USA 2004-2006
My story with GFA actually started 30 years earlier when I moved cross country to live with a group of dynamic Christians in a community setting. During my 7 years there, the group grew to 125 and was largely comprised of young people who came to know the Lord as a result of outreach. The leader of the group was a physically large man, chronologically older than most everyone and older in the Lord than most. Over the course of my time there I learned more about what the Bible says through teachings and gradually read my Bible less and less, as I unconsciously thought I was being spiritually fed.
I observed that none of the younger people (I was slightly older) were marrying, none of the married couples were having children and every married couple that left the group divorced. Our living arrangements changed over the years from communal housing to individual (read: isolated) apartments. We were disciplined verbally in corporate meetings, fear was instilled; and when anyone left the group, they were shunned. We were not to have friends outside the group and were to ignore or cut off family and relatives, as they were distractions from building God’s kingdom (their way). One day the Lord said to me, “This group is a cult and you are a cult member.” “I’m outta there!!” I said. I knew what was coming: Shunning. And they were the only people I knew at that point. Talk about isolation! I learned later that the leader had books on mind control and group control in his library and had a family history of psychological troubles.
Most who left the group, left the Lord. God was merciful to me, and I never did, but I was so afraid He would never speak to me again through His Word, that I couldn’t physically open the Bible. I would hold it to my heart and cry…. so desperately wanting His speaking in my life, but so afraid He wouldn’t. After several years He opened the way for me to read His words again.
I learned a lot about myself and people through that experience, especially that I need to listen to the Lord first, and sometimes only. He has a good plan for my life. The plan for my life in the group was to submit, unquestioningly obey authority, mandatory head coverings, call each other Brother and Sister, attend every meeting and whatever else the leadership might give as the only direction my life could go. Our humanity was not acknowledged or encouraged. There was no exploration of the gifts God had given to each of us, no further education, and even a squelching of that. We worked, gave our money to the group (leader) and had a small world view. We literally threw away all evidence of our past and lived simply, as we moved from one location to another. After I left, it took years to sort things out, as I had been so warped by my experience. I’ve never read a book on cults, but I believe what I was in was a religious personality cult, which spiritually boils down to a person with a controlling spirit.
Fast forward a few decades and I am now married, and we have a history of volunteering for organizations, GFA being one of them. After donating 3+ months over a two year period to GFA, we were asked about coming on staff. We had never considered that, but it seemed right, and we set about raising support. Six months later we moved cross country and were living in a one bedroom Autumn Chase apartment, having left a small house we built with our own 4 hands, a couple of businesses and selling 75% of our worldly goods. Within the first year, I recognized the familiar clamping down on people’s humanity, the controlling spirit, the fear of leadership, doing the wrong thing, and the shunning of people who one day were your commended co-workers and the next were condemned out the door. There were too many parallels with my previous experience, which the Lord Himself told me was a cult. I wanted out. I continued to feel trapped, until my husband also experienced enough inconsistencies between what was being said and what was being practiced, and how micro-managed things were, that we made plans to leave.
I consider the present GFA to be a cult and continually becoming more cultish. It seems to be moving away from God’s plan for us to serve others, and seems to be more and more self-serving, honoring a person above his Creator. The Bible calls this idolatry. I do not believe GFA started that way but evolved to become a cult, just like my previous experience. I am not proud to have been part of two cults in my life, but I continue to believe God is at work outside all human institutions and miraculously continues to bring good out of evil for each of His children. The common people I worked and prayed with at GFA are a very special group, presently some of my closest friends. I am grateful for this. May God be pleased to bring about the changes we all need to usher in His kingdom.