This is such a massive problem in churches. May the Lord comfort and heal those who have been subject to these abuses.

I was saved into a Brethren church as a child, and while they did not know the spirit, boy did they get body life right. We didn’t even have a pastor- folks took turns teaching and everyone helped out. I saw something like this with the Spirit in the 90’s in my little Vineyard church. It lasted until TO was booted out & our DNA changed. Been fighting for this living model ever since. It’s time.

Corporate mentality makes it difficult for people to feel Gods love.

God just gave me the green light a couple of months ago to leave the toxic church I was in. Thank you for exposing this 👏 The Pastor is a type A personality that manipulates the leadership for his vision not the vision of God.

I’m currently attending a Baptist church and we are studying the structure of the church through a book called Biblical Eldership written by Alexander Strauch and also learning there are many places in the Bible that we can learn from how the church “government” should be. I never realized how important it was to learn about this. It’s also very interesting.

I was told for years any vision besides the Pastor’s was DI-vision.

Such an important topic. The best church experience I ever had was a while back in another city, but what stood out was all the leaders truly knew each other and loved each other, and each welcomed new friends into their worlds - we weren't below their connection. Simple as that. Later, I saw how they had good governing structures and all, but the first thing I noticed was the genuine love and friendship in a place that worshiped beautifully and moved in the Spirit. The love stood out. Never saw that before. And still hard to find now ♥

Iron sharpens Iron. Loved to hear two brothers keeping each other sharp.

The prayer at the end ... 🤯🤯🤯🤯 my very prayer daily. Thank you all for this! Much much needed!

This reminds me of the Hall and Oates song: "You've Lost that Loving Feeling." This is hurting the church. I love how Michael Miller systematically addresses all the points in this interview. 🙏 ❤

Yes at the end when you said you were blamed for your own abuse. I was blamed for my own abuse! That’s been maybe the hardest. But I absolutely pray and pursue forgiveness. My heart breaks at times for the abusers.

Almost every Christian needs to hear these truths in this podcast and in Part 2 podcast. It’s a must for identifying and healing. ❤❤❤

Thanks for the clarity and comfort this discussion brought. ❤

This is so good! We are going through this 😮

I felt the Holy Spirit when you explained about the Revelation to Peter of Jesus being the Rock and when you said about apostles being missionaries.

Love Michael Miller's description of church government. Totally agree and have had the same understanding for years. I've also seen the structure as a carryover from the old covenant. The picture is of elders in each city overseeing the church--not as controlling, but to maintain the health of the city in justice and righteousness.

Yes our former leader was met with constant praise and agreement. People were scared and worshipped him and his wife. They were afraid not to.

Your story about how your pastor asked what your "vision" was for the youth group reminds me of a question a Sr. pastor asked my husband at one of their first meetings. The pastor said, "What is your 5 year plan?" (This church was a super small struggling church and my husband and I just left a large one as the Spirit miraculously led us to volunteer at this one. Also my husband gave up the opportunity for a well paid IT position at a mega church at this same time) My husband responded, "If I had a 5 year plan this church wouldn't have been on it!" 😅

Can you do an episode on TOXIC PODCASTERS???

Robby I am so thankful to God for your podcast! Thank you for your courage to speak the truth in so many subjects.... Donald Trump, wokeness, Lonne's powerful ministry to name a few, and now toxic leadership. I look to you as a true brother in the Lord and someone who understands the value of common sense. This podcast really blessed my heart. I have been very disheartened with "church" for many years. The church in America has truly missed the mark and its so so sad. Thank you again for your boldness to speak the truth when so many "christian" leaders are silent. God bless you!

This reminds me of the leadership of Chad Norris from Bridgeway church/Now the Garden. They had to change their name because of what this man and his leadership have done in our community. You guys are literally describing what kind of toxic leadership we were under. It’s evil! And totally shameful when leaders willing sin against their congregation

"Does Jesus already have a vision for his church? .....You don't get to make one that's different from that." AHHHHHH I love it love it love it

Nice to see Michael and Robbie talking. I’ve followed Robbie for a long time and have been watching Remnant radio about a year now. All of you are wonderful God fearing men who Its guaranteed the P & P tremble when you are doing Gods work!! Love this content, learned a few things. 🙏🏼

I would add this. I was affected by the church because I grew up in a hell fire environment, but not personally injured by anyone in the church.

Amen! We are asking for justice!! Thank you Michael

So I was also told my pastor couldn’t be friends (or family) with anyone in the church. We are family and was offering to be friends but it clearly wasn’t wanted.

Awesome conversation. Great teaching and analysis. I’m sure the truth you shared set many souls free …❤

Wisdom!❤ I do!

