Among those who are born into the family of God—that is real Christians-- there are many different views on many subjects. I refer specifically to those differing views that amount to preference, not those that are doctrinally heretical or ambiguous regarding the basic tenets of the Christian faith. In this book, by contrast, I have chosen to target the genre of teaching known as "Deeper Life" theology as taught by Watchman Nee, T. Austin-Sparks, Andrew Murray, Keswick writers such as Jesse Penn-Lewis and Hannah Whitehall-Smith, and others. What has been called Christian Mysticism could be included under the Deeper Life umbrella, if only for the purposes of this short book. The mystics that influenced me were Fenelon, Madam Guyon and Thomas a Kempis.

These authors are in no way teaching anything that is patently false or heretical. In fact, many of the things they have to say are blessed truths with regard to Christ’s finished work and the nature of the Church, which is His Body. There is much to be gleaned from these authors. However, it has been both my experience and that of many others, that with little prompting these Deeper Life ideas lend themselves to a subtle shifting of the focus of one’s faith, away from the person of Christ and all that He is, downward to ourselves and our churches, with all of their shortcomings. Then, after seeing our great lack, they prompt us to climb up to glory by some process, or by getting into a more correct church. I have come to refer to this as Church-centered Christianity. I submit that Christianity should be Christ-centered, with Him having the preeminent place in everything. Furthermore, when this is the case, all other problems will work themselves out under the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit and our churches will be vibrant and empowered, even if they are not quite patterned just the way some author insists.

Deeper Life proponents all have one thing in common. At the most basic level, they subscribe to the idea that most Christians are shallow and are only, "scratching the surface" of all that God has in store for them. Given this, from the beginning of a believer’s voyage into the Deeper Life, there is a danger of being overcome with pride and the blindness it brings. As for myself, this subtle pride caused me to do some very strange things, while not understanding just how extreme and incorrect my behavior had become. All the while, I thought that it was just another level in the Deeper Life.

While not to be utterly rejected, Deeper Life ideas can at times be likened to Infant Formula. During infancy, there may be instances where supplementing with formula is necessary, but nothing is as good as mother’s milk. In the same way, babes in Christ must be nourished on the sincere milk of the Word and only supplemented on rare occasions with the formula of men’s ideas about the Word. One might ask the question, "How is preaching any different from ‘men’s ideas about the Word?" I would answer that question by stating simply that the Bible is all about Christ, first and foremost. Any preaching or writing that discounts, confuses, neglects or forgets Jesus Christ and His finished work is at best in need of clarification. All to often, preaching that focuses on a specific experience in the Christian life, or a particular aspect of the Church, is part and parcel of the stuff from which cults are born. For examples, I cite the Local Church of Witness Lee and the Oneness Pentecostal movement.

The former was spawned from Watchman Nee’s Little Flock movement in China, which emphasized Deeper Life spirituality and more correct Church pattern and practice. Witness Lee went a few steps further in expounding on the Body of Christ and crossed the line into rank heresy, essentially claiming that the true Church, Lee’s church to be specific, is the fourth person of the Trinity! The Oneness Pentecostals, due to their over emphasis on the Holy Spirit, subjective experience and holy living, left themselves so weak in sound doctrine that they readily adopted the heresy of Modalism, denying the Trinity and thus qualifying as a Christian cult. Both groups mentioned, and many others like them, prey on young, zealous, immature believers. They begin by assuming that certain Deeper Life ideas are correct, and then go a few steps further, using simplistic logic and faulty exegesis, to arrive at what seem to be reasonable conclusions. Unfortunately, these "doctrinal truths" are often heretical, and only seem logical to those who buy into a few false precepts and build upon their unstable foundation. Perhaps many of these victims could be spared if they were exposed to sound, Christ centered teaching early on in their Christian lives. If at all possible, that is my goal with this book.

I am quite aware that many of these Deeper Life ideas are touted as "meat" for the mature believer. To counter this claim, I submit that they are more like high-protein powders that are used by weightlifters. While they may play a significant role as supplements to a healthy diet, they are definitely unhealthy as a permanent substitute to real food, and as such need to be used sparingly. For example, if a young believer was to suffer crippling fear when sharing his faith with others, he might benefit from reading, Catching Men, a short booklet written by Watchman Nee, one of the fathers of the Deeper Life movement. While this little pamphlet has a few ideas about salvation that some might disagree with, it just might encourage our fearful young believer to be bolder in sharing his faith with others. However, our example would not benefit, in my opinion, by studying this book in detail, and concluding that, "This is the only way to preach the Gospel." Unfortunately, that is exactly what many Deeper Life proponents do, although they may not use Nee’s method, but some other.

In the pages that follow, I am in no way promoting the idea that ignorance is bliss with regard to Church truth, The Cross, Overcoming Life, Death to Self, or any other Deeper Life ideas. I am reminding people to focus on Jesus and His Character, Love, Work, Mercy, Grace, and forgiveness. If you have The Son, you have The Life. He is The Way, The Truth and The Life. On the other hand, even if I were to have all knowledge and insight into all mysteries, but have not Love, I am nothing.

Many churches that are suffering as a result of over emphasis of one or more of these ideas defend themselves by claiming that, "Every church has problems and ours is no exception." This is nothing more than self-justification. Yes, everywhere people go, including church meetings, problems are sure to follow. Yet, I submit that there are different categories of problems. Galatia’s trouble was different than Corinth’s, with a different solution to each. Most of the Deeper Life ideas, if taken to the extreme, result in what has been called The Galatian Heresy, which is nothing more than teaching that we need Christ, and something else. This "something else" is often following rules or needing to yield or appropriate some blessing or other. Sooner or later, our thoughts will become increasingly fixated on the "something else" and how we are progressing and less upon Jesus. This essentially becomes a doctrine that teaches a beginning in the Spirit, but being made perfect only after making the right choices and really meaning it.

Let no one say that I advocate the idea that believers do not need to be involved in corporate fellowship. Indeed, the more I fall in love with Jesus, the more I love being around His people. The desire for fellowship is proof of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work, not a pre-requisite to it. Again, let no one accuse me of promoting the idea that there is no depth or growth in the Christian life past initial salvation. We will be growing in Christ for all eternity! This will be only because we see Him as He is, not because we have dissected some aspect of our salvation and emphasized it until, thinking we understand it we set out to really live it. What this book is about is keeping the focus on Him, The Alpha and Omega, The Creator of all things, The God of Holiness, Mercy and Love. In the following pages, I shall relate to you some of the significant events in my own voyage into the Deeper Life. The emphasis I wish to make is on the need for correct navigation, not on debunking the proponents of Deeper Life.

This book is for all those voyagers, who set sail into the Deeper Life, hoping to find more power and holiness, more correct churches and more joy and peace than they could get in a "normal" church, amongst normal Christians. It is also for those who, some years into the voyage, find that their provisions are running low and their crew is discouraged. May my story help lead you to find rest for your souls.

Brent T., December 4, 2001

The more time that passes since Jesus first saved me, the more convinced I become that once God’s Grace touches a person’s heart, they are destined for salvation and a relationship with God. While I am not a five-point Calvinist, I do believe that they have it right when they talk about The Perseverance of The Saints.

A Genuine Believer

An earnest young man approached me after class one day. He looked me right in the eye and asked, "Are you a Christian?" It was the summer of 1983 and I was 20 years old, a full time student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. I was in excellent physical condition, surfing at least daily and practicing martial arts several times per week. When not at play I was riding my bike to and from class. Things were going well in my life by any secular measure; however, I was not right with God. Because of this, although I was happy, deep in my heart I knew that this was a fleeting stage in my life, much like a warm summer day, because even in my state of relative spiritual darkness, I knew that God and I had some unfinished business.

