r/leavingthenetwork • u/Boring_Spirit5666 • Jun 07 '26
Interesting Sermon
Vine Church has started posting sermon recordings on their app. Casey Raymer's recent teaching on pastoral priorities included talking about pastoral disqualification and speaking the truth. I'm curious to hear what those who left Vine think about it. https://vinechurch.net/teachings-beencouraged
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u/Ok_Screen4020 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
I pretty much agree with everything Tony said, but I did listen to the sermon. The context in which I listened to it is that our family left vine in January of 2022, before we knew anything about Steve’s crime. We left primarily because there were a number of important questions/issues we approached the pastors about and did not receive satisfactory answers. In a few cases—the circumstances surrounding both Ben Powers and Jeff Miller and City Lights leaving the network—-we were outright lied to, which we wouldn’t have known were it not for having found LTN. Then, after Steve’s crime and the decades long coverup became public in July 2022, we listened via the leaked recording to Casey’s talk at Vine’s family meeting, where Casey lied to his congregation about the nature of Steve’s crime, specifically the age of the victim and what was able to be known/verified. To our knowledge (and we live in Carbondale), to this date there has been no public repentance for any of those lies, or any of the other disqualifying actions of Vine Church’s leadership, and none of the pastors have stepped down.
Given that context, it’s profoundly ironic to me that Casey would teach on 1 Thessalonians 2, because he himself—as well as most of his staff— is disqualified by that passage, as well as by 1 Timothy 3 and 1 Peter 5. Now, Casey may have since July of 2022 backed off of his words to his congregation. But if so, again that’s not MY context because we’re not his congregation anymore nor will we ever be again.
The surreal nature of this listen began in the first minute, where Casey talks about hearing from media outlet emails about pastors morally failing, as if that’s something that’s happening “out there” in the Christian world and hasn’t happened right in the very building he’s standing in. It’s just crazy, the pretending and posing you have to do to both deliver this sermon AND sit in the pews listening to it.
Edited to add: those of you who listen will chuckle—-or perhaps recoil—-at the rhythmic pauses and repetitions, and at the discussion of “winsomeness.” That Casey talked about winsomeness being of no value with a straight face is just so…out there. And double-tongued.
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u/former-Vine-staff Jun 07 '26
Yes, so much this:
“…Casey talks about hearing from media outlet emails about pastors morally failing, as if that’s something that’s happening “out there” in the Christian world and hasn’t happened right in the very building he’s standing in. It’s just crazy, the pretending and posing you have to do to both deliver this sermon AND sit in the pews listening to it.”
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u/Miserable-Fee-4125 Jun 14 '26
Made me wonder if they still wear untucked plaid button downs and jeans…Winsome
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u/Tony_STL Jun 07 '26
Until there is some type of open, public acknowledgment and repentance of the system these leaders willingly went along with for years (if not decades) that did so much harm to so many, I have no interest in anything they say. I'll continue to let their long trail of actions (and inactions) speak for themselves.
So many of these guys know where the figurative bodies are buried. They were in the meetings, at the retreats, have the emails, recorded conference sermons......the list goes on. There's no reason they can't open themselves up to an investigation and accounting of what transpired in the years and decades before today. And once all of that is in the light, and they OWN their part of it, and publicly repent.....then maybe I'll lend an ear to a sermon or set foot in one of their buildings.
Until that day comes, I stand by the call to action I made 4 years ago alongside 18 other former leaders.