This church was so chaotic that it was anything goes. I remember asking the church secretary if they believed in the rapture of the church and all she told me was that they believed in the return of Christ, but that they believed just a little differently. I personally didn’t know enough of the bible to challenge anything I was being taught and I naively believed anything they said. It all sounded too good to question; the words, the prophecies, the teachings of taking over the world. We held all the power, we spoke it, we prophesied it, we commanded it, we prayed it, we were little gods and we believed it….

My world came crashing down in 2009. Everything that I thought I believed was unraveling at the seams. I started questioning everything after my pastor's own “Bishop” grabbed me one night after he had just got done preaching and kissed me. He grabbed me by the back of my neck and kissed me on the lips, I was mortified. As if I wasn’t already disgusted by the sex act that he emulated from the pulpit of him and his wife, this was the cherry on the cake for me. I was already questioning everything I had been taught due to the lack of evidence or fruit thereof.

I was sick of the words, sick of the titles, sick of the abuse and sick of the lies coming from that pulpit. I eventually questioned the pastor about him “covering” other ministries led by homosexual pastors and was told that in no way shape or form that any of them were homosexuals. Three years later after I left, I found out that the female pastors in question had run off to be married. Thankfully, I knew at the time I questioned him that he was lying and that most of the other church leaders that he affiliated himself with were homosexual as well as him.

I left that church in fear. I was taught by them that you don’t question those in leadership or “touch God’s anointed.” I was also “without a covering” which was a big no-no since I was now left wide open for the devil to wipe me out. Covenant was stressed and a main focus within this circle. My pastor who was promoted to Apostle, then Bishop, had linked up with a man named Bishop David Huskins who was the head of the ICCC. Huskins “father in the Lord” (all NAR terms and teachings), was the famous Dominionist Earl Paulk. Earl Paulk was a huge promoter of Dominionism and was involved in a sex scandal near the time of his death.

David Huskins was a perpetrator of Paulk’s teachings and passed them on to my pastor. Huskins wrote two books on covenant and even hinted at David and Jonathon’s relationship in the bible as possibly being homosexual. I remember the last time I saw David Huskins, he seemed so desperate, lost and depressed. My heart went out to him but I didn’t know what to say to him. In the end, even he didn’t believe what he was teaching or writing because the rotten fruit of it took his life as he put a gun to his head. I watched this teaching destroy him and many others from my church.

I remember the struggle I went through when deciding to leave the church. I literally thought my life was over. Who’s going to cover me? Who’s going to be my spiritual father? I questioned my covenant with the church and the people. Could I give up my titles, my positions and my key to the church? I would be giving up all of my prestige and control.

It was a struggle between my flesh and what I knew I had to do. I finally knew that if I wanted to live, I had to leave. I had become so spiritually, emotionally and physically sick that I didn’t know what I believed anymore. I went home that day and didn’t leave my couch for a year. I had already been depressed and confused the entire time I was at that church, but it became worse when I left because of fear.

I literally had a nervous breakdown. I cried all the time and would lie in a ball at night begging God to take my life. I was so confused and depressed that I wanted to die. My body vibrated for almost 2 years and I would have the worst migraines. I was so used to someone prophesying to me and relying on those words that I didn’t know how to live without them. I was no longer hearing God, He was silent. I spent the next few years digging into what I had been taught. I prayed and asked the Lord to show me the truth.

The first thing I did was unfriend every minister that I was friends with on Facebook. I didn’t want to hear what any of them were saying especially since they were all saying something different and proclaiming it to be from God. The next thing I did was start reading my Bible. I know it’s easy to say that if I would have done that from the beginning, I wouldn’t be in this mess, but that’s not true. I was literally saved into this mess and I could twist the scriptures with the best of them and believe it.

I was taught to spiritualize every scripture and look for the real (hidden) meaning behind it. Scriptures were never put into context or taken for face value. The next thing I did was to start looking up all of the catch phrases and buzz words that I had been hearing for 15 years. This opened up a whole new world for me.