Years before I had accepted Jesus Christ as my savior on at least two occasions. The first one was at a summer camp on Catalina Island when I was 12 years old. The second time was at a Saturday night concert at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, when I was a freshman in high school. I remember being quite sincere on both of these occasions, but neither of them seemed to make any perceptible long-term difference in my life. I changed a few things, for a few weeks and then slowly slipped back into my old routine, which by now included a steady girlfriend and moderate recreational drug use, especially when the Grateful Dead were in California.

The question that this young man had just asked me was quite perplexing. I really did believe in God, and did believe that Jesus was the only way to salvation, but nothing in my life or daily choices confirmed that I had ever really believed. After brief reflection I answered him by saying that I was indeed a Christian. He got rather excited at this point and shared some thoughts and ideas with me about God and the Bible. I was rather impressed, because he immediately pulled out a well-worn Bible and turned quickly to passages all over the Old Testament. Up until now I had only thought pastors were able to do this. This young man, named Jeff, then said something that is burned into my memory to this very day. He said, "And on Sunday we worship The Lord!" Everyone I had ever met who invited me to church usually said that the service starts at ten, or something to the effect that Sunday school is at nine, and afterwards we all go into the sanctuary. No one before had ever demonstrated such seriousness and genuine excitement over worship. Jeff was different, and a little peculiar. He was unlike any other Christian I had ever met.

The next week, Jeff invited me out to his Bible study, that Wednesday night at seven thirty. I promised that I would attend, and really felt that God was tugging at my heart to once more return to Him. Back at my apartment, my housemates had plans to get high and watch The Omen. I viewed the situation as one that entailed a clear choice between darkness and light, and being a man of my word I chose to attend the Bible study.

That night the chapter was Acts 7, and I don’t remember anything about the message, except that the person who taught turned to even more verses than Jeff, and knew his Bible better than anyone I had ever encountered. I was truly impressed. These Christians seemed a good deal more serious than the few believers that I was in contact with at the time. At this Bible study, I prayed to God, recommitting my life to Him, for at least the third time in the last eight years. But something was very different; I didn’t feel anything at all, no warmth, no love for God, only a feeling that my prayer never went anywhere and that God did not hear it.

The leader assured me that God always hears a prayer of faith, even if it is apart from feelings and that He would answer it. And answer it He did. I didn’t find out until around 15 years later how God answered me that evening, but it is undeniable that He heard my prayer.

I went to the Bible study several more times, because Jeff invited me weekly. He would invite me over to his house for dinner on Bible study night and then see to it that I attended, in a nice sort of way. I was starting to clean up my act with regard to parties and the like. I was surprised, because I hadn’t felt any "fire" after my prayer weeks earlier, yet God did seem to be doing something in my life. Jeff explained to me that most Churches preach salvation but then stop short and do not provide any sort of discipleship following salvation. "People need to learn to walk with The Lord," he explained, and his church was the sort that emphasized real "spiritual life," not just "fire insurance," like so many others. He quoted 1 Corinthians 3, and said that plenty of Christians get saved, but then barely make it into heaven and end up smelling like fire. This wasn’t what God wanted; He wanted us to live overcoming lives. This sounded good to me, and it made a lot of sense, because no other church had ever mentioned anything about teaching me to walk with the Lord and overcome, and sure enough, I had never really done so.

I thanked God, along with Jeff and the others, that there were still a few churches around that were more than just social clubs, churches that had serious members who really cared about spiritual things. This seemed like the sort of church that I might like.

I immediately recognized an analogy from the world of Karate, with which I was very familiar. There are many Karate classes that teach a watered down version of the art that is designed for exercise and public consumption. The important thing in these compromised schools is keeping a lot of members paying monthly dues. Make it easy, give frequent promotions, keep it safe and fun and there will be many little kids whose parents write checks every month. The fact that these kids don’t really learn how to fight is not the important thing. The financial health of the instructor is the bottom line.

On the other hand, the karate school that I belonged to had no more than a dozen members. We would sweat. We would really hit, very hard. Our form and discipline was traditional and proper. We were dangerous, and we were also pure and serious. Our black belts were real black belts and could really fight. Only a very few people, who were serious about Karate would be interested in such a school. I took pride in the fact that I was in a genuine, traditional martial art.

This new church was the same way. There were only a dozen or so members, and all of them were incredibly serious about walking with Christ. They were genuine believers, much more right-on than the other sort, who had failed to teach me how to walk with God in the past. The reader may be thinking that I was an arrogant, proud sort of person, and I definitely was in many ways. However, because this superior spiritual attitude was clearly taught and projected from the pulpit of this church, everything fit like a glove and at the time many of us were not even aware of this subtle spirit of pride.

Meanwhile, Jeff seemingly took a real liking to me, and I found myself going to the Bible study every week. In addition, I had begun a weekly discipleship meeting with Jeff. My friends noticed a change almost immediately and gave me a small amount of grief and even a little respect. The first warning came when my good friend David came to visit. He was a strong Christian, and we had much in common and were pretty close. He was concerned with my spiritual state, but never really confronted me about it the way Jeff did.

After his first visit to the Bible study, his comment was, "How can you stand this? These people are so phony! They act so spiritual but they seem so fake!" I was hurt. Yes, many of the people were strange. But that’s OK, isn’t it? After all, doesn’t the Bible say that not many wise and noble will follow Christ? These people certainly didn’t seem wise and noble, but they were definitely following Christ. What could possibly be wrong?

David and I had many discussions over the ensuing weeks about these matters. Our relationship, which had been quite close when I was not walking with Christ, was now strained. Eventually, we made peace, mainly because he reasoned that since I was cleaning up my act, and reading the Bible, my new church couldn’t be all that bad. Although our friendship would never be what it was, we remained somewhat close.

I never stopped to ask myself, if the same God was working in my life and in David’s, why was it that we were having less in common than before? This wonderful new church made a big point of talking about unity. They were especially careful to illustrate how most other Christians were not keeping the unity of The Spirit, because they were divided into different denominations and camps. Armed with the new teaching in which I was immersed, I understood that David’s reluctance was normal, especially for a "worldly" Christian. This was the first warning that something was wrong, but I didn’t notice it until 15 years later.

On my part, I had concluded that our relationship was strained because David wasn’t quite as serious a Christian as I had once thought. My new friends could blow him away when it came to looking up verses to explain things. David prayed simple prayers and didn’t even kneel! In contrast, Jeff always prayed very intelligently, and always knelt in God’s presence. "No," I reasoned, "David is uneasy with the idea of total commitment. He, like so many of God’s people, is content with being saved and giving God eighty percent. Jesus is Savior to him, but not really lord," or so I thought. David definitely had uneasiness when it came to commitment, but it was the group that made him uneasy. I merely interpreted this as the same as not being committed to God.

On the other hand, here were some people to whom Jesus was both Lord and Savior, and it really showed. These people got up early in the morning and read their Bibles, even before they went surfing! Most of them were so content in the Lord that they didn’t have time to surf anymore and didn’t even miss it. I, on the other hand, was worried that Heaven would be boring if there was no surf there. I was actually disturbed when I was told that there was no ocean in the new earth, and that there was a crystal sea in Heaven. At this point in my life, I really couldn’t imagine spending eternity somewhere without surf.

Unlike me, when something good happened to Assembly members, they gave thanks and praise to God out loud instead of saying, "Cool!" or some worldly expression. Mind you, at this time I considered myself to be a poor excuse for a believer, but in contrast, the new friends that God had brought into my life were the genuine articles.

My conviction about the spiritual superiority of my new friends was confirmed one Friday night when David and I met with Tim, a very godly man about 10 years older than we were. I wasn’t sure exactly who Tim was, but I had heard that his father was a great Bible scholar and had something to do with founding a very large worldwide ministry of which my little Bible study was a part.

