy hugged me and said she’d find a solution for me and that I should find her after church. I was crying. I was scared. I was convinced that my life was in danger living with my mom.
Sure enough, after church Marcy had found a family within the church who would let me move in with them. I went home immediately after church and began packing my things as quickly as I could. Being it was Easter Sunday, my mom was gone to a family gathering at my sister’s. I contacted my sister via text and vaguely cancelled. I told no one in my family for years why I left so suddenly from my mom’s house that day. CCK quickly swooped in and became my “family” for the next 7 years. I found myself isolating from anyone that was not a member of our church. I lived with church members, I worked for a church member, I socialized with church members…until one day…I turned my brain on at 36 years old and left CCK the same way I left my mom’s house that day…without explanation.
So, at 36 years old, with my mind functioning, I revisited this experience with my mom, for the first time. I told her what really happened that day. I asked her to tell me how it felt to have me do that to her. I still well up with tears to this day, thinking about my sweet mama’s response. She said that when I left, “She curled up in fetal position on her bed and wept.” To picture my mom in so much pain, that I had caused, breaks my heart. I wholeheartedly apologized for my actions to her. Often today, I will still feel the pain I cause her and remind her again that I’m so sorry for that chapter in our lives.
Christ Church Kirkland, Norman & Marcy Willis taught me how to love with conditions.
My mom and dad have taught me how to love unconditionally.
Wow Jill, I had no idea! Glad you got out when you did!
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I’m so sorry you went through this….it’s heart breaking. Love you Jilly.
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Wow! Speechless. Awful. That makes me want to puke…really puke. Mind controlling sickos. No wonder people don’t want to go to church. I wish you healing and I hope others will see this and wake up if those people are still around destroying others.
I’m hugging you right now. And your pretty Mama too.
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This breaks my heart.
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Wow. A blessing to run across your blog post today. God bless you in your journey to freedom. I know a lot of what you went through, and at one point I was part of this “movement” through the 1990’s to the middle of 2000. Actually I worked for a season at the headquarters for SCS the parent organization. I, like you was drawn to it, they became my family. I married in the church to someone who grew up in it. When we finally left, it took almost 5 years before i would consider going to “church.” Thankfully, we found Jesus’ unconditional love and acceptance works even when we’ve had a bad day or a wrong thought. We received so much healing through miraculous encounters with God… Later I went back to college and became a pastor – in a denomination that believes the truth of Jesus is for all of us, not just for the select few who might be more “spiritual,” or whatever we want to call it. God bless you on your journey away from religious-control to freedom in Christ.
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Yes, lies come in many flavors – especially inside the church. And when one church, and one set of leaders touts themselves above all others (shepherding movement) – it almost always spells trouble and cult-like tendencies. I attended CCK for 2 years between 2002 and 2004. I always was curious about the intensity there – never quite understanding all of it. Some amount of spiritual passion is of course good – but not when directed in human pursuits, and as we can read from some of the blogs downright emotional, and if the accounts are accurate physical and sexual abuse of some of the kids that came up through the cult-like atmosphere. I’m only sorry I didn’t understand what was going on sooner, and as we’ve all pulled away and look back, it makes our sorrow great for those that were abused in any number of ways.
The Church is no perfect place – but neither, ever is it a place to harbor sin and pursue human and even evil agendas. As Paul would say, “May it NEVER be.” I’m so proud of all of you who’ve survived and gone on to freedom in the Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ is ‘perfect altogether’ and wept for all abused through CCK/CCN, and anywhere in our world. Let’s stand together for the TRUTH of Jesus Christ, and not these manmade, and clearly ultimately evil notions of ‘church’ made in man’s image. I now attend a wonderful Assemblies of God church with my wife and family. It is no perfect place – but is at once wonderful and passionate for the things of Christ. May you find your way home to the loving Father in heaven!
Thanks,
Bruce
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