Top ten most outrageous moments I’ve Had in Church

Two pieces of prolegomena: 1. Sorry for the length. 2. This is not just a whining session. I’m going somewhere with all of this. I think it will be worth it in the end.

Criticism is the Laziest of All Disciplines

It’s easy to devour others if one has a heart to do it. Wherever people gather, the foolishness of people can be found. That includes the Church.

Human failure does not negate the Church’s value in the world. It only validates what Christians themselves should be saying about themselves. We are sinners saved by grace, being slowly transformed into the likeness of Christ. Some slower than others. It also validates how Christ Himself thrice described the visible Church on earth as believers wait for its consummation in His return—a mixed bag of sheep and goats, edible and inedible fish, wheat and tares. The writings of the Apostle John have much to say on this score.

Oh, the Hypocrisy

Nothing boils my baptismal water more than people outside the church who live vile and selfish lives, berating the Church for having faulty people in it. Christians are by far the best people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, warts and all… today’s stories not withstanding.

Indeed, I have had my fair share of outrageous experiences in churches, when some—not most—in those churches either prove to have a double life, or are so overcome by their ignorance and selfishness that they act out in ways that would make old-world pagans blush.

Other than the first one, they are in no particular order.

Serial Killers Among Us

#1: One of my old students, who came to us as a Teen Challenge Graduate later fell back into drugs and became a would-be serial killer. The would-be was the serial, not the killer. Meth gives you weird ideas that seem sensible in the moment. His, being from a Central American family, was that it would be cool to start doing ancient Mayan human sacrifices. After a few failed attempts, he finally succeeded. I weep for that poor man and his family. The silver lining is that meth is not known for making you smart, so my ex-student was easily caught, tried, and convicted. So “serial” fell flat.

Bible College Woes

#2: The first Bible College boasted a couple good instructors. The rest had the ethics of cat burglars and grifters. Dishonesty, manipulative bullying, plagiarizing, overt heresy. They could not answer basic questions concerning the Scriptures, did not even know what Biblical Theology is, and had some of the worst hermeneutics I’ve ever encountered. One turned out to be a drunk who regularly canceled classes because he was too inebriated after lunch to return.

The school was a hot bed of some downright demonic teachings (The “inner-healing” movement¹) and serious abuses of “spiritual” authority (The Shepherding Movement²) and Word Faith³ all of which swept through many Charismatic groups in the 80s.

When the school’s leadership realized that some of the students were resisting their “authority” in these matters, they started a witch hunt to expose and root out those students they could not intimidate into submission.

They had meetings with “trusted” students to get them to apply social pressure… sent “spies” to fain friendship so as to catch us in “rebellious” words that would excuse disciplinary action. They mobilized “questioners” to trap us in statements. Sound familiar?

They attempted to sow discord between them⁴ and pick off “weaker” members of friend groups with threats and crafty bribes. Not money, but public honors and special privileges. They threatened to kick one friend off his traveling ministry team if he talked to us again and demanded to know every detail of our past conversations. He told them to kick him off, and came directly to tell us what they were up too behind closed doors. It was surreal.

(2B: Something quite similar happened shortly thereafter at a large church were I taught youth. The underhandedness of those seeking to promote these teachings, a bad combination if ever there was one, never ceased to amaze me. This was behavior coming from professing believers… setting traps, lying in wait to ambush, falsifying conversations.)

A Christian Fight Club

#3: I was a guest speaker at a church that broke into what can only be described as a brawl. Some were screaming and throwing things in one corner, others pushing and shoving in another. Across the whole sanctuary there was verbal violence and in some corners thrown fists. It was a total meltdown. For the record it had nothing to do with me.

I had brought a friend to guest lead worship and during the worst part of the drama, as I sat on stage trying to keep a calm exterior, I hear “bink… bink… bink.” Over and over. I start looking around and discover my friend bent over double behind the piano howling with silent laughter at the ridiculousness of it all. His forehead kept distractedly binking the piano keys. I lost it. But I could not hide behind an upright piano. I had to cover my face and imitate a posture of prayer ‘til I could get control over myself.

The part that wasn’t even a little funny was that my four children all witnessed this nonsense. It marked them.