David was a five point Calvinist. This always rubbed me the wrong way. The idea that God had predestined some to be saved and others to go to hell really didn’t sit well with me. David and I had many discussions about this. He did show me many verses in the Bible that seemed to back up what he was saying, but I was confused, so I asked Jeff about it. Jeff didn’t know much about Calvinism, except that it was wrong. However, he was familiar with what he believed and showed me some verses that seemed to say that anyone who called on God could be saved, and that God does not desire that anyone go to hell. However, he was not able to explain the verses that talked about predestination to my satisfaction so Jeff suggested I talk with Tim, who was coming up the next week. Jeff also made frequent, subtle, oblique suggestions that I would be wise to stay away from Calvinism and those that promoted it. "These kinds of people have flat tires," he explained, "They always say the same things and every time you talk to them all you hear is wump, wump, the flat just keeps coming around." Ah, yes. That was it. Many Christians get hung up on some side issue; meanwhile they never really seem to get on with the Lord. I was learning fast.

The discussion with Tim went splendidly. He was an absolute master of the Bible and could turn to any number of verses that articulated exactly what he wanted to say. He could have an argument with someone and say very few words, instead using the scriptures to make all of his points. "Ah," I said to myself, "This is what it means when it says that the Word is the sword of the Spirit. I have never met anyone who knows how to handle the Word like this!"

Tim made mincemeat out of David, and I was actually astonished that David did not quit his church right there in the restaurant and join up with the genuine believers. Surely he must have been humbled and awed with how much Tim knew about the Bible. Especially impressive was how Tim wrapped up the age long debate of Calvinism vs. Arminianism in just minutes. The coup de grace was when Tim explained that he used to be a Calvinist, until God taught him more clearly. Without a doubt, I concluded, Tim’s position was Biblical and David’s was a misguided "mainstream" position. I was disappointed when David only expressed sorrow, and apologized for not being able to defend his position adequately. When he didn’t come over to the correct biblical side, my esteem for him went down. However, my esteem for Tim, and this wonderful little church went way up.

In this way I became what I thought was a Genuine Believer. Yes, I was thankful to God for all those other believers who were not going to hell because they had fire insurance, but I was also a little peeved that they didn’t have the courage to preach the pure, unadulterated truth from their pulpits. No wonder my life had never changed so radically before, when I went to those mainstream churches! I thanked God that He was doing something new in my life; I was committed.

Although in my mind I was totally following God for the first time in my life, what was actually happening can be likened to the first few days of an offshore voyage. If one’s intended destination lies several thousand miles away, it is impossible to get too far off course after only 2 or 3 days of sailing. To be sure, I was totally excited about serving God, and delighted with the new church with which I had become involved. There were many good things happening in my life. However, this was not to continue. The problems came when, as the years passed, I found myself, due to faulty navigation, a hapless sailor. Not only was I going off course, but also I began to sail in dangerous waters, with unforeseen reefs and hazards. However, at the point of my life described above, things were still bright and sunny.

Bewitched!

About two months later, I went home at the quarter break and immediately lost some of my holiness when I saw my girlfriend. Just when it was looking like I was going to commit serious sin, I got a letter in the mail from Jeff. This totally floored me, because I almost never write letters, especially when I will only be gone for 10 days, yet he seemed to care enough about me to write me a note. The letter was peppered with verses and strong encouragements to remain in the Lord and not to backslide into old habits while away from the group on break.

Prior to going home for the break, Jeff had expressed some mild discomfort at my decision to visit my parents and tried to talk me into staying back in San Luis. I thought nothing of his advice, however, and went home because I was going to get a new car, and I wanted to do laundry, see my parents and see my girlfriend. Jeff’s letter was great and gave me fresh strength to put off any sin for at least a few more days. It also caused me to realize that God was being so good to me that I couldn’t just sin anymore, now I would be accountable to Him, through his people, like Jeff. I did not want to let Jeff down and very much appreciated his letter.

In hindsight, I should have noticed that I essentially had a double life at this point. When I was at school, and immersed in the group, I was very serious about holiness. But when I went home, I was weak in moral areas. This should not have been. If God was really working in my life, I should have had the same conviction regardless of geography. However, I didn’t notice this, I just felt guilty and resolved to not let God down. I also realized that if I was going to grow spiritually, I really needed this new church and the dear people that God had given to help me. I didn’t notice that even at this early stage I believed that I needed Jesus and the group. A major theme of preaching was that, "Saints, we need each other! God doesn’t want lone ranger Christians, we need fellowship." This statement, taken at face value, is true. However, what was meant by "fellowship," was not quite right. What we meant was not that we needed to be involved with fellow believers, but that we needed to have fellowship at our Assembly, and to be accountable to its leaders. This was the beginning of a subtle form of deception that was to put me off course in my Christian life for the next 15 years. Not until much later would I learn the truth and begin to be delivered.

Until this time I had only attended the Wednesday night Bible study, the campus Bible study on Friday and rarely Sunday morning worship. I really didn’t want to attend the prayer meeting on Tuesday or the Sunday afternoon meeting, let alone the tape meeting on Saturday morning. To be perfectly honest, I would have rather been surfing or even sleeping. However, I knew that all the others went to these meetings and that someday I would be expected to as well. I suspected that attending these additional meetings would accelerate my spiritual progress, and that I would someday have to just swallow the pill and attend, because they were God’s meetings, which were all important. We would often hear messages that exhorted us to this end: "Seriously, if someone has the opportunity of being in God’s presence, and they opt out for some worldly diversion, what sort of Christian are they?" Because I was "opting for diversion," this sort of teaching made me feel guilty that I didn’t really have as much heart for God as I should have had.

For the first two months of my involvement I never knew what the name of the church was. The Bible study was simply called, "Community Bible Study." This wasn’t really its name; it was more of a description of what it was, a Bible study in a college community. The church also did not have a name. We were careful to explain that it was not a church, but part of The Church, which included all Christians. If we were to call our church by a name, like everyone else, we would insult the Spirit of God, because His church already had a name, The Body of Christ. How dare we add to this, like everyone else, and flavor it with some human, earthly idea! Furthermore, the actual Greek word used to describe the church in the Bible is the word Ecclesia, which means, "Called out gathering." This was best translated with the word "Assembly," not church, because in today’s confused evangelical environment the word "church" is often misunderstood to mean a building. So we called ourselves Christians, and our group The Assembly. We did not mean that we alone were The Church, but only part of the One Body of Christ, locally expressed. We referred to ourselves as The Assembly, but we understood that we were only an assembly. The Assembly was not our name, but who we were. Other churches were, in a technical sense, assemblies as well, but we never referred to them as such. We called them, "The church down the street, denominational groups, or churchianity."

I will never forget the first time I went to a worship meeting. I walked into a small conference room at a local motel and immediately noticed that everyone was wearing a suit and tie or long formal dress. I was wearing jeans and a polo shirt and felt a little uncomfortable. It was 9:20 and the service didn’t start until 9:30, but everyone was very quiet, reading their Bibles or praying silently. I found myself looking around the room, in awe of the sight of 12 or so young men and women so dedicated to God.

Then the strangest thing happened. At about 9:25, all of the women took out what looked like white lace doilies, and put them on their heads. Almost immediately, someone began singing and soon everyone joined in. I had never heard the song before but recognized that it was an old style hymn. Jeff rose and walked to the front of the room and opened his Bible and began to speak. Then, after he prayed, he asked us to stand and sing hymn number 28. "Hail thou once despised Jesus…" everyone stood and sang loudly, like they really meant it. There was no musical accompaniment so we sang a cappela. After a song or two someone would pray a very serious prayer, thanking God. Many of the people used a sort of King James English, addressing God as Thee, and referring to the members of The Assembly as "Thy people." I was shocked when I found out that this was all spontaneous and free flowing.