Really good show tonight, so well said "Hats!" I have seen this kind of top-down leadership for most of my involvement in churches, in Elder positions, or should I say cling-on because I'm only a woman. I so appreciated the entire conversation! Thanks Robby, always good!

I learned more by seeing what I would NEVER DO!

This was so goood!! Thank you!

So good! Thanks for this talk!

Great show really answered some questions I’ve had and made me think

This was helpful, brought back many memories.

It would mean a lot to me to hear these two talk on the subject of spousal abuse. I think there is very little clarity on the topic in the Church.

Fifty or sixty years ago the "vision statement" was the doctrinal statement of the governing body of your church, ie Southern Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal...

I was part of a network of churches in the UK in the early to mid eighties in the UK where heavy shepherding was rife and people got hurt. The thing is there was mixture of incredibly good and bad at play. In 2003 I joined a church that was connected to incredibly mature prophetic ministries and pastoral ministries and I grew and got free in ways I didn't realise I needed it and yet there were things that were not right and as a body that church does not exist as a body anymore. I am and will be forever grateful for the good things in the Lord in both churches and know that my Jesus is my healer in all things. However I came to the conclusion that, particularly in the first circle of churches I was in that there were many leaders at that time in that network that were not 'broken' before the Lord, they hadn't been in that place of being undone before the Lord and had been appointed largely because of natural gifting and maybe allegiance to the founders of the movement and teachings. I believe in God releasing revelation to His children and even that there are wondrous levels of 'seeing' and understanding what actually is in scripture that just explodes awe and wonder and just freedom on the inside of you but it will never bump up against scripture, just set it alive in your spirit.

I love the honesty of this discussion ❤

Yeah Michael Miller and Robby Dawkins Thanks LORD GLORY Hallelujah Thanks for sharing this Robby Dawkins team

What is the mission statement is honor God and make disciples

Wow going through something right now this has helped so much thank you guy's!

Great video podcast!!!!! Thank you

🙌🏻 Praise The Lord

I agree with you guys. Thank you for speaking.

Good healing discussion!

41:30 My family was in a church where the assistant pastor actually controlled everything. All the various ministry leaders were puppets in positions only for show. Five men were on the board but they were all immature believers & that was done on purpose. They all "owed" the assistant pastor something, he made sure of it. Some of these debts were out and out fraud. This pastor ultimately destroyed many long term relationships and more than 75% of the people left the church, including the senior pastor. The senior pastor had been kept to preach because the assistant pastor had no anointing at all. We all wondered why but later learned he was more of a social club leader than a real man of God.

Bishops, Decons and Elders are spoken of as the leadership.

Phenomenal episode

Glad I heard this, been there and went through same things. My first dream/vision had a dead toxic church in it! I believe the label you’re looking for but never said was Narcissists in leadership. And there’s way too many, they destroy and hurt and drive out people, it’s sickening and borders demonic. I just call it what it is. It’s falling in love with the gifts and becoming a god to yourself and out of love with God the giver of gifts. It’s sad how a mess churches are and people have to get out and travel to “higher ground” often alone to find the true Kingdom of God.

Such a cool discussion! In reference to the corporate culture of church leadership, it's ok to take skills and things we know from secular life and leverage them for the kingdom. The problem though is that people nearly always overestimate the utility of worldly wisdom and the sense of expertise and sophistication boosts egos and gives leaders another place (besides God) to put their trust. And we wind up with leaders who think that because they went to a conference and learned something about vision statements etc they can say, "step aside, let me show you how its done." Like Robby & Michael said, in the age we are currently living in, the Great Commission is God's mission statement for the church. What all of us need to learn and discover, in fellowship with one another, is how our efforts, our gifts, our callings and our relationships and allegiances fit in to that mission. And it's appropriate that we do that with humility, appreciation for what others bring to the table, and a hesitancy to cast judgment on others. I am sympathetic to the "visionary" leader. God may give a vision to someone that others do not see or understand, that causes the person to face mockery and rejection. We see it throughout scripture, almost as the norm. Growth and fruit happen around people: people who are loyal to Jesus, full of the Spirit and full of faith. The best leaders are the ones who understand that every child of God is to be fruitful as a "priest" in the vein of 1 cor 14:26. But too many shepherds ask themselves what the sheep can do for their ministry, rather than what they can do for their sheep's ministries.

I think you're forgetting the fact that John said in his gospel that they didn't have space or paper or time to record all that Jesus did. So we don't know how many weddings He attended. We don't know how many eyes were healed with mud. But we DO know this: He did what His Father told Him to do. That's the most important part of EVERYTHING Jesus did.

20:18 Multiple pastors behave this way. I knew one that would go to a meeting and have the board members talk and then tell them (no matter what they said) that God told him differently and so they all had to do what he wanted. It was a power trip and trump card he played. My friend who was a board member said there was no reason to have a board with pastors like that.

