Reported 9/2007

After reading the article about what happened in Pensacola, I was sitting there in shock. It was as if I had just read my own testimony. What happened in Pensacola had happened to me in 1987 when I was at Harding University. I became involved with a group of students who were really getting into the teachings of Mike Peters. They were young men and women who truly loved God and they were the kind of people I was seeking out. I really wanted something with more substance and not hypocrisy or superficial Christianity.

I think I was surprised at the shallowness of my peers and how many were still riding on their parents’ faith. My early time at Harding had led me searching for fellow believers whose faith was the most important aspect of who they were. Almost everyone in the group were people I had already identified as people who loved God, so when I was invited to a Bible study I jumped right in.

My decision to get involved turned out to be something I would regret for many years. They say hindsight is 20/20 and I can see it so clearly now. They preyed on the young and zealous who hung on his every word. It was like manna from Heaven. The picture he painted of Christians truly living their entire life for God “daily and public and from house to house” had our hearts hook, line, and sinker.

Mike, and a contingent of believers, all moved to Searcy. We continued to go to school in the Fall, but most evenings we could be found in Mike’s living room: young, impressionable, and eating up every word. The energy was amazing. I couldn’t help but get caught up in the whirlwind of it all. It was enthralling. What young zealous believer doesn’t want to learn how to really live for God: heart, soul, mind, and strength? The words we had all known were being walked out in a more real way than we could ever have dreamed of before. It wasn’t just Sundays and Wednesdays any more, it was all the time. I was not raised in the Church and knew what life without Christ was like. I wanted to live for God with every ounce of my being. I was 100% committed to God and to the teachings of Mike Peters. We believed that his teachings were actually pointing us to God. But as time went by the fruit would prove otherwise.

I ended up living in Indianapolis with the Church. I lived in the apartments with the other families and continued to become more and more indoctrinated in the teachings of Mike Peters. At this point in time, there were about three different apartment complexes where large groups of the church lived. We believed that Mike was an apostle; we thought he was receiving direction from God. Mike knew this was the buzz and he never did anything to change what we believed. He just let it permeate throughout the body of believers. Mike never had a title but we all knew he was our fearless leader. He was our inspired, gifted teacher. He was an apostle. There were leaders in our community and we all knew who they were, even though once again no title was given.

Mike’s ability to control us got stronger as the years went by because we questioned and doubted less and less. Mike’s words and direction was being received as God’s will and so were the words from the leaders because we sensed that too was coming from Mike. The leadership within the community was Mike’s voice. They would use the expression: “if you have seen _________, then you have seen Mike.” (Just fill in the blank with whoever the leaders were for that community.) We all knew that Mike was overseeing everything. Accountability to the leaders in the community was running at an all time high, nothing was sacred. Every area of our life could be questioned and brought into the light. I got accustomed to keeping the leaders informed about what was going on in my personal life and in my marriage: I confessed my sins and weaknesses, and sought out equipping and teaching.

There was no such thing as free time, I always had to be doing something that was increasing the kingdom and spurring each other on. We were being bullied out of fear and guilt, but we didn’t even know it. My time in Indy was very different than my time in Searcy. The honeymoon was over and the rules were coming more and more into play. The rules and regulations were never communicated as rules; they were suggestions. We were encouraged to do such and such as though it were godly wisdom and direction. I knew that to not follow the directions or suggestions would surely single me out to be reprimanded publicly for my independence and defiance. It was turning out to be a nightmare, but I was still blind and could not see it. I wanted more than anything to live totally for Christ, but didn’t realize that I was no longer getting my direction from the word of God. It was more and more from the examples and teachings from those around me. Being a weaker member of the body, I don’t think I had enough confidence to trust my own discernment, so I relied heavily on the direction from those over me in the Lord. About this time they were discouraging the different communities from interacting with each other outside of our gatherings. They told us it would be inappropriate to just drop in and visit someone in another community because we would not know what is going on in the day-to-day life of an individual that we didn’t walk with daily. They taught us that to blindly walk into a situation in another community could hinder the work God was doing there. We also knew that if we did go and visit in another community we would have to answer to the leadership; we knew we could not be there without permission. I didn’t see it at the time but this was more control and restriction in our life.