The Holy Spirit seemingly continued to direct the worship for exactly one hour. I was speechless. I had never seen people so focused on worshipping God. Never had I known people who could pray out loud, with such skill and eloquence. They were so full of worship that sometimes two or three would pray at the same time and they would have to stop and figure out who would go first. No waiting around here, these people were ready to praise God, right now! Looking back, I now understand that I really didn’t see nearly as much of Christ as I did the seriousness of the members.

Following the worship time was communion. We passed around one wine glass and I remember feeling a little strange drinking out the same cup as everyone else, but I was so awed by what had taken place in the previous hour that I just did what everyone else did, and took a sip. After communion, three of the brothers gave short Bible lectures.

When it was all over, at noon, I had lots of questions. "What are the doilies on the girls’ heads?" I asked Jeff. He showed me how, in 1 Corinthians 11, the Bible taught that women should pray with their heads covered. Turning to Ephesians 3, he explained that this was because the assembly was engaged in teaching angels!

"Wow! You mean that angels are watching us right now and we are teaching them?"

"Yes, that’s what the Bible teaches." He proceeded to string together a few more verses that proved his point. Everything seemed to confirm exactly what I witnessed just minutes before and I felt like I had just read passages that no one else had ever read, let alone practiced.

"Why don’t other churches do this?" He shrugged and indicated that most other churches are not following the Word of God, but some tradition or other.

"Most Christians don’t even know the Bible says this," he added.

I was astonished. I had walked into a group, one of the few groups, which actually read and followed the Bible. God was amazing!

In the ensuing weeks I was to be taught, mostly by inference and suggestion, that almost everything in the modern Christian world was shallow and not fully Biblical. There was a deeper spiritual realm out there, for anyone who had the humility to be a plain reader of the Bible and then to put it in practice. Yes, those other Christians were too proud to just take God at His Word. I remember praying something to the effect of, "Thank you God, for the humility of this small group, who are so humble they are willing to do things Thy way, in spite of what everyone else is doing."

The string of revelations was to continue and I was to become completely immersed in the group, literally exchanging my views for God’s on everything. I learned that the "Normal Christian Life" was an overcoming life, full of power, exactly like the Apostle Paul. All those many other believers were abnormal, essentially stunted in their growth, but God still loved them, even though they were not doing what He wanted. He loved them, but there was something special waiting for the faithful, namely us. God wanted maturity, not barely saved sinners.

I learned that pursuing God was the only thing that really mattered in life. School, career, marriage, family, recreation and anything else were at best necessary to live, but for the most part only distracted us from The Upward Call of God in Christ Jesus. Closely linked to this calling was The Assembly, as they were the only like-minded brethren around, who were companions of the Heavenly Calling, which is the term we used to describe a serious commitment to Christ, as taught by our leaders. The other churches in our area were not serious enough to qualify as valid places of fellowship, at least in our minds.

I also learned that Jesus had much to say about how friends and family would inevitably persecute true believers. "The world loves its own, but hates us because we are not of this world." This indeed came true; my family was very alarmed as was my girlfriend’s; they "persecuted" us. As you might imagine, since I was forewarned that this very thing would happen, it only served to reinforce in my thinking that God was in control and that I was right where God wanted me.

Everything came together when I started learning about The Cross of Christ. Usually, it was in the context of how very few churches preach The Cross anymore. It is not popular to the natural man (most other Christians), because The Cross is where we die and Christ lives in us. I soon learned that at The Cross, I died with Christ, was buried with Him, and furthermore rose with Him in victory! Wow! Although this was all true, it needed to be made real in my life. There was an amazing, huge spiritual life out there that was deep, powerful and just waiting for me.

What was the secret to The Cross? Simple, I was told, be willing to die to yourself, and all that you are hanging on to and reckon by faith that you are dead indeed to sin and alive to God. God wanted my whole life, He would not settle for less. If I did this, my life would be transformed! This was puzzling to me at first, because I had always thought that Jesus died in my place so that I could live, but now I understood that He died, so that I might die, and only after I really resigned myself to die to self and sin could I live. Somehow, until now, I had missed this crucial middle step. Oh how I wished this had been taught to me when I first got saved! All these years I had believed a watered down, mass-consumption gospel, no wonder I never walked with God before meeting The Saints.

This concept was simple, but the practice of it was difficult because I didn’t know just how much self-preservation I had. Many times I thought I was totally committed, only to learn that it was just my wicked and deceitful self, pretending to be committed, but all the while trying to preserve the natural man, who will hang on to life at all costs. The way of The Cross was a slippery way, because it was so hard to really be totally serious. The only way I could be delivered was to have my eyes opened to my true condition. To accomplish this, God almost always employed others, specifically those who were leading and discipling in The Assembly. I became familiar with the Proverb that says, "As iron sharpens iron, so does a man the countenance of his friend."

Soon, God began to faithfully "sharpen" me, mainly by using Jeff and others to "cross my will," in order to show me areas in my life where I was not fully dead to self and yielded to Him. Then, if I would repent, and really mean it, I would get victory in that area and move on to the next, or so the theory went. It became a daily thing to go to the cross and die, and pray that God would cleanse and fill me. This new teaching of The Cross was my passport into the Deeper Life. Initial salvation, or "mere salvation" as it was taught, became almost a trifle. Thousands of people may have prayed a sinner’s prayer at some point in their lives, but where were they? They were not really walking with God, because they didn’t understand The Cross. God would express some displeasure with them, but He would become downright angry with so-called pastors who didn’t teach the way of The Cross. Basically, these people were hindrances to God’s people really getting on with Him. They were enemies of The Cross of Christ, having their own appetites as their God, with a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.

The main emphasis in The Assembly was on how to grow in Christ and please God. This was not nearly so easy as saying, "Jesus, I am a sinner, please forgive me!" It was a long, tedious practice that required real dedication on my part. But as I was taught, it would all be worth it someday, because my very inheritance in God’s kingdom was my reward for obedience.

In keeping with the tri-partite nature of man, as taught by Watchman Nee and others, The Assembly taught that salvation had 3 tenses, past, present, and future. This view is perfectly logical only if we first agree that man is body, soul and spirit, and that each "part" is saved in a different phase of salvation. Certainly, we must agree that our bodies are yet to be redeemed. The Assembly adopted this teaching and the following associated doctrines:

Our spirits were saved when we accepted Christ in the past. This was the unconditional part of salvation. As far as the salvation of the spirit is concerned, we believed, "Once saved, always saved."

Our souls were being saved presently. This, we were taught, was what the Bible called Sanctification, and only occurred if we were appropriating God’s Grace, or obeying Him, or yielding to Him, or reckoning ourselves dead to sin and many other such ideas. The salvation of the soul was conditional upon my choices. Pertaining to the soul we believed, "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his soul?" We understood this verse, Mark 8:36, to apply to born-again Christians, not to the unsaved. Even though we have our spirits saved, we could easily lose our souls if we were worldly, or distracted with profit, or simply not "going the way of The Cross." The salvation of our souls was tenuous at best.

We were taught that the body would be saved someday, and this future aspect of salvation was somehow linked to the present salvation of the soul. In other words, it too was conditional upon my choices and effort. Without even blinking, I now fully subscribed to the idea that two-thirds of my salvation was conditional upon my obedience and the genuineness of my commitment to yield. The remaining third, or initial salvation, was already accomplished in the past. That was God’s part, and He had faithfully kept His end of the bargain. The rest was up to me.

We dealt with the obvious conflict presented by the orthodox idea that we are saved by grace alone, through faith, by saying that this passage applied to initial salvation, or justification. The rest was all contingent on yielding to God and doing His work, not our own. The fact that His work was difficult and required effort on our part did not really mean we were working, because the book of Hebrews seemed to say that we are at rest when we cease our own works and do His. This concept held, however hard "His works" might be. I understood that I must work very hard for my inheritance, but that somehow, it was not really work, even though it seemed like it was. I tried not to think about this too much, because it violated my sense of logic.

