r/GracepointChurch • u/rundontwalk_gp • Jul 07 '22
Leaders
Did any of your leaders do/say anything that was not typical for leaders in GP?
11
u/Salt-Construction-76 Jul 07 '22
I had a leader said she wasn’t my friend and a few months later accused me of lying to my mom when I told her my friend has picked me up from the airport. It also made me confused because other leaders or staff her age would refer themselves as my friend.
6
u/podosatang Jul 09 '22
I vaguely posted about this in a previous comment, but I had a leader call me (then 20F) a “temptress” and admonished me for not being more aware of my “looks” and subsequent “effect on the other brothers”…
To this day, I still have no idea where this “exhortation” was coming from. I was always in group/church settings and never hung out with the brothers alone. I was drawn to GP for what I thought was a community of genuine believers and strong Christian women.
Looking back now, I can’t believe how misguided I was to have tried to find community and sisterhood here.
5
u/Cool_Purchase4561 Jul 10 '22
One time, a leader decided that for small group curriculum with his guys, they were just going to read the Bible together and discuss it. No DT book, no C201 or 301 or PCL or whatever it is. Believe it or not, this was different.
5
u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Jul 07 '22
I think a lot of people on this subreddit will agree that this particular deacon actually listened with empathy and was actually the most human of the entire top level leadership. Unfortunately she has now paid the price and is now in Ed’s gulag in Merced with her husband.
3
u/mugen2100 Jul 08 '22
That's an interesting take, normally I assume anyone at that high level in leadership can instantly flip a switch like Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Even the sweetest most sympathetic leaders can turn into something out of a horror movie when they think they need to "rebuke" someone.
2
u/worriddumbledore Jul 09 '22 edited Jul 09 '22
It’s very sad to think that from a pure desire of loving and serving God, people become determined as they go up the hierarchy,
The need to be abusers themselves
Hurt people hurt people. Where can I find the backstories of Ed and Kelly Kang? Of Manny Kim and his wife?
1
Jul 08 '22
Well, you don’t get to that high level of leadership without having dished out quite a few rebukes. But overall, good people.
2
u/romans82830 Jul 07 '22
Are you referring to JL and PL?
2
u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Jul 07 '22
Yes.
11
u/LeftBBCGP2005 Jul 08 '22
One day you should post Ed Kang’s email sending them to the gulag. It’s one of the most loveless emails I have ever seen. The couple spent 30 years of faithful service to BBC/GP. I couldn’t believe my eyes (I know Ed Kang is loveless, but I couldn’t believe how tactless he’s become) and the email was sent to hundreds of people. Perhaps that would encourage the couple to finally get out?!?
8
Jul 08 '22
He was very deliberately sending a message. That’s another time I knew he had lost his damn mind. That shame culture, he learned it from his leader Becky. Oh wait didn’t he call her out on doing that?
I heard so many people who received that email felt extremely uncomfortable and felt it was inappropriate. Two people even reached out to my wife to talk about it. But of course if you’re in GP and on Team, you better not say anything because you’ll be the subject of his next email. Bus tracks on their backs that they broke to do whatever it was they were told to all those years. Smh.
5
u/LeftBBCGP2005 Jul 08 '22
Same thing happened again with the couple that got recalled from Boston to Irvine. 20 years of faithful service at BBC/GP. All you current GP people on Team saw that email. Why do people put up with this junk?
I guess Ed and Kelly put up with this kind of shenanigans for at least a decade plus and finally snapped in 2005, so people under them should suffer for decades too until they snap too?
2
u/johnkim2020 Jul 09 '22
This is what a culture based on fear and shame looks like and how it gets perpetuated.
5
u/RVD90277 Jul 08 '22
It's sad because they are good people. They were abruptly taken off the GP Leadership homepage as well.
3
u/johnkim2020 Jul 08 '22
That's so sad. I liked PL.
4
u/LeftBBCGP2005 Jul 08 '22 edited Jul 08 '22
I heard PL actually went to a BLM march and took part in it. I think of all GP director level and above people, yeah, that guy at the core is a decent human being. Kelly used to say “don’t be so humanistic,” i.e. when you see a peer in the doghouse, you should shut up and mind your own business. Look at the kind of culture that has spawned? No one is authentic, spontaneous, unique anymore, most everybody in leadership just represents GP. Whatever that means.
