I am an ex member of many years standing. I saw enough of the facade! Any questioning had to be done on the side for any open questioning was considered subversive and rebellious! Although it was never openly preached to cut ourselves off from our families this was so well understood because this is what the Jameses would openly brag about doing and saying how this had to be done since families were seen as an impediment even when there was no real impediment. Anyone who did not do so was sidelined! People were considered ""in"" if they were useful in some way otherwise they were barely tolerated!! They complained about people wanting to be their ""friends"" and yet after I found myself in the ""inner circle"" of ""leadership"" I found that the things said about everyone was incredible critical and harsh with always the constant ""judgemental"" slant as though they were the only ones who had the right to judge and were free from guilt as though they had never been free from sin themselves!!! I remember the James boys as young men and there was PLENTY of typical, adolescent, sinful behavior which went on in college! Norman drank and did drugs with his college buddies at his 2 years course at a small college in Washington pea and who can forget that David had to be dragged off campus for living with a deaf girl he was dating at the time? Let's not talk about Norman's adult addiction to video games and other issues! The very fact that the parents refused to allow their sons to get a higher education and yet PUSHED down the throats of so many of the children of that church to EXCELL at their schooling only to validate the then principal's goal of bragging what an excellent job she did in founding the school is hipocritical!!! How can anyone not see something odd about this. And yet because she has bragged that EACH of her sons would ""be in the ministry"" she and her husband have pushed aside each and every person they feels was in their way of their sons to make certain they would be able to brag ""Our Sons Serve God!"" If I remember clearly there were prophetic words that Mark Gaggin was to be pastor about 10 years ago. How did they manage to explain that one? and what about the churches in Alabama, Jamaica and Brazil, how do they explain these pastors and their ministries ""falling away""???!!!\r
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And this leads me to a question to Gary O. You said "" saying that I have attended churches in the past all over the world but could never find TRUTH. I found the truth of God's Word here at Lakeview - no foolishness that is preached in churches in the area and all around the world.""\r
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I find this an incredibly arrogant and presumptuous remark!!! You are saying that there is NOT A SINGLE church ANYWHERE which teaches Truth??? Do you not FEAR GOD in saying this??!! Have you no memory of JIM JONES and JONESVILLE??? The Bible so clearly says, WHERE 2 or 3 ARE GATHERED IN MY (JESUS) NAME, THERE WILL I BE! How can you stand before God and so openly say that there is not one single church which opens the Bible on a Sunday and uses it for preaching and ministering to the members that they have no Truth?! You who have ""attended churches in the past around the world"" and claim that what they preach is ""foolishness"" and yet the Bible also clearly says to be careful as to whom you call fool!!! Have you not made yourself out to be exactly that???!!!! Have care ""brother"" for the Bible also clearly states that you shall be judged by the very same measure which you judge! You have set yourself up as the ultimate judge over things which God says that ONLY HE is to judge for God is who KNOWS the heart of man and that man himself is deceived by his own heart!!!! Judge not lest ye be judged!!!!\r
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The truth is slowly being revealed!
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