Practically, what this meant was that if I lived a careless life, not spending time in the word every day, not praying earnestly, and the like, I would not be sanctified and as such would lose some portion of my inheritance in God’s Kingdom. It was up to me. Would I, like most of Christianity, be like Esau, who sold his birthright for a bowl of soup, or would I be like Moses, who chose to suffer with God’s people? I was constantly taught and reminded that only two of the Israelites entered the Promised Land. The rest of the multitude all perished because of unbelief. Our present situation was no different, God had made all provision at The Cross, and it all depended on me, whether or not I would avail myself and obey Him.

I was bewitched. I fully believed that the Christian life started with faith, but growth and sanctification occurred only by my "choosing," "yielding," "reckoning," and really meaning it.

In spite of this subtle error, my life seemingly continued to "shape-up" in a spiritual sense. I had become permanently ingrained with quite a few useful habits, not the least of which were reading the Bible and praying. Also, to this day I include God and His will as the primary ingredient to any decision I make. Yes, there were plenty of good things. However, the subtle error of confusing grace and works was to eventually leaven and pervert even these godly habits. Some ex-members are not able to even look at a Bible, because their spiritual lives were all but destroyed when they experienced the emotional devastation of learning that their foundational beliefs, for which they had sacrificed, were not able to deliver as advertised. The reason for this is that their faith was sidetracked onto a Deeper Life path, and they had drifted away from God’s Grace, in the person of His Son, Jesus.

As of this writing, I am looking at things quite differently. What we were taught in The Assembly is nothing more than what the Judaizers taught the poor souls in Galatia. At the time I was learning these doctrines, I was totally sincere in my belief, but within one year of involvement I had lost the initial joy of my salvation. I was told that this was good, because that was just natural joy anyways and God was doing a deep inward work. I was partaking of the fellowship of His sufferings, which meant that someday soon, I would be glorified with Him also.

I stayed on this treadmill for a very long time, always believing that someday I would get my act together and experience real joy, but it never happened. As we will see shortly, what did happen is that I became quite adept at living this way and really enjoyed the approval I was getting from others around me. If I could not have real, lasting joy, I would have to be satisfied with approval and praise from God’s people, all the while wondering if and hoping that this was the joy that the Bible spoke about.

I hope the reader is able to see the subtlety that was at work here. The members of my little assembly were totally sincere at this point. We were all young people with no previous experience and were thoroughly indoctrinated into ideas that were taught by well-respected Christian authors like Dietrich Bonhoffer, and Watchman Nee. Much of what these people have to say about the Christian life is good and true. They take certain aspects of the Bible and the Christian life and expound on them in great detail, which can be instructive and helpful.

The problem with us was that largely through these author’s writings, we had taken our focus away from Jesus and had begun to concentrate on our progress and the process of becoming godly. In time, this incorrect focus undermined the blessing of a simple walk of faith, which we had enjoyed at the beginning.

In contrast, I now believe that God will bring each one of His children into a deeper relationship with Him in His own time. This progress will occur without much effort on the part of the believer, and will be sweet and joyful, even in the midst of trials. The key is love for God, which is present the moment the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts. As we continue in God’s love, this will grow and we will find ourselves behaving differently without trying. Instead of being ever so careful not to forfeit some aspect of our inheritance, the Holy Spirit will teach us to be thankful that Jesus loves us and saved us, knowing that if while we were still sinners and He saved us through His death, how much more, now that we are saved, will He sanctify us through His life. It is by Grace, through faith, not by my effort or correct choices.

Our little boat was now a good way off course and we had no idea. We used our broken compass and sextant, which told us where we were, and falsely concluded which direction we needed to sail in order to reach our destination. We plotted our course on a special Deeper Life chart, and it said we were right where we should be. The sunny days of the past were now punctuated with some rough weather. However, our faith in the process of "going the way of the cross," assured us that it would all be smooth sailing by and by. We never entertained the idea that something was wrong.

During this time of growth and revelation, my girlfriend Suzie and I had some real struggles and failings with immorality. In hindsight, I would best describe my life at that time as dualistic. As we both became increasingly committed and accountable, we managed to get victory, barely. We still loved each other, even when the leadership said it was God’s will for us to break up. To make a long story short, we finally married, 3 years after my first encounter with The Assembly. This made life much easier and quite a bit more fun; as we could be with each other and do the things we longed to do without guilt. We are still married and in love, 16 years later, and I am confident the leadership was mistaken when they said God wanted us to break up.

Because we were now married, we entered into a new phase of our journey into Deeper Life, as a couple. We had progressed beyond the basics of salvation, commitment, and The Cross, and were now learning about God’s purpose, The Church. As a married couple, we were now supposed to reflect the relationship between Christ and His church in a deeper way than we could have as singles.

We read many books about the Church, some obscure and confusing and some wonderful. We also heard many "heavy" messages preached about what the church should really be like. We drank in the idea that denominationalism is sin. We saw that the Bible never talked about a professional ministry, so we concluded that anyone who was a pastor or professional clergyman, which we called being a hireling, was either stupid or corrupt, possibly both. We were taught that the doctrines of the Nicolaitans, in the book of Revelation, were simply the idea of a professional clergy. Since God said that he hated the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, we learned to hate the idea of clergy. The Bible also never mentioned anything about business meetings, programs, choirs, and just about anything else that we were told went on in mainstream churches. Logically, we denounced all of these things, as well as the churches that practiced them. Of course few, possibly none, of us had attended a mainstream church in many years, some never, but we were sure we knew just what went on inside them, as we were consistently told all about it. It never even crossed our minds that the people informing us about the blunders that occurred every Sunday in America’s churches had seldom been there themselves. Neither did we question the ideas we were taught about "Nicolaitanism."

Not everything we heard was negative. We were introduced to the teachings of T. Austin-Sparks, the Plymouth Brethren and others who had much to say about the church. Although I am now quite convinced where his ideas came from, I remember that George, our chief leader and founder of the ministry, was teaching these ideas as if he had learned them directly from God, when in fact he was simply repeating what these others had said before, especially T. Austin-Sparks. I am somewhat angry now, when I realize that George promoted and recommended many books that backed up some of what he taught. We all knew which books to read, because they were on our "Book Table," a literature display, which was present at several of the weekly meetings. Every Assembly had exactly the same books on the table. Occasionally a book would be banned, in which case no Assembly carried the book any longer. One author that was never represented on the Book Table was T. Austin-Sparks. Now, having been delivered from the group, I have come to learn that these authors had many strikingly similar ideas to that of our founder, yet their writings were never mentioned! I believe the reason for this omission is because it would have exposed George as being the sort of man who "borrows" ideas from others, in contrast with "The Lord’s Servant," who had direct revelation of the Bible as few others ever had. He much preferred to be regarded as the second sort of man.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with learning from others, but if this is the case, credit should be given where it is due. To "borrow," word for word, as our leader did on occasion, from another, and to use their thoughts as your own is what is called plagiarism.

Nevertheless, we were beginning to study and meditate on much of the symbolism in scripture that pertained to The Church, or as we called it, "The House of God and the Testimony to Jesus." To this day I have met very few people who know as much about the church as I do, and virtually no one who knows as much as some of the Assembly leaders. Yet, I am constantly surprised to learn how little I know about Jesus’ kind and gentle hand and God’s grace, while Christians less than three years old in The Lord have simple, yet profound insight that is so lacking in me. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.

One of the books in the Old Testament of which we were very fond was Exodus. We especially loved the description of the golden lamp stand in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle. The Assembly even published its own little pamphlet on the subject called, The Candlestick of Pure Gold. In this meditation, we learned that this candlestick was to have been beaten from one piece of pure, refined gold. It was not to be soldered together from several pieces, a casting, or gold plated, or hollow, or made from alloy.

