Childhood Religious Experiences
I was born in 1958 in Chicago, and was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition in the Chicago area, the youngest of three children. I attended Catholic parochial schools until the ninth grade, and experienced the Catholic church much like many of my generation: First Communion in second grade, confirmation in 6th or 7th grade, served as an "altar boy" (Mass attendant) in Catholic masses at my local parish. As I reached my mid-teen years, I was given a choice about whether I wanted to still be involved in attending church regularly; I chose to stop attending at that time. I suppose the critical factor were my own youthful desires to do my "own thing" and the relative emptiness of the form of religion I was involved with. Since that time, I've come to understand a lot more about the Roman Catholic religion and in some ways find it commendable, but in other ways, continue to find it inadequate.

I was a relatively average kid growing up, loving sports and music. I was usually an underachieving "class clown" in school but lived a fairly benign life in those years. As I got into my late teens and early college years, I became increasingly wild, getting involved in all sorts of things that were both wrong and foolish, but unfortunately, very typical-- alcohol and drug abuse, and even some crime. As I reached adulthood, several events occurred that had a profound effect on me. When I was 20, my mother passed away after having been chronically ill for several years. She was very much the "glue" that held our family together. One of my siblings went through a very ugly divorce situation not long after that. I turned to mischief in college and am fortunate that I didn't suffer the consequences of some of my actions from those days. I was kicked off a dorm floor for unruly behavior; but in retrospect I see God acting to lead me to him. I was doing poorly in school and felt like my life was basically in the toilet. As a result, I turned increasingly disappointed with life even while still in college.

When I was kicked off one dorm floor, I was assigned a new roommate who happened to be a member of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship on campus. I remember one night borrowing his Bible and reading the gospel of Matthew. I couldn't put it down. I expected to see all the details of the Roman Catholic church and various ceremonies in it, but instead found the story of a Jesus who truly lived on earth, taught profound truths and inspired others to trust him and follow him. One memorable night back in those days, I was reading my roommate's Bible when he returned to the room. Not wanting to be "caught" with it, I chucked it under my bed. Well, he was returning to get his Bible to go to a study or something. He goes over to his bookshelf, and no Bible! I was busted. I pulled the book out from under my bed and sheepishly asked if he was looking for it. We both knew what had happened-- the unreligious and foul-mouthed hell-raiser was coming to faith.

Through the rest of my college years, I tried to clean up my life and succeeded to a large degree. But I remained uninvolved with church and fairly directionless spiritually. As I graduated from college, I drew inspiration from the story of Joshua-- do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Even if I didn't know where that was!

Move to Los Angeles
As I graduated from college with my Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree, I was offered a job in Los Angeles with Hughes Aircraft Company. Having prayed that God would lead me where he wanted me, I figured that by opening this door God wanted me there, so off I moved. While there, I attended a nearby Foursquare Gospel church on Friday nights. The services consisted of singing and entertainment, with some preaching and Pentecostal-type activities ("prophesying," "tongues," etc.) as well. I didn't know what to make of all of that, but I still found the church fairly empty. In all the time I attended, I don't think more than one person ever initiated a conversation with me.

After a few months in Los Angeles, I was offered a chance to relocate to Tucson. It was a fateful move that would change my life forever.

Welcome to Tucson
My first recollections of Tucson were really different, having grown up in the Chicago area. As the plane approached the airport to land, I looked out the window and wondered where the town was! In those days the population of Tucson was about 300,000, considerably smaller than Chicago and Los Angeles. Then when the plane landed and they opened its door, I felt this rush of hot air enter the plane, like we had all been put into an oven. And it was September! I went to my hotel and turned on the tap water. It was warm, too warm to drink, so I decided to let the water run some more in hopes it would get colder. To my surprise, the water got warmer. Welcome to Tucson.

At my job, there was a engineering student-intern who invited me to her church. I was looking for a church, so I agreed to visit. I remember going to her apartment to go to church with her (no, I wasn't "interested" in her), and she asked if I had my Bible. I said no, and she said I could borrow one. I was surprised to need a Bible at church, but this sounded like a good thing. That first service was real interesting. The Mountain Avenue Church of Christ had about 600 in attendance, at a building not far from the campus of the University of Arizona. The group was made up of a lot of college age people and a lot of people in their 50's and up, with not many in between. When they sang a capella I thought it was because their organist had recently passed away. I don't remember what the sermon was about, but I remember the fellowship being real interesting. I met a lot of people and had some real interesting talks about spiritual things with several people. This was what I was looking for. The singles and campus groups had a variety of activities; an overnighter for the men was planned for the following weekend at a mountain cabin. I attended and even ended up driving one of the church vans because I was over 21, unlike many of the college students. As I got to know people, I felt accepted and cared for; and discussing how to follow God was a very worthy topic.

