“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18:15-20)\r
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Everything you need to know about this church is summed up in the complete disregard of this scripture. Apparently this was important enough to be called out in the church's ""Christian Life Book,"" which they use as the be all and end all, but not important enough to be applied to the members, starting with leadership.\r
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I personally saw this happen first hand, as Pastor James and his mother viciously spread things told to them in confidence to my family and friends. Instead of coming to me directly to address the issue, Norman felt it best to carpet bomb the situation by informing everyone - before working up the nerve to call me. I am in no way arguing that there was no need for discipline. I am arguing that the precedent set by Jesus Himself was methodically and systematically ignored by leadership, setting a model of gossip, rumor-mongering, and favoritism among members. I was guilty of it too. Meetings with the pastor usually included phrases uttered from his mouth such as:\r
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""People have told me you [insert unfounded rumor]""\r
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""What have you heard about [insert member they know you are close to]""\r
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""I have addressed his/her sins of [insert sin they told in confidence in one of their counseling meetings]""\r
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So unlike the shepherd who left the 99 to find the 1, the approach of leadership here is to eviscerate the 1 in front of the 99. Don't worry though, favoritism and spiritual abandonment are the foundations of Lakeview. I will never forget the harassing phone calls I received for months after departing from Becky James. The moment that I realized the Lord had rescued me from Lakeview was when she told me verbatim:\r
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""I knew ever since you were a little child that you would leave, that you would turn your back on the Lord and your family.""\r
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Think about that for a moment. I have not been a child for decades. During all the years of being a church member, attending the school, volunteering to help this family - and I NEVER once had a meaningful conversation with this woman. Not until I left. In all those years that she knew that I was headed down the wrong path, she never spoke a word to me of it. Not once. \r
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Why?\r
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The natural man knows that obviously it's because the vitriol and hate that comes out of her mouth caused her to say ridiculous lies. But what if she was telling the truth? What kept her from helping a fellow saint? A member of the flock? Because I was expendable. Unimportant. Someone who didn't fall in line with her perversion of Scripture. \r
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To her credit, she was the only one to actually confront me on leaving. Norman couldn't be bothered to find a lost sheep, especially one that was always doomed to be lost. \r
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Stay far, far away from this place. Broken families and ruined marriages are the hallmarks of this place. A positive reviewer below wrote of the fruit there. The fruit there is rotten. The church has diminished in size every year for fifteen years. Satellite churches around the world have been shuttered. There is no outreach. There is no evangelism.The pastors cannot even be bothered to visit sick members of their church in the hospital. The REAL fruit is in the fancy cars and large houses and expensive vacations one family takes. The cost is ruined and spiritually broken Christians. \r
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To borrow a phrase from a reviewer below: Ichabod has been written on every door mantle of this place.
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