This is powerful symbolism. While all of it is true, the way we applied it was incorrect, because of our extreme Deeper Life focus. It went like this:

The Church, which is His Body, is to be all one, no division, totally pure and holy. It was to be solid all the way through. Furthermore, once the candlestick was finished it was to be the only source of light in the Holy of Holies. This is analogous to what the church is to be today, the source of illumination, not just in this world, but also in the Heavenly Tabernacle. This is one of the places in scripture where we saw that God’s purpose for His church was that it would be a source of revelation to angels, principalities and powers. And, just like in the book of Exodus, God was meticulous about the details. Everything had to be done just right, or He would reject it! How awesome and dreadful was The Assembly! God wanted everything a certain way, with total unity, with total purity and not in anyway fashioned with men’s hands. Furthermore, it was not just to be on the outside, but pure and solid all the way through. Oh my, but we needed to be so careful. We found ourselves on a razor’s edge, on the one side, the glorious privilege of being God’s lampstand, on the other, the disappointment of being part of the dross, which was discarded and not used in the construction of the candlestick. It all depended on whether or not we would be willing to go God’s way.

Practically, all of this meant several very important things. We spent most of our time and energy learning about and being a part of "the Lampstand." This meant that everything in our lives revolved around The Assembly, its culture and its many activities. Our focus was not on Jesus, but on Jesus’ purpose, or Body, The Assembly. This was "what God was doing," and since God was totally focused on His work, The Assembly, it was only right that we should be also. We should have seen that the typology spoke, not of the church, but of Jesus Christ, The Light of The World, but we did not.

I hope the reader understands how easy it was for us to make this leap, from a relationship with a person, Jesus Christ, to a dedication to what we supposed was His work, namely the church. Our Deeper Life mentality brought forth some strange fruit; we had departed from the simplicity in Christ and given ourselves over to a complex and tedious service to His purpose. We saw something much deeper and more profound in everything, gave our full allegiance to it, and as a result we were now become idolaters, in Jesus name. Our lives were no longer Christ-centered, but were now church-centered. Our idol was The Assembly, even though we insisted that we were serving God.

Returning to our sailing metaphor, at this time we were not only well off course, with incorrect charts, but also our navigation instruments, compass and sextant, were faulty. They had been calibrated to our version of the Deeper Life and as such they gave unreliable readings. We couldn’t have made a correction even if we had realized we were in trouble because we had faulty assumptions about Jesus, His church, and our salvation. Our compass gave consistent headings, but they were consistently incorrect. Our sextant took fine sightings on the stars. However, because it was calibrated to the Deeper Life, the azimuth was several degrees in error. The instrument was, in effect, bent. Consequently, we had no way of knowing where we really were, and thus were unable to tell we were off course. No matter how much we yielded and reckoned, we would never make it to real joy and peace, because we were simply not headed in that direction.

The fact that the lampstand was all of one piece meant that everyone in The Assembly must be totally united. Some preached that we should literally, "say the same thing, having the same mind," as in 1 Corinthian’s chapter one. Virtually all of us learned to say, "Praise the Lord!" and "Amen!" at the right times. We also learned how to console one another in difficult times by saying, "Well brother, The Lord’s on the throne." There were also many little peculiarities of speech that were purely "Assembly." For example, we would refer to other people as, "ones." We would say, "Now saints, let’s pray that the Lord enable us to go out to ones." There are many other examples that could be given, but suffice it to say that we had our own special culture that included dress and speech. We could instantly identify "new ones," the moment they opened their mouths to speak, or by what they were wearing. Our individuality had been sacrificed on the altar of a man’s vision of a one-piece candlestick.

Needless to say, it was not lost to us that virtually no other church in Christendom met the criteria to be a lampstand in the heavenly tabernacle. As we became increasingly aware of the fact that we occupied a uniquely important place in God’s purpose, it became proportionally more important to be faithful in putting aside any differences or complaints we had towards one another and especially towards the Assembly leaders. According to our leader and founder, we were God’s "faithful remnant" in these last days, and we would lose out on the tremendous privilege of shining the light of Christ in heavenly places if we allowed the single piece of pure gold to be divided. God absolutely hated those who caused division among brethren.

The fact that it was beaten work was symbolic of how God would, in a spiritual sense, "beat" us into something supernatural. Our faithful leaders were used by God to accomplish this in our lives. Sadly, some of them physically beat their wives and children. For the most part, however, we were only emotionally beaten and controlled by the leadership. In spite of this, we were to submit to them, because they must give account for our souls. Many times this resulted in getting a few spiritual knocks and bruises. As time passed, we grew in awareness and understanding of how frequently God was using his hammer to mold and shape us.

The gold for this candlestick was to be as pure as could be, which meant that it had to go through the refiner’s fire, as this was the process that burned away all of our impurities. This was interpreted to mean that, "We must through many trials enter The Kingdom of Heaven." Thus, we expected, were resigned to, and even welcomed trials of all kinds into our lives. For example, many people held dead-end, low paying jobs because they were unable to find suitable employment in the area that their particular Assembly was located. Instead of moving, and attending a different church, as "normal" Christians might do, they were stuck in a bad situation. Being told that it would all be worth it, because God was involved in a great project, in which we could be a part, if we were faithful, should be enough to console anyone, we thought.

Many single "Saints," let relationships slip by, and lost potential spouses because the leadership thought marriage of the two parties might not be "God’s will." As time passed, certain leaders gave consistently bad advice, which damaged many people. While this blatant abuse was taking place, it was excused and even welcomed by adopting the idea that what seemed like abuse to the natural man, was actually the "heat" needed in order to refine the person who was on the receiving end of difficult "counsel." The leadership never took responsibility and was never deemed culpable with regard to any mistakes they might have made, because they were "God’s Government." Since God was able to have His way in The Assembly, and His chosen method of expressing His headship was through His appointed leaders, when they thought something was "God’s will," it was as if God Himself revealed it to us face to face.

Looking back, I am amazed at what I put up with, because I was confused into thinking that I needed to suffer wrong in order to be purified. I do believe that Christians need to suffer at various times, but this is something God brings about, He is the Great Physician. In contrast, we mainly suffered because we had agreed to make our lives impossibly complex and difficult, due to our "vision" of something deeper in the church.

The book of Exodus says that the candlestick should be solid. Obviously, there could be nothing in it that wasn’t pure gold. What this meant to us was that there was no room in the church for any activity or practice other than what we thought God considered to be pure gold. Any sort of program, missionary society, para-church organization, seminary or any other such thing was tantamount to having an aluminum frame which was only plated with gold. God would have none of that! It broke my heart that all those denominations and program-oriented churches had failed God so terribly. "Oh well," I would sigh, "I guess they deserve to lose out on His best, since they are so compromised."

Finally, the candlestick was to be a source of light. Even if we did everything correctly, which was expected, if God didn’t endorse it, it would never shine. However, we believed that God had endorsed our Assembly. Unlike worldly churches, which "planted" new gatherings, our assembly had been "raised up as a testimony to Jesus." This type of thinking was basically a circular argument. We were explicitly taught that a church just can’t be "set up," like someone would start a business. No, a real church had to be "raised up," by The Holy Spirit. Our Assembly was this sort of "raised up" church. Because other churches didn’t quite look at it this way, most of them were illegitimate, because God did not raise them up; mere men planned them. For some reason, it never dawned on us that men were involved in The Assembly as well.

On a personal level, this sort of thinking meant that our homes, marriages, children and daily schedules must all be "in order," otherwise the gold would not be pure enough, and the light would not be bright.

This ordered life began with what we called the anchors of the faith. Acts 2:42 says, "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers." We used this verse in such a way as to make sure every aspect of our time was centered on Assembly activities. This began with a schedule. New members, who showed a certain level of commitment, were to submit a schedule to a more senior member, in order for them to "go over it." What this meant is that the new member would submit every activity, from every hour of the day and night to Assembly leadership for assessment and approval. Sometimes this meant that people would have to quit jobs, quit sports, even drop out of school in order to "serve God."