A Nemesis

#4: I discovered at the age of 20 that I had a self-appointed nemesis. I wasn’t a superhero, nor he an arch villain, but I had one. For the record, he was a villain, but time revealed to me how little “arch” their was about him. He was all hat and no cowboy.

One of the pastors in the church in which I was raised proved to be one of the most manipulative and deceitful people I’ve ever had the displeasure to encounter in the house of God. In secular world, he had been a big wig salesman swinging billion dollar deals even in the 80s. He took quite earnestly to the Shepherding movement (It was right up his alley) and was the third generation disciple of Charles Simpson through Simpson’s own personal disciple… a heretical bully of outrageous proportions. Again… the stories I could tell you…

Okay one. After an elders’ meeting as the men sat around conversing around a kitchen table the talk grew earnest and engaging, hearts aflame with excitement over the things of God. My father was at that table talking with Simpson’s 2nd. That man had to go pee but didn’t want to leave the discussion and let it go cold. He had a big cup with him, like a big gulp cup, and peed into the cup under the table and made another of his disciples who he’d brought with him to the meeting take the cup and empty it for him. He routinely did things like this to “humble” his disciples and bragged about it.

Our church was run by bi-vocational elders, and my “nemesis” decided that he wanted to take over and become full-time pastor. There was no lie he would not tell. No Scripture he would not intentionally twist. He didn’t merely have bad interpretive skills. That might be forgiven. No, he calculated how to preach a text in order to work an angle that plainly defied the meaning of any passage at hand. He was devastation in the house of God, ruining marriages, seeking to destroy families and friends. Even so, he was quite skilled at luring in devotees, and every woman who considered him a mentor ended up divorced. I have no doubt that if all were told, yet greater evil would come to light.

Though my father was a founder, this man mocked me for going to Bible College, tried to sabotage my marriage, waged a behind the scenes war against my extended family. He used perverse lies to sever our influence with the church, so that, when he drove us out, it wouldn’t make a ripple. His devious precision was long, slow, and calculated. Everywhere I went for many years, he would call those around me to sow trouble for me.

Narcissists Go to Church Too

#5: By this time, if I were you, I’d be questioning either my veracity or my discernment. #5 won’t dispel the question.

A man I called friend from the age of 19 to 48, doing important missions work together, turned out to be a thief (and not a small one), a serial adulterer, and a pathological liar. A true narcissist in the most offical use of the word. He seduced co-worker’s wives, and like all narcissists, made his own wife’s life a gaslighting nightmare. He not only had affairs with her friends, but it turned out that at least one was her friend because he asked the woman to be his inside informant to keep tabs on his wife. He had no small skill in getting things done “for the kingdom” and in concealing his double life. I was not the only person he took in.

The Humblest Man Alive

#6: I’ve always wanted a team, but could never afford to hire one. I’ve tried to get ministries going with cooperation and promises of profit sharing, but cash talks and promises walk.

At a time when I thought I’d finally begun to pull together a team, replete with tech guys and those with online expertise, one of my “partners” fleshed out another round of what I have since discovered is a pattern of destructive behavior in his life. He always leaves ruin in his wake.

It goes like this: Ride into a new setting like a savior on a white horse. Make lots of promises to people like me who are eager for help. Lure them into bigger and more expensive plans than they envisioned, Build every system like a Rube Goldberg machine that only he can manage. Make himself a bottleneck for a dozen projects that can’t go on with him and become a great offense if completion is sought without him. Accumulate frustrations caused by his own overpromising, inflated ego, poor communication skills, and surly disposition. Then it comes. “God has called me to leave the church!”

If that is not enough, on his last day with us, he took offense over something stupid… a grand misunderstanding that was just an excuse to vent his pent-up frustrations that made him decide to leave in the first place. Oh, sorry, I’m mean that made God command him to leave in the first place.

He verbally attacked the pastor as he’s was preparing to preach… getting aggressively up in his grill. He He threatened physical violence against those involved in the “misunderstanding.”