I remember the following Sunday someone got baptized after the service. This was a new thing to me-- and it made me wonder what that was all about. Since my "awakening" back in college I had been taught that it was faith only, and "accepting Jesus" that made someone a Christian. I was curious about how baptism fit into the picture. Back in college I considered that I should have gotten baptized, but nobody I was around taught about it, so I figured it wasn't important.

But I remember that it bothered me that my understanding and what the church was teaching wasn't the same. I wanted to know what the Bible really taught about the topic. Rick Bauer was the campus minister of the church, and I remember spending several hours on the phone with him, asking questions and going over certain Scriptures. I continued to pour over the topic for hours in my own time. I became persuaded that baptism was indeed essential to conversion. But Rick asked me why-- and it took a while for me to "get it" that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38, 22:16). During that time, Mid McKnight, a preacher from another state, visited for a series of "gospel meetings." I remember him speaking about baptism one evening and when the service was over, I made it straight for the door.  Rick was standing back there. I remember telling him, "I need to go now. I'll be back, but I need to go now." It was becoming clear to me that I needed to heed the call of really following Jesus and not just having the convenient cafeteria-style religion I was accustomed to. Not long after that, on October 22, 1981, I was baptized into Christ. The confession I made that night, "Jesus is Lord," are the most profound words I have ever uttered. From now on, I follow him, and not just when it is easy. 

Controversy in Tucson
Not long after I was baptized, I started hearing about what was going on in the church. I noticed that there were two distinct groups-- the younger campus group and the older married group. There were some older marrieds that were involved with the campus group but the rest seemed to keep their distance. I started finding out what the problem was. The older people felt like what was going on with the younger people was out of control. The church was filling up with younger people who were becoming Christians. I couldn't see what the big deal was.

In the February following my baptism, Rick and his wife resigned their positions as leaders of the campus work. I was shocked. Yet the Scripture that he read in his resignation speech, Romans 8:28, brought hope. God works all things for the good of those who love him. It seemed like church politics to me, and I wasn't happy about it. The issue that had caused the problems was dating advice and that Rick had trained for the ministry at the Crossroads Church of Christ in Gainesville, Florida, but there was so much more to it, even if it was not apparent at the time.

A few months later, the church split. As it turned out, the Mountain Avenue congregation owned some land in the fast-growing north area of Tucson, and intended to build a building up there. In the summer of 1982 with the split imminent, two of the four elders, the Bauers and most of the campus and young singles group started the Foothills Church of Christ (it would later come to be known as the Ina Road Church of Christ).  It was easy to know what group to go with-- I went with those I knew, those who had loved me and whom I had come to love. We met at a local school as plans were made to build the building. A new campus minister was hired, and campus work was kicked off again. I remember one night going over to the Bauer's house in the summer of 1983. The campus minster was there, as were some other campus leaders. Everyone looked like someone had died. I asked what  was going on. I found out that the campus minister had a meeting with the elders the following day, and was probably going to resign. It was happening all over again!

The Bauers and the campus minister were forced to resign. They decided to leave town; Rick and his wife even left the full-time ministry. Those of us who remained couldn't follow a leadership that dismissed our leaders for the lame reasons that were given (again, dating advice), so we left and started our own congregation. We had no full-time ministers. I ended up leading the campus work for a time.

Throughout this time, I became more familiar with the Crossroads ministry in Gainesville, Florida and the Boston Church of Christ. Rick had been trained at Crossroads, as had many others in churches like ours around the country. The stories were told about how the Lexington (later Boston) Church of Christ had started with a small number of people and now had a large, unified church full of people of all walks of life and not just the campus group. This was what I wanted to be a part of in Tucson. I started attending the annual Boston Seminars and caught the vision. For several months many of us took turns preaching, and in due time our fledgling group hired a minister from Phoenix, Wayne Monroe. He pledged to help us have a church "like the Boston church," but in retrospect I think he pledged a lot of things to a lot of people, and couldn't deliver mutually exclusive things. We ended up with a group that remained an independent Church of Christ and fought having real relationships with the other Crossroads churches, including the Boston church. Some ugly things happened, including a disfellowshipping and marking of one man and any others who would refuse to honor the marking, which included me. Well, the writing was on the wall: it was the spring of 1984 and it was time to leave Tucson. (Note: the last group that I was with in Tucson became a part of the International Churches of Christ in 1989.)