The next phase of "order" began in "the home." Our founder was fond of saying, "The local assembly is only as strong as the families that make it up. It all begins in the home." Orderly homes began with orderly marriages. The Bible teaches that wives should submit to their husbands, as to The Lord. We never seemed to notice the "to The Lord" part, but we vigorously practiced the submission aspect. Again, there was something much deeper about marriage in our minds, as compared to what other people saw. Marriage was to be a picture of Christ and the church. The same attention to detail that God had towards His lampstand was to be seen between husband and wife.

Assembly husbands had the tremendous responsibility of playing the role of Christ, and their lucky wives got to be the church. Because so many marriages in the world, even in the so-called evangelical church, were in disarray, if we knew nothing else, we knew that God did not want our marriages to be like those in the world. And I must admit, they certainly were not. Suffice it to say that in our marriages we pursued the Deeper Marriage Life with dedication. There was not one aspect of the extreme role-playing idea that was not explored and practiced. Being man enough to tell one’s wife what to do, and seeing that it get done on time and with a good attitude was a good start. Sobbing, crying, threatening or any other carnal behaviors from one’s wife were simply not to be tolerated. As husbands, we were to love our wives enough to stand for them, and bring them all the way to victory, even as we thought Christ did for His church.

Wives were to render honor and respect to their husbands, and were to see that they were happy in the marriage bed. This was a real opportunity to "go the way of The Cross" for most wives, because most women would have had a difficult time feeling affection for a husband who behaved according to our idea of "Christ." We reminded our wives that it was all worth it, however, because the goal was nothing less than a candlestick of pure gold, for God! In spite of this nonsense, my marriage was really pretty good overall, mainly because my wife and I did a good job convincing ourselves that what we were going through was only for our betterment, and that very soon we would reap joy and blessing.

Children were also included in God’s deeper purpose for His church. Because the idea of Sunday school, or children’s church is never seen in the New Testament, we logically concluded that having such programs would be akin to putting some foreign material into the candlestick. Because there was no way we would ever allow such a thing, our children sat through the same meetings for the same amount of time that we did.

Practically, this meant that they needed to learn to sit still, for up to three hours, without making a sound. This required diligent, consistent training, which involved quite a bit of negative reinforcement. In addition, in the home, children were required to obey their parents on the very first command, even as we believed we should obey Christ when He commands us. This meant that we must love our very young children enough to spank them promptly at the first sign of disobedience. It made sense to us, because it was exactly the sort of image we had of God, who was paying attention to every detail and stood ready to deal with us for any sort of infraction.

I must admit that in some ways these practices were helpful. Our young children were so obedient that we could take them anywhere and get compliments from amazed people who had never seen such well-behaved kids. Going out to dinner, traveling and visiting people is much more manageable for us than for most people, because our children have undergone rigorous training. I confess that not all of this was a bad thing. In spite of the extreme nature of the practice, a few of the ideas we learned with our children are worthy of continuation, most were not.

Nevertheless, I am willing to bet that the reader is saying to him or herself right now, "Those kids are outa’ there as soon as they turn 18!" It is a sad fact that this is indeed what happened to many of the teenage children in The Assembly. However, as we shall see, these wayward children were used by God to play a major part in my future deliverance.

As we sailed further into the Deeper Life, we also learned how to "shine the light" with many outreach and discipling techniques. We learned how to do "gospel presentations," which were prepared speeches that we would use for street evangelism. We would formulate an "interest producing statement," which was identical to a telemarketer’s hook. Then, after "securing participation," we would spew out a paragraph that explained the need for salvation. Each paragraph ended by asking people if they wanted to receive Christ as their savior. Some members objected to them because they thought they were insincere, like a sales pitch. The leaders who promoted this practice countered by saying that we weren’t street counselors; we were there to preach only the way to salvation. Gospel Presentations fit the bill perfectly, because they always contained the message of salvation, and were utterly devoid of any counseling or emotion. "If you were diligent to practice them," we were admonished, "then they wouldn’t sound so stiff and canned. Besides, this is the way God is teaching us to preach the Gospel." Consequently, The Assembly at one time was famous for being the church with the robots that go out and repeat canned pitches to people every Thursday night.

We also learned some real keys to discipling, or following up on contacts from the many outreach endeavors. One of the main ones was writing letters. We would have meetings where we would each get several little pieces of paper with the name and address of a person we "made contact" with that week, and write a short letter to each of them, in order to faithfully follow up. Somehow, we believed that writing letters to strangers was a good way to "go out to them." Let me tell you, generally speaking it is not a good way of following up, if seeing the contacts again is the goal. A majority of people gave out false addresses and phone numbers; so many outreach letters never saw their destination anyways. Most "contacts" thought it was weird and smacked of salesmanship to get a handwritten letter a few days after barely speaking to someone at a book table. I remembered very clearly, when I learned about letter writing, how Jeff had written me that letter long ago. I felt a little uncomfortable when I realized that he had never written me a letter since then. When I was a "contact," he pretended to be my friend, but when I was really his friend, he had no time or inclination to write me another letter. I pushed this uncomfortable thought way down inside, and forcefully turned off my conscience, which was blaring at me, "Phony! Manipulation! Insincere!"

As I reflect on everything I have said so far, I find it interesting that I can still quote many verses and passages that seem to promote exactly what we were practicing. We began by thinking that we were more committed than most believers, saw something more profound in the Bible than others, and had more serious, spiritual lives. Keep in mind that we never came out and said we were better than others; it was just the only logical conclusion that could be drawn from our teaching. In addition to all this, we believed our church was based on the New Testament pattern and was free from all the traditions and human intrusions that plagued modern Christianity. We only needed to look at each other to see that this was true; our marriages were in order, our children were obedient, our homes were clean and ready for hospitality at a moments notice, and we spent more time in the Word, in prayer, and in real worship than any other believers we had ever heard of. All of this, not to mention the large sacrifices of career and education that many of us had made to be involved in God’s work, proved to us that God was doing something very special in our midst.

What is to be learned from all of this is that once we believers are predisposed to dwelling on the many blessings of the Christian life, or an apparent process, like The Cross, along with a good dose of zeal, it is only a small step towards living out every area of our lives in such a way that we fashion ourselves to fit the pattern we have in our minds. Our ideas become the potter and our lives become the clay. This is quite a contrast when compared to following the leading of The Holy Spirit. When we adhere to a process, we not only lose sight of our Lord, but we soon lose sight of each other. For example, instead of having a loving relationship with my wife, talking, planning and doing things that pleased her, I was very careful to always remain faithful to my role as "husband." Although it only temporarily damaged our marriage, it destroyed the marriages and families of some of our friends.

I will never forget the conversation I had with one woman; days after her eighteen-year-old daughter ran away from home in the middle of the night. She lamented, "Just when it looked like there was going to be some fruit from all of our training she went off and did this." This poor woman bought into the whole package of the Deeper Life and ran with it. Up until her oldest child’s huge crisis, she was held up as an example of faithfulness and was considered an authority on marriage and child training. She and many other Assembly members were genuinely surprised when her daughter ran away from home in the middle of the night. Not surprisingly, many of the parents of her daughter’s school friends, outsiders, rightfully observed that her home was dysfunctional and were not the least bit surprised that she ran away, they had been expecting exactly that for years. Her family’s spiritual life was so deep that it caused their daughter to drown.

