To continue a dialogue with GFA staff, prompted by a response to our March 17 email, we invite them to visit our “Comments & Responses” page.
“We hope you will consider our responses. May this discussion be fruitful for all.”
From: GFA Diaspora <info@gfadiaspora.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 5:36 AM
Subject: Re: GFA Diaspora response
To: [Hiro and those he Cc’d]
Dear Hiro,
Thank you for taking the time to reply to our concerns. We appreciate that you value people’s feelings and acknowledge that “some harsh things were said and done over the years.” You also ask us to “stop this campaign” and made a number of comments on which we would like to further dialogue.
We know we are not perfect, and our hearts are open to scripture-based correction. It is good for the Body of Christ to discuss matters of serving Him. “Come, let us reason together.” Therefore, our responses to people’s questions and comments, including yours, are posted on a new GFA Diaspora page called Comments & Responses.
We hope you will consider our responses. May this discussion be fruitful for all.
Sincerely,
The Diaspora
Our non-public website uses the following anonymous login:
www.gfadiaspora.com/comments-and-responses
Username: gfa
Password: redacted
Please keep this confidential to GFA staff only.
On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 5:05 PM, Hiro _____ wrote:
JD, Et al.,
Thank you for sending me a link to your GFA Diaspora site. It has provided the background for why so many people have felt hurt when they left on their own accord or were asked to leave. I’ve read through every page, every attached document and even heard from a couple of you first hand.
I know that many of you have experienced genuine pain, of a type that couldn’t possibly come from someone you didn’t love. I believe some harsh things were said and done over the years.
For those who don’t know me, I’ve been supporting missionaries with GFA since 1989, and sharing the opportunity about GFA to everyone I came in contact during my military career. (Which is a lot of people since we moved every 2-4 years.) I was a volunteer before there even was a volunteer department. I’ve been on full time staff since my retirement in 2011. I was, and remain, a major donor and don’t receive a salary. Even so, since coming on staff, I’ve had some harsh things said to me as well, one time in love, other times… not so much. I’ve experienced stress and wanted to “give up” many times. (I’ve never thought of quitting GFA though, they’d have to fire me.)
One of the grievances you mentioned is not portraying the liturgical nature of Believers Church to GFA supporters. I’m not convinced that is necessary, after all, many of our supporters come from a KJV Bible only background but no one expects us to specifically tell everyone that we are not printing English KJV bibles in Asia! Liturgical churches are what’s recognized as “church” over there. However, leadership has expressed openness about sharing the liturgical nature with our donor base. I think you’ll agree this should be done in a wise manner, which usually includes slowly. You don’t turn a multimillion dollar, multinational organization around on a dime. Organizations and bureaucracies, by their nature, are SLOW. This is a good thing, if they weren’t, the organization would be whipped around by every change of opinion and circumstance so that it could not stand.
It seems most of the grievances were centered on the “authority” issue, as people took offense (angered or hurt) when leadership tried to exercise authority over your families or your activities during off duty times. There is legitimate debate as to the correctness or error of this teaching, even in evangelical circles, with some fuzzy line about when it turn’s “cultish”. http:// www openbible info/topics/spiritual_authority , http:// www worldchangers org/monthly-UnderstandingSpiritualAuthority.aspx I’ll let people more spiritual than myself delve into these issues. However, it seems to me that the problem is not whether someone has that level of authority over your life or not, but in the taking of offense when authority is exercised. Anger rising up within us if leadership tries to tell our wives what to do, getting into conflicts because others are not doing things the way we think they should be done, taking offense when someone exercises authority in a harsh, haphazard way. In my mind, leadership trying to exercise those authorities, if they believe them to be biblical, are not sinning, they MAY be in error, but not sin. However, taking offense and causing conflict and disunity among the brethren IS sin. In fact, these accusations (judgments in other words) against leadership is specifically warned against in James 4:11-12.
We should also remember that they are people, just as we are. They may be having a bad day, going through a season where their thinking is dominated by circumstances around them, or just plain inexperienced dealing with certain issues. Hypothetically, how would we react if we spent all day hearing about thousands of our people who just became homeless and jobless due to flooding and someone asked whether they’d get a 3 or 4 bedroom house in the new campus? How would we react if we spent weeks dealing with people attacking everything we said in the field or here in the states and someone came up to you with another grievance? How would we council people inquiring about doing certain things if you had previous experience of many others doing it and coming away with disastrous results? What would we do if we think we just learned a new insight from the Word and had the opportunity to share it with others in your circle of influence?
It seems to me that, Brother KP has taken steps to address your concerns with multiple meetings, phone calls and offers of arbitration. He’s spent considerable time with his leadership board on this topic as well. In my mind, this is unprecedented access! Brother KP is president and founder of a multimillion dollar, multinational organization and head of one of the fastest growing churches in Asia with the largest missionary force ever assembled. Do you realize:
· Believers Church has more active missionaries than the entire militaries of over 40 nations? http:// www.globalfirepower com/active-military-manpower.asp
· There are move baptized members in Believers church than there are people in 60 nations? http:// www.worldometers info/world-population/population-by-country/
· Believers Church has more people serving in it than the largest corporations in the world? http:// www.statista com/statistics/264671/top-20-companies-based-on-number-of-employees/
· That GFA has a lower employee turnover rate than most ministries (Ave. 24% per annum) http:// nccs.urban org/resources/faq.cfm or churches? (Ave. 10% per annum) http:// www.christianitytoday com/le/1993/winter/93l2103.html
It is unreasonable to expect him to answer your demands for written responses within seven days, organize meetings with people scattered across the continent or answer your emails immediately, all while leading such a huge movement, just to address your grievances. How many mayors, governors, presidents, CEO’s would have given you this amount of attention?
I understand that you are saying you are doing this for the good of the ministry and the staff here. However, what good are you actually accomplishing? By sending this email out to all the staff, all you’re doing is sowing seeds of doubt, shaking people’s confidence in what they feel God has led them to do and stirring up conflict. Think of the time, energy, and finances (not to mention pain) already expended on this issue. That is time, energy and finances that are no longer available to reach the lost. How many people are you willing to sacrifice to have your demands met? This isn’t just about staff at the US and Canadian offices. This is ammunition the enemy can AND WILL use to slow down or even stop people from getting SAVED!
PLEASE, PLEASE, stop this campaign. I trust leadership here has already heard and prayed about your concerns. I know they are taking active steps to change some things, provide training in others and putting still other safeguards in place to help stop hurting people in the future. Just hearing these concerns has already changed their hearts and behavior and Bro KP has already apologized to you for things he or other leaders have done. They have already reached out to each grieved party to try to make amends. Do you REALLY need a cross-continent group get together for him to publicly say everything was his fault to be recorded and used by the enemy? One last batch of statistics, 78% of pastors surveyed at a pastors conference in 2005 – 2006 said they were forced to resign from at least one church and 80% said it was due to conflicts that the pastor could not resolve (the rest had this reason as one of thetop three issues). http:// www.intothyword org/apps/articles/?articleid=36562 Do you want Bro K.P. to quit or be fired?
Sincerely,
Your Simply Silly, Speedy, Shipping Servants