They were big about the Church not being an organization; the real Church is a living organism. The teachings convinced us that everything else out there in Christendom was missing the boat; none of them were truly a Church. I think we all believed that they were still drinking milk while we had all moved onto the real meat and potatoes of the Word. I remember the talk among the believers about now that we are part of the body in Indy we could never go back to pews. We became more and more secretive, more and more guarded, and never wanted to be in a situation that would be considered “casting our pearls before swine.” More and more we became cut off from everything outside of the Church. The body of believers and the “daily and public and from house to house” was all we knew and all we did. Paranoia about the worldliness outside the body of believers was growing. Relatives and family were not seen as a positive thing; they could be a threat. Unless they were part of the body of believers that were connected to Indy, or the other communities Mike controlled, they were seen as a threat. We believed that relatives did not have the right to interact with us; it was something that was closely guarded and controlled. To allow our children uncontrolled time with their relatives could put them at risk. The mindset of setting ourselves apart was isolating us more and more from friends and family that were not part of what we considered “the Church”.

I didn’t make arrangements to visit relatives or friends outside of the body without first getting it approved by the leaders in my community. I was married in this group and we had children; my whole existence was about “daily and public and from house to house.” There was not a day that went by that I was not interacting with others in the community where I lived. I had grown to love the saints more than my immediate family; there was nothing more important to me than fellowshipping with the saints and worshipping God. It all sounded so good and so spiritual, but it wasn’t. The control was ever increasing; I began to understand that many were watching everything I said and did. I felt like I was constantly under judgment. Fear began to grow; fear of being publicly admonished and humiliated for things I already knew I would not be able to defend. Over the years I learned that it was never appropriate to defend myself or to question those who brought accusations against me. I was expected to receive the information as if God had showed it to them. They could see something in me, even if I could not see it myself.

There was no room for disagreement and there was nothing I could do but to repent. To disagree with someone over me in the Lord about what my sin or my problem was would have shown a hardened heart or an independent haughty spirit. I don’t think I ever felt like I was allowed to disagree; I was always submitting. I would find myself constantly examining my heart, trying to rid myself of any sin that might draw negative attention and bring condemnation. This was no way to live free in Christ. The public admonishing was becoming more and more rampant. The only ones who were safe were Mike and the leaders of each community; everyone else was subject to it at any time. As things intensified, the shunning and disfellowshipping escalated. Some people were flat-out disfellowshipped, and others were sent off to other cities. I believe those sent to other cities knew, and I knew that they were being exiled until whatever unacceptable heart issue had been repented of and changed. But they seldom returned. When this practice began, the fear escalated more and more, and sure enough it was just a matter of time before my family too was kicked out for a reason that no one could defend in the word of God. There was no arguing; when I was told to go, me and my family just went. For a time before we left I cried out to God and prayed and fasted begging God to show me the sin that I could not see, begging the leaders to tell me what it was I had to repent of. I too thought I had done all I could do to make sure that there was no unrepented-of sin in my heart. I knew I was forgiven by God. I knew God loved me dearly but I was still not allowed to rejoin the believers. I was then told to leave, and where to move to, and I knew I would never see the family of believers in Indianapolis again.

One of Indy’s trademarks is they would often take issue with only one of a married couple, and while they were punishing one spouse they would build up and stroke the other, all the time weakening the bond between the couple. I have seen a long line of very damaged marriages because of Indy’s interference. The teachings of withholding oneself physically and spiritually came into play. Often the individual who had been banished could do nothing to turn the situation around. It was my observation that once it was decided that one person in the marriage had a heart issue that person seldom ever really recovered. The end result for the banished one was typically to disallow fellowship with the church and often set the couple on a path toward divorce.

It grieves me that all this is being done in the name of God. The people who are drawn to Indy truly love God and they are some of the sweetest people I have ever known. But they don’t know they are being deceived; they don’t know they are being manipulated, controlled, and brainwashed.

I praise God for rescuing my family from their grasp, even though it has came at a high price: the shame of losing fellowship, and the very abrupt loss of brothers and sisters in Christ that I loved more than my relatives. I have been subjected to public humiliation, betrayal from those that I confided in and confessed sin to, rejection from a community of believers that I loved dearly, and deep wounds of mistrust in my marriage. I don’t regret losing fellowship, because I am now free from them, and our children are out of their reach. The division in our relationship caused by the cult divided our home spiritually for more than a decade, even though we remained committed to our marriage. Don’t underestimate the depth and the power this cult has had and continues to have in the lives of individuals who were and are part of the cult. God is doing incredible things in our lives and Indy’s stronghold has been broken. I will continue to pray that this cult be brought down and the captives set free. I may have been broken but I am not defeated.