Return to Chicago
In 1984, I moved back to the Chicago area after God opened a door for my career there. I was a part of the Oak Park Church of Christ. The evangelist of that congregation was Marty Fuqua, who had been trained by Kip McKean for ministry in Charleston, Illinois. This church later moved and became the Chicago Church of Christ. When I got there, the church had a membership of about 300. In some ways this was a tumultuous time for me. It was nice being around my physical family again and rebuilding relationships that had suffered when I lived out West. (And the Bears won the Super Bowl that season!) In some ways I felt at home in the Chicago church, but in the first few months after I moved there I remember still feeling distraught to the point of tears about what happened in Tucson. Why did God allow such things to happen? Over the next few months, I made friendships with people in the church. I reached a point where the pain of Tucson went away and I enjoyed being a part of the Chicago church. This came with devotion to God and the patience and help of those I knew in the church there. During those days, many people moved to Chicago from other various ministries that had experienced the same type of problems as I had in Tucson.

I look back on that as a time when I deepened my reliance upon God and I saw God work in my life. But as Paul longed to be with Titus, I longed for the relationships with those I had known in Tucson. In the time since they had left, the Bauer's and Dan Rice, my best friend from Tucson, had moved to the Crossroads church in Gainesville, Florida and were planning to move to Denver to plant a church there. I had wanted to be in the full-time ministry for a few years, and thought Denver might also provide a good opportunity for me to pursue that dream. I decided I wanted to be a part of the Denver church, and prayed that God would work it out for me to move there. God provided the job, and in 1986 I moved to Denver.

Denver- The Early Days
The Denver Church of Christ consisted of two main groups-- people that had been a part of the Boulder church when Tom Brown (another Crossroads-trained minister) was there, and people who had moved from Gainesville. Marty Wooten led the church in the early days. It felt great to be in Denver, with people I knew from before and other people that I met and came to love. It was fun and exciting to be a part of the church in those days. I experienced a lot of personal growth.

Over time, it was becoming clear that Boston was the lead ministry of the "Crossroads movement." Not only were they setting pace in growth, they had planted other churches that were also doing well. By contrast, Denver ended up being the "last hurrah" of the Crossroads church. Just before Denver was planted, Chuck Lucas had been dismissed as the evangelist of that church for undisclosed sins. Up to that time, those he had trained and sent out, and the "second generation" of ministers as well, had looked to him for leadership. There was apparently a lot of conflict at Crossroads, and people moved to Denver as those who stayed behind at Crossroads became hostile towards the movement to which they had given birth.

Denver was doing great as a church (so I thought at the time, and generally agree as I look back at this time), and yet we had so much to learn and longed for the connection with the other churches that were doing great-- especially Boston. During 1987 and 1988, there were many ministries like ours all desiring to be unified together. Denver was "reconstructed" in 1988. There was eagerness and apprehension prior to this. For me, I was eager for the reconstruction because it would bring about the unity I believe God intended for his church, and it would bring the spiritual growth that we needed as well.

The "reconstruction" consisted of sending some of our leaders (the Wootens and Bauers) to Boston, and having some new leaders (Preston Shepherd and his wife, with Grant Henley and his wife). As a part of this reconstruction, each member would have a personal session with the leaders to discuss how they were doing spiritually and to try to get everybody on the "same page" as far as their spiritual lives in terms of faith, commitment and dealing with sin. I found my reconstruction talk a very positive experience, though not everyone had that same experience.

Preston Shepherd was sent from Boston to lead the Denver church. He was just what the church needed-- a kind man of faith who brought out the best in people. The church here was happy and exploded in growth after the reconstruction, because people were serving the Lord. My bible talk had something like 8 or 10 people won to the Lord that summer alone, and people grew in their joy and closeness as well. It was incredible to see God work. During this time, Drew Nitchoff became one of my best friends and he helped me grow as an individual and as a leader.

For many years, it had been a dream of mine to serve in the ministry. I was offered a chance to go into the ministry in 1989 and led the Colorado Springs house church planting from Denver. Little did I know that my "dream come true" would lead to one of the most difficult periods of my life.

In the Ministry
I started in the ministry in April of 1989, quitting my job in the defense industry with TRW and working as an intern for about $10,000/yr. I led a group of less than 20  people in Colorado Springs, who had moved down there to plant what would eventually become the Colorado Springs Christian Church. The following month, the man who has appointed me to lead in the ministry, Preston Shepherd,  left Denver to plant the Manila church. He was replaced by Gregg Marutzky. To many, Gregg was a good and logical choice to lead Denver since he was a native of Colorado, had been a part of the Boulder church when Tom Brown was there and had a love for Denver and the Rocky Mountain region that is matched by few people. Up until that time, he has been in Boston after having been in the ministry in San Diego for some time.