As soon as service ended, he began to scream and holler vile accusations in the presence of church visitors, and when given a private floor upon which it was hoped we could settle the ridiculous affair, together with his family he proceeded to spew violent vitriolic contempt on almost everyone in leadership for everything they’d ever done to disturb his deep and abiding spiritual connection to the Lord.

I’d never heard somebody make such outlandish self-proclamations about their own humility, holiness, and selflessness while unleashing a firestorm of false accusations, petty offenses, boasts of personal greatness unappreciated. Behaving like a 250lb toddler who didn’t get his way, he called everyone else immature. He encouraged his children to get their licks in too, mocking and disrespecting all the church leaders. Every moment of the situation physical violence seemed imminent as promised.

Making a Great Name for Myself in the Earth

#7 & #8: I became interim pastor at a moderately small church after the Pastor was forced to quit overnight and move away because of a family tragedy. One of the elders of the church decided that this was his hour to take over the church, run out the other elders, and get rid of me.

In almost every small church, I encounter people that I have come to call “the Teacher.” “The Teacher” is that one layman in their midst who has the reputation of being knowledgeable on matters of Scripture, but does not actually have any serious education in it. I don’t mean just formal education… I mean no education. They never take kindly to a trained and seasoned teacher coming to play in their sandbox. A sandbox that, unbeknownst to them, looks to me more like a poorly cleaned litter box for all the… well you get the idea.

This church elder was one of these fellows. He took advantage of the turmoil of the pastor’s rapid departure across the country to sow lies about all the other leaders and to go house to house collecting support for ousting everyone. One of his lies was that I was not actually leaving to get my PhD, but lied about it to become interim pastor… so that I could then wheedle my way into becoming permanent pastor and (I kid you not) make a great name for myself through that small congregation. (See my signature below to vet this claim… documentation is available on request)

When I found out what he was doing, I resigned. Many members of the church came to my house to beg me to come back one more Sunday to see if we could work something out.

The man had a near mental breakdown when I showed up. He was pacing the back, talking to himself, shaking.

As soon as the service ended, he made a beeline for me and started yelling, “Why do you have a problem with me?” Perpetrators always project themselves as victims.

You got me… am I really the “victim” in these events? Right now you only have my word for the truth of these stories. But no, I’m not a victim. I am an agent acting in situations some of which were tainted by the participants’ varied failings… including some of my own. But I don’t lie (unless you ask me if that dress makes you look fat) and I do strive to be honorable in all my interactions… even when my personality makes others feel like I should have come with a warning label: Contents Unsweetened.

The whole church gathered around us. I was calm… more annoyed than angry. Ignoring the hypocrisy of his manipulative play, I simply told him that I did not appreciate liars who tried to divide churches. He demanded before them all that I prove my claim. I did. Witness after witness confessed to the things he and his wife had been doing. Then he really had a meltdown. He went nuts…. Screaming and yelling at nobody, save heaven, I guess. He was rapidly pacing like an animal and occasionally slapping himself in the face. Half the church defended him in spite of his overt lies and divisiveness…. I’d made him cry and I was mean.

In the parking lot afterward, he charged me as if to attack me physically. I was younger then and well prepared. He must have seen the look in my eyes because he suddenly caught himself up short just a little bit out of reach of my prepared appendages, and ran away howling like an animal. I’m not exaggerating. That was when I realized that the man was either mentally ill or under serious demonic influence.

The Single Human Conduit for the Holy Spirit

#9: During my first master’s degree, I ministered in a medium sized church for a few years with local leadership and a man I considered a friend. We all got along smashingly. Then, another one of those I call “The Teacher,” whom we’d not yet met, came back from an extended illness and found us in his sand box.

He used to pretend to know Greek and Hebrew, and was dismayed to discover that my friend and I actually did know them. He went almost immediately into guerrilla warfare, smiling and putting his arms around us by day, and trying to sniff out opportunities to spread lies about us when the lights when out. He would visit someone from the church and say, “Andrew has been going from house to house trying to get people in the congregation to side with him against the church’s leaders, and I need to know what he’s been saying to you about us.” Do that thirty times and the claim takes on a life of its own. I was far too busy to even take up such a task even if I was inclined to do it… which I was not.

