When, How did you leave the Assembly?

[David Mauldin]

  We are all familar with Jenniffer Wilbanks, the woman who "got cold feet" and faked her own kidnapping. After turning up safe and sound and confessing to the deed many people feel that she should be prosecuted for her lies. Yet, to me, it looks just like my situation in the Assembly.  I took off without telling anyone 10 years ago this September. I just split, one day I was sitting in a meeting saying "Amen" and the next I was driving down the freeway thinking to myself, "Where do I go?  What do I do?" After I turned up, the accusations started, "He left in darkness"  "He left and was seen with a woman!"  Blah, Blah, Blah....  Yet I think most of you know that the reason I left the way I did.  I wonder what kind of pressure was being forced/placed on this woman?  So how did you leave? Did you try to reason with anyone?  Did you get a "Blessing?"  What happened?

[summer007]

David, I don't know anything about this, are you saying you think this was an arranged Marriage? I don't know your Story at all. I guess your assuming everyone else does,were you being forced to marry someone? All I know of you is your no longer a Christian (past- post) and your an avid Dancer.   If you could re-hash your story or tell me where it is in you hundreds of posts I can read it Thanks.  Summer....p.s.  If I get Nostolgic later I might go over mine, but I don't want to think about it right now. Peace!

[David Mauldin]

   I guess it is pretty unclear what I am getting at.  O.K. Here goes, while I was "in fellowship" (15 years) people who left had a strange way of just taking off.  I myself just took off. Why?  Simply because there were no exit processes made available. (A person didn't just go up to George and say "Oh by the way George after 15 years of being under your authority I am leaving."  If a person did he/she would be met with a barrage of resistance.  Summer are you familar with this?  I am not sure who you are or where you are from.  Anyway when I left it was not something I fully premeditated. I didn't make any plans ahead of time. After doing the MTT in the summer of 94 I found myself head steward at Dan Notti's house. It sucked!!!   So one morning I got up and threw some clothes into my car and took off. At that moment the realization? illusion? of a personal God left me. I no longer believe, no matter how hard I tried could I make myself, convince myself that a personal God existed. (I am not interrested in debating this issue, you asked so I am telling you.) since then I have become a Unitarian of which I am content in my belief. It is my impression that Jenniffer may have found herself in a situation where she had no alternative but to just take off!   She obviously has some reservations about getting marride and felt that non one would understand her. yet I really don't know for sure.

[moonflower2]

It is my impression that Jenniffer may have found herself in a situation where she had no alternative but to just take off!   She obviously has some reservations about getting marride and felt that non one would understand her. yet I really don't know for sure.

I almost did this myself before I got married; it's to avoid all the flak that you are going to get from the family for embarrassing them for backing out, with all the out-of-town relatives and all.  But I wouldn't have filed a false police report. The least she could have done was left a note. I can't believe the guy still wants her back. At least that's what I heard last.

I'm curious. Some of us equated being in the assembly with being a Christian in the finest sense of the word. Do you feel that because you left that you had to leave Christianity behind?

Moonie

[M2]

Hi David,

Since you asked, here's my story.

I did not leave the assembly, the assembly left me.  I was totally committed.  I did not have any friends besides assembly ones.  One day I realized that God was not part of the false religion system of the assembly so I decided to talk to the leaders about it.  But that was not possible and one leader suggested that if I wanted to leave then...  So I left, because as you said, I had no alternative but to do so.  I sent most everyone an email detailing why I left.  One thing led to another and I lost all my friends (except for those that left when I did), at least I thought they were my friends, overnight.  I thought of them day and night.  Almost every thought was about assembly matters and the people I had know for 20+ years.  The leaders started warning people about communicating with me, and one even excluded me because I had called the assembly a cult on the BB.  Today, I hardly ever think of the assembly, but rejoice in God's grace and goodness.  I still have mood disorders, especially when I'm driving, but I consider myself blessed to have found the church I now attend.  Those who left when I did also attend the same church and love it too.

David, through all of that I did not lose my faith in God.  In fact it was because God exists that He exposed the assembly cult for what it is.  And now I can say that maybe it was a good thing that I had to make it on my own (pretty well) because it forced me to establish myself in a church without the assembly friendships.  If your picture of God was what you saw in the assembly, then yes it was worth leaving it behind.  The Lord Jesus had nothing to do with the false religious system of His day and exposed it for what it was.  He showed us how it should be done.  "He who has seen Him has seen the Father"  "And He is the image of the invisible God"

I have not been following the Jennifer story, but, yes, it is possible that she was escaping a place of bondage.

God bless,
Marcia

[Oscar]

Marcia,

Thanks for the story. 

It seems strange to me that anyone would confuse belief in God with the problems in the assembly.  I don't see how the two are related.

I am conjecturing that some folks have a child's faith, like the faith of little kids that their parents are prefect, all knowing, and all powerful.