I served on the staff of the Denver church until December of 1989. This eight-month period of my life is among the most difficult to discuss. It had the extreme highs (like fulfilling a lifelong dream of being in the ministry and getting engaged to my wife), and yet extreme lows (realizing that ministry was not for me and recognizing the impact of my self-righteousness and other sins upon myself and others, and being on the receiving end of the harshest treatment I have ever experienced). I look back and realize that God used this time to shape me, but I still cringe when I remember how he did it. And God's ability to use something terrible for good does not  justify the sins of the terrible.

The first thing I remember about the ministry is the expectations. People who have not served in that role have no idea of what it is like. Because so many people depend upon what you do when you lead in the ministry, you have to be perfect. Every lack of perfection hurts people. And yet, nobody is perfect. There is a huge distance between what you need to be and what you really are, even at your best. There were some people in the ministry that could take strong correction and just "bounce back" quickly and be better for it. I was not one of those people. It is easy to criticize ministers, but having been there I appreciate those who accept the challenge and serve in that way. They are responsible for what is going on in their ministries, and this can be a heavy load when you consider what God desires and what we humans usually do. As I look back on that experience, however, I see that the expectations were not about being the best for people I led but about producing baptisms because that was how everything in the church and movement was judged. Secondly, it was about being loyal and submissive to the leadership.

I only served with Preston for a month, and most of that time he was planning the Manila planting and wasn't too involved with Denver. I mostly served under Gregg. I had a hard time with Gregg. In retrospect, I see that part of it was my own self-righteousness and being in a role that wasn't right for me, and part of it was his harshness and detached manner, and part was the whole system of which we were a part. Gregg and I have talked since then and have shared candidly about this time in our lives. I have forgiven him for his actions. I think the thing that hurt the most from this period was not the expectations or the strength of the challenges, or even the harshness that I experienced, but the lack of my feeling close and accepted after the challenges. Acceptance was not by grace but by performance, and I could not get into this style of "ministry." I felt like I gave up quite a bit to serve in that role and was treated like dirt. Seeing the movement from the staff perspective was quite the education, and I have the scars to prove I was there. For years after this brief period of ministry, I was haunted by the difficulties and pain of this time of my life. And the beast that gave rise to this philosophy of ministry, in time, would become my enemy.

I also began to see the impact of my own sin in my life at this time. I felt like there was something missing from my life to help me "get to the next level" in spirituality and leadership, and had a "life talk" with Gregg and several members of the staff. Though a painful experience emotionally, this talk and the following weeks of prayer and seeking God helped me to better understand my sinful nature and recognize the critical issues in my life. I had become pharisaic, self-righteous, harsh and arrogant. In the ministry I had turned into a people-pleaser instead of a God-pleaser-- but now I realize that happened because that's what the system rewarded. At this time I was "rebaptized" but have since come to the conclusion that my decision and baptism in 1981 was in line what the Scriptures teach. It saddens me to this day to consider this time of my life-- not only for the painful things I endured but also to watch a lifelong dream go down the tubes. And yet these pains are selfish to a point; I also hurt the people I led and was not as useful to God in that role as I had considered myself to be. And in spite of wanting to be a "God pleaser," I had become a man-pleaser.

This experience fairly painful and I have only shared about it briefly here; I have also drawn upon it in writing "Uncovering and Facing Spiritual Abuse." I have also written an interesting epilog to this in "My Old Yearbooks and the One-Suitcase Challenge."

"Your Services are No Longer Needed"
Shortly after the New Year in 1990, I sat down with Gregg Marutzky and my immediate supervisor in the ministry and was told I was being laid off. The church was tight financially, and couldn't justify keeping a singles intern on staff in Denver (I had moved up to Denver from Colorado Springs in the fall of 1989), though they managed to hire others after I was laid off. However, I had considered resigning my ministry appointment as early as the summer, so it was no surprise to me that my time in the ministry was up. I was a square peg in a round hole, and both the peg and the hole were getting beaten up in the process. It was a relief.

But if being in the ministry was rough, getting out was just as rough in a lot of ways. Having been in the defense business prior to entering the ministry, I sought to return to it. However, during that period of time in the ministry, the Berlin wall had come down and our country now had its "peace dividend" (as the politicians called it). That translated into a tailspin for the once-thriving defense industry. The bottom line is that I was not going to get back into the defense industry when the contractors were laying off tens of thousands of people.