Had we been thinking at that time about Jesus and His love, instead of about the wonderful symbolism of His church, or the mighty power of His resurrection life released in us at the cross, perhaps we would have concluded that Jesus loved these many dear children who left parents and church and that it was OK for us to get to know them and show love to them. Our struggling teens may not have known as many truths about the church and the candlestick, but they might have been at peace and found that we accepted them because they were already accepted in The Beloved. If we had taught them that they were not under obligation to earn God’s approval, by serving their parents and the church, perhaps this might have kept children from running away. Instead, we put tremendous pressure on them to be "good examples," and to make proper choices, and above all to be good members of The Assembly.

There was never an opportunity for Assembly youth to even entertain the idea of fellowshipping outside of The Assembly. Yet, most Assembly members did exactly that in their teen years. At around 19 years of age, they began to attend a different church from their families, The Assembly. Almost all of them did this in spite of strong objections from their parents. This is nothing less than rank hypocrisy.

Had we considered the goodness and longsuffering of God, and how rich He is in mercy, perhaps we would not have spanked our children every time they did something slightly wrong. They may not have been as quiet in restaurants, but they might have learned to love God and show mercy, which is precious in His sight. Instead, they learned to be exacting and severe, because that is what we thought God wanted. They were motivated by fear instead of love.

I have observed two huge problems as a result of this extreme parenting style: children are either totally dull or discouraged, or they are incredibly puffed up and arrogant. The discouraged children are the ones who rebel or leave. Other members, who can easily detect that they are "struggling", often give them sidelong glances. The sad thing is that the arrogant children, who are being "good examples," are commended and will be given responsibility and leadership roles. This serves only to reproduce the pride and blindness that is endemic to church centered groups.

Above all, I wish we had heard about Jesus The Way, or Jesus The Door, because if we had, perhaps we would not have spent so much time and energy on the Way of The Cross, and seeing that we did everything according to "the pattern." If He is The Way, all we needed to do is come to Him and He would take care of everything else. If we had only known Him as The Door, we would not have made the mistake of thinking that only we had the right pattern of the church and would have seen that other Christians also had a way in to God’s presence, because Jesus is The Door. What we did, in essence, was try to climb up into God’s presence by some other, more correct way, instead of entering in at The Door.

The Deeper Life teachers had painted a glorious picture of the "victorious life" and the New Testament Church, which were suspended high above us. We beheld their beauty and purposed to ascend, knowing that it would be a long and difficult climb. If only we had known that Jesus is The Door, we could have just simply walked in! Had we known that Jesus is The Way, we would not have had to strive to pray more, or read more, or witness more, or spank our children more, thinking that these were the way; we need only have simply clung to Him, knowing that He Himself is The Way.

Now we were a long way off course. Not only were we lost, but also we increasingly found ourselves in unpleasant weather. In addition, we were pushing the vessel too hard, experiencing many gear and structural failures. Many people were discouraged, and many of the young people wanted nothing to do with the church. As you might imagine, all of this became increasingly difficult to maintain the longer we were involved.

Fame and Fortune

At this point in time Suzie and I had been voyaging for about 8 years, and we had progressed from deckhands to watch commanders, which is to say we were considered more mature members. This meant that we were involved in discipling younger members and later even having them live in our home. This was a status symbol, because members of The Assembly were in either of two categories, those who needed to be trained, or those who trained others. It was much easier to be in the latter category. We had paid our dues and had carried many heavy burdens, now we could begin to place some of the weight on others.

We were also very successful with child training and presumed to counsel people in that area. We frequently found ourselves looking and listening around the room on Sunday morning and noting whose children were misbehaving. Since our children were usually perfect, we would judge these other families and conclude that they were not serious about child training, or that their husband-wife roles were out of balance. We knew that if the husband was truly head of his home, and everything in the training repertoire had been consistently practiced; the fruit of righteousness would be seen in the form of quiet children. We also knew we had the answer to their problems, because we overcame our struggles in similar areas with dedication and consistency, two of the main character traits of those who would know God in a deeper way. It was obvious to everyone, and especially to us, that we were growing in our walks with God. Many times I thought in my heart, "Thank you God that I am not like other parents." This diligent pursuit of child training became the worst sort of works-based righteousness, where our own precious children became tools to improve our standing among our peers.

This despicable, judgmental behavior on our part would actually prove to be part of our deliverance later on, when we were harshly judged, but at this time it only puffed us up, because we had our ducks in a row. We were doing well, and enjoyed the admiration that many of the group’s members showed us.

Another real source of enjoyment came from preaching and teaching in the meetings. I was a good speaker and teacher, compared to most of the other men. Furthermore, I really liked teaching on interesting passages and getting unique angles on things, so I always got quite a few compliments after a good message, which made me feel very good, and not a little proud. In my heart I always thanked God for whatever insight He gave me, but even though I knew that He should get all the credit, I couldn’t help feeling guilty that I enjoyed hearing people say, "That was so good! God really spoke to me." I correctly reasoned that if I were not so proud, I would not crave this so much. This became a quiet, personal struggle for me, for which deliverance was not to come until much later.

At this time, our home was neat and clean, our children were good-looking and well behaved, my business was prosperous, my wife was attractive and witty, and just about everything else in our lives would have been considered way above average.

There were several dark sides to this as well. First of all, not everyone liked us. Some people, especially the ones who had noisy kids, resented us because we were so judgmental. What a surprise. Others were jealous of our success, and secretly wished they were in our place. I was to find out years later that many other people had the same experience of pride, jealousy, resentment and strife that we did. That is to say that if they were "bad" at child training, they would experience subtle disapproval from leaders. Contrarily, if they were "good" they would often find themselves despising others. When this was occurring within us, we either chalked it up to the wretched flesh of lesser members, or to our own need to repent. If we perceived that our underlings were jealous or felt despised by us, it was their sinful nature that was the problem. On the other hand, if one of the leaders who we respected was unhappy, it was our sin nature that needed to be dealt with.

Also, our lives had become very narrow. Nothing mattered except what happened inside the group. If I had success at the office, there was no sense sharing it with anyone, because not only was it considered unimportant, it was seen as a potential snare and distraction from God’s purpose. We were taught that it was easy to trust God when things were going well, this sort of trust was nothing to boast about. Conversely, if things were going bad economically, or if someone was fired from their job, this was great! This person was really, "trusting The Lord," and was an example to everyone.

We wanted to always be an example to all, but never seemed to have any financial trouble or hardship to boast in. On the contrary, I was good at my profession and treated patients well and enjoyed a successful practice. I completely paid off $ 85,000.00 worth of loans in less than 5 years. So instead of having any real hardship for which to trust God, we manufactured some and lived in a rented house and drove used cars, even though we could have easily afforded to drive Mercedes and buy a nice home.

We also began secretly giving large amounts of money to the ministry, and would often bless needy members with anonymous financial aid. We knew that we would not get any reward or approval from men for doing this, because we kept it secret, but we reasoned that since God had blessed us so much we were obligated to bless others. We always gave away more than we saved.

Not long after this we were asked to go on a missionary team for the entire summer. We were so excited, because although many people simply begged to go on these teams, we were invited without having even asked! We felt special. I cut my hours down to two days per week and we moved up to San Francisco for the summer.

On this team, our family of 5 slept in a single small bedroom. We were kept incredibly busy from dawn till night with outreaches, Bible studies, workshops, productions, housework, yard work, cooking, cleaning and anything else you could imagine. It was hard work, but people really admired us for our good example. We were nearing the height of our fame, but did not yet have much fortune to show for our hard work, although we really hoped it was sure to follow.

It was at this point that my wife and I had our first real disagreement about our little church. We had both given ourselves entirely to the many activities of the team and my wife was literally at the point of exhaustion. She developed a severe strep infection and a horrible cough for which she needed medical care. To this day, she has not been the same and has a weakness in this area, re-acquiring this infection when she gets slightly tired.

I thought our summer had been great. She thought it was too much, and didn’t want to do it again. This presented a real problem, because if we were to progress to the highest levels of service and accolade in The Assembly, both of us would have to be on the same page