When a kid grows up and sees his parent's humanity, he begins to differentiate from them and establish his own identity.  It appears to me that Dave has experienced something like this.  Perhaps it comes from confusing the assembly with God in some way.  Also, grounding one's faith in one's emotions could lead to a crisis of faith if something profoundly effected your emotional state.

Emotion, however, isn't intended to direct us in matters of what is or is not true.  That is the realm of reason and logic.

In my own case my faith in God had been established and tested many years before I met George Geftakys or joined his movement.  Although I suffered terribly during the years of my exit process, I was struggling with the question, "What does God want me to do?" I had settled the matter of God's existence long before that.

IMHO, only a life lived out of belief in the God of the Bible can be rational and consistent.

Thomas Maddux

[vernecarty]

Marcia,

Thanks for the story. 

It seems strange to me that anyone would confuse belief in God with the problems in the assembly.  I don't see how the two are related.

Thomas Maddux

It seems even stranger that he lost his faith while under the tutelage of one of George's finest.
It's good to see that the fright, fight and flight syndrome was alive and well in some of us.
I had a funny picture in my mind of Dan Notti frantically chasing David down the street as he sped away...

There were a few men in leadership in the assebmlies that I actually liked and had some very good friendships with. There were others who literally define all that was the most abominable about the system...a little leaven. My own opinoin is that no one who is truly saved would relinquish their faith becaue of such an experience. The honor roll of faith in Hebrews eleven makes what happened in the assemblies nothng but child's play, to say nothing of the record of the  Christian history of persecution.
I say this with respect specifically those of us who were actually believers. My heart goes out to those who were forever ruined as regards the gospel message. Their blood will be required...
Verne

[David Mauldin]

The truth of the gospel is without question.
A person cannot KNOW Jesus and then deny Jesus.
David cannot be saved.

O.K. I accept your world view and need to put me inside your box but my point was YOUR exit process.

[vernecarty]

The truth of the gospel is without question.
A person cannot KNOW Jesus and then deny Jesus.
David cannot be saved.

Judas and Peter both did. Peter only briefly though for repentance was almost immediate.

O.K. I accept your world view and need to put me inside your box but my point was YOUR exit process.

No interest whatsoever in putting you in a box and certainly nothing personal.
If there is anything I learned from my experience with Geftakys and the assemblies, it is not to be presumtptuous about the question of who is saved. I am just surprised that in view of your current outlook you would even care to describe yourself as a "former"  Christian. I think it is just that you subscribed to a set of beliefs (which in my vew is not what being a Christian is) and that now you do no longer. I think there is nothing at all wrong with that.

I left for reasons of conscience. It was exactly because what I was seeing was so contradictory to what my Bible tells me true Christianity is that it became impossible to stay. I sort of left incrementally, going to fewer and fewer meetings, and then none at all. At some point though, the decsion to depart was deliberate even though the actual parting took some time. It really helped that I had recenty bought a house and moved from living right next door to the meeting place.

Verne

p.s. Was I mistaken that I read you did not believe in a personal God? If I was not, then although I did not explicitly say so, you would be right in assuming that I did not think you were saved in the sense that the Bible describes salvation.
Of course, if there is no personal God, my opinon (and yours for that matter) is of absolutely no consequence whatsover, and you should care less what I or anyone else thinks! 

[Joe Sperling]

David---

You are very correct in that there was no "exit process" in the Assembly. I left a very long
time ago, but in reading other testimonies up to the present time, it appears that fear and
intimidation remained far after I left. When I left for the final time it was something I had
planned to do, but just didn't have the guts to do until then. I finally had had it, and couldn't
take any more.

I was packing in the other room and heard the Brother in charge of the house in the next room telling the brothers how greatly deceived I was, and how I had allowed the enemy to lead me
astray. When I finally drove off I felt greatly bewildered and afraid, and asked the same questions
you asked below. I also felt relief though, and knew that this time I would never return again.

But I do have to state that I never for a minute thought that I would deny Jesus Christ or stop
believing in him. I had stayed for the 5 years or so that I was there because of Jesus Christ--I wasn't going to stop believing in him when I left. True, for years I thought he looked down upon me in a lesser way, as a failure, etc.--but I still believed in him and did believe that he still loved me as a child of God.

The Assembly had "warped" my view of God for a while, but it hadn't destroyed my faith in him. In fact, the whole conflict I had was in regard to the God I knew must exist versus the God that the Assembly put forth. I had an inner war over this the whole time I was there. And that conflict continued for years, and still does affect me from time to time even now. Eventually the Assembly came to end, but the Lord continues on and on, and never changes, and his promises are just as firm now as they were before I entered the Assembly.

--Joe

[vernecarty]

David---

You are very correct in that there was no "exit process" in the Assembly. --Joe

It was strange how assembly apparatchiks would go to such great lengths to dissuade folk form leaving, and then subject them to incredible degradation and contempt if they decided to stay! It was a crazy life...
Verne