So here I was, newly engaged, newly unemployed, and needing a new career. My first job back to work was a temp job that paid a little less than the ministry, which wasn't much. The first few years of our marriage, I was able to get some computer programming jobs but went through about a year of extreme financial hardship that stayed on my credit report much longer than that! This hardship brought me to despair and to my knees; I often felt punished by God for failing in the ministry. I felt like my life was a living nightmare. I felt like my wife had gotten engaged to someone who was faithful and wonderful and now she was married to a mess. Like other times of testing, this one eventually passed. I retooled my career from being a radar systems engineer (what I had done since my days at Hughes) to a computer programmer, and in time God provided a permanent job and allowed me to support my wife and first child, who was born in 1992.

Losing Laura
In 1993, we found out we were going to have another child. A week before the baby was due, my wife felt that the baby had stopped moving. She went to the doctor and found out that our baby had died. In the hospital later that day my wife delivered our Laura Jane Engler, stillborn. We never did find a definitive cause for why she died. During this time, we felt the love and support of God and of many people in the church, though others in the church didn't say a word to us about it or were insensitive about our loss.

Over the course of the coming weeks, I came to feel very angry at God for this. I felt like ever since I went into the ministry, my life had been nothing but hardships and now this tragedy-- and I felt as though God was responsible for it all.

Over the following year or so, we attended a grief counseling group through the hospital. But underneath all of it, I found myself in turmoil. All the old pains came back again and again. I questioned everything-- why did I go into the ministry? Maybe if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have failed and God wouldn't be mad at me-- if indeed he was mad at me.

Over time and with the help of God himself and many people, I came to realize that life isn't always ideal. As Job said, these are as much a part of life as the good things, so shall we take good but reject the hard? Hardships happen. Tragedies happen. And those who seek to follow Jesus actually take on extra hardships, extra potential for pain. As Jesus once said of Peter, Satan wants to sift us as wheat. I was continuing to find out what I was really made of and realizing how much I needed God's grace.

Moving Forward
A couple of different people encouraged me in specific ways here.

Tom Snyder was the local minister in the church here at the time, and he asked me to serve as the region's financial administrator. The job consisted of matters surrounding the weekly contribution-- collection, deposits, etc. It helped me get back to being useful doing something I was (and still am!) good at-- computer stuff. Later on, I was removed from this position because, as I was told, the DCC South Region wasn't giving "enough" money. All I did was count up the checks and tally who had given what, it wasn't my responsibility to make people give. But, I was replaced nonetheless.

One member of the church here (Jim Stradley) led a special group for men designed to them overcome relationship-oriented issues from the past. Most in the group had alcoholic fathers, but I had my experiences with Gregg Marutzky. This group utilized the book "Unfinished Business" by David Sell (the book is out of print now). Both the book and the group helped me work through a lot of my problems. Gregg happened to visit from Los Angeles shortly thereafter for some odd reason, and I was able to set up a time with him and work towards bringing a healing in our relationship. I told him what I thought and felt about how he had been towards me. We talked about how we had hurt each other; he by his actions and me by my hatred. But we resolved things that day, and "buried the hatchet." I remember driving to work afterwards and was moved to tears, thinking "it is finally over." Healing had begun.

About a year later, I was getting over the hard things of the past, but was sometimes still being controlled by them and wasn't really happy. Jim Heese was our local minister at the time and he inspired me to "get off the bubble." He urged me to seek God about this, to help me get past this hump in my life. I remember taking a long prayer walk one chilly Sunday and asking God and myself the question: am I going to spend my life lamenting and complaining about what was, or am I going to spend my life living? What about my wife and our children? Will they watch me mourn the past and be crippled by it, or live the present? That pivotal day, I decided I can't change the past but I can learn from it and be wiser for it. And I don't have to carry the burden of the past with me forever. If I cannot help others who have suffered (or are suffering) hardships, have I suffered in vain?

Jim encouraged me to finish my book Keeping the Faith, a project about the history of the post-apostolic church that I had started 10 years earlier. Rex Geissler, with whom I had served on the staff of the church, has recently published his own book and offered to publish mine. More than that, he helped me get connected with other leaders and teachers around the ICC. The book was about how the early apostolic church evolved into the early Catholic Church; it was also the story of how a church gets messed up. I thought there were plenty of lessons in that book that could have made a difference in the ICC, as I saw the ICC doing many of the same unhealthy things that the post-apostolic church did. The book was published in 1997.

Also during these times my wife and I became good friends with Todd and Georgia Priestley and Greg and Theresa Jackson. Having had their own difficult experiences in the ministry and having known them for several years, we grew closer and closer in our efforts to make Christianity work ourselves and for those that we led. We worked closely with them for several years now, and their faithfulness, empathy and level-headedness have been a great help for both my wife and I.