I would love to hear more about the “cyclical” nature of the acts of the Holy Spirit. Great stuff guys ❤ Thanks for letting us in on the convo 🐑👀❤️‍🔥🙏🏻

Only your way Yahweh Help Us to be flexible to change as we stand in Awe of you 🔥You show up HolySpirit 🕊So Creative and Strategic 💎God 💟love it in my weakness 😌You are Strong 🔥

I went to this church in 2020, and January 2021 a friend of mine told me some inappropriate behavior that this leader did toward her. God spoke to me one evening and said regarding this head leader, “He needs to humble himself or I will humble him.” And the fear of the Lord came upon me. I chickened out on telling him and I wasn’t sure if it was my place… I couldn’t go back much, so from soon after until June I didn’t go there except to serve during children’s service. I lived with a family during that time and one day heard the Lord say “Come out from among them…” but I was new to hearing Him and wasn’t sure. I ended up going back around July and attended until about November ‘21, until someone Hats knows well told me his podcast (referred to in this video) was about this church. I was appalled, and quickly left. 🙏🏼 A couple months ago I felt compelled to go there during an evening service. When I arrived they were closed for the holiday season. I was so confused, but I believe God released something for my obedience and all bitterness left.

Would love to hear more on this..

The church I left (after 12 years of service & 2 years as an elder) had adopted what they called a "Bethel mindset" that even if the pastor said something wrong that since he was "God's man on earth" that God would make it right and no one should bring up nor confront the pastor regarding his unbiblical teachings or personal shots at people in the congregation.

Pray for the church in Orlando ❤

Hi @Robby Dawkins and crew. My friend, Taffy recommended this show and I've been enjoying the conversations that you're having. As it happens, I do know something about Toxic Church. I trust that this video and Part 2 will be of help to any who listens. Now, it's time to pop over the second reason for watching. I am in the process of learning how to do my own podcast and I'd love to know what format you're using? It's the very thing that I want to do and why I'll probably spend some extra time, here. What's the talk show format you're using? It's definitely not a traditional interview. I'm trying to find out so I can communicate it more clearly at the training school I'm at.

Five Fold Ministry is Jesus's design. Would have loved to hear this discussed in this conversation. Maybe in the future discussions....hopefully.

I see an astounding connection between Jesus healing with the mud/Pool of Siloam & Nehemiah 3:15. The pool is found on the other side of the "Fountain Gate" which can also be translated as "Eye Gate."

I think a Word and Spirit filled church will work in any form, and the converse is true as well. But even in a Word and Sprit filled church, well meaning people can make mistakes, and man is it helpful to have others giving you advice when you're about to really step in it!

Vision statement are commerce business terms

Felt so understood listening to this podcast & the ending prayer just WRECKED ME!💯💯💯 thankful for this

Back on the eighty’s, I was involved in a church that became involved in the shepherding movement. After several years of gradual changes, I as well as about thirty other people quietly left without causing problems. I had become so frustrated and even scared that my relationship with my at that time girlfriend would be called on the counter for not getting the relationship approved by leadership. Things had slowly become toxic. It had become a higher ups dictates what everyone was to do. If we disagreed with anything of importance there was fear of being excommunicated. It did happen to one particular leader in this organization. It took a while, but I finally started to become free.

Have you ever read poisonous power by Joseph Matera? Great book on this topic. Enjoyed the video.

I think that the vision is more about how individual churches are going to achieve the Acts vision in the parameters of their locations, relevant needs and qualifications of their members. I don’t see it as changing the vision of Christ. Every church is as much of an individual entity in the church as a whole as is every church member in their own church bodies. Every joint supplieth, and in a different way. Vision is just about owning how your church is going to achieve its part of the calling as a whole.

I pray for honest and love to return or come

I do believe the Bible instructs on church structure and I was in a five fold ministry church, which did serve the body well by edifying the members with all the gifts of the spirit, and initially they were going back to book of Acts Christianity, it was awesome! But then there was a pyramid type structure and the Leader was and is worshipped almost as much as the pope is, he doesn’t control the churches economically, but pastors may not feel like they have a voice to disagree theologically and lately they started telling us the pastor is supposed to be like our father and they took it so far as to have people asking for permission for like every life decision or even to visit another church. It really upsets me how much it changed from something good to something controlling and that requires members to basically spend all their time in the 4 walls and in that community instead of reaching the world for the gospel. I left and I sometimes visit because I miss the worship and fellowship and move of the Spirit that still is in that church, but I see all churches having faults, look at the letters Paul wrote to the churches and Jesus in the book of revelation. We need to keep re-examining where have we gone wrong and be humble enough to change. A church should never be a business, that’s a big no no, Jesus would come turn a lot of tables at churches today if he were here physically.

