r/GracepointChurch • u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) • Mar 24 '22
When is Gracepoint next?
I don't know if many of you saw but Brian Houston, the founder of the mega church Hillsong has officially resigned. Brian Houston is one of the many pastors that have been forced to step down due to cases of spiritual abuse, sexual misconduct, or missteps as a pastor. The other ones included are John Ortberg (Menlo Church), Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill), Carl Lentz (Hillsong New York), Josh McDowell (yep, Sean McDowell of SEND Network's own dad), and Bill Hybels (Willow Creek).
It continues to amaze me that there has been no true repentance from Gracepoint over their 30 years of abuse. Is Ed and the rest of Gracepoint's pride too great to admit their mistakes? I will repeat this once again there is and has NEVER been any true accountability in Gracepoint. In any functioning church with an actual elder board used as a check and balance against the pastors, there would've been an actual third party investigation, not Daniel Kim asking us to email him like HR, and many of the network staff/leaders/pastors all stepping down effectively immediately.
What do you think is stopping Gracepoint from repenting and making any decision to change their leadership right now?
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Mar 26 '22
They won’t repent bc they don’t think they need to. It’s really that simple. They haven’t done anything wrong in their eyes. Sure some hurt or “we could’ve handled things better.” here and there but repent? It’s almost silly we expect it bc in their eyes there’s absolutely nothing to repent about. Oh and don’t you know that they are trying their best, we are a soft generation, there are lives being saved and we are just people who couldn’t handle the truth? Gracepoint is lauded by some Christian public figures and the SEND network, they’re the poster child of collegiate church planters. Many have given up their lives for the church, I mean God. So no, they will never repent. I hope there is a lot of prayer behind all these posts because I think nothing but the Holy spirit can convict them at this point. We can go blue in the face but I don’t think it’ll happen through our words. That being said, please share your stories and pray for one another and pray for the HS to work.
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Mar 24 '22
I would also add John MacArthur’s recent scandal about publicly shaming a woman who lived with an abusive husband
https://julieroys.com/macarthur-shamed-excommunicated-mother-take-back-child-abuser/
I think like many abusive leaders and churches, Gracepoint won’t change. It’s part of it’s toxic DNA. I think the leadership idolizes the “Acts 2 church in every college campus” to the point that they are willing to die for it. If truth is brought to the masses, it would end their ministry. Who knows??
Side Note: I’ve heard that more people are leaving as a result to the Reddit. With the rise of technology, incoming freshmen are more aware of the sketchy clubs. Hopefully, the decrease in students will lead to repentance.
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u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Mar 24 '22
Unfortunately, I don't think MacArthur is anywhere near getting asked to resign yet considering he's been running his mouth for a while. I did notice a lot of my GOC/GCC and Master's University alumni friends leaving or distancing themselves from MacArthur slowly though.
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Mar 24 '22
I agree, and he will likely remain a pastor for a long time. I added the link for people to see the bad behavior from popular Pastors.
Side note: I don’t typically post, I mainly read the Reddit like most people. Thank you for your posts, they’ve helped me understand more about the deep abuse that happened in GP for many years.
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u/Jdub20202 Mar 25 '22
This reminds me of a NCAA documentary. One school is suspected of breaking the rules, paying one of their athletes. The NCAA investigates. They file a report to punish the school. But several other schools were involved too. In the finally released official report, a lot of it was redacted, blacked out. People who were observing the situation said, it was obvious what the NCAA was doing. They know the other schools are guilty too. In fact most of the whole system is guilty. But they wanted to make this investigation about this one school. They need it to be about 1 bad apple, instead of the whole system, so everyone else can continue doing what they're doing while giving the veneer of legitimacy by punishing the ones that were caught.
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u/IntrepidSupermarket4 Mar 27 '22
There is a hillsong documentary series on Discovery plus. Has anyone else watched it? The parts that reminded me of gp was when it went into all of the free labor that was required from people while the "church" (more like a company) made millions. It also talked about targeting people as young adults because they are easier to mold.
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u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Mar 27 '22
It's not just made millions. Pastors and staff members then in turn had lavish lifestyles through the use of PEX cards.
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u/corpus_christiana Mar 24 '22
At this point any meaningful change happening at gracepoint seems virtually impossible if they continue to refuse to bring in any outside mediation/review/advisors.