Teacher, Webmaster, Deacon
As I experienced healing and freedom from abuses, I wanted to share those with others. It bothered me greatly that many people in the International Churches of Christ had been treated poorly as I had been, and I felt that if those people could experience what I was experiencing in the mid and late 90's, they would either still be a part of the church family or would perhaps return to it. The ICC churches were not monolithic and did not uniformly practice the harshness that characterized it in the late 80's and early 90's. I felt it was important that this part of the story also be told.

Towards this end, I became involved in the old Usenet group alt.religion.christianity.boston-church (you can read my first post from June 22, 1998 here). Here I came into contact with people who had tons of terrible experiences with the church. One of those people was Rick Bauer, who I felt had been completely shafted in the Boston church (his story was once widely available, but he has asked to have it removed). Yet I thought that the tide was changing, and that there was a chance to help the ICC be a healthy church and that there could be reconciliation or at least a chance to make things right with those who had left in pain and devastation.

After a year of this on-line involvement, I started the Barnabas Ministry website in 1999. It was designed to help those who had left or had been trampled on by the old way of doing business that had also trampled my soul. I wanted to share the healing I was experiencing. I also hoped that the leadership would consider the website a resource that would help them understand what was going on and make the changes necessary to help make the ICC churches healthy-- something that I thought everybody wanted.

One thing I became notorious for was saying things that weren't quite the "party line." I was sometimes blamed for people reading my writings and leaving the church, others looked at my writings as reasons why they were staying. My local leadership was always uncomfortable at best with me running this website. People outside of the ICC were also divided. Some thought I was sent out on the Internet by ICC leadership to deceive people about how the church really was, while others thought I was just an apologist.

I was able to attend Doug Jacoby's teachers workshop in Paris in 2000. I first got to know Doug a few years earlier when I was working on Keeping the Faith, as Rex had introduced us and Doug saw parts of the book for review and comments. I was heartened that the other people there, about 25 teacher candidates from around the world, saw things much as I did. I was afraid they would not. I thought there was hope that many of the damaging teachings and practices in the ICC could be changed. I got involved with the teachers group not because I had formal theological training (I don't, except for taking a year of Greek at Denver Seminary) or considered myself a theologian (I don't), but I was pretty well-read and I knew that history, theology and education could help bring about the changes the ICC churches needed. Being so involved with ex-members and having my own experiences, I knew why people were leaving, and I knew I could help the ICC be a healthier church. For a movement so concerned about growth, it seemed silly to work so hard to reach out to and baptize people, only to have 75% of them leave (see "A Hole in the Bucket" for some detailed statistics from the Denver Church of Christ over the years).

Doug asked me about my perspective on things after that 2000 workshop. I put together my thoughts in an article entitled "A Question of Balance."  I sent this to him, and soon I found myself being questioned about it by the DCC elders at the time (Greg Jackson and Preston Shepherd). It became obvious to me that the church leadership wasn't ready for things like that in one single document. Instead, I took its main ideas, broke them up into smaller articles and published them on the website one at a time. (I didn't make this entire article available publicly until the Kriete letter came out in early 2003. Alas, the ICC wasn't ready for Henry's letter 3 years later either.)

During this same general period of time, I had been approached to be a deacon in the Denver Church of Christ, initially serving as the coordinator of worship services for several years. Due to the time demands upon that job and my wife's being in graduate school at Denver Seminary, I had to resign this role after a year or two. After I resigned, one elder's wife asked me to reconsider, saying, "we were going to make you a deacon." It was the first time I'd heard the "D" word mentioned in more than a year.

During this time I also became involved in teaching classes in the "DCC School of the Bible." Glenn Giles had pioneered this effort in another region of the DCC, and I was eager to contribute in my areas of particular interest-- biblical interpretation and church history. I enjoyed teaching these classes greatly, yet I was troubled that the people that needed these classes the most-- long-time members, "old school" lay leaders, and the staff-- rarely attended and to me seemed to consider themselves above going to them (they were held on Saturday mornings or on Sundays before church). This was frustrating because I saw and heard the imbalance and ignorance in sermons and leadership regularly, and knew that these were hurting people. I started giving away books to certain leaders and sending them links to helpful articles on the internet. Who knows if any of them ever read any of them.

Yet, some of the leadership, especially some of the staff, felt attacked by these meetings. I was a part of several of these meetings, and except for one incident in the first group where there were about 10-12 people present, I didn't see any attacking of the leadership in those meetings (and even this incident I witnessed was resolved that same evening). Perhaps in their past actions they had just been "following orders" in their leadership, but nevertheless the staff and the system were lovingly held to account by the members who had persevered with this movement through thick and thin. The elders thought the talks were highly beneficial, and plans were made and announced to the DCC to have such open talks regularly, on a quarterly basis. However, those plans were quietly scuttled when John Lusk, the lead evangelist, strongly lobbied the elders to do so. We members waited in vain for the next round of town meetings, but they never happened. Further, the leadership never came out and announced this change openly until many months later.