The reason churches have vision statements is because of Proverbs 29:18 where there is no vision the people perish. But that scripture has NOTHING to do with having a plan. 😂

John Wimber and early Vineyard had a model that tried to emphasize the priesthood of all believers, encouraged prayer for one another and for each person to walk in their anointing .When someone brought to the leaders attention specific needs being unmet in the community, they encouraged the individual to seek the Lord in how they can meet the need, with the Church's support. jjj

So then study the book “Think Like an Advanced Christian - BURKE.” Excellent maturity. In 2023, maturity wins? (Yes. It does.)

The foursquare church always had a vision statement

Possibly the ⭐️ Most Important ⭐️ video anyone has ever made on Ministry Issues, and just might be revealing the primary reason, God is holding back a Real Supernatural REVIVAL for the United States, which, in the past, have lasted for YEARS, or over a DECADE. I think the microphones amplifying pastors’s voices, reverberating in the sanctuary over many weeks and years, but must simultaneously amplify their EGOS, as well.

Something people don’t talk about good stuff

Whoa. This is good. So then what is the best model. Eldership. But how does that work. Self correction along the way…?

Seek and save the lost, and destroy the works of the devil!

Makes me liking the Society of Friends even more. Of course not saying there’s no conflict. But I don’t like the structure of most churches. Not that their might be some conflict. Such a good thing. Those aren’t your kids. They are God’s. Oh my word.blamed for your hurt. I have been so blessed. I have not been injured by the church.

The Bible does speak to the plurality of elders. ...AND--they should be chosen according to 1 Timothy 3 guidelines-NOT by how long they've attended, whether they're good at making money, whether they show enthusiasm in ministry, how charismatic they are with people, etc.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

So where in church history, did a Pastor become the head of a congregation? Is there anything recorded on this topic. The early church, after all of the apostles are killed was run by a Bishop and elders, from what I've read.

49:45

What about narcissist pastors? There’s a ton of those

Very interesting conversation. But some of my observations do not match. For instance, in the Reformed tradition, pastors are never members of congregations, but only of presbyteries. Similarly, I was taught in a pentecostal denomination that pastors could never be friends with congregants -- and that was not a toxic situation. That was advice to a woman, in how women debrief; they need peers. Men probably need peers for slightly different reasons. Aahh -- so importance of ministerial fellowships or protege relationships. ... Okay, and I've never seen "plurality of eldership" not be toxic -- maybe because I've seen them in a group centered on revelation -- -- but maybe because leadership by committee just doesn't make sense. Committees make sense, and checks and balances make sense, but leadership also is needed. I would like more conversation on all these points. And wow, if someone thinks there is a clear pattern in the NT, I would like to see it, because I have seen lots of various views, none of which include all of the pertinent Scriptures. For sure, I agree on situations where men substitute themselves for Jesus or Holy Spirit.

501c3 requires a mission statement / statement of beliefs!

We in a time of revival and none thing is impossible with God. So understanding that was lost or trust can be restored this is my pray and more

Boards are from coperate structure. Easy for them to fail.

OMGosh, could someone please tell me which church Michael Miller was fired from in 2020? I've even watched his documentary, "I Was Fired From a NAR Church," and he never mentions any names.

I think it's dangerous to write off bitterness as fine and justifiable. You can want justice and not be bitter. Bitterness is not just talking about false teaching, although I'm sure there can be a lot of overlap between them. Bitterness is what happens when you let the sun go down on your anger and give the enemy a foothold in your soul. Bitterness is very toxic and highly contagious, and it should not be defended. Again, though, it can be fine to want justice - just don't do it from a place of bitterness, or it will eat you and those around you alive.

I believe drinking alcohol is a sin. It's sad that the church is being deceived about it.

Where does it say in scripture that we carried over the Jewish system? Because it sounds like an assumption to me.

1 Corinthians 14:26

Love and miss y’all! My 3 years at UpperRoom were life changing!

I no longer go to church. I wanted God and not the man made setup.

Jesus’ first sermon Luke 4: 14 - 31.

Excellent conversation. Just a little put off by the intro that bills Robbie as this famous international speaker (not using the word famous, but certainly communicating that concept). If he is, I don't need to be told--I already know his name. If he isn't, I likewise don't know why I should be told that 😜

The Apostle of Flat Feet finally getting the proper recognition. 😉

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥👍☝️🫶👊🤠

The mud and spit of Jesus placed on the blind man's eyes... The word of God created the earth aka mud the spit was the DNA of Jesus ( part of the triune God who created all) blended togeather and placed on blind eyes to bring creative miracle... sight to the blind. God is Absolutely Good.

Chronological snobbery :)