On the first night that I taught a class at the church on inductive study, he threw a no-holds-barred hissy fit because I believed that Scriptures needed to be read in historical, cultural, linguistic, document, and genre context. He insisted that words and grammar and literary context didn’t matter. The Holy Spirit would tell us what passages meant if we would listen. He insisted that the Bible was a living document that had different meanings at different times depending on what the Holy Spirit breathed into it at any given moment. When asked what kind of stability of faith and practice this provided in churches and The Church, his answer floored me. HE was the voice of the Holy Spirit in that church.

We once walked into a special Friday night we thought was a potluck and discovered that he’d given us a different start time… and only we brought food. He was already nearing the end of a message he was preaching, I guess trying to get it finished before we could arrive. As we walked in, he was winding up like a baseball umpire, yelling, “And in the Greek it says…” Then he saw us standing at back sanctuary doors holding our wives’ crockpots. He froze mid-sentence. We had no idea what was going on, but hate filled his eyes and he said, “Well, to tell the truth, I’m not sure what the Greek says.”

That was the end of the quiet, behind-the-scenes war and the beginning of the open war. His most malicious tactic was to sow division between myself and my friend.. a common theme with disingenuous leaders, offering my friend money, provoking him to jealousy against me—You know everyone in the church thinks Andrew is the leader and you are just second fiddle—bullying and making spiritual threats (You are in rebellion against my authority here… Shepherding movement again) and actual threats of public excommunication. I know… right? And for what? Teaching Historical Grammatical Literary Hermeneutics—Love Live HAGALAH!!! My friend was weak and buckled under the pressure.

Critical Marxists Also Go to Church

#10: I began my first master’s degree in 1992 at the age of 25. I did not know what Critical Marxism was, and certainly did not know how various movements of which I was aware related to it. Remember, Critical Race Theory didn’t even have a name until the late 80s even though early Critical Marxists were doing their work in the 1930s. It used social categories as leverage points for disruption and violence to destabilize society and soften it up for violent cultural revolution. Women vs. Men. Non-Whites vs. Whites. “Poor” vs. “Rich,” etc. It also sought to unravel family through the promotion of sexual perversions.

As my degree progressed (pardon the pun) the hostility in the school toward those students who resisted feminist-minded faculty and their minions grew thick. Women regularly attacked and accused publicly and privately and secretly.

I was young and still trying to get my theological bearings. I hardly knew what to do. Key administrators advanced this new direction and made life difficult for those students and faculty who wanted open discussion rather than wholesale submission. I wish I knew then what I know now, but there is nothing for it. Jobs lost, friendships sabotaged, scholarships robbed, reputations destroyed by raging people sold hook line and sinker on Critical Marxism.

So Many Contenders

Many things that are not on this list easily could be. Some of these I was personally involved with confronting and others I just witnessed through close association with those who had to deal with the messes.

• I’ve dealt with pedophiles caught grooming victims in the congregation, had to keep an eye on “repentant” pedophiles who’d never gotten on the sex registry, and a fellow Bible College professor who serially raped young teen girls. There was also a Bible College administrator who I discovered was trafficking young women sent to his school and blackmailing other women to try to force them into both participating and helping him collect more victims.
• I’ve had to navigate what proved to be false rape accusations as well.
• People often have forms and levels of mental illness and addiction.
• I’ve had to deal with wife-swapping on more than one occasion, and numerous extra-marital affairs,
• There have been “Christians” involved in homosexuality, fornication, and living together secretly. Only some had the slightest sense that they were doing wrong.
• A young man on our worship impregnated his girlfriend, and expressed anger and perplexity as to why the rest of the church’s leadership had a problem with this.
• There have been “Christian” girls getting abortions with the support of the baby’s “Christian” father and her own “Christian” parents.
• Two different times, mothers have arranged sexual escapades for their young teen daughters to live vicariously through their adventures.
• There have been Pastors and one Bible College president who were having multiple affairs at once. In one church the pastor had fathered many Children within the congregation. When caught, he refused to repent and went off to start a new work. Some of the husbands whose wives he’d impregnated went with him as loyal supporters.
• A friend’s church split because the pastor caught someone in leadership molesting children and turned him over to the police. “We should forgive and forget!” half the congregation said.
• I witnessed a Bible College president and finance minister spend years running cons on donors, stealing from the school’s coffers. Then they set up an innocent man to take the fall when they knew audits were coming.
• A husband ruthlessly beat his wife serially for failing to “keep house according to his specifications.”
• A father left our church when not allowed to step into leadership… only to discover that he, a heavy illegal drug user it turned out, was molesting his prepubescent daughter.
• A kid in my youth group stabbed his friend to death and another sexually molested his sister with his father.
• I’ve had wives in my church bully and blackmail their husbands into watching them have sex with other men.
• I’ve seen multiple mother’s and fathers in my circle denounce Christ because Scripture condemns their homosexual children, and others because the church refused to honor their kid’s their genderbending determinations.

Church Hurt?

Okay, so who wants to talk to me about being “Church Hurt” and use it as an excuse for leaving the church? If anyone has a right to the claim, it’s me.

Oddly enough, many of these very same people claim to be “church hurt.” How dare churches expect them to live out Biblical faith? They want to call themselves Christian but deny historic and biblical Christian teaching, ethics, and morals first to last.

But you won’t hear ME making that excuse.

The church is people, and wherever people collect into a group there will be problems. We carry trouble with us in our corrupt hearts.

Even the early church, fresh from the resurrected presence of Jesus had troubles to iron out… members struck dead by God… false shepherds… cult leader wanna-bees… betraying friends… Christ deniers… doctrinal battles.

I Love the Church and Christians

Christians are the best people I’ve ever met. They are not perfect, but the mechanisms for creating a beautiful world stand accessible before them and most incorporate these into their lives—Holy Word, Holy Spirit conviction, repentance, confession, striving for sanctification, finding mercy and grace and trying to be conduits of the same.

I love the Church. I’ve found brotherhood in minutes on foreign soil on no other basis than a shared commitment to Jesus Christ and His Holy Word.

May the Lord never let me forget the privilege of being a part of the building of His kingdom among fallen men. And don’t you forget it either.

~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD

1. The “inner-healing movement” (also called healing of memories or healing the inner child) emerged in the 1970s–80s, heavily influenced by Agnes Sanford, Ruth Carter Stapleton, and later ministries like Theophostic Prayer, Sozo, and Elijah House. It sought to combine psychological therapy and spiritual deliverance, teaching that many sins, fears, or dysfunctions arise from unhealed emotional wounds from childhood. Practitioners guided believers to “invite Jesus into the memory” to bring healing or revelation. To say that this produced downright demonic teachings and experiences would be to underplay it. ↩︎
2. The Shepherding Movement grew out of the charismatic renewal, especially in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, led by five influential teachers often called the “Fort Lauderdale Five” — Derek Prince, Don Basham, Bob Mumford, Charles Simpson, and Ern Baxter. They emphasized discipleship, submission, and spiritual authority, arguing that Christians needed personal “shepherds” to provide accountability and guidance in every area of life. Many of those in this movement were also heavily influenced by Watchman Nee, Witness Lee, and Gene Edwards. What began as a sincere attempt to curb spiritual chaos in the charismatic movement—protecting believers from emotionalism and moral failure—quickly turned authoritarian… to say the least. In many groups, members were told they couldn’t make major decisions (jobs, marriage, moves, buying things, having marital relations, etc.) without their shepherd’s approval. This led to spiritual abuse, control, and dependency, and to division in churches and ministries worldwide. My home church was torn apart by this. I always had a personal fondness for Don Basham and Bob Mumford, both of whom quickly repented in the face of abuses, but the horrendous behaviors and abuse that I witnessed firsthand, most specifically from those who were from these men’s disciples over their own disciples down to the third and fourth generations (Yes, like a pyramid scheme) were unhinged. I could tell you stories let me tell you. ↩︎
3. This is New Think neo-paganism rewritten by devious heretics as biblical teaching, deceiving many good people. ↩︎
4. I say “them” and not “us” because we were not some organized resistance, just students trying to get training for ministry. Many only became friends because they found sanity in people they discovered felt the same way. ↩︎