After these few months of open discussion, the leadership wanted to go back to the leaders (especially the evangelists) being "in charge" as opposed to having to examine their teachings and practices, involve more of the church in decision-making, and consider the health and impact of their approach. One staff couple, Chris and Shelley Dana (the leaders of the South region of the DCC, which was also my region) resigned under duress because in their consciences they could not support what was going on. The elders and John Lusk demanded 100% support of their "team approach" or else, and Chris was the first test case for the new order of things. A "team approach" sounds like something inclusive, but that "team" consisted of the oligarchy of elders and the lead evangelist, and to a lesser degree the rest of the staff. Everybody else was shut out of the process except for whatever politicking they could do with those high-level leaders (and there was plenty of that, with Denver becoming the new home of many ICC ex-ministry people including Frank Kim, Jim Heese, Doug Baity and others). It was better than the "one-man-show" of lead evangelist control that had been practiced for years, but it wasn't much better in my opinion. There was still a lot of wisdom that God put into the church members who weren't evangelists that could help it, and much of that wisdom was earned through faithfully persevering through the vintage ICC nonsense for a decade or more. Yet, that was put to the side in the interest of maintaining a control-based approach.

The week that Chris Dana's resignation letter was read, about 20-30 people left the South Region of the DCC. Almost all of them were very long time members, some were former staff members as well. Many of them were and are my friends. They felt a tremendous disappointment, hurt and betrayal at this turn of events. For them, the door for change that had been so inviting only a few months earlier had slammed shut, and sadly, it was time to move on. I was devastated by both the turn of events and by their leaving, but I understood why they were leaving. I shared their sorrow and vision for the need for change, but I thought that the issues were mostly doctrinal. I thought that if the incorrect doctrines could be addressed, the ministry practices could change. I decided to stay and try to bring about changes in this way, not realizing at the time that the game was already over. I was made a deacon of teaching in the summer of 2003 and hoped to use this role to help educate the church.

My wife and I had decided shortly after the blowup of 2003 that we would give the DCC until May of 2004 to get on the right track, and at that time we would evaluate the prospects for change. We weren't looking for a perfect church, but a church that was going to see its problems honestly and take the need for changes seriously. This interval allowed plenty of time for things to develop and for the desires of the leadership and the church to be evident. We told no one of our plan at the time, though we mentioned it to a few people confidentially as the time neared.

Feeling that doctrinal matters were an important part of straightening out the church, in early 2004 I proposed assembling a study group to do one of three projects: to evaluate the "First Principles" study series, to work on developing a statement of faith, or to undertake a study on the nature of God. As deacon of teaching, I had made arrangements with the Denver Seminary Library for facility usage and hoped to attract quite a few people toward this effort. This was intended as an educational exercise that would help individuals utilize library resources to solve these sorts of problems, which are actually quite common in church history. The idea was to help equip the church to address these matters and to help the church leadership deal with these issues, not to create something that would be binding for the church or put the elders in a tough position. The leadership was greatly concerned about the potential for harm (in their eyes) from this sort of an effort, and was also concerned about my intentions. To their credit, the elders and staff listened to my thoughts and ideas about how to proceed at a special meeting in February. Initially,  I was encouraged by the meeting. However, after this meeting the ball was in their court and nothing ever came of any of my proposals. I was coming to realize why-- the idea of the congregation being involved in helping the church move forward was dying if not already dead. 

Thus, from the time of John Lusk's departure in December of 2003 until May of 2004, the DCC was pretty much in a holding pattern. Taking a course of inaction when change is urgently needed is a choice to retain the status quo. It became evident that the changes I longed for and hoped to see would not materialize. It was like the leaders and the church were numb to what had been going on. I was flabbergasted to be told, in effect, that we who were left couldn't determine what was right and best and true without another McKean-indoctrinated evangelist arriving on the scene. Were the needs that complicated? Is the gospel really that complicated?

But, as I was coming to realize, it wasn't about what was "right," "best," or "true" but about who was in control. Because I was considering leaving the DCC (something I admitted to one elder that I had been considering ... for about the past 10 years!), I was no longer allowed to speak to the congregation as other deacons and small group leaders and ex-ministry people commonly did. Only those "supportive" and "committed to staying" would be allowed to speak. I was not the only one on the "can't talk" list. By doing this, the elders assured that the status quo was maintained and continuously put before the congregation. Diverse perspectives from men quite worthy of respect were shut out. The funny thing was, up until I had been marginalized, I had been committed to staying even though I'd seen many of my close friends leave during the big "blowup." But the actions of the leadership pretty much sealed the deal-- any change that involved moving away from the unhealthy, controlling way of doing things just wasn't going to happen. I was becoming more and more unhappy with the situation with each passing week. It was time to face reality.