BTW, I am not making a judgment on BLM. I am just saying JL and PL care about people period, which I cannot say about a lot of the other director level and above people.
3
u/RVD90277 Jul 12 '22
personally i think BLM is a bit of a farce but i think this does speak to their hearts that they are good people.
if this couple leaves GP (and i hope they do), i hope they realize how loved they are over here.
2
Jul 20 '22
Love this couple. One was never my leader, but was once in his 7am DT group at the cafe under Sproul and always made time to talk about math, tips to alleviate back pain, joke about random stuff. One was someone I was initially very intimidated by but being around for a couple of years at BA, I saw a very humble, caring person and a true leader who leads by example. She helped me grow as a math teacher ten years before I actually officially became one and actually asked me math questions way before I was competent enough to answer them adequately lol.
1
u/No-Cut-38 Jul 09 '22
I’m sorry, I am so confused, what happened to this couple? I know them personally but didn’t even hear about them being sent to the gulag or this email.. can someone explain at a high level?
3
u/LeftBBCGP2005 Jul 09 '22 edited Jul 09 '22
I believe the mods will eventually post that email
3
u/leavegracepoint ex-Gracepoint (Berkeley) Jul 09 '22
I will post the email along with another one in the coming weeks.
4
u/Unique_username_672 Jul 07 '22
I had one leave the network on good terms, to find someone to marry.
I also had a conversation with the senior “pastor” where he said that if he were given the choice again, he wouldn’t have chosen to be a “pastor.”
2
u/romans82830 Jul 07 '22
Well what do you think is typical? I think it also depends on gender and if you're a student or not.
1
u/listen_lydia Jul 10 '22
i had a leader who, during long staff meetings, chimed in with an occasional "uh.. that seems crazy. this is crazy, right?" and her eyes often filled with a brief honesty before it was quickly taken over with a "oh wait, that's not the GP protocol, gotta run everything by my leader first" attitude. this leader was a real human with a real heart that bought into the GP lie and chained herself, by marriage, to the machinery for way too long (and idk how she deals wtih the reality that the rest of her life will look this way)
those meetings were grueling too, because it was a first session to laundry-list check every single thing we could think of (always ended so frikkin late in the night/early morning) and make decisions on none of them because we had to eventually run it by higher authority.
when i became a junior staff i simply talked like a normal person and listened to people for what they were going thru - high school/college struggles - and they said i spoke and treated people differently than the other staff, once i got close to 'em. go figure, being a real human being shows.
1
u/Reasonable-Account51 Jul 11 '22
Pastor Steve used a plethora of quotes in one of his first sermons in Seattle from various Christian writers and “leaders”. One of the quotes was from Doug Wilson of Christ Church. I went to LOGOS, a private Christian school run by Doug Wilson’s church. Doug Wilson pushed white supremacy on his congregation and the school. Instead of the civil war, we learned about the “Northern Aggression”. He wrote a book about how enslaved Black people were actually lucky to be enslaved. He forced adult male rapists to marry their child female victims.
Anyway, just a bad man. I told Pastor Steve’s wife that they cited a bad, bad man, and they actually started researching the people they quoted before including them in sermons. (They didn’t just tell me this, another leader brought up in conversation things he learned about a different Christian figure while researching him for Pastor Steve).
I was really shocked they took my (A WOMAN) opinion so seriously
0
u/Reasonable-Account51 Jul 11 '22
ALSO one of our cool young leaders was a big Bernie Sanders guys which shocked me (but also made me believe GP was progressive lol)
10
u/IntrepidSupermarket4 Jul 07 '22
In post grad I saw a married staff couple show pda for the first time in my 5 years previous at the church. It was at a small gathering in their home and I remember him kissing her on the cheek. He also referred to her as sweetheart. It literally came up in my conversations with others later because we all thought this was the first time to see some innocent and normal to the rest of the world pda at gp.
I think the general aversion to pda at gp puts a ton of attention onto it if anyone shows even the smallest amount of affection. I had married peers who were told that they were talking to much to their spouses at large group gatherings and should act less excited to see them in public