Everything I had been taught was wrong, and I mean EVERYTHING! I couldn’t believe that I had been so deceived. I suddenly found myself in a whole new world of knowledge and information. I studied my old teachings every chance that I got and eventually learned the truth about it all. The Lord literally led me in steps out of that mess.

After learning and studying about what I was under, I ran across John MacArthur’s “Strange Fire Conference” on YouTube and it literally set me free from all of it. I started listening to John’s teaching and then ultimately ran across Chris Rosebrough’s “Pirate Christian Radio.” I have such a deep appreciation for Chris and how he not only exposes these false teachers, but how he explains what the scripture really means in its proper context. I still listen to every broadcast due to the fact of me deprogramming 20 years of bad theology and out right heresy.

One of my favorite scriptures is found in John 8:30 "As Jesus spoke these things, many believed in Him. So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, 'If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'” I have experienced a freedom in the word that I looked for my entire Christian life but could never find.

I have become a passionate Berean of the Word and I’m no longer chasing winds of doctrines, dreams, visions and the supernatural. Now, I am content in my heart about what I believe and why I believe it. I searched the scriptures for truth and when I firmly knew what I believed, I went in search for a church that taught the same. I now attend a church where the real word of God is taught, where people pursue God’s righteousness and where Jesus is the focus from the beginning to the end.

God is back on the throne in my heart where man once placed himself and I have never been more content and firm in what I believe. I praise God everyday for leaders who rightly divide the word of God so that people like me could be set free and walk in freedom. Doctrine is EVERYTHING!

One more story from this site…

This is Joshua's story in his own words:

I moved to Dallas, TX in 2001 to work for a new Assemblies of God church in Deep Ellum. There was another fellowship that met a couple blocks away. I had become familiar with some of their people as I was running a coffee shop ministry.

I met a girl who was part of that ministry who is now my wife. During our courtship, I was invited to play on their worship team, and eventually became the worship leader. The leadership was really into Heidi Baker, Bill Johnson, and Kansas City IHOP. The pastor had been to the Toronto laughing revival and was convinced of apostolic gifts being for all believers.

There were lots of "words of knowledge" and prophesying going on. I didn't think much of it at the time. But it was definitely all driven by feelings and emotions. I never got too deep into it, but it did open the door for other false teachings such as emergent types of doctrines to go unchecked with me.

There was no solid foundation or assurance of salvation. My feelings always dictated whether or not I was "close to God". They were really big on preaching about the relationship between us and the Holy Spirit. They would teach that it is a two-way communication, just like in a marriage. So every impression or weird thought we got was probably God speaking to us, however we wanted to interpret it.

We would go out on the streets and set up a dream interpretation booth, to get people saved, I guess. Or just to impress them with our vague cold readings. We would have classes on how to interpret dreams. Many of the people in the church would claim to see angels quite often.

My wife and I were asked to step down from the worship team for no real reason. I wasn't that good, so it was no skin off my back. But we had just had our first child, and decided to move back to Oklahoma. Over the past few years, after being exposed to Chris Rosebrough's podcasts and developing a proper hermeneutic in studying Scripture, all these false teachings from the past have been disseminated, thankfully.

Since we left, we had stayed in contact with the people there. They have become more indoctrinated by the NAR than even before. They make pilgrimages to Bethel, Redding. I've listened to their sermons, which totally downplay the sufficiency of Scripture. They now have many "inner healing" seminars which are so steeped in mysticism, it's ridiculous.

I've angered a few friends from there by posting articles on Facebook exposing Bill Johnson and Bethel Church in Redding, California. I've tried to engage them in debate, but they usually drop out and can't seem to defend their position. Even if they would, it would go endlessly in circles, since Scripture is not their final authority.

It's pretty shocking how anyone can stay involved with these ministries, as they are such a shallow facade, always looking to the new thing that's about to happen, but never comes to fruition. I do believe there is some good fruit in this fellowship, but it is in spite of what is taught and confessed, not because of it.