When we released the letters, we were stunned about the encouraging responses we received. I lost track of how many responses there were and how many different cities were represented in the responses-- my recollection is that there were more than 200 responses from more than 50 cities. So many people, most of them long-time members as well, poured their hearts out to us and said, "What you said in Denver could have been said here." It was astonishing. We knew we weren't crazy, and we really appreciated the support. When I consider the things that people wrote to me, it inspires me to keep the website up. People who don't appreciate this website haven't seen my email and the stories I've read.

Moving Forward, Again
When we left the DCC, I went through a lot of things. I had to deal with anger about how I had been treated and about the system in general. I had to deal with disappointment about how things had turned out. I had to deal with the emptiness and sense of loss after being involved in something for so long. Did I let my optimism obscure my perception of reality? I also had to consider that my pain was my responsibility, as I had made my own choices to be involved in the group. All along, I did what I thought was right and best all along-- in staying, in working for change, and in leaving. I had to deal with a sense of guilt for allowing myself to get so wrapped up in a system and movement that was so distant from simple and pure Christianity. I considered whether I should have just kept quiet about stuff from the beginning, or whether I should have just left years ago.

I've also had to deal with the spiritual damage I had suffered in the DCC. One particular effect was how my motives for doing things had been taken over by the system. It has been extremely difficult for me to view any good thing I might do without some ulterior motive to make the church or myself look better. Also, I was so addicted to my concern for the ICC that it is hard to simply leave it behind.  Through counseling and time, God was helping me to heal.

I was comforted by the encouragement of those who had left before. I have come to understand that the ICC and DCC played a role in my life. Nothing is perfect, but there was a time when it was beneficial and a time when it was detrimental. When something is detrimental, you do what you can to change it, but if you can't change it you have to leave. Much of my thinking about the whole ICC experience is reflected in a series of articles "Egypt, O Egypt."

We visited numerous churches in the months that followed. It was beneficial to see how other faith traditions believe and act. Visiting other churches is one of the healthiest things a Christian can do, and I plan to continue to do this as I have opportunity in the future. There were times when we didn't even know what church we'd be visiting until Sunday morning. Even then, I pretty much always looked forward to visiting various places. Of course, there would be various "triggers" of past bad experiences from time to time, but as time has gone on these have happened less and less.

The Mountainview Experience
In time, we came to a point where we got more involved in the Mountainview Community Christian Church. We had visited it even before we left the DCC. The Christian churches share the same heritage historically as the ICC and the Churches of Christ, but in my experience they seem to have avoided some of the traits in the CoC and ICC that I found unhealthy. Many of them have worked to build healthy churches that meet the needs of people. Mountainview is a seeker-oriented church, utilizing ministry philosophies popularized by the Willow Creek Association and the Saddleback Church. When I visited I heard the gospel. I heard that God loves people. There was a sense of empowering, of wanting people to simply know God and for them to live as he leads them. There was a healthy church culture concerning motivation and gift-based participation-- something that my experiences have taught me is critical to the success and health of a church. Plus, Mountainview was in our general neighborhood. We were part of a church that is neighborhood based. It was a place for us to heal.

But it was hard to get connected relationally at Mountainview. In time I got more involved serving on "the message team." That's a team of people that met weekly to discuss upcoming sermon topics with the teaching pastor. The goal was to kick around the topic, consider creative ways to approach it, seek to understand predispositions people might have on that topic, etc. It was a great idea. I also taught a biblical interpretation class there.

Today
We are now pursuing other church options. We'll visit other churches and stay networked with others who have left that congregation. I've added a "Seeking God in Highlands Ranch" page to the website for helping those locally. I'm leaning towards pursuing either a house church network type of thing or perhaps starting a new congregation. Stay tuned!

I have been blessed with a great wife, three great children (and one more waiting in heaven), a great job, a great house, and great friends in the faith. I'm on a journey, and I carry both my scars and the wisdom those experiences taught me. I also carry my hopes for the future. As time goes on, I grow and mature. I have a lot to learn and a lot to share. God will continue to lead me as he desires.

Writing this story has been difficult because it means revisiting so many of the painful things I have experienced. I simply hope that sharing it can help anyone persevere through hardships, deal with difficult situations, see light at the end of a dark tunnel, and have faith that God will care for them along the way.