USA 2001-2008
Christ’s Call
In 2001, the Lord inspired us through a man simply called “Brother KP” to invest our lives in the Gospel. We were thankful for the challenge in KP’s video, Christ’s Call, and in several of his books to take up our cross and follow Jesus in wholehearted discipleship to fulfill His great commission.
We sought God about a local ministry to the poor in our city at which we could volunteer Eric’s time away from working as a pilot, but the door closed for us there. Since it was evident that God was working through the ministry of GFA, we pursued the possibility of volunteering at their U.S. office. Rather quickly, He opened the door for us to move to Dallas to serve there a few days a week.
Later, a layoff from Eric’s airline, followed by lack of peace at a replacement flying job, led to us considering GFA’s need for more full-time office workers. So we raised support and joined staff in 2003.
When we were accepted on staff, a senior leader asked us to commit to GFA for life. We told him we could not say for sure where the Lord would call us throughout our lives. But we assured him we were very committed to GFA. He warned us that unless we burned all our bridges and made a life commitment to GFA, we would not endure. Still, we knew God could use us there and we happily sacrificed our time and financial resources to serve at the ministry. Per leaderships’ teaching, we limited our time with family and church to maintain our call at GFA. We were glad to serve there as long as the Lord was there.
A Blessing
It was a blessing to work alongside dear brothers and sisters who were gracious and prayerful. The leaders shared inspiring messages from the Bible and stories from the mission field. We found GFA to be a special place to serve the Lord, and for these things we were grateful.
The ministry was smaller then, with staff brothers sharing at churches in the power of the Spirit about Jesus’ call to discipleship, His great commission, the unfinished task, and how to be a world-minded believer—which included an opportunity to sponsor native missionaries. GFA church speakers were careful to give a non-pressuring message so that people felt free to be led by the Lord to help.
On our trip to India in 2005, we were moved by the brothers’ and sisters’ love and commitment to the Lord. We witnessed Brother KP beginning to wear his larger cross necklace, but we accepted his explanation that it was a mere formality necessitated by the Indian government recognizing his official status as the bishop of Believer’s Church India. Since he didn’t wear it in the States, we thought nothing more of it. We came home blessed to be giving our lives for that which had real eternal value.
While Eric was Finance Coordinator, he was glad to see that GFA was careful with the money that flowed through the U.S. office, and that they ensured all funds designated for the field went to Asian banks.
Growing Concerns
However, over time, a number of formerly committed families quietly left the ministry. We didn’t know why; none of us ever dared to ask anyone for fear of jeopardizing our call. We accepted leadership’s explanations and assumed if someone were in the wrong, it was not leadership; they only desired to preserve the reputation of those who had left. We figured these who left had simply “lost the battle” and felt sorry that they left God’s high calling. And we were cautioned to not be negatively influenced by them.
Worldly Marketing
We also noticed that as the ministry grew, worldly marketing techniques were embraced to maximize donations. For us, prayer meetings became increasingly laborious because of constant requests to pray for money and “million dollar gifts” instead of focusing on the fruit of the Spirit.
Eric journaled in 2006:
“It seems God has now become in trouble. We say we are dependent on Him but our prayer meetings reveal the importance for strategies and tools to solicit sponsors and funds. But shouldn’t we be praying simply for God to meet the needs of the missionaries on the field through whatever way He sees fit, even if through local [Asian] support or [tent-making missionaries]? Should we not simply be praying for God to touch hearts in the West—not [necessarily] to sponsor, but to live as Spirit-led stewards of their time, money and [talents]? Shouldn’t we be praying that we [GFA] will decrease and Jesus will increase (John 3:30)? … But we seem to be relying on a system: Share statistics, then field stories of the need, commitment and fruit of the field, then ask for funds or sponsorships.”
“I believe we want God to make things happen and receive the glory. I believe we want to be dependent on Him. No one here wants to make a name for ourselves but I believe that is what we are doing. We seem to have become a sponsorship-promoting corporation with programs, strategies and attractive ads. We want recognition because of the great need for funds…. We focus on numbers, both measuring needs and in measuring fruit by quantity [instead of quality].”
“The Lord has shown us several smaller ministries that do not promote themselves or ever ask for money, and the Lord has anointed and blessed their work tremendously. It has been a while since I’ve seen that kind of anointing at GFA.”
When Eric shared this with two leaders, both seemed to share his concerns to a degree; yet the ministry continued on without change.
Inspiration
Over that year, Eric’s inspiration to serve at GFA continued to dwindle. He earnestly sought God’s heart, offering Him continued—even lifelong—service at GFA if that was His will. Natalie encouraged him and prayed diligently for him, that he might not “lose the battle”. We were fearful of becoming one of those families who left GFA to return to secular work; for that was equated to looking back like Lot’s wife. So we continued in what was taught to be the life-long, high calling of God. We were also told often that we were “one in a million” with the privilege of reaching the many people GFA was reaching.
Leadership’s prayer meeting messages became regular admonitions to “stay in the battle”, which really meant to stay at GFA. We began to greatly tire from these repetitive messages. Years earlier, when we first came to volunteer at GFA, we saw that God was working there. No man told us to come; we freely came as we were led by the Holy Spirit. Ironically, the constant teaching to keep our call at GFA revealed that it had become man’s call—no longer of the Holy Spirit.
Asking for Money
Meanwhile, Eric had been pondering another struggle. One of the principles that first attracted us to GFA was that 100% of field funds went to the mission field. But this only shifted the burden onto the staff of having to ask for money to support themselves. Could we say with the Apostle Paul, “I have coveted no one’s money”? When we first began support raising, a leader told us that it was our pride that made us uncomfortable asking for support. In hindsight, we believe it was instead our sense of grieving the Holy Spirit by asking, evidenced by our sending pastor receiving complaints by members who felt awkwardly solicited by the phone calls we were required to make.
After several years, weary of burdening others to support our growing family, Eric increasingly sensed the responsibility to work and provide for his family “with his own hands” such as in Acts 20:33-34 and 1 Timothy 5:8. In order to understand God’s heart regarding asking for money for oneself, Eric studied the Scriptures thoroughly and quietly sought counsel from godly, mature brothers outside the ministry. While it is clearly biblical to be supported by others, Eric could find no scriptural example of a brother asking believers for money for himself and his family. Perhaps this was why we had initially felt conviction not to use GFA’s model of directly asking for money.
During that year God showed us through several godly brothers outside GFA that a calling to full-time ministry may not be for life, but for a season, and that His placing someone in a secular job as His witness is not inferior to full-time ministry. After much time and prayer, Eric concluded that it was God who was inspiring him to return to his vocation in aviation. Eric’s leader responded graciously but asked him to stay an extra month at GFA to help complete the year-end accounting work, which Eric was happy to do.
Unexpected Rebuke
Before we left, Eric was unexpectedly called into the top leader’s office where he was angrily accused of being a weak American husband who did not lead his wife and home well.
You see, Natalie had recently met three other wives for coffee off-campus. As their time together ended, one of the women brought up her concern that Natalie’s and another’s feelings might have been hurt at a GFA Ladies’ Meeting where the top leader had labeled home and health concerns as a distraction from giving all to the lost. So three of the ladies had a brief discussion of whether this teaching was biblical. After all, a wife and mother should be a good steward of the resources God gives, investing in the care and well-being of her family.
The wives had also discussed if it was biblical for a man to teach all of the ladies without their husbands present. The women of leadership had exclusively taught these sessions previously, and it had not been announced prior to the meeting that a man—the top leader—would be teaching the women that night.
These four women were not attacking anyone’s character, but simply trying to discern how these principles might line up with the Bible.
Later, the fourth wife told one of the senior leader’s wives of the conversation because she didn’t know what to think about it. This got back to the top leader, and he must have taken it as gossip and insubordination. So he spoke harshly with Eric instead of clarifying the issue and commending us for testing all things to the Word like the Bereans in Acts 17:11.
The top leader also briefly brought up Eric’s plan to return to aviation and seemed to judge it with contempt—without knowing or asking the whole story. It is interesting to note that otherwise an airline pilot had been praised and admired by the ministry because he was a major donor.
Natalie also was called by an assistant leader after the coffee shop conversation and was in tears by the end as she defended herself from the charges of “rebellion”. After that, none of the ladies dared to discuss it again.
For the record, one month after this testimony was posted to the website viewable to GFA staff, the top leader sent an email apologizing for rebuking Natalie and for judging and speaking harshly to Eric. His apology was accepted, as we had already forgiven and moved on years before. The apology email was received the same day that many other Diaspora members simultaneously received a personal apology email from various GFA leaders.
While we appreciate that leaders apologized for some of their personal offenses, none of the deeper, root concerns were addressed; and our email reply back to to the top leader was never answered by him.
In our original testimony posted above, we did not mention the top leader’s harsh reaction because of a grudge, or to gossip, but rather to reveal another example of the pattern of abusive behavior and authoritarian culture at GFA since they would not acknowledge it as a systemic, doctrinal problem. Ironically, the harsh one-on-one reaction by the leader after his teaching had been questioned was itself what inhibited further dialogue as directed by Matthew 18:15, thus leading us to follow Matthew 18:16-17.
Mixed Doctrine
The teaching that wives should give up all to serve at the ministry, including concern for the health and well-being of their families, is an example of prioritizing ministry over family. Admonishment over the ladies’ discussion also shows GFA’s culture of absolute submission to authority and their strong stance against the questioning of leadership’s teachings. However, since we were already in the process of leaving, we did not overly concern ourselves with their doctrine and treatment—but it certainly confirmed our decision.
When we were leaving the ministry, Eric’s direct leader at the ministry lovingly encouraged him to make sure we didn’t drift away aimlessly once we were away from the ministry in secular work but to keep serving God purposefully. We appreciate that wise admonition to remember that each of us is an ambassador for Jesus, at work and elsewhere. Indeed, God has positioned His people in diverse occupations and places to be salt and light in a corrupt and dark world.
Further Concerns
Recently we’ve been alarmed by photos and stories of “Brother” KP being called “His Eminence the Metropolitan” who exercises unaccountable authority over a religious hierarchy. When we joined GFA, we were told that the churches on the field were patterned after Calvary Chapel churches, where there is no “clergy over the laity”.
We’ve also heard personal testimonies of other ex-staff that show our common experiences are not isolated but result from systemic issues at the ministry. We see how a false view of submission to authority and an elitist attitude can affect leaders, contributing to damaged relationships and misrepresentation of the Lord. It is sad to learn how leadership has been so concerned with stopping perceived rebellion that they have not loved the person.
We care for our brothers and sisters on staff at GFA. Our hope is that their leaders will see their errors, humble themselves and change their ways so they can bear genuine fruit.
May we all live and speak the truth